I am in New York this weekend preparing for the public lauch of WestlawNext – the groundbreaking legal research search application from West. While here I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Alexander Hamilton’s grave. Hamilton is my favorite founding father so this was a warm moment for me. I also added a few shots of a WestlawNext ad in Time Square.
This is the most snow in one night I have seen since the blizzard in St. Louis in 1982. Merry Christmas!
WOW. Get this now! Windows 7 Family Pack (3 licenses) for $2.00 from an Amazon seller! HERE
Granted this is from a new seller, Amazon is reputable and it’s only $2.00. I ordered it today; I’ll let you know if any problems occur. $2.00 for three licenses of Win 7 raises many questions indeed. I trust Amazon, so I’m willing to take the risk.
Update: Looks like amazon took the item down … I have received an order confirmation, but no cancellation of order notice. the item is no longer in my order history and the storefront for the seller Kelvin N. Shaw has been taken down. Boo on you if you reported this seller, unless he’s violationg Amazon’s TOS, then yay on you.
There was quite a buzz last week from Google, they released the source code for their foray into the Operating System market: Chrome OS. As readers may know, I have a Dell Mini 9. I have installed Windows 7 and Moblin and Ubuntu. All are easy to install and take up various amounts of hard disk space with Win7 taking up 90% of the 6Gb SSD. So when I heard Google was going to come out with an OS that is designed specifically for netbooks I was interested. Google makes some very nice software. I think that they collect way to much user data, however, they are a marketing company.
So when Google released their “pre” beta, I jumped at the chance. gdgt, a burgeoning gadget site with no discernable revenue model, put a compiled version of the source code up for download. I downloaded here. To use this “pre” beta you have to run it in a virtual machine. I tried to get it working in VMWare and failed, so I used Virtual Box. Virtual box is easier to download and dead easy to set up.
I set this up on my Gateway NV-52. AMD Proc, 4Gb RAM ATi Radeon3200 HD. Here is how you do it
Download Chrome from gdgt here, extract to an easy to access folder. You are going to have to point to this later. Then download and install Virtual box Virtual Box. Open the app and select ‘new’
Don’t read the message, just click ‘next’. You will then be asked to name your OS and identify what kind of OS. I chose the innovative ‘ChromeOS’. For type I select “Linux” and “Other Linux” for Version
Then click ‘next’. the next screen will ask you to select a memory size. I chose the completely arbitrary amount of 512 MB.
Click ‘next’. Here is an important part. for hard disk, select ‘use existing hard disk’ Browse to where you expanded your Chrome OS download.
Click ‘next’. You are pretty much done. If you have the ability to follow directions, you should see a screen eerily similar to the one below.
Click ‘finish’. You should see this screen. the next part is very important if you want to browse the internets from Chrome OS! Click the ‘Settings’ icon and then select ‘Network’. For Adapter 1, change the ‘Attached to’ selection to ‘Bridged Adapter’ then in ‘Name’ select the adapter you computer is connecting with.
click ok. You are ready to run Chrome! Click the Green ‘Start’ icon and get ready for the most underwhelming OS beta you have ever used!
So here is Chrome running in my Win7 environment using virtual box. What you see below is the start panel – its the only new screen you will see in the OS.
I was amazingly underwhelmed by ChromeOS. Specifically, all this it represents is an OS that boots to a dedicated browser. wow. Further, you can access dedicated Google Applications. wow. Other applications are bookmarks to an URL. so the calculator is an internet based app. I admit that I think this is precisely where the OS is headed. There is simply no reason to have installed application for a home based personal PC (productivity PCs are a different story).
Regardless, there is really nothing to see, do or test in the ChomeOS beta. its basically Chrome browser booting from firmware. This begs the question … what is GOOG going to do with this … thing? Its just a Linux build? Will it get Ubuntu or Win7 off netbooks? Will developers go for it because its cheap? Who knows, apart from brand loyalty and Win hatred, there has to be some compelling reason to use this. Will GOOG make it somehow easier to access your google data? GOOG has some amazing developers so only time will tell
Microsoft has been manufacturing (or licensing the manufacture of) keyboard, mice and other quality peripherals for quite sometime. I use the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000
It comes with the bluetrack mouse, however, I use the Habu Laser Mouse
I cant really speak to its gaming capabilities. Although it is not built specifically for gaming, there is nothing about the keyboard that would make me think it would suffer in a gaming session.
All said, this is a quality keyboard.
I got a Gateway NV-52 recently and so far I am very happy with it.
