Another reason why Vista sucks vs Leopard

I've come across another reason why I'm the happiest clam alive to be using Macs with Leopard instead of PC's with Vista (or any other Windows operating system).

A few weeks ago, I upgraded my 20" iMac to 4GB of RAM (see my "taste the kool-aid" joy).

My iMac dual-boots Vista so that I can play some games that are not compatible with OS X (the only thing left in my life that requires me to touch a Windows box).

Today, I just happened to notice when I booted into Windows to play my game that Vista is only seeing 3GB of my 4GB of RAM. Wha???? I know that OS X Leopard is seeing all of my RAM and splashing around blissfully in it. What's up with Vista?

Googling revealed much discussion - and confusion - on the topic. Like everything else, it seems that Microsoft's claims of Vista's RAM capabilities come with small print disclaimers attached.

Microsoft's official claim is that 32-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate support 4GB of RAM. I've got the 32-bit version of Vista Business. Why does my System panel say: Memory (RAM): 3054 MB

3054? What kind of number IS that, even? My Computer shows it abbreviated as 2.98 GB. I know there's some integrated video memory going on here, but come on! The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT video card in this iMac is 256MB. Where's the rest of my 4th gig of RAM?

Shared video RAM aside, where has the rest gone? I found a snippet on the topic at Vista Clues:

...a high performance x86-based computer may allocate 512 MB to more than 1 GB for the PCI memory address range before any RAM (physical user memory) addresses are allocated.

I found all sorts of things about a 3GB switch in Windows to allow applications to access more than the default 2GB of RAM, yada yada yada.

As I read through tweaking guides, I stopped and thought to myself, What am I doing? I don't want to have to fiddle with my machines to get them to work properly with the hardware installed in them! THAT'S WHY I SWITCHED TO MAC!!!

A big ol' Up Yours to Windows. I'm not going to try and figure out how to get you to see my full 4GB of RAM. I'm not wasting my time with you. You only exist in my life for entertainment purposes anyway, and I'll live with the 3GB of RAM that your dumb OS is able to see. My time is too valuable to spend trying to make you work the way you SHOULD work out of the box!

The Best 12 Days of Christmas I've Ever Seen!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Giggity Goo!

Feel the power.... Taste the Kool Aid....

Writer's Strike

If you haven't heard much about the Hollywood writer's strike, this movie will help.

It is definitely worth the watch (even though I already sided with the writers before watching it). Its value is two-fold: it makes their point, and in a damn amusing way (a fine display of their talents).

Leopard: My First 3 Sentences

Time Machine is friggin fantastic.

Spaces is the best thing since sliced bread.

I love the dorky reflective dock.

Faster Internet on Leopard?

Check out my internet speeds since switching to Leopard. Under Tiger (and Windows Vista), I was pulling about 15000 kbps down on a good day and pushing around 1000 kbps up. I haven't changed my internet provider (Comcast). Haven't changed any internet settings in the OS - all is set as the defaults that were installed. Tested at www.speakeasy.net/speedtest, Chicago server.

Problems Using PC-Formatted Drive with Leopard & Time Machine

Whew! I was pretty excited tonight when Leopard was in my mailbox. Finally! (It was supposed to be here yesterday, grumble grumble grumble). I'll save my Leopard thoughts for later - just wanted to document my first Leopard problem (which, SURPRISE, was indirectly caused by my old Windows PC).

I have a 750GB Western Digital MyBook. It's pretty sweet. I was using it as my backup drive for my Windows PC, and it was formatted FAT32. When I trashed my PC and got an iMac a couple weeks ago, I checked WD's web site and sure enough, they had a Mac version of their backup software. Sweet!

Then came Leopard and Time Machine... automatic backups that can be accessed in a completely granular fashion. Imagine! Buh-bye, WD Backup. Hello, Time Machine!

I plugged in my WD MyBook after installing Leopard, and like promised, Leopard asked if I wanted to use that drive to backup with Time Machine. Absolutely! Time Machine said it needed to be reformatted to the Mac format. Sure, no problem.

Except that the format failed.

Disk erase failed with the error: File system formatter failed.

Yikes!

