Degen.Net

As any of you have worked with me know I’m very pragmatic about operating systems, if it works for the app – good on you. Regular readers of the blog might question my OS agnostic attitude due to the frequent Vista bashing, so here is my list of favorite things about Vista. Promise, I’ll try to stay all positive; operative word here is “try.” 

            It Looks Great

 

Face it, if you can make a classic Windows productivity app like Solitaire look this good, it just makes you happy. From the new 3D effects to the simple addition of transparencies, Vista makes for a pleasant visual retouch of the windows UI. BTW, if anyone has a hack to adjust the transparency level for the contents of a CMD window, please share – I so miss that capability, visa vie KDE/Gnome.

The new user folder structure

 

 After years of conditioning us to use the infernal “C:\Documents and Settings\XXXX” directory structure for storing My Documents and other user configuration, things are now where they should have been all along – \Users\XXXX.Not only is the Unix style top level user folder the “right” place for this type of data to be located, Vista has added some useful new default sub-folders as well. The new default downloads location is a welcome addition, as is the relocation of IE Favorates.

            Un-hideable Fields

While some will find this a lazy man’s feature, the ability to see and encrypted fields contents while entering them, I will argue this is a very useful feature. I can’t tell you how many times I have made typos while entering those long 128-bit WEP keys, not once but twice!  

            Explorer Location/Browsing Trail Memory

In a world where terabyte drives are virtually common place, its easy to have dozens, or even hundreds of sub-directories in a folder; the Vista Explorer has taken this fact into consideration. Nothing is more frustrating then moving through a deep folder structure say I’m down in a folder named “Symantec”, realizing I need something back in the “System” folder, that is at the same level as the Symantec directory, I hit the back button, pleasantly I’m returned to the previous level in the “S” vicinity, in fact the Symantec folder is selected so I can even use arrow keys to move down to the System folder I want to open. This is a delightful, yet simple, addition; But I still miss the “up” folder icon.

                      Media Center and Windows Media Player 11

  

As I said back in January, shortly after CES 07’, Vista’s new incarnation and integration  of Media Center Edition (formerly XP MCE), is truly impressive, while I have not quite killed off the TiVo yet, Vista Media Center is looking better all the time.

Powering Vista Media Center is Windows Media Player 11, which is still burdened with too much DRM crap for me give it an endorsement, I have to be honest – WMP11 performance is surprisingly much better then past versions I have avoided like the plague. 

The key point I’m trying to make about Vista is; it’s not all bad. While none of the above are compelling enough reasons to upgrade to Vista, they do fall into that “pleasant addition” category. Are you running Vista? Share your favorite new features in the comments, I’d love to learn your tricks. 

 

You know what I’m talking about, because you‘ve done it too! What, blame Bill you ask? Bill, as in Gates ala Microsoft; and blame, well I think you have a good grasp on that, suffice it to say any Blue Screen of Death, or driver incompatibility, heck just anything you don’t like about Windows! The response is always the same – Screaming “{Insert explicit of your choice} Microsoft!” followed by throwing random objects at and/or kicking the computer in question.

And I have to admit, 99% of the time it’s a safe bet to blame Mr. Gates. Most of the time it does turn out that if something on a Windows computer goes aria it can be traced to a Microsoft flax-paw.  If you want to drive that percentage of dysfunction and suffering to a virtual 100% failure rate, be sure to always adopt new Microsoft patches, service packs and 1.0 releases.

It’s against this backdrop I found myself a couple weeks ago. While consulting at my favorite “Garlic Capital of the World” customer, we were building up a couple of new Windows 2003 R2 servers to host Oracle 10 databases – pretty mundane right? The build was moving forward rather uneventfully; as part of the initial setup I usually hit Windows Update and pull down any critical updates (environments where SUS is available can skip this step.) Then the horror, Windows 2003 Server SP2.

Now there are a few of you that just love to install every brand-new “fix” that vendors put out, I have learned better. So not having seen 2003 SP2 and Oracle 10.2 I advised my client we might want to hold up on the new Microsoft Service Pack. But after talking it over, we elected to roll the dice and go for it, SP2 installed smoothly and on we went.

Completing the server build with Oracle 10.2.0.3, I built some databases, loaded up the necessary business apps and started testing client connections. Nothing. No connectivity to Oracle. After running through the usual trouble-shooting steps I conclude it can be only one thing – “Fracking Bill!”, I decry, as I angrily uninstall SP2. Reboot, and WTF Oracle was still broken! After another few minutes of digging I discover the problem was actually introduced with the Oracle SP, not Microsoft.

