FrostWire.com » Official Website & Free Download, BitTorrent «

FrostWire.com » Official Website & Free Download, BitTorrent «

FrostWire is my preferred P2P client. I had problems with Limewire, and FrostWire has has more features, is Java based (platform independent) and I have had no problems with spyware/adware/malware. I particularly like the bittorrent support since more and more large software distros are being distributed using bittorrent.

Joel Oleson's Blog SharePoint Land : 7 Years of SharePoint - a History Lesson

Joel Oleson's Blog SharePoint Land : 7 Years of SharePoint - a History Lesson

Sharepoint is a great tool. I am doing a deep dive on SharePoint after joining Unisys, but I have used it in limited capacities for the past four years and it's an awesome tool, particularly when you use Web Parts and MOSS Search. For me, Search is the key - a product can have all the features in the world, but if I can't find what I need, when I need it, it's worthless.

This is an interesting article by one of the SharePoint team members that gives you some background into the origins of the product and product components.

Audiograbber - MP3 conversion utility

Audiograbber  is my preferred MP3 conversion utility.  It does an awesome job, it will auto generate a directory hierarchy based on the artist name and album name and you can customize the MP3 name based on track, title, etc.  It supports Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and other output formats.

I like to use the LAME (LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder) add-in for MP3 support.  After searching Google, it appears that the ad-driven freeware sites are getting too high up in the Google Search order.  For reference I recommend searching sourceforge.net for open source solutions before you go to an ad site.

Technorati Tags: mp3,LAME,CD,music,sourceforge

Safe Travel

Safe Travel

Ah, yes, Safe Travel. The TSA is now limiting our ability to carry spare lithium batteries in our luggage (checked or carry-on) depending on the total lithium content.

Good luck explaining this to the majority of the traveling public, but you will have to calculate this total 'lithium equivalent in grams'. Lithium metal batteries are limited to 2 grams, Lithium-Ion up to 8 grams.

Considering most of the general public doesn't fathom the metric system, much less the ability to calculate lithium equivalent content for a battery, this should be interesting.

I can't wait to have a conversation with the TSA about this. I'll bring a little chart and ask for a little tutorial on how they are implementing this in Philadelphia next time I fly.

Not.

Zune for Christmas

Originally, I saw the re-furb and brown 30 Gb original Zunes on sale, but I waited a bit too long.  Then while I was on my road trip to pickup Sarah from Tech, I found a white, refurb Zune at buy.com for $109, so I jumped.

I could not be happier.  Initializing the Zune, it automatically installed the latest client on my desktop and upgraded the firmware to the 2.3 release.

During the initial setup, I pointed it to existing folders for my audio, video, and podcast folders.  The synch was pretty quick and after it sucked up everything, I still had 19Gb free.  The only

The only problem I had was synching NPR podcasts. By comparing file MP3 ID tags on files that synched correctly and the NPR files, I determined the Zune filters based on the Genre tag.  Genre = Podcast to synch to Zune. I updated using a Sourceforge MP3 tag editor massid3lib.  It worked like a charm.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/massid3lib

Technorati Tags: MP3,Zune,Microsoft,Sourceforge,podcast

Happy Christmas 2007

I hope everyone has a healthy, happy, and safe Christmas.

 

GTDInbox - The Firefox Extension that Combines Gmail with Getting Things Done (GTD)

GTDInbox - The Firefox Extension that Combines Gmail with Getting Things Done (GTD)

Great GMail add-in for GTD implementation.

Latest beta is 1.93 for GMail 2 support.

Macs are more expensive

I frequently have this discussion with "Mac People".  I don't argue that Apple has a great design group, but I don't believe they offer the value for money I receive from other vendors.

Dave Winer is a pretty savvy guy, and a big Apple fan, so I was pretty surprised when I read his article detailing his Mac Book repair.  It's just my nature, but I would probably have my hands around the throat of the Mac support person.  At a minimum, I want a new drive in my system and some assurance, in writing, that data on my original drive will be scrubbed, or the drive destroyed.

The other factor that keeps me away from Mac stores is the "Genius Bar".  Let's face it, these guy (and women possibly) aren't geniuses and calling a 20-something college student (or recent grad) working in retail a genius just sets unreasonable expectations from a customer and dilutes the term 'genius'.  None of these folks have an IQ higher than mine and they don't think out of the box because Apple doesn't want someone like that working in retail in the first place.

The last time I was in an Apple store the little freakazoid manager (Marlton, NJ for anyone interested) asked me to stop taking pictures.  Bugger off, Apple Boy!  I have shoes older than you.