I tried using Disk Utility to no avail. It would format fine as FAT32, but not as any Mac format.

Already-too-long-story-short:

Gizmodo saved me!

Thankfully, the fix is easy.

• Go to the Partition tab. Create two partitions. Under Options, select GUID Partition Table (what you would use to make a Mac OS boot disk) and click OK then Apply.

• Once your partitions are in place, do it again, reverting back to just one partition, but still keeping the GUID Partition Table option. Click OK and Apply again, and at this point you should be cool.

• To be safe, you can then go to Erase and set formatting for Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then format it once and for all. But when you get there, you will probably see that your volume is already formatted in the right way.

Gizmodo reports that some users were able to get this solution working only creating one partition, and that the key seems to be using the GUID Partition Table option.

Whatever the case, these steps worked for me, and Time Machine is now happily chugging way with its first full backup of my new iMac - now dressed in Leopard skin :)

Boy I Missed Diggnation

All summer, since I wasn't working on a daily basis (ahh the joys of summers off), I fell way behind on my podcasts. Additionally, my AppleTV has taken a shit on me (the Apple love affair has proven inapplicable for bleeding-edge products, as I've had problems with both the bleeding edge fresh-off-the-assembly-line MacBook Pro as well, though got it fixed free and fast via AppleCare). One of these days, I've got to take that AppleTV in. It's giving me the 2-color blinky light on the front, which apparently means, it's dead.

Anyway, now that I'm up and running on the iMac, I'm currently listening to the latest diggnation. Damn, I missed these boys!

I've had a seemingly lifelong crush on Kevin Rose, and Alex Albrecht is the funniest human being evar.

Better to just lick the toilet again

Paul Phillips wins for the best verbalization of Windows users' justifications of using Vista instead of OS X:

I cannot believe people put up with this for the privilege of using vista. It's as if the bouncer at the worst club in town made you lick the inside of a toilet to get inside, and yet people continued to line up because it's such a big building, and they already know where the bar is located. Who wants to figure out a whole new club layout? Better to just lick the toilet again.

ROFLMAO!

In other news, I'm bummed that I preordered my $9.95 Leopard upgrade for my new iMac online, because it won't arrive till Tuesday. I'm fairly certain if I'd have just waited I could have gone and picked it up at the Apple Store this weekend. Now, I have to wait until Tuesday for it to arrive via USPS. I'm hoping I can get the upgrade quickly through work for my (work-owned) Macbook Pro.

I got to play with Leopard this past week at the Educause conference in Seattle. It's sexy. A friend of mine made an interesting observation last night as he was bitching about how he hated Vista on his new laptop and was tempted to go back to XP: "Vista is just a pretty new face with no new features. Half of my software doesn't work properly with it, so what's the point?" I compared his observations on Vista to the newly released Leopard, which not only looks fantastic, but is packed with lots of new functionality and features. Can't wait to get my hands on Spaces, and Time Machine looks excellent.

Seeing Leopard, I can't believe how far behind Microsoft is. Vista is, at best, comparable to OS X Tiger (if that). If only we could get a Mac into every person's hands without a) telling them it's a Mac and b) showing them the price tag. I think the world would fall in love. And hell, if you really need Windows, use Bootcamp. It worked wonderfully for me, even through beta.

I Switched

My PC died this weekend. I can't say for certain what exactly is shot, but the beast has managed to fry a brand new CPU and now a brand new (and rather expensive) video card.

It is now being dismembered. Remaining good parts (excluding the mainboard and power supply, one of which I'm sure is the culprit here) will be sold on eBay when I get back from Vegas and Seattle next week.

I am now the proud new owner of a 20" 2.4GHz iMac.

Go, me!

I'm 110% happy with my decision to switch. The process of migrating over from Vista to OS X has been painless thus far. This machine is gorgeous, fast, and silent. I bet it even consumes less power.

I heart Apple :)

Does anybody know how to contact Google or Gmail to report abuse?

Like the subject says.

Does anybody have an email address or web link to report abuse to Gmail (Google)?

Their help documents on the subject are an endless circle of FAQ's that never appear to lead to the "form" that they want you to fill out. I can't find the form. Nor can I find an abuse related email address to write to.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

I CAN HAS PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE?