Shockingly I found the 1% of the time it actually wasn’t Bill’s fault!?!? So I’m stunned, but I guess it serves me right. And heck, I should look at it this way, if it’s not Bill, at least I can blame Larry. So take comfort Larry, in your efforts to be just like Bill you are now mimicking Microsoft service packs breaking stuff, way to go Oracle.

Ah, I’m going to keep blaming Bill, old habits are hard to break!

As many of you know I actually reloaded Vista on my day to day notebook – thanks to a most inopportune hard drive crash (When Disk Failures Attack!), and the lack of a bootable XP disk.

But I figured, “Hey, I’ll make the most of this and force myself to use Vista.”Arrg! Vista, you continue to curse me!

Today’s vignette of pain stars, yet again, the loathsome and talent-less Vista User Access Control or UAC. Regular readers of the blog will recall my first bout with the UAC from Vista UAC – this is “trustworthy computing?” – And since turning off the UAC is the first order of business on any Vista build I do, you can imagine my surprise when I encountered the following error while attempting to install Adobe Acrobat 8.

Regardless of whether you’re installing the full version or just the reader, if you have turned UAC off, you get this dialog “The Temp folder is on a drive that is full or is inaccessible. Free up space on the drive or verify that you have write permission on the Temp folder.”

Now wait a minute… If I have turned off UAC, why on earth should I get a permission error – that’s what I discarded UAC for in the first place! It seams this is part of the new Vista UAC pseudo-privilege elevation strategy. It turns out that you must re-enable UAC, reboot and then install Acrobat in order to be successful.

 

I found a good source of information about this phenomena at Scott Hanselman’s site, click here for a direct link. Great post, and work arounds, just a damn shame this UAC thing keeps driving me to the brink of insanity and then some.

Sources at Blizzard confirmed today that the US Army would begin combat training operations inside World of Warcraft, effective immediately. “The Army needs to train its soldiers on how to handle complex tasks amid a chaotic atmosphere.  We can think of no environment more akin to the crisis in Iraq then a typical session of WOW”, said Blizzard company spokesmen at a joint press conference with Army and Air Force representatives Friday.

“It’s totally awesome”, Corporal I. M. Uber continued, “Before I was in the Army I would just lay around on the coach P0WNing N00bz in WOW – I had no idea that would qualify me to face random IEDs and the other horrors I’ll see every day in Iraq.”  Corporal Uber and his squad where among the first soldiers to spend time on the simulators at the Army’s new Cyber training center. While its location is top secret the center’s commander, Major Ed Leet, was enthusiastic about the new facility, “We are very encouraged! Not only is the WOW Combat simulator, helping prepare our troops, but its bringing in many new recruits as well.”    

     

But not everyone is as supportive of the new training curriculum. Anti-military/war groups were quick to condemn the new simulator. Ned Ludd, denounced the move as “a first step to creating cyber-soldiers addicted to direct neural stimulation”, though he later acknowledged he really had no idea how any of this “computer stuff” worked anyhow.

Anonymous protesters at a recent anti-war march lead by Cindy Sheehan, commented that all forms of violence should be ended whether they are simulations or not. But when pressed further, most had mixed feelings about the ethics of killing a level 80 Hoard Blood Elf.  The Elf Defamation League had no comment on the matter, but did state it was keeping all legal options open, and would continue to monitor for Elven rights violations.

When pressed for a response to the critics, Major Leet emphatically defended the program, “We are simply using the best tools that are available to us.” As a veteran of Vietnam, Leet’s seen his share of horrors in combat. He added, ”I’ve seen chaos on the battle field, the fog of war, and other atrocities too tragic to describe; but let me tell you, a few million screaming 14 year olds savagely attaching you on the Plaguelands of Lordaeron – that, that is terror! WOW is preparing our soldiers for the harshness of today’s real world warfare, one flame war at a time!”

Blizzard officials have nothing but positive to say about the project’s future. “Frankly we have not seen this kind of server load and new user creation since the South Park WOW episode”, Blizzard company spokesman said. And with over 8 million users before the US Army deal, you can see why the company is all smiles.

I guess you can now find World of Warcraft, at Best Buy and your local Army Recruiter! Happy April Fools!