Albany Revealed

I wrote a while back about an invite I received from Microsoft regarding a new private external beta codenamed Albany.  They finally revealed exactly what it is, and it sounds sort of interesting from a business angle, though not so much from an end-user point of view.

This morning, Microsoft announced the managed beta for Albany, which is codename for a bundle that includes Office 2007 Home and Student, Windows Live OneCare and supporting online services, such as mail and messaging.

So while its an interesting concept, I already use all of those products individually, which means all I’ll really be evaluating, so far as I can tell, is the process by which they’re delivered.  Being that eventually most business models will inevitably morph into a software + services concept, this should be an interesting look at how that will play out.

I’ll be blogging about my experience with the beta, which is expected to be rolled out in the coming days.

PC Upgrades, Problems

I decided it was time to do a few much needed upgrades to my PC, and ordered an LCD monitor, keyboard and RAM.  I also purchased a new wireless mouse.  None of these were really impulse buys – I’ve been mentally shopping for the monitor and keyboard since early last year, since my keyboard has been slowly getting worse, as keys don’t always spring back as they should and so on.  And the monitor I’m retiring I purchased refurbished in 2002, and it was a deal then – under $200 for a ‘flat screen’ (i.e. not as curved as most, but not completely flat) 19″ CRT.  It wasn’t in great shape cosmetically, but I took it apart and painted it black, using Fusion paint.  It worked very well, and no one ever questioned that it came from the factory as a black unit (giggity).

As far as upgrading the monitor goes, I really didn’t want to move to LCD.  Without spending big, big bucks on a professional grade LCD, it seems to be a universally accepted truth that there is a considerable loss of crispness and such as compared to CRT displays.  Naturally, because I’m cheap, I didn’t want to spend much, so I opted for a 22″ widescreen Acer, that was very well-reviewed.  After making the swap yesterday, I’m extremely impressed.  Not only is there not much difference between the quality of my old CRT and this Acer, but the amount of screen real estate a 22″ widescreen provides is staggering compared to a 4:3 19″.  I’ve long known that widescreen offers more usable screen area, since it more appropriately matches our horizontally-biased field of view, but even that didn’t prepare me for how much space this thing provides.  My Vista desktop is huge and gorgeous.  I’m very happy with that purchase.

The keyboard I got is a Logitech G11, and I like it as well, though I’ve really not had a chance to get used to it, or to use it in low light where it being backlit would be advantageous.  But so far, so good.  While on the subject of input devices, the mouse I purchased is a Logitech as well, though I’m not certain of the exact model.  I’ve used both Microsoft and Logitech mice & keyboards over the years, and while MS makes a fine product, I’ve generally been more consistently impressed with Logitech’s offerings.  They’ve got a customer for life.

And now the problems…

I also purchased 2GB of G-Skill RAM (2×1GB) for the desktop, simply to extend its life a bit more.  And when it comes to Vista, 2GB is analogous to 1GB with XP.  Anything less can be annoying and sometimes frustrating.  Anyhow, I popped the new sticks in and couldn’t even boot.  Repeated BSOD’s right after post some times, then if it ever got beyond that point, it would BSOD while loading Windows.  I’d get the progress bar for a few seconds, then BSOD.  At first I thought the problem was the RAM, so I replaced the old sticks, and then BSOD’d further into Vista’s boot sequence.  Turns out I had another problem with the monitor, as I had left both the VGA and DVI-D cables attached, per Acer’s instructions.  Removing the VGA solved that.  However, when Windows would greet me with the safe mode prompt, my keyboard wouldn’t function.  That’s actually been a problem in the past, though once in Windows everything functions properly.  Anyhow, using a different USB port solved that.  After correcting those other issues (VGA, USB), I reinstalled the new RAM, and sure enough, BSOD after post.

I’ve requested and RMA from NewEgg, and hope to get my replacements within a couple of weeks.  I’ll post an update then, and hopefully its good news.

Albany

I was invited by Microsoft to participate in a beta test of a product code named “Albany”.  While I have no idea what it is, the beta programs for OneCare, Vista and Live were all pretty interesting (and surprisingly stable experiences), so I’m anxious to get started.

More murky details to come, I’m sure. 

Big Dog

I can’t think of any video that has ever frightened me to the degree that this does.

Boston Dynamics Big Dog

If you’re not scared, you should be.  Imagine a few dozen of these fuckers, autonomously chasing your ass down the street.

Wistful Gaming

So, I just got a hold of a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon (yes, the original), a game that kicks a lot of ass, especially for a coaster dork such as yours truly.  I have RCT3, but its too resource-heavy once your park gets real big.  Anyway, I took a look at the system specs, out of curiosity:

Pentium II 350 MHz CPU
Windows 95/98
64 MB RAM
8X CD ROM DRIVE
at least 180 MB free hard drive space
4 MB accelerated SVGA card
Windows 95 compatible Sound Card
DirectX 5.0 (included on CD)

This shouldn’t really be surprising, seeing as how RCT first came out  in 1999, but wow!  Its always interesting to look back at what was, especially in the realm of PC technology.  As a comparison, this is how my work PC stacks up:

Intel Core2 6700 (2660 MHz)
Windows XP SP2
2048 MB RAM
153600 MB hard drive
256 MB SATA graphics card
DirectX 9.0

Feed Me!

RSS feeds epitomize what the internet is really all about – content you want, delivered on your terms.  Its quite obviously different from most other media that’s existed in the past, and has actually influenced older delivery systems, the most obvious of which is cable and satellite TV distribution.  TiVo and/or DVR has changed the way most people consume televised media, though without the internet as a competitive device, its hard to say how much longer such a device would have taken to come to realization, if it came at all.

I’m an avid subscriber to RSS – I have nearly 20 feeds that I subscribe to, which has made it somewhat cumbersome to keep things neatly organized in a way that makes sense and doesn’t require substantial effort.  I use Windows Live Mail Desktop as my email client, both at work and at home, which has feed reading capabilities.  However Microsoft doesn’t allow for any way to synchronize my subscriptions across machines.  Rather, I’m forced to subscribe to my feeds manually in both locations, and even more cumbersome, I have to deal with the fact that even though my work PC knows I’ve read a particular feed, my home PC won’t know, and I have to “mark as read” with great frequency.  That’s irritating.

So, I went in search of a solution, and came across FeedDemon, which is a free program that is both an RSS reader, as well as  an optional (and also free) account-based manager.  That is, if you create a free account, your RSS stuff is synchronized – even marking read and unread feeds appropriately anywhere you use the program.  That’s exactly what I wanted!  But wait – there’s more!  I also subscribe to RSS feeds of my favorite podcasts, so that I get notified when a new podcast is up.  FeedDemon allows you to optionally automatically download new podcasts!  That takes all the ‘leg work’ out of it, and makes RSS work as it was intended – providing content on my terms.

Project Io – Coming September 2008

So, I’ve long been anticipating building a new PC, and have put off half-assing it, since I want to do it right.  I’ve only got a loose framework for what I want so far, and really, thinking beyond that is futile anyhow, given how quickly things change in the PC hardware world.  However, I do have a name for the new rig: Io.  And here are the very basic specs:

Intel Quad Core CPU

4GB DDR3 RAM

150GB WD Raptor HDD

GeForce 8800GTX 768MB

So that’s that.  And now I have a target date: September 7th, 2008.  Why?  Because that’s when Spore comes out.