Omg.

Funniest. Thing. Ever.

If you like LOLCats and are a geek, anyway.

Go read this: I CAN HAS PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE?

Thanks to Andy for the laugh!

Self Explanatory

Fun with Windows Re-Activation

I've had to call Microsoft one time in the past to re-activate Windows, after a known bug rendered my machine useless and I had to reinstall my OS. I actually switched to Linux for a year after that particular incident.

Yesterday, while trying to fix an unrelated problem in Vista, I noticed that I was 3 days away from a mandatory validation. It looks like when my new CPU died and I replaced it with the old one, I broke my validation (again).

I've had this installation of Vista on my computer since December 2006. Three months ago, I replaced my CPU and had to re-validate Windows. One month ago, my new CPU died and I put the old one back in, requiring yesterday's re-validation.

Unfortunately, the third time is the charm, and I was not allowed to validate online. I had to call the lovely people overseas/errrr in Redmond.

A woman answered the phone and asked for the validation ID. I gave it to her. She asked if this was a new computer. I explained that it's the same computer, but that I had upgraded the CPU and re-validated, then switched back to the old CPU when the new one failed, requiring this current re-validation.

She did not know what a CPU was. She explained in broken English that I cannot use one copy of Windows on 3 different computers.

Long story short, I re-explained my situation in as plain non-techy terms as I could. Eventually she gave up and cut me off mid-sentence, and started giving me the code I needed to activate Windows.

Whatever. I didn't argue. I took down the code, thanked her, and hung up.

What a joke. Granted, I'm a legitimate user with a legitimate copy of Windows and a legitimate request for re-activation - but apparently, all you need to do is confuse the idiots on the other end of the line until they're sick of listening to you, and they will give you a new activation key.

Way to go, Microsoft! High quality customer service, AND piracy prevention! You're doing great! Keep it up!

Kudos to AppleCare and Vista on a Mac

I got my MacBook Pro back from the Apple Store last week. I have one of the first-gen MacBook Pro's, and was lucky enough to get one with a faulty logic board. The unexpected shutdowns finally got so frequent and so annoying that I brought the thing in to get fixed. I have Apple Care protection on this machine, so I wasn't in any rush. Maybe I should have rushed a bit, as the constant shutdowns ended up killing my hard drive as well.

Lucky for me, Apple Care covered everything - to the tune of $1,299. Holy crap. Everybody should buy Apple Care!!!

Since getting the machine back (they were able to save all of my data - more kudos to Apple Care and the Genius Bar), I had to reinstall some stuff, including Bootcamp and Windows. Turns out, there has been an update in Bootcamp since last I installed it, so I got frisky this time and put Vista on my second partition. (I formerly ran XP on there).

I was quite pleased with the results. My Windows performance scores range from 4.0 (Windows graphics and aero) to 4.7 (processor performance). I've only got the Intel Core Duo CPU - not the Core 2 Duo. I really couldn't be happier with the performance rating. I wasn't expecting it to be as high as it was.

Go Mac!

ESPN Crystal Ball

Pretty cool if you're into fantasy football - ESPN Crystal Ball

Provides projected stats and expert commentary for your team, regardless of what site your team is actually registered to. Just input your roster and the scoring system for your league, and you'll have your very own crystal ball to look into.

I made changes to my fantasy football roster this week based on the Crystal Ball, and they were different from the changes I'd planned to make. We'll see how well I fare...

When Adobe CS3 crashes with that "license has stopped working" error

Note to self:

When Adobe CS3 crashes with that "licensing subsystem has failed catastrophically" or "licensing has stopped working for this program" error, check the Services in Windows:

Solution 2: Restart and enable the FLEXnet Licensing Service. (Windows Only)

1. Open the Administrative Tools control panel.
2. Double click "Services".
3. Scroll down to FLEXnet Licensing Service on the list of service and double-click the service to open its properties.
4. Change the Startup type to Manual.
5. Click the Start button to start the service.
6. Restart your Creative Suite 3 application.

(This isn't the first time I've run into this problem. Oy!)

