All is not Well on the other side of the Window.

According to an article in ComputerWorld, and Microsoft's forum, Windows 7 is running into Microsoft's customary initial release problems. Apparently something is going wrong in the upgrade process that causes it hang up about two-thirds of the way through and then go into a looping boot. Something similar happened with Vista, and the same thing happened again with Vista SP1. When I was doing support for the largest global seller of computers, we spent about three months taking a large volume of calls on this.

The article doesn't give a clear percentage, but there are a lot of people having this problem. Microsoft maybe a victim of their own success here. Any IT guy worth his salt knows that even in ideal conditions you occasionally get a bad install. It could be a bad disk, a bad hard drive, a bad .iso image, etc. It happens. With MS, if just one percent of users worldwide are having a problem, you're talking about figures in the millions. For percentages between 10% to 20%, you're talking more users than some countries have population; counting the living, the dead, and otherwise (yay zombies!) (Disclaimer, I'm making up figures here. Give or take a decimal point as seems appropriate.)

Is it a serious problem when a million people are all having the same issue with their shiny new $200 product. Yes. Can you really say a million or so people out of a nearly a billion customers is huge? No. Microsoft is kind of between a rock and a hard place here. I don't envy them the potentially bad PR here. After Vista, they really can't afford it.(Read sarcasm here.) Their user base could drop to 94% while Apple's increases a percentage point.

A lot of users are complaining that their systems are hosed and unusable after attempting the upgrade. They want to blame Microsoft for that. After doing tech support for a year, I think this is unfair. Here's why:

1.) Microsoft and computer manufacturers provide the means for people to make re-installation copies of their OS. HP calls them recovery discs. Dell calls them rescue discs. If you have a store-bought copy of Windows (for a full install, not the upgrade) there's a feature built into it that let's you make your own custom rescue disk. (I did this in class once. It was the precursor to making an image that we installed on a number of clients over our network.) Does the average person take the time to make these rescue discs? No. On HP computers, the system practically screams at you to do it, and you have to actively skip doing it the first time you boot the system.

I used a car accident analogy at work. If you don't wear your seatbelt, smash your car, and go flying through the windshield; that's not Honda's fault. In fact, if you survive, you get a ticket for not wearing your seatbelt. If you don't make your re-install discs, your system crashes, and you can't reinstall your OS, that's not Microsoft, HP, or Dell's fault. (And you get to pay money to buy working discs, loser.)

2.) People don't back up their data. For some reason, people think computers will magically preserve all of their data forever. This problem is probably the number one reason IT guys have palm shaped indentations in their foreheads. Your bog standard hard drive consists of little stacked platters with a magnetic read/write head over them. These discs are spinning at 5600 to 7200 rpm. People move their computers around when these discs are spinning. I've watched a lot of doctoral theses go up to shattered platter heaven. Still, not MS's fault. A spindle of DVD's costs 20 bucks. It doesn't take much time to burn a DVD ( 4GB's ) worth of data, and you can just drag and drop files into the DVD folder. An 8GB flash drive costs 20 bucks at wal-mart. It takes the same amount of effort to drag and drop files to that (which is none.)

3.) Users are dumb. They can't figure out what which mouse button to press in order to right-click, let alone how to properly load a DVD to run an upgrade. (Actual conversation from a support call: It's the one on the right side. No the other right side. No, you already pressed that one three times, press the other one. No the other, other one. There's only two buttons! Press the one you haven't pressed already! No! THE OTHER BUTTON! (That is thirty minutes of my life on a support call that I won't get back.))

Anyway, that's my rant in quasi defense of MS. (Though if they set up Windows 7 as a live CD, like Linux and BSD do, people would have a usable OS even if the install failed.)

Here's some sources no one will read:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140156/Users_should_delay_Windows_7_upgrade_support_firm_warns

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139991/Windows_7_endless_reboot_answer_evades_Microsoft?

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7install/thread/0275d4ac-a6ca-4992-b6e5-dc128cc5f86c

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/974078

KDE 4.2

After talking about how similar KDE 4.2 is to Windows with my friend Rob, I decided to install it on my Ubuntu box. I've been running GNOME, for quite a while, and have generally confined my KDE usage to Knoppix. I've preferred GNOME out of familiarity and it's better finish than KDE 3.x series. I have to say, KDE 4.x has definitely changed my mind.

