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This is truly an exciting day for me. The buzz around Microsoft’s latest OS reminds me of the release of Windows 95. Back then it was the new platform, moving away from the DOS/Windows separate systems and memory issues. It was a fun time.
Now, many of us have used Windows XP for eight years or so, not liking the newer, problematic OS’s which have been released. I have used Windows 7, and I like it and I know it will be the OS that corporations replace their aging Windows XP machines with. It’s always a good feeling when things are moving forward in a positive direction
Happy Windows 7 Day!!
It feels a bit strange seeing the one plus terabyte drives roll out to the market. It reminds me a lot of when the one plus gigabyte drives came out. It all really seems the same: sizes, pricing, amazement.
I look at some drives sitting around my desk; removed some time ago do the the plowing of a machine (I prefer a new hdd over erasing a current one). I look at a drive, 80GB hmm, that seems small. Really, did I just think that–yes I did. Simply because the 500GB drive I have installed now has plenty of space on it. This is no different than when it was 80MB drive and I had that first 720 MB drive in my main machine. This all really has the same smell.
Funny, even though I balked at that 80GB drive, I plugged it in to load up my Windows 7 beta. You know what, there was more than enough room for Win7, VS2010, Office 2007, etc.
What are we doing with all this extra space we have on these drives?
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this today on DNR show number 458 (great show by the way). Scott Hanselman was explaining how he mutli-boots his machine not using partitions but VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) files. There is a way in Window 7 to point your boot loader to, and run from a VHD file. The OS DOES NOT run in a VM, it is running on bare metal! The only down side is a slight reduction in disk I/O, but hell, what a traid-off!
My first question is that VHD transferable to a VM? Sure all the hardware would change but would it work? I’d really not like to go the other way, that seems even messier to me.
Ah hell what does it matter, I can boot OS’s from a file!, save them easily and move them around. What a great/easy way to checkout new software. Seeing that I am just getting into vs2008 and vs2010 beta 1 is out and I want to check it out. This way I can with out plowing my machine or messing up my current build.
I know I am going to try this one out on my new Windows 7 RC1 installation. I will write it up here while I am doing it.
Here is an artical from Keith Combs and another from TechNet Edge
There has been a lot of positive buzz about Windows 7; a lot of stuff that has me excited about it. As a user of Windows XP, I want to move on. Vista is ‘nice’ but didn’t really deliver anything extra for me. Sure some nice eye candy, and perhaps nicer plug and pray, but what a pig. It’s just a system hog, and I wasn’t ready to update any computers yet.
With the release of Windows 7 on October 22nd. 2009 I will be purchasing a new laptop with windows 7, and will probably get a version for my main desktop machine. Though it’s only an AMD 4000, I don’t think I will have any trouble running Windows 7. It’s that machine I am installing on today so I will be able to compare performance from the same system running Windows XP and Windows 7.
I received a product key, downloaded the iso and burned a new DVD. For the system I grabbed an old 80GB hdd I am not using any longer and put it as the sole drive.
Never really using Vista myself (of course I have seen it and helped others with it) I don’t know it intimately. This is going to create a bit of a learning curve here. The installation moved along pretty smoothly; couple reboots, nothing special–then it happened.
Black screen. I had a black screen with nothing more then version informaion at the lower right hand corner:
Evaluation copy. Build 7100.
I was still able to move the mouse pointer around the screen, but couldn’t do anything else. I tried restarting, removing unneeded stuff, reloading. Nothing was fixing it. Time to hit the web. It didn’t take too long to find, ten-fifteen minutes, I ran into this website, http://windows7forums.com, and they had a thread on this very issue. It is definitely a monitor/video issue, though some of the resolutions where slightly different.
For me, it was having two monitors connected while loading. Once I disconnected the second monitor from my system, Windows 7 was able to finish it’s “first time boot” and setup the environment. Wow there is a lot of eye candy here!
I am running around setting stuff up, checking things out. (cool wallpaper schems). Let’s set up taskmgr to launch on start up.
Hey, why can’t I add a new shortcut on a right-click? That’s a pain, what am I missing?
I created the shortcut to taskmgr on the desktop and copied it to the startup folder. When I did that I was prompted for Admin rights to do that. That is interesting, not sure if like that. I guess I need to take some time to look into security. Specially since that was the single reason so many people hated Vista, it locked up so many areas breaking shit. Whatever, as long as they haven’t totally abstracted everything away, there will be a solution.
Since I am trying out a new OS, I might as well load up a beta IDE too. So I am now in the middle of loading up VS2010. I have no idea if I will have any time to work with it, but I hope I make the time.
Windows 7 changing the wallpaper automagically is weird. I dig it though.
Interesting, SQL 2008 (bundled with VS2010 beta) must be at SP1 or higher to work with Winows7. I am glad it let me know while loading it.
Everytime I reboot and see that long-lived black screen, I get nervous that the system will lock again.
At this point, I will have to say that Winows 7 is running as well as a new installation of winows XP does. It boots as fast plus launches and runs apps as fast. Can’t wait until I get more stuff loaded.
For months and months now I have asked myself, “Self, what language next, Ruby, Python, something else?” and has driven me crazy. Someday I will ask myself why I spent so much time thinking about it instead of just digging in to something. Well the real truth to that is time. Sure I have spent time on the Ruby site going through browser-enabled 15 minute intro and some general reading. It never really sticks until you throw together a couple of apps.
Over the last eight months I have been on a big web front end kick, getting myself up to speed on web display stuff like CSS, JavaScript, and jquery. It’s been a lot of fun, but I really am not a good page designer, so besides reproducting current layouts there wasn’t a real lot for me to do.