AMD's Non-Existent Warranty for OEM CPU's

Remember that great processor I bought for my computer? The one I was so lucky to find, because they don't make them anymore and it's the fastest available CPU that my old motherboard will support?

It's dead. 3 weeks past the warranty return date.

You see, normally you get a 3 year warranty on CPU's. However, that's only for retail boxed CPU's. If you buy a component that is not packaged for retail sale - an OEM component (typically sold to companies that make computers - original equipment manufacturers) - at least by AMD's terms, your warranty is limited to whatever warranty your place of sale provides. AMD provides NO warranty on OEM CPU's, at least not to consumers.

My place of sale (newegg.com) provides a 30 day warranty on OEM CPU's.

I have never liked newegg to begin with. I prefer zipzoomfly.com, but ZZF didn't have the CPU I needed in stock back on July 15, 2007 when I was ordering it.

I woke up this morning to a black screen on my monitor. I noticed that my keyboard LED's were off (the backlighting to the keys on my keyboard). Weird, but the system still had power. It was on. The monitor was getting no signal. Alrighty, whatever. Reboot.

The talking lady inside my computer came on and, in a very concerned voice, repeated incessantly, "System reports CPU failure! System reports CPU failure!"

Fuck.

Except I didn't really say "fuck" at that time. I sighed, shut the machine down, and started taking it apart, knowing I still had my old CPU tucked safely away in its protective case. (Good thing I didn't sell it on ebay last week when I was all about getting rid of my old computer parts).
I took the "new" CPU out (it was HOT as hell) and put my old CPU back in. Closed her up, powered on, booted up, and here I am.

Then I went to newegg.com to print out my invoice and get the date of purchase. I was shocked that it was 7 weeks ago, really. It felt more like 3. I was sure I'd be within the 30 day time frame. Not so.

I've done RMA's (return merchandise authorizations) on computer parts before, and have never really had any trouble. Western Digital has a good RMA service, as does Maxtor (though I've used Maxtor's WAY more than anybody should - I mean, it's great that they make it easy to return their failed components, but their components shouldn't fail so friggin much). Anyway, after a mildly frustrating experience discovering that AMD's RMA web site requires Internet Explorer (no, they don't mention it - it just doesn't work in Firefox), I entered all of my CPU information only to find that my CPU was not in their database. Then, this notation:

The processor serial number you have entered has not been found in our records and the processor cannot be registered online.

If this is an AMD retail packaged Processor in a Box and you have proof of purchase, please contact your regional Technical Service Center to request an RMA.

If this processor is not an AMD retail packaged Processor in a Box you will need to contact the company from which you purchased your processor or computer system to obtain any warranty replacement to which you may be entitled.

Not found in AMD database.

Oh my. This is not a retail box processor. That means I'm limited to newegg.com's return policy.

That's 30 days.

It has been more than 30 days.

(Here's where the "Fuck" came in. Sorry for the premature slinging of profanities).

It's just my luck, really. $95.99 down the drain. Gone. Vanished. Up in smoke. All for 7 weeks of fast computer processing speeds. That's almost $14/week.

It was not worth it.

You're probably asking, "Well, why didn't you buy the retail boxed version, then?"

2 reasons:

1. There wasn't one available (I do prefer retail boxed components whenever possible).

2. Most manufacturers still support returns of OEM equipment as long as you have proof of purchase, which I have. The terms are usually shorter. In fact, when I worked at the computer shop, AMD OEM CPU's had a 1 year warranty, while boxed chips had the 3 year warranty.

At any rate, I'd have never guessed a 30 day warranty on a CPU. Never. Actually, I've never seen a manufacturer NOT support their OEM products! AMD offers NO warranty on an OEM CPU! That's just ridiculous. What do PC manufacturers do when they get dead parts (which DOES happen)? Maybe this is just their policy with private consumers.

I don't know, but my opinion of AMD has just dropped HUGE.

Anyone want a dead AMD 64 X2 4200+ dual core CPU? They make great keychains.

Why are so many nerds Libertarians?

I was interested when Google Reader fed me this tidbit from an article at Slashdot: Why are so many nerds Libertarians?

Unfortunately, it was just flame bait and not an actual article. Boooo.

Are you a geek?

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