I hate to be one of those types who bashes an OS but, Ubuntu, seriously, you’re not going to win over the average customer anytime soon.

I installed 9.04 on my Dell XPS 420 a few weeks back. I do like what they did from 8.10, mainly in regards to the faster boot times, installation process, and newly added themes. I immediately was able to get my desktop looking how I liked it without having to edit endless config files to adjust fonts (oh how I wanted to pull my hair out back then).

Things were great until I played a DIVX video. Yes, I was using the correct ATI 2600 XT driver and, yes, the correct codecs were found. But, something weird was happening in 9.04 that didn’t happen in 8.10. Whenever I went into fullscreen mode, the system would freeze about 2/3 of the time, with no response from the keyboard. In the end I had to force a power off and start again. Frustrated, I went back to trusty Windows.

Then, I figured I’d give it another chance.

I decided to try and see if it could recognize my network printer, connected via a Windows 2003 server (SAMBA). Using Gnome-Do to pull up the Printing settings, I was ready to search the network and find a printer.

No luck though, as once I browsed for my server, the entire box closes off. Gone! Even trying to enter the printer path manually and hitting “Verify” would subsequently shut off the printer windows. AAAAAHHHH!!!! Now, I’m no hardcore linux coder, but I thought this was linux for human beings!

So, I gave up. While the compiz effects and multiple desktops were nice, if I can’t print or watch my movies on a shiny new distro, it’s of no use for me.

I would love for some linux geek to show me what is wrong with this, or what config files I need to tweak, but it shouldn’t come to this. Linux has its own niche among those types of tech savvy users, but it will never be as user friendly as Windows or OS X. It has a long way to go for that to happen.

I will admit though, on my netbook, video played fine full screen. Maybe it’s just the shitty ATI drivers available.

I recently converted my Vista workstation to Windows 2008, for it being the obvious choice for a web developer. At the time, my machine was purchased from a consumer electronics store with Vista Home Premium preinstalled. Since I’m the only PC in an all-mac shop, they don’t have too many Windows-based workstations lying around.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Dreamspark program, any college student (or one who still can access their college email) can obtain several pieces of Microsoft development software. I’ve made my rounds, certainly, but was giddy when I noticed Windows 2008 Server was added to the list (I’m already runnning my copy of Windows 2003 Server R2 on my home server). I couldn’t wait to try it out.

The install was a breeze. I both partitioned (using GParted) and installed the OS in less than an hour along side my Vista installation. It didn’t recognize my NIC but obtaining the driver was a matter of downloading it onto the other OS and copying it over. The subsequent updates installed quick however and after enabling the Desktop Experience and Windows Search, I was able to actually USE the OS.

Let me say I was impressed. Like many others who have done this workstation conversion, it definatly is snappier. My memory footprint was about 1/3 less than Vista and everything just seemed to load quickly. Even with a couple VM sessions running in addition to other application installations, it was still snappy. It was amazing, considering that it shares the same code-base as Vista SP1.

Not only was the nice boost in speed welcomed, but I get to use some of the other features that, well, should be part of any Vista installation, such as Remote Desktop, better password management, and group policy management, just to name a few.

Overall, it’s a nice solid OS and I am very pleased. I would recommend this to anyone who can get their hands on a copy. I’m even able to play my games on it.

I use Remote Desktop to connect to several servers during the day. At work and at home, I use a Vista Home Premium machine. The servers I connect to range from Windows 2000, to 2003, to 2008.

I’ve noticed that when I try to save to save credentials for these hosts, but then reboot my machine (client), the only password that does not get saved is the one for Windows 2008 Server. The other machines (2000 and 2003) at least saved the passwords and didn’t prompt me on the client side when connecting (OK, fine, Windows 2000 did prompt me on the server side but that’s due to the new security later in RDP 6).

To fix this forgotten password issue, I simply changed the security layer setting on the host to RDP Security Layer instead of Negotiate (which puts you in SSL mode if the client supports it). This setting is found in Terminal Services Configuration under Administrative Tools. After this change, I’m no longer prompted for my password on the client side when connecting, just like my other connections.

Windows Live Mail has been out for quite some time and it is a very nice breath of fresh air coming from Outlook Express. It’s a free application from Microsoft that can be ran on top of Vista or XP.

One quirk I noticed was one caused by Vista’s Instant Search when searching for Contacts located in Windows Live Mail. I would search for a contact and it would display twice in the search results. This is kind of annoying. Thankfully, there’s an easy fix.

The issue extends from how Instant Search automatically indexes the AppData folder under C:\Users, which contains data related to most of your programs. The issue is that there are in fact two folders containing your contacts, both of which are located in the folder C:\Users\<YOURUSER>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Contacts\<EMAILACCOUNT>. In this folder are two additional folders, real and shadow. The shadow folder contains a backup of your contacts in real. It isn’t necessary to index both these, so we need to tweak the index locations. Here’s how:

1. Because real and shadow aren’t allowed to be indexed by default, Instant Search will not allow you to modify them under Index Options. To remedy this, right-click on shadow, click on Advanced, and check Index this folder for faster searching.
2. Launch Indexing Options under Control Panel.
3. Navigate to C:\Users\<YOURUSER>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail\Contacts\<EMAILACCOUNT> and uncheck the folder shadow. This will tell the indexer not to index this folder of duplicate contacts.
4. Click OK and close the Indexing Options window.
5. Allow for the indexer to update and you’re good to go.