And there is always ASP.NET MVC which I have been following and learning off and on since August of 2008. Having the web skills when putting together some learning MVC sites was really useful. Don’t worry, I wont go on another, “I love MVC…”, rant.
Saturday morning I was in our local library with my two sons picking out movies reading some books, messing around and found myself at the card catalog computer screen. Hey do you remember actual card catalogs, the rows and rows of drawers which contained cards of all the books in the library. Here is one area computers help one-billion percent. Anyway, I did my usual search for ASP.NET, came up with the same books as usual. A 2008 book I had already checked out (and didn’t like too much) during my web learning, and some older stuff. Oh hum I thought….
Than I had an idea and started typing
ruby programming
A match, wow a match and a recent book too. I was was feeling a bit excited. Okay, let’s try another
python programming
Ah, nothing on that one. Well that settles it—right, wrong or indifferent, I will start with Ruby. Well, I have always been leaning this way anyhow. The exposure I have had, I have liked, now to come up with an app to put together. Then of course if I get my arms around the language I will have to move on to Rails, and Iron Ruby (Uses .NET’s DLR).
After searching and searching for a new web host who can provide me with Windows 2008 server and decent number of MS SQL databases without breaking the bank (>$20 / mo.), I finally found one to sign up with and try out. That company is Planet Small Business hosting, wish me luck!
5/1/2009@1600:
First thing to run into, is that it seems account setup is a manual (human-driven) process. I couldn’t pay and keep going with the setup. Just for the record, I finished my payment by 1600 on Friday, May 1, 2009.
5/1/2009@1620:
OK, Site was available in about 20 minutes, that is acceptable. Well as long as it’s automated and I can set up stuff at 2am.
5/1/2009@1645:
45 minutes into this setup, and no email from them about the site. I do have access to it though. What are their DNS addresses, I can’t find them anywhere.
5/1/2009@1808:
I sent a ticket into tech support asking about DNS server address and email, and they replied in 10 minutes. I sent this at 1805 and received it at 0614, that’s good response(!). Once DNS propagates, I should be good to go. With n0t getting the email, I wonder if Yahoo! has blacklisted them; it happens.
Well not in this case, the emails where in my junk folder, not sure how I missed them the first time. Oh well, one of these days I will learn how to use an email client.
5/1/2009@2030
The host uses a new version of Plesk. Pretty easy finding things, speed is tolerable. Now it’s just taking the time to configure the server and how they run things. So far it’s looking OK.
5/1/09@2130
Hey cool! I have been a little bummed over the fact that PlanetSMB only allows one domain (unlimited aliases). I was wondering how I was going to host all of my domains. I wasn’t really interested in purchasing separate packages, as it would be a pain flipping between them. Well I discovered it just now, their reseller plans support multiple domains, and at a fair price, and still with UNLIMITED MS SQL databases. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
But before I get too excited here, I need to get my applications loaded up on the site and see how the run.
5/4/09@2259
I have loaded up two of my ASP.NET MVC applications and they are both running perfectly. One of the two uses SQL2008, and that is working great to. I must say I like Plesk 9.2 a whole lot better than HELM 3.16, which is getting quite dated. All the stuff available to me for $5 a month is just great. If you are a .NET developer and need a place to throw your stuff, this is it. The systems are ready to rock ‘n roll.
OK here is a big wtf they are pulling. The mid level developer package I am using only allow 1 mailbox. Yeah you read that correctly, one mailbox. You can alias other email addresses to it, but still only one box. Very, strange. Even their reseller packages are pretty restricted on mailboxes.
There is no doubt, if service levels remain the same, I will move all my domains over to planetsmb.com using a reseller package for multiple domain support.
5/26/2009: It’s been a few weeks I have been using PlanetSMB and everything is fine. I setup a DotNetNuke portal pretty painlessly and haven’t had any issues with my .NET 3.5 sites. I like the fact that I can setup a new database for whatever and not have to worry about running out of allotted databases. Makes life much easier when your host doesn’t get in your way.
Come this August I will be moving all my domains from iHostasp.net to PlanetSMB, as my iHostasp.net account lapses in September. I am planning for a happy future with my new host.
These are great, from a software engineering point of view.
It’s been a few months since I have wanted to try this out and I finally have; I am using Elmah on one of my website to track errors. Thankfully there are very few, but the experience of getting it setup is always worth it.
I am impressed on how many ways it can log, to name a few there are MSSql, Oracle, SQLite, MS Access, VistaDB, XML, memory, and others I believe. I opted for the SQLite option, as Elmah builds the database on the fly if it doesn’t exist (same with VistaDB).
My main reason I didn’t set it up right away was I just couldn’t find a flat guide on how to set it up. Nothing really says, do this, this, then this. Well it’s a slow day today, so I took another quick look at the website http://code.google.com/p/elmah/, downloaded the source, and moved forward. There is this neat demo you can run from the source by running the demo.cmd file in the root of the zip file.
That demo, it’s web.config, and the web.config located under \samples, was all I needed to get started. Pretty easy to add the parts to the web.config of my website and get everything working. A real simple package to get up and running.
Next up, work on filtering out items I don’t want logged in Elmah.
This is one of my favorite posts at stackoverflow.com.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/84556/whats-your-favorite-programmer-cartoon
OK John I couldn’t wait, so I tried it out now, this is what I did. It installed for me, no problem, only took a couple of minutes.
Here are the basic steps I took:
If you like you can look at it here: http://wp.brettski.com