I am typically a fan of Dell. Its not that they make the most compelling computers – although they do have a wide variety to choose from – its that their warranty is so compelling. I have an DELL XPS 420
Dell has a reasonable machine in this space, but my eye was captured by the Gateway NV52. It has a large comfortable keyboard with a full sized number pad and a gorgeous display. I am going to use it mostly for hobbyist stuff and moderate gaming so that dual-core AMD Turion at 2.17 Ghz is acceptable – plus its nice to have an AMD proc back in my hands.
The laptop came with Windows 7 Home Premium a fine OS selection. Above the keyboard is a touch sensitive area to enable wireless, mouse pad gestures, file copy, and volume. Laptops now-a-days all have these kind of buttons. I don’t get it .. why they need to be touch sensitive, but oh well.
The audio is some Dolby thing that is supposed to be good, but its a frakking $500 laptop – I don’t expect to have awesome audio. Regardless, the sound is strong.
Performance wise its a performer. I have ripped a few DVDs without being concerned about the speed of the DVD multi-drive. I can run SimCity and Command & Conquer just fine. I don’t think I will ever run a FPS on this machine.
I’d love to expand to 8Gb of Ram but at half the price of the laptop … Ill live with 4Gb.
My only concern is warranty. I hope to have this PC is solid shape for about 3 years. My Dells last that long without a problem. So far this thing runs like a champ but what I hear about Gateway warranty mildly scares me.
If you need to expand the range of your wireless network *use this* Hawking HWREN1 Hi-Gain USB Wireless 300N Range Extender
Recently we moved from a fairly dense compact townhome to a more spread out house. It was a great move for our family. The trouble is, I run wireless for internet. I use the D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router
to overcome the weak signal, I first tried a Belkin power line extender and it did not perform as I needed it to so I returned it. I replaced that technology with the Hawking Hi-Gain. this little baby performs exactly i wanted it to. The set up is easy and connects to your network like another device. Connecting it is easy too, just connect to it from your wireless interface. After connecting, I got 12 down and 6 up on my Comcast high-speed connection.
Set upi is easy and performance is great – highly recommended.
Question: what makes taking two 16 hour drives “worth it”?
Answer: 4 year old daughter’s face when Miley Cyrus took the stage:
Yes, 16 hours – twice. We drove down to St. Louis earlier this month for the concert, but miley got sick. So we had to drive down again earlier this week for the rescheduled date. Last night, October 28, 2009, I attended the miley Cyrus concert with my daughter in St. Louis, Missouri. I have been to many concerts and club shows in my life, I have never been to a “pop” concert. My daughter is 4, it was her first. I was 13 when I first went to a concert. That was Pink Floyd in November if 1987.
Aubrey picked out a special outfit and has been fired up for this concert for months:
I am in no way a Miley Cyrus “fan”. I will say, however, it was a pretty good show. Metro Station opened up. I actually like Metro Stations debut album. I did not know that another Cyrus is the lead of that band – it was announced last night that Trey Cyrus is the lead singer. I was let down by thier set.
Miley came out about 8:00 p.m. Miley’s age shows. Its pretty clear she wants to be taken as a serious musician and shake off the chains of Hannah Montana. I think that will be difficult with corporate ads plastered all over the stage, however, and choreography which requires Miley to ride a motorcycle through the air suspended by cables. Miley also ran a trailer for her new movie – I’ve never seen that at an indie show 
. I applaud her getting the tween and toddler market fired up for a coming of age story but geez, give it a break already. I had to continually remind myself this was about “entertainment” not music. Regardless, my daughter had the time of her life. I got her a shirt, program and “flashy stick”.
Im getting alot of hits and emails about installing Windows 7 on a Dell 1501. I have installed the Beta, RC1, RTM and retail version on this machine. Here I discuss installing the Beta.
The 1501 is somewhat tricky to install on. The hardware I have does *not* have a DVD ROM, so I have to use an external DVD ROM. I use an old xbox 360 HD DVD player – it hooks up through USB and every damn computer I have ever used, including various linux builds, recognize the damn thing. I also install it hardware to the internets so that I can get all driver updates. I did this by habit when I installed retail so I do not know if it comes with the retail drivers. My daughter is mildly fed up with me continuing to erase her tinkerbell desktop wallpaper so I dont think I’m going to go through the exercise again.
Regardless, Windows 7 on an AMD Turion and 2 Gb of RAM is a very slick machine – it runs very very well – better than XP. In fact the performance reminds me of the Win98SE days when I would use 98lite to trim down my OS install.
Today is Windows 7 Party day. For my party some work compadres and I are going to go to BDubs for lunch. My wife and I made some Windows 7 cupcakes and distributed them at work along with the bags and napkins. fun was had by all.
I generally have a good ironic sense of humor, so when a workmate emailed me the picture below … I had a good laugh. By the way I dont have an iPhone