There is blatant inspiration from Windows Vista here, but I don't see that as a negative. MS is good at putting polish and shine on it's stuff. That has been one area where Linux has definitely lagged behind. Linux nerds tend to be more concerned with function than aesthetics, so while their completed projects tend to work well, they are generally less visually appealing. Microsoft and Apple, on the other hand, understand that the average person is willing to buy a pretty piece of crap (Windows ME, Vista, OS 9.)

While maintaining their love of function, the Nerds over at KDE have learned a few things about the value of pretty.

Here's my desktop. And no, I can't resist spinning that cube (pentagon):

I'm too old to argue with fanatics, but I still do.

Being a computer nerd, and being friends with a bunch of computer nerds, I spent a portion of the morning discussing the launch of Windows 7 with some friends. During the course of the discussion I learned a sad thing. Some of my friends are Microsoft fanatics.

I compared many of the "new" features in Windows 7's version of WDM and Aero to their older counterparts in Mac's OS X and Linux's Xglx, and Compiz-fusion. Anyone who has been using KDE 4 since January of '08 isn't seeing anything new in Windows 7. In fact, they are so conspicuously similar that many Linuxphiles have had great amusement demoing KDE 4 and telling people that it was Windows 7.

Here's some pics:

KDE 4











Windows 7:




Here's some videos:

Windows 7




KDE 4







Mac OS X Panther ('03)

Donald Didn't Do It!

Many of you may recall the legend of "Donald Did It". It was during the Ren Fest in college. We visited Amber's home. Amber's mom came out of the kitchen and said, "Don't come in here. Everything's just fine. Nothing's on fire." I went into the kitchen and put out the fire that she managed to start while cooking soup. She followed me into the kitchen and came back out and said to the group at large, "Donald did it!" I now have irrefutable proof that it was not I, but some esoteric enchantment within the Dye family.

Last night, Amber made soup on the back burner and spilled some. Today, when we came home Amber turned on the back burner to make some bratwurst. The back burner promptly burst into flame. Apparently, the Dye/Colwell girls and soup don't get along too well. I still don't know how you start a fire with soup. It's some kind of weird magic.

Oh, and I promptly put out the flames again.

Long overdue update

Just a quick update, which is well overdue.

School has started up for the semester. I've just repartitioned my hard drive and setup a Ubuntu 9.04 on my desktop. This is so I can more easily administer a test webserver. (I prefer to use Linux over XP for test servers.)

Amber is at a Chief's game and having a good time. I'm trying to entertain myself and generally stay out of trouble (stop laughing.)

That's about it.

Ministering to Springfield

I want your opinions on something.

Currently, the Springfield police and fire departments are nearly $200 million dollars short on their retirement/pension plan. The city police and firefighters are currently going around and asking people to vote yes on a proposition that will increase sales taxes to help make up the budget deficit.

While I know bad financial planning on the part of many of our elected officials is to blame, dealing with them is a separate issue.

Right now, what's at stake is the well-being of our police officers and firefighters. It hardly seems fair to ask them to risk their lives to protect us, and then tell them we won't take care of them should they be seriously injured or die in the line of duty. I do, reluctantly, think that we should vote yes to this proposition. (I don't want to pay more in taxes, but I believe you should take care of the people who lay it on the line for you.)

That's the starting point, and the obvious political part. Here's the ministry part:

The question I have is this: can the Christian community in Springfield pro-actively do anything to help? While I have concerns about whether or not Christians in Springfield would be generous enough to take steps, I think it is a good idea.

Let me clarify the steps I envision.

1.) Begin a prayer campaign specifically for SPD and SFD. They have a hard job, and in many cases a dangerous job. Asking for a few extra angels to stand between them and danger seems only fair, since they stand between us and danger.

2.) Organize offerings/bake sales/etc for each church in Springfield to make a donation to the SPD/SFD fund with no strings attached. (This is the part I have concerns about, because I can see huge arguments from Christians about it not being the church's responsibility. I am also unsure about how steeply the denominational gap divides Christians in Springfield from one another. I am also unsure about how separation of church and state would apply here.)

3.) Have churches with counseling services make those services available to SPD and SFD officers free of charge, or at reduced rates. (Police officers have a difficult job; and as I understand it, there are high divorce rates and suicide rates among police officers. I would have to do more research to confirm this.)

4.) If there aren't any, organize support groups for officers and for officers' families.

I believe this is an opportunity to minister to a group who truly needs it. I thought about approaching my pastor with the idea, but I thought it best to consult a council of wise elders first. (That would be you guys, since we're getting old.)