Technorati Tags: Apple,Mac,fanboy,hardware

(Scripting News) " href="http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/12/22/macsAreEvenMoreExpensiveTh.html">

Windows XP Memory Leak - NOT SP3

UPDATE:  I had a comment asking about problem resolution.  The memory leak was resolved by updating the Dell Wireless 1370 WLAN driver (reference below).  The updated version of the driver is an 89 Meg download: http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R174291.exe

=========================================

After removing SP3, my memory leak issue re-surfaced.  I used Process Explorer, configured it to display Page Faults, Private Bytes, and Virtual Size, and I found the culprit.  The Dell Wireless driver had something like 8MM page faults. 

This process (BCMWLTRY.EXE) was visible from Task Manager, but I overlooked it.  Killing the process from Process Explorer, it re-spawned, and immediately started spewing page faults.  The new drivers was issued 18 Dec 2007, details are below and it's available for download from Dell Support.

 

Title      : Network:Dell Wireless 1370 WLAN MiniPCI Card, Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1395 WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1470 Dual-Band WLAN miniPCI Card, Wireless 1490 Dual-Band WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card, Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card Desktops Driver
Version    : A17
OEM Name   : Dell
OEM Ver    : 4.170.25.12
Computers  : Dimension - DXP061, DXC061;
Inspiron - 1520, 1720, 1420, 1521, 1721;
Inspiron Desktop - 530, 530S, 531, 531S;
Latitude - D430, ATG D630, D530, D531, XT, D631, D620, D630, D830, D420, D620, D520;
OptiPlex - 745, 320, 740, 755, 330;
Precision - M2300, T7400, T5400, M6300, M4300, 390, 690, 490, M65, M90, M60, M70, M20;
Vostro Desktop - 200, 400;
Vostro Notebook - 1000, 1500, 1700;
XPS - MXP061, MXG061, XPS 720, M1730, 420, M1330
Oses       : Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC EditionWindows XP x64 Professional Client

Technorati Tags: Dell,wireless,drivers,download

Microsoft Update - 714 Meg

Wow - this may be a record update for my systems.  The largest offender is Office 2007 SP1, which is 619 Meg in size.  The other updates include:

• Windows XP - four security updates
• Windows XP - DST update for multiple countries
• IE7 - Cumulative Security update
• Windows Live Writer update
• .Net Framework 3.0 SP1
• .Net Framework 2.0 SP1

Deficiencies of the Do Not Call List

I received a call at home this evening.  During dinner with my family.  At 6:00PM EST.  It was Valerie from Datascension, a market research firm which is exempt from the Do Not Call legislation.

In no uncertain terms, I told Valerie I didn't want to speak with her.  My exact phrase was "I would rather have glass shards placed in my eyes than speak to you.".  She didn't blink.  She asked if there was anyone else in the house who was available to be interviewed.

I stated that we were eating dinner.  I *should* have asked her to hold, put the phone down and finished my meal, but the throbbing vein on my forehead had a mind of its own.

They maintain a do not call list, but she asked me to go online to www.datascension.com and opt out.  Actually, you can't, but you can send a note to dnc@datascension.com and it appears that they want to limit the opt-out to a current research project.  This is totally unacceptable.

I called the toll free number (below) and transferred to Reception.  The woman answering the phone was very professional and she took my name and phone numbers and assured me that they would be removed from the Datacension database.  I asked, and she confirmed, that this was a permanent removal.  I find it odd that the original caller did not offer me this service and the e-mail opt-out does not appear to be permanent.

Contact Datascension, Inc
407 W. Imperial Highway, Suite H314
Suite H314
Brea CA 92821
Tel: 888-996-9238
Fax: 714.276.9080
Email: information@datascension.com

Google Talk supports AIM interoperability

Google Talk now supports AIM interoperability. Now I'm down to running two IM clients on my laptop (MSN and GTalk). It is easily configured from with GTalk by adding your AIM account.

32 bit Windows memory support

This subject has come up on several occasions, so I'm posting a note with several references on the topic.

Basically, 32-bit Windows desktop operating systems (XP, Vista) will not address more than 3 GB of installed memory.  You can add the /3GB switch to your BOOT.INI file, but hardware constraints, including your video card and BIOS will limit how much RAM above 3GB is available for the operating system. 

NOTE:  This is particularly an issue for high end video cards because the amount of video RAM is deducted from the 4GB theoretical limit for 32 bit operating systems, so even if you have 4GB installed, a 512 Meg video card could reduce your available ram to under 3GB.

Microsoft MSDN article: Memory Limits for Windows Releases

Microsoft MSDN article: 4-Gigabyte Tuning

Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? - this article includes a nice Intel map of the 32 bit address space memory allocation details.