Back in the Windows 7 world, Ninite saves the day.
Oct 28
The Dvd
had been lying around my office for a few days. Lurking at me with its
silver coated surface. Sending a gentle vibe towards my subconscious
whispering " Try me Try me". I had played around with its older
brother, a release candidate version freely distributed over the interwebs
and was pleasantly surprised that even this ‘release candidate’
performed better then its over-bloated parent. But let us be honest.
Even Windows 3.1 running on a 386 with "Drivespace" enabled (and the "turbo button" in OFF mode) was better then Vista.
Sure they made the whole Vista experience became considerably better after service pack 1 and 2 hit the net, but still.. You needed a pretty pumpy machine to reach around Vista’s love-handles.
Off
course, the web was abuzz with talk about Windows 7. All kinds of
shortcuts, tips, tricks and reviews where flying around. Those
commenting on "how nice it looked" where blissfully ignored by me ,
because I think a "new and shiny interface" does not always mean things
are "better". New bling wares off fast, so the gui is not a measure by which an operating system shoot be judged.
I popped in the DVD and fired up my virtualisation software. Why ? Because I would not think of installing such a system directly to the harddrive of ANY of my machines. The golden rule : "Never trust and Microsoft OS before its first servicepack"
did echo in the back of my head. And besides. This was going to be a
‘thorough test" of the operating system in its everyday use, but
nothing more then a test. The release candidate that I installed on my
Tablet pc proved that Windows 7 was indeed an interesting leap by Microsoft, so I decided that the VM i made from the "Final" version of Windows 7 would become my ‘personal system’ for a few days.
Installation
proved a breeze ( The question whether i would like to "upgrade" the
non-existing operating system on the empty virtual harddrive
did puzzle me a little) so i went for a custom and clean installation.
After that I went for the mandatory installation of Windows updates.
Next i was faced by the daunting task of installing all my cross
platform (or windows based) applications onto this system. Personal
Data, Bookmarks and many of the services I use every day are mostly
cloud based, so besides installing Firefox I did not have a bunch of "local applications" to install. But luckily I found NINITE , a great application that takes care of that for you. Those who listened to our episode "Free XP" might have heard that I like applications like "the Google Pack" and "The msn Live Pack" because the make the installation of different applications easy. NINITE
goes one step further. Head on over to the website, point and click
what applications you would like to have and you will be given a
"custom download application" that you can use. Download the NINITE app to your computer and run it. Ninite
takes care of downloading the latest versions of the apps you selected
(even based on your local country settings) and taking care of the
installation.
What I like even more is the fact that you can
"suggest" other applications to the author of the application, so i
quickly poked him to add both MIRO and Putty to the lott.
After
everything was installed I had a completely installed and working
Windows system, and was surprised how many things that I do on a
computer DON’T use applications installed locally. Beside Twitter (I
like tweetdeck)
the larger part of my daily computing life in a Windows environment..
Is done in a browser. It seems that Windows Vista (that chased me away
from using Windows at all) had pushed me higher into the cloud then I
had suspected.
But in all , i’m not displeased with Windows7, because it behaves a lot more like XP
then like Vista. I must confess that the "simplified troubleshooting
ways" of Vista are to be found in Windows 7 also. For some reason, I
could never figure these out. The simpler Microsoft TRIES to make the
troubleshooting of your pc,
the harder it becomes for me. I have NEVER figured out things like
"simple file sharing", I get lost in the new version of the network
manager ( Sorry , network and Sharing center). I can’t make heads or
tales of libraries (Collections) and am lost what the difference is
between the "locations" you can choose from. Have I become so out of
touch with Microsoft that I have a hard time with all of this ?
So i’m going to give this Windows7 VM
a little spin this week. I’m pleasantly surprised its pretty fast (even
with the meager 512 megs of ram I have given it) and will give you an
update when I : 1: am tired of it an chuck it off 2: Become so annoyed
with it I delete the VM and burn the harddrive I installed it on. 3: Become so overwhelmed with it that I’ll ask Steve Balmer to adopt me.
Links : ninite.
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Knightwise.com coming to a Miro near you !
Oct 27
I love getting listener feedback and comments on the blog. Cause sometimes there are some really good idea’s in there. For one, I got the question if it would not be possible to have the podcast available on MIRO. For those of you who don’t know, Miro is a cross-platform media player/aggregator that lets you download and watch podcasts and videocasts from a variety of sources. It is not only Cross-platform (Windows / Linux / Mac) it is also darn GOOD ! The streaming capabilities make Miro not only the perfect aggregator for video (and audio) podcasts, but its also way cool to use to stream movies over the network that you have stored on a computer somewhere in the house.
But back to the matter at hand : I’ve created a special channel on MIRO that you can subscribe to, in order to get your "Knightwise.com-FIX" whenever we release an episode. You can subscribe by clicking on the button on the sidebar (this wil automatically open Miro and Add our media feed in the sidebar). If you don’t have Miro installed , you can download it HERE.
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Kc228 "You don't need a new computer"
Oct 23If you had to believe the people that tried to sell you Vista, you would have to take up an offer on IBM’s “Deep Blue supercomputer” in order to run it. Whenever a new operating system comes around its like you have to buy a new computer. Do you really have to ? We take a closer look at how older systems can still preform modern task. As we walk through the City of Tongeren we chat about Crunchbang, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and how to get a ten year old laptop up to an operational level. With great music from Bramstein (provided by “Spacemusic) we set off into KC 0028.
