The Blog of Rudy Amid » microsoft http://www.amid.com/werd My Curiosity, Observation, and Opinion Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:21:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Start Me Up Again With Windows 7 http://www.amid.com/werd/start-me-up-again-with-windows-7/ http://www.amid.com/werd/start-me-up-again-with-windows-7/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:45:29 +0000 rudyamid http://www.amid.com/werd/?p=1383 This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Start Me Up Again With Windows 7

Related posts:

  1. PC Build 2008: Part 2
  2. Building An HTPC
  3. Cloud Computing Hype
]]> Last night, I finally got my copy of Windows 7 Home Premium.  I’ve been beta-testing it for a few months earlier, and was impressed with its stability and good looks.   The installation process was, for the most part, painless.  The only tricky part was upgrading the 32-bit Windows XP with 64-bit version of Win7.  I had to move my data files off to an external drive, just in case Win7 may “accidentally” delete them.  Turns out Win7 did a good job preserving my hard drives, so it was a smooth transition.  I was up and running with Win7 in an hour, all of my hardware detected and good to go.

My experience with Microsoft Windows varied quite a bit.  I could recall the milestones in my life when I deal with the operating system. It started off with Windows 3.1.  I supported it professionally as a Toshiba laptop tech support person.  It was still based on MS-DOS and buggy as hell – it would often crash!  I wasn’t paid enough to support it.  However, it taught me patience and perseverance, not to mention the experience for a career move.

Microsoft improved stability tremendously with Windows NT.  But it was bloated and support from vendors was dicey.  The drivers had to be tightly controlled to maintain a stable OS.  With NT, it gave me the chance to dabble into high end PC parts (that required certifications) and running Windows Server’s applications such as Exchange, MS-SQL, and IIS.

When Windows XP came out, it was popular because it ran well on smaller systems and drivers were widely available from all vendors.  It was the de-facto Windows setup for many.  I stayed with XP for the longest time since 2001.

To digress a little bit, I have to mention Vista. I heard horrible things about it, so I stayed away from it.  I finally played with it in 2008 when I build my latest PC. It has a pretty GUI that rivaled (copied?) Mac OS X.  But it was like the NT days: too bloated.  I had to bump up the RAM to 8GB for a more comfortable experience.  Installing games like Half Life and Crysis were a chore, sometimes with unpredictable results.

So now, with Windows 7, I’m back to that comfortable spot with a Microsoft operating system.  My current XP apps and games are working perfectly on it.  Already it’s the best selling pre-order and gaining install base.  Sites, like Lifehacker, dedicated posts on how to use it.  On the Enterprise level, companies are gearing up to convert from XP directly to Win7.

I’ve never been so excited about Windows before, until Windows 7 is here.  Start me up!

Oh, as a side note, there’s a reason why I skipped Windows 95:  It sucked!

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Start Me Up Again With Windows 7

Related posts:

  1. PC Build 2008: Part 2
  2. Building An HTPC
  3. Cloud Computing Hype

]]> http://www.amid.com/werd/start-me-up-again-with-windows-7/feed/ 2 IE6 Must Die! http://www.amid.com/werd/ie6-must-die/ http://www.amid.com/werd/ie6-must-die/#comments Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:50:53 +0000 rudyamid http://www.amid.com/werd/?p=393 This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

IE6 Must Die!

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  1. I’m Sorry Dave, I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That
  2. ClearType – A Must Have
]]> Steve and Lin have reported my site crashed their Internet Explorer 6 browsers.  I’ve tested it using a Windows 2000 machine at work, and confirmed it.  I’ve been trying to figure out which plugin or sidebar widget does this.  I found the Lightbox 2 plugin was the problem.  I really like this plugin, but not enough to lock out my readers who are still stuck with IE6.  I’ll find an alternative.

Through my research on the subject, apparently IE6 is a much hated browser by everyone.  It crashes on trivial javascripts and the W3 compliant stylesheets.  There are many sites citing displeasure over IE6.  Here are some them:

As an IT person, it’s going to be my solemn duty to encourage and plan for phasing out IE6.  We have many alternatives, and need not to be stuck in the stone ages.  You can help.  Kill IE6 now!

[Update] Changed the Lightbox2 plugin to Shadowbox JS.  Works like a charm!

Image Credit: IE Death March

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

IE6 Must Die!

Related posts:

  1. I’m Sorry Dave, I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That
  2. ClearType – A Must Have

]]> http://www.amid.com/werd/ie6-must-die/feed/ 10 Cloud Computing Hype http://www.amid.com/werd/cloud-computing-hype/ http://www.amid.com/werd/cloud-computing-hype/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:59:33 +0000 rudyamid http://www.amid.com/werd/?p=314 This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Cloud Computing Hype

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  2. Lunch Bits – Edition 2
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]]> Ever since I attended the JBOSS World User Conference in February 2008, I’ve been getting a lot of junk emails from companies touting “Cloud Computing” technologies.  It’s the latest buzzword in the tech industry.  With big players such as Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, it sure gets a lot of attention.  Essentially, cloud computing is the outsourcing of commonly used Enterprise software, usually a database or collaboration engine.   It also includes the hardware and its support.  So all I have to do is come up with a lightweight web application to talk to it.   It’s a model similar to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), except I don’t have to manage the back end infrastructure.

The glaring problem of cloud computing is trusting customer’s data outside the Enterprise.  I work for a conservative company.  Management has uneasy feelings about placing the company’s most valuable asset to someone else to manage.  Coincidentally, I’ve just wrapped up a project that moved our customer data behind our firewall, into our own self-managed database and Enterprise applications.  For us, we’re just not ready for cloud computing.  It’s not that we won’t ever buy into it – we’re just waiting when (or if) the technology matures and gets a wider adoption first.

There’s plenty of chatter out there on the blogosphere about cloud computing hype.   I read these articles to start, and gained quite a bit of insight from them:

Photo Credit: ptdrumm

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Cloud Computing Hype

Related posts:

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  2. Lunch Bits – Edition 2
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]]> http://www.amid.com/werd/cloud-computing-hype/feed/ 10 ClearType – A Must Have http://www.amid.com/werd/cleartype-a-must-have/ http://www.amid.com/werd/cleartype-a-must-have/#comments Sat, 13 Oct 2007 23:02:54 +0000 rudyamid http://www.amid.com/werd/cleartype-a-must-have/ This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

ClearType – A Must Have

Related posts:

  1. IE6 Must Die!
]]> For those of us who choose to stay with Windows XP, there are many tweaks you can do that will greatly improve your internet browsing experience.  My current favourite (and must have) is the ClearType Screen Font Enhancement for better readibility.  The words are so much easier to read after this is enabled.  Check it out from Microsoft’s Typography Site.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

ClearType – A Must Have

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  1. IE6 Must Die!

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