Case in point, after a Windows Update the other day, my home networking stopped.  It was working fine before Windows Update, and dead in the water after.  No explanation, no reason, just a message that the network shares were inaccessible and I should contact my system administrator.  Damn, I guess that’s me.

I spent five hours rebooting, checking the hardware, routers and lines, checking permissions and sharing settings, investigating NetBIOS and TCP/IP settings, pinging and prodding, Googling for explanations and chasing white rabbits.  Finally I discovered the solution.  I just needed to set an obscure registry value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\
LanmanServer\Parameters\IRPStackSize

Geez, now why didn’t I think of that?

I have 25 years PC experience and am comfortable tinkering with networking settings and the Registry, and still this glitch stumped me for hours.

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This has allowed Microsoft to continue to own the PC desktop, in spite of major missteps, such as Windows ME and the disaster that was Vista in its first year, with significant incompatibilities, endless security warnings, and user-defections back to Windows XP.  Microsoft’s new operating system — Windows 7, which is expected to ship later this year — has been receiving mostly positive reviews.  And not a moment too soon, because along comes Microsoft’s greatest threat to its stranglehold on the desktop in twenty years.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially target netbooks.  Later this year, Google will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS.  Google has designed the Chrome OS to be fast and lightweight, to boot up and get you onto the Web in seconds.  Which will be a refreshing change from the four-minute startup required for my ultra-fast Windows laptop.

The Chrome OS user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, as Google hopes that most of the user experience will take place on the Web.  And as Google did for the Chrome browser, Chrome OS developers went back to the basics and completely redesigned the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.  A hollow promise, of course, since if Chrome OS becomes popular with users, it will become popular with criminals too.

The software architecture has Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.  For application developers, the Web is the platform.  There really won’t be much of a concept of desktop applications ala Windows.  All Web-based applications should work automatically.  And all apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based Web browser on Windows, Mac and Linux, thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform in the world.

The promise of Google Chrome OS is a simple computing experience, where users can browse the Web and get their email quickly.  Computers will always run as fast as they did when new.  Data will be accessible everywhere there’s an Internet connection, and users will not have to worry if their computer breaks or they forget to backup their files.  More importantly, users don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.

For someone like me who lives out in the country — I’m often disconnected, and when I am connected, it’s by slow satellite — the idea of a net-only computing experience seems like a major step backward.  But for the majority of broadband-connected users, a simple, fast net-based computer running Google Chrome OS will likely represent an improvement over the bloated, complicated Windows operating system.

Google Chrome OS Announcement

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From today through July 11, U.S. consumers can preorder an upgrade from XP or Vista to Windows 7 Home premium for $49 or Windows 7 Professional for $99.  However, XP customers must do a clean installation of Windows 7.

Also starting today, buyers of new PCs with Vista installed will receive a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it becomes available.

Retail boxed copies of Windows 7 go on sale October 22.  Microsoft plans to charge $119 for Home Premium, $199 for Professional, and $219 for Ultimate.

In Europe, the EU’s anti-trust ruling has forced Microsoft to ship a special “E” version with the Internet Explorer web browser removed.  Therefore, the European launch will be delayed, and all users must perform a clean installation, even if purchasing an upgrade.

Early reviews are generally positive and indicate that Windows 7 is much better behaved than Vista was when it was first released.

Story at CNN

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The Microsoft Windows SDK is a set of tools, code samples, documentation, compilers, headers, and libraries that developers can use to create applications that run on Microsoft Windows operating systems.  The Windows SDK combines two formerly separate SDKs: the Platform SDK (PSDK) and the .NET Framework SDK.

The following is a small sampling of what’s new or updated in this SDK:

• Documentation – Approximately 80% of the SDK documentation set has been refreshed
• Headers/Libraries – numerous new and updated – please see What’s New in the Windows API under the top-level Getting Started section in the documentation
• Samples – Over 200 new and/or updated samples
• Tools – Several new tools added
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1 C++ command line compiler toolset and matching CRT

Windows SDK
More .NET News

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Microsoft spokeswoman Amelia Agrawal maintains the company’s official position that Windows 7 will ship within three years of Vista, which means by early 2010.  This estimate is presumably conservative to avoid embarrassment in the event of an unexpected delay, as happened repeatedly with Vista, which shipped more than two years after its original scheduled date.  Microsoft has acknowledged an expedited testing phase for Windows 7 that includes just one public beta and one release candidate before shipping.  But so far Windows 7 has been relatively stable in testing.

Microsoft is under significant pressure to release Windows 7 this year to offset the first significant declines in Windows revenue in Microsoft’s history.  These declines are the result of the global recession, plus continued reluctance by both consumers and enterprises to adopt Windows Vista.  Windows 7 is said to improve the user interface and performance, especially on hardware with more modest specifications.

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From xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language.

Very funny!  But in my experience, one of the fastest ways to kill programmer productivity is to give them beer.

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This story starts in 2002 in a Simpsons episode called "The Dad Who Knew Too Little."  As Homer was accessing his email, his address was revealed on screen as chunkylover53@aol.com.  Naturally, thousands of fans attempted to contact the yellow fellow via his AOL email address.  Matt Selmon, a Simpsons writer, had thought ahead and registered the email address in the real world.  He answered as many of the messages as he could, delighting fans who received responses from "Homer."

Many fans also added ChunkyLover53 to their AIM friends list.  No doubt they were disappointed when Homer never signed on, but they likely forgot about it as time went on.

Now six years later, ChunkyLover53 has become active again, sending a message to all his AIM friends.  If you view this message, you’ll see a link to a new web episode of The Simpsons.  If you foolishly click that link, you get an error message.  You also get infected with a Turkish botnet that uses your PC to steal your sensitive data and conduct spam attacks on other PCs.

Turns out the ChunkyLover53 account was hijacked by some very bad people.  This nasty attack, first reported by FaceTime Security Labs, employs a solid rootkit, so the only way to remove the infection is to reinstall your PC operating system from scratch.  As Homer would say, "D’oh!"

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As you might expect, these successful Mac vs. PC commercials have spawned a legion of spin-offs and parodies. 
 

United Kingdom

Did you know Apple customizes its commercials for each region?  Check out “The Naughty Step” commercial showing in the U.K.:

Japan

And the Japanese Ninja version:

Christmas Animation

Apple used stop-motion animation to honor the classic Christmas TV shows:

South Park

Speaking of animation, here is the South Park version:

Web Ad

This commercial never made it on TV:

Parody

Comic Chris Elliott busts on file sharing:

PC’s Revenge

In this animated parody, PC finally gets its revenge:

Political

In the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, the Democrats represent change, and what better way to show “change” than with a Mac?

Anti-Mac

Rumor has it this funny anti-Mac rant originally inspired the Mac vs. PC ads (warning–adult language):

Mac in Love

And in real life, the “Mac” guy is apparently in love with the “E.T.” girl, Drew Barrymore:

“Mac phone home…”

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Windows Vista RAM

• 2 GB is minimum
• 3 GB if you can afford it
• 4 GB is mostly wasted (on 32-bit Vista)

If a PC has 4 gigabytes (GB) of random-access memory (RAM) installed, Windows Vista will show significantly less than 4 GB available memory.  For example, the Vista “System Information” dialog box may report 3,120 megabytes (MB) of memory available on a PC that has 4,096 MB (4 GB) of memory installed.  Note this only applies to the 32-bit versions of Vista; the 64-bit versions of Vista can access up to 128 GB of RAM.

To see how much memory you have available in Windows Vista:

• Double-click System in Control Panel, -or-
• Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties

The missing RAM on a 4 GB system is “stolen” by various devices that require memory-mapped I/O (MMIO).  Since a 32-bit operating system can only access 4 GB of address space, these devices are granted space starting from the 4 GB address and working backward.  Devices include:

• BIOS, ACPI and legacy video support
• PCI bus for hard disks, sound cards, LAN cards, etc.
• PCI Express can consume 256-768 MB for the graphics card

So if a PC has 4 GB RAM installed, some of that 4 GB is used for MMIO.  The amount of missing RAM depends on the devices installed in the PC.  But because of driver compatibility issues, the 32-bit versions of Vista limit available memory to 3.12 GB.

Links

• The 3GB-not-4GB RAM problem
• Microsoft: Memory reported in Vista is less than you expect if 4 GB of RAM is installed

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