Shownotes.
- Intro:Walking through Tongeren.
- Part one:Crunchbang Linux on a PIII 500.
- Part two: Ubuntu and Windows 7 on an HP TC1100
- Tips and pointers for reviving older hardware.
- Musicprovided by the SPACEMUSIC PODCAST ” Linja ” by Bramstein FREE DOWNLOAD.
- City of Tongeren.
- Tablet pc tc1100
- Crunchbang Linux
- irssi alpine centerim jed
- Gnu Licence
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Meeting Keith … (and his lovely wife).
Oct 22About a year ago I remember a post that I wrote about constant connectivity. I was at that point JUST about to get my Blackberry and was wondering what the impact of this ‘enhanced connectivity would be on my life. Coming from a world where connectivity was mostly acquired by broadband at work and at home, and the occasional open wifi hotspot, moments still existed where i was actually disconnected from the net and had access to nor Twitter, Facebook, im or even Email.
I wondered how it would impact my life, how it would be to be "pulled closer" to the net by tethering yourself closely to your digital lifestyle with this little Blackberry device. Emails at a glance, Twitter and Facebook applications a touch of a button away .. Constant availability of a GPRS data signal to the cloud. How would it change me ?
These where very valid questions, and allmost a year later, my world is a lot different. Not only have I been ‘packing heat’ in the form of my ever loyal Blackberry Curve, I also seldom leave the house without my little white USB-3G modemstick, that offers me broadband connection at a glance, whenever required. So from an "offline world" where "internet connection" means sitting behind a computer either at work or at home, my life has ‘evolved’ into one where my "life in the cloud" does not end when i step away from the keyboard.
One of the area’s where this impact has been felt more then ever is my social lifestyle. You used to have your "internet life" that you spent online. A world that opened up to you once you sat behind your computer or laptop, and your " normal life " where you interacted with others in the "not so virtual world". What has fundamentally changed is the proliferation of that "internet social circle" into our "normal life" Surprising as it may seem, Nyana and I are quite sociable people, but we aren’t really part of some party crowd. We occasionally go out with friends for dinner, and even tag along with buddies to our bi-weekly "sport thing". But a couple that hangs out with friends every other weekend ? That we are not. " Real world " friends of ours know that we are ‘bad’ at setting dates for dinner evenings and .. are notorious for never ‘phoning somebody up’ if they would like to tag along to some outing somewhere. But that is just the way we are. We kinda like to stick to ourselves and enjoy the sparse spare time we have in each others company .. geeking out and having a good time.
Since we both are geeks our ‘digital social circle’ is quite large and also extremely widespread globally (come to think of it, we hardly know any "Belgians" online except a few). But since Twitter, email, Im and Facebook are not only a part of our ‘social interaction media’ when we are AT HOME, they now also follow us along when we are out and about. The Blackberry regularly chimes and beeps with new tweets, Dm’s and elaborate comment threads on facebook are notoriously followed even if we are "away from keyboard". As a result, our social circles have merged together resulting in casual conversations among the two of us as we talk about "Podfeets latest tweet" and "The comment Dave gave a picture of us on Facebook". Thanks to the Blackberry our ‘reaction’ to these online events can be as instant as spontaneous as the action that pre-empted it. So our twitterpeeps, website watchers, podcast listeners, geek-peeps, KWTV Friends and Facebook buddies have become very much a part of our every day life. Both ‘social timelines’ now flow side by side throughout our day.
Two weeks ago however, we had the exquisit pleasure of melding these two worlds together as, for the first time, we met one of our longtime ‘online friends’ in real life. Since our "social circle" is hardly limited to a certain zip code, THIS encouter was with a good friend (and his lovely wife) from Canada. Longtime podcasting buddy and host on the AGP Podcast Keith Murray and his better half, were enjoying their holiday in France. An accidental tweet, an Im AND a free Sunday, coalesced into the very first ‘real life meeting’ with one of our virtual buddies.
"Meeting somebody" for the first time, that you have known for years is .. Strange to say the least. Exciting Fun and downright awesome. We had a ball while having a great lunch and showing them around the part of France where we met up. It was strange to suddenly have this "real life friend" right next to you, who knew all the meme’s, all the tweets, the running gags, the inside jokes and the common ‘geek culture’ that was before then only something I could share with ‘virtual people ‘.
It felt wonderful meeting up with people who "knew your online world" who understood you and shared common interest .. while actually being able to "pass you the butter" across the table. After a wonderful afternoon we said our goodbyes and reminisced on the great day we had. A strange, unexpected feeling came over me .. I kinda felt lonely. Kinda "left behind" knowing that there would be no-one in my "real life social circle" that would be quite capable of living up to a "friendship moment" like I just had. What i mean by that is , that there aren’t any people that i can hang out with, who are part of my "web world".. in my real world. Short of me taking a plane and flying all over the globe, that isn’t going to happen either.
The strange realization that I had from this emotion, was that perhaps I was wrong. For years i"ve said that my "virtual social circle" is just as valuable as my "real life social circle" that you can form real friendships online, that last for years and that can be just as intense and real, then any soccer-buddy you might have. And yet .. nothing beats "really" meeting somebody in person. Although I adamantly proclaim that the "net has brought us closer together", seeing one of my podcasting buddies take the train back to far away Canada, has never made me feel "farther away" from all of them.
