Anytime what?!

It’s late October 2009, or maybe later: You have your new Windows 7 installation in your computer and you’ve already seen the benefits gained by upgrading to 7. You bought the Home Premium edition because you were told that’s all you needed, or maybe that’s all you could afford at the time. Now need more: Now you want the XP Mode and the Network Domain Support feature of the Professional edition, also you’ve decided that you’d like to be able to use the Bitlocker Drive Encryption feature of the Ultimate edition too.

- But you bought Home Premium. You just don’t want to face the prospect of having to reinstall the OS or go through the palaver of buying a new disc, with all the associated time and expense added to your computer’s downtime while you upgrade…

You’re in luck; because with Windows 7’s Anytime Upgrade, you can upgrade to a higher version of Windows 7 instantly without having to reinstall any software, lose any files, or anything like that.

All you need to do is to buy a new license key. You can upgrade Home Premium to Professional or to Ultimate, and you can upgrade Professional to Ultimate in this way also.

FINANCIAL-PITFALL WARNING: 

Upgrading from Home Premium to Professional, then from Professional to Ultimate  will incur extra unnecessary expense: To upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate costs £125GBP, while to upgrade from Home Premium to Professional costs £120 GBP, and then from Professional to Ultimate a further £85 GBP. Resultant extra expense = £80GBP.

Why can you do this with 7 but not with Vista?

The short answer: Vista was/is crap. – And that’s all you get on that question.

OK. How do they manage to work this upgrade thingy?

When you buy a Windows 7 disc, you buy all the files, the Ultimate edition in other words, but when you enter your licence key, it tells the installer which edition you actually paid for, and, unless you actually paid for Ultimate and received and entered a corresponding licence key, the installer will lock out some of the features, corresponding to which version your licence key says that you bought. – Easy really isn’t it?

They should have done this with Vista; but Vista was a mess from day 1: It had a hotch-potch of different versions that weren’t directly upgradable to the next version up: For instance, every version of Vista except for the Business version had Media Center built in…

So how would I go about performing this Anytime Upgrade?

OK; first click on the Start thingy (You’ll always get the best technical terms on this blog.) and type “Upgrade” into the Search… thingy. (This is becoming a habit.) Select “Windows Anytime Upgrade”, and follow the prompts from there. It’s fairly simple. – Just that you need to know where to start; and, as usual, Microsoft appear to have kindly buried the starting-post again.

I apologise that this article is a bit vague towards the end; but this sort of information wasn’t that easy to get hold of at the time of writing. As a little compensation I’ll reveal to you the pricings for Windows 7 in the UK: -

Home Premium has an upgrade price of £80GBP and a retail price of £150GBP.

You save £70GBP by upgrading from XP or Vista.

Professional has an upgrade price of £190GBP and a retail price of £220GBP.

You save £30GBP by upgrading from XP or Vista.

Ultimate has an upgrade price of £200GBP and a retail price of £230GBP.

You save £30GBP by upgrading from XP or