Author Archives: Alexander John

About Alexander John

I am an IT Professional and Web Developer living and working in the United Kingdom. I describe myself as an IT generalist as I have worked in a wide variety of IT and web fields and technologies. Whilst I am Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), I utilise a wide variety of technologies including Linux and Android in day-to-day work. I am a founder and director of a SME orientated Web service company Calzada Media Limited where my daily workload varies from web development through to IT infrastructure management.

Snow. Again.

Whilst cold weather is nothing new in old blighty, snow is.  Where I live the snow stayed on the ground for a whole week, as did the ice – there were several repeat performances of Snow Lake with cars on Ice.  Anyway, here are some snapshots I took while travelling into work.  Needeless to say, the car was stationary when the photos were taken.

It may look pretty, but there was a thick layer of ice under the snow.

It may look pretty, but there was a thick layer of ice under the snow.

Ooh, look, tarmac

Ooh, look, tarmac

Note the trees bowing under the weight of the ice and snow.

Note the trees bowing under the weight of the ice and snow.

It was actually colder inside the car than out.

It was actually colder inside the car than out.

Vista Update

A quick update on the Vista front.  I wrote a while back about I succumbed to some of my earlier opinions on Vista and installed it on one of my principal laptops.

Well, since then I have fairly thrashing the computer on which Vista runs.  I have used recently and a whole range of tasks from writing complex ASP.Net websites to building Virtual Machines and it has yet to crash on me.  Thanks to some help found online, I have solved the NVidia graphics card issue – the performance rating was actually slower with the that latest NVidia drivers from Dell.  A quick driver hack later and the graphics are now much better.

The only new annoyance so far is that Vista tends to be more hardware intensive which in turn increases the component temperature which in turn causes the laptop cooling fan to run more.

Crapware and a (potential) helpful little tool: PC DeCrapifier

Configuring a new PC can always be a headache, especially when it has to be done completely by hand (i.e. no Ghosting or imaging).  As there are often a myriad of little changes that have to be done when configuring a PC manually, I have devised a checklist cum installation form that I follow.  This ensures that not only is the PC delivered up and running, but I also have a record of just what was done.

However, when I originally drew up these checklists I missed out the step labelled <i>Now spend one or more hours removing undesired pre-installed software (aka Crapware)</i>.  The chances are that if you get a new computer, it will come pre-loaded with a number of trial versions of software which you have to remove before you can install anything else.  Common trials are those of Norton Antivirus, McAfee or Microsoft Office 2007.  The latter can take a small ice age to remove.

I am pretty sure that I am not alone in my annoyance for the presumptiveness of the manufactures to install this software on new systems.  When I buy a new PC, especially one that is touted as being for businesses, I expect it to be delivered working (this helps, nothing makes me move suppliers quicker is a PC straight out of a box that doesn’t work), with the operating system pretty much ready to go and that’s it.  No trials, no please wait one hour while the OS installs all the required drivers.  Ready to go.

I had this recently with a new laptop.  It was supplied with Windows Vista, which was promptly downgraded to XP using the supplied media (manufacturers occasionally get something right).  The laptop flawlessly booted after the Windows XP installation and then presented me with a whole suite of crapware to remove.

Needeless to say, this did take some time.  What I could of done with then is a little tool I recently found whilst searching around for something completely different: The PC DeCrapifier.  This handy, free little utility removes all unwanted crapware for you.  Whilst I have not actually tested it yet, I have read a number of positive reports and it is definitely going into my IT Toolbox.  Once I get the opportunity to test it, I will post my comments.

Snowy Carnage

A combination of snow, a gale and a frost brought a fair bit of arboreal carnage to my normal drive to work this morning.

dsc00101

I think this hole had just been made by a delivery truck.

dsc00102

Yet More Damage

The Tree Surgeons have just arrived

The Tree Surgeons have just arrived

A pretty picture to finish

A pretty picture to finish

Succumbing to Vista

A few months ago, I wrote about my opinions of Windows Vista, and stated that I wasn’t planning to use it.  Even now, none of the businesses I work with have running Vista machines – any computer supplied with Vista is quickly downgraded to XP.

Irrespective of my own opinions, Vista exists and simply cannot be ignored by someone whose bread and butter work is IT Support.  Therefore, earlier this month I installed Vista Business on my principal home computer (a Dell Latitude D820).  The completed installation isn’t perfect – I’m still hacking around with video drivers, although this is more a NVidia than Microsoft issue – but I am not as disappointed as I had expected to be.

Now, this isn’t my first experience of Vista.  I participated in the original Beta programme, and back then I wasn’t overly impressed when it completely neutered my test computer.  I have also played around with the original RTM versions of Vista, and I was certainly not thrilled by it.  However, after using it for just over three weeks, I have to admit that I am beginning to warm to it.  I don’t think I have suffered any particular life changing experience, I think Vista has thanks to Service Pack 1.  SP1 seems to have addressed a whole range of annoyances that had served as ammunition to my anti-Vista viewpoints.   Chief among these was its’ woeful performance when copying files to and from network drives and external devices.

Does this mean that I am a now a fully-fledged, paid up member of the I love Vista club? Well no.  I now consider its’ positives outweight the negatives, but it is still not the all conquering product that Microsoft promised.  Will I continue to use it?  Yes, and for the foreseeable future.  Am I giving up on XP?  No, and in fact I am actually typing this post on my antique Thinkpad T30 running XP.

Does new always equal better?

There is an old engineering maxim: “If it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it”.  It’s a maxim that has served me well over the years, and I have ignored at my own peril.  This doesn’t mean that I am 21st century luddite, but I do often wonder if in the race to use the latest kit we get distracted from the main point of any piece of engineering equipment, whether it be software or hardware, namely that it is supposed to a job reliabily, consistently and for as long as it is required.

I, like many IT professionals, own and use several different computers.  I do own a high end laptop, but the laptop that I use the most is the same one I am typing this entry on: a veteran Thinkpad T30.  It may be a P4M, but for my day to day work of crashing about server rooms and general support work it is ideal.  It handles pretty much anything I through at it and it has yet to throw a major wobbly.  It may be at least 5 years old, but it still works and it is still useful.

So, what my point?  In a little over a month’s time, Windows XP will cease to be available through OEM manufacturers.  In theory, from the beginning of July the only version of Windows you will be able to get supplied with a PC ordered from the likes of Dell or HP will be Windows Vista.  This is not something that I am looking forward to, especially given my experiences of Vista to date.

I am not a big fan of Vista.  My reasons are not for what it is, but rather for what it is not.  Microsoft had a huge opportunity with Vista to deliver a world class operating system that could build on the proven reliability of XP and deliver the kind of user experience included in other operating systems like Mac OS X.  Initially, much was promised, but the final product is bloated mess that demands exorbitant hardware requirements just to run decently and incompatible with a whole range of applications.  The recently released Service Pack 1addressed some issues, but not all.

And this is when I return to Windows XP.  I like XP.  It is proven and reliable operating system that does the job it is required to do.  It does have its’ own foibles and problems, but for the most part they are known and manageable.  It also doesn’t require a PC that has enough computing power to perform inter-planetary orbital calculations.

I have yet to see a realistic business case for companies to use Vista over XP beyond the ongoing support restrictions imposed by Microsoft.  Out of necessity, a PC for Vista has to be of a higher specification that its’ XP counterpart, and whilst this cost increase may not be a big factor for larger organisations, it will be for small businesses.  A substantial proportion of these businesses have ten or less employees, and a new PC is often a substantial capital cost.  As someone who works in this field, explaining to clients that they are going to have to get a more powerful PC just to accomodate the operating system is going to be interesting.

There is a glimmer at the end of the tunnel.  Microsoft appears to have semi-resurrected XP in attempt to stave off the Linux community in the sub-notebook market.  Whether this will equate to another stay of execution for XP remains to be seen.  For the foreseeable future I will continue to use XP and home the next version of Windows delivers where Vista doesn’t.

Repairing SBS Backups

In virtually all Small Business Server instances I have worked with, the chosen method of backup has invariably been that of the included SBS backup functionality. This isn’t a standalone backup system, but rather a control mechanism that utilises NTBackup to create the actual backups.

Invariably, this backup method does start to misbehave after time. Whilst some problems are easy to resolve (insufficient space on the backup media for example), there are some problems that do not appear to be easily resolved. When this happens, I fall back onto a approach where that rebuild the backup configuration from scratch.

The basic are as follows:

  1. Turn off SBS Backup through Server Management
  2. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\Backup and rename the backup script file Small Business Backup Script.bks
  3. Return to Server Management and re-configure the Backup

That’s it. The key part here is the renaming/removal of the Small Business Backup Script.bks file. This contains the configuration data for the SBS backup, and is not removed when the SBS backup is disabled.

CBS Buys CNET

CNET, one of my favourite ports of call for tech news, is going to be acquired by the US broadcasting network CBS.  I’m a little cautious about the deal, and from some of the comments posted on CNET’s site, I would appear not to be alone.

Leaving to one side the perceived outcomes of such a deal, its’ very existence is indicative of something that was inevitable: the merging of the traditional broadcast networks with the new Internet based media.  The resultant organisation can then leverage their resources to deliver fully integrated media solutions.  In the UK, we already have such an organisation in the BBC.  Although it is limited by its’ public service remit, the BBC is a model of what can be done when the capabilities of the Internet are coupled with the power of the broadcast industry.  You only have to look at the success of the BBC iPlayer and the BBC News website to see what is possible.

By acquiring CNET, CBS gains access to a whole new market along with a vastly expanded potential customer base.  CNET’s sites are not limited to purely tech matters, but encompasses a whole range of other services.  Whilst CNET is not the only one of its’ kind, but it is probably one of the best known.   Its’ acquisition will probably not the last as the market inevitably begins to consolidate.  Whether the resulting problem is better or worse, quite simply on the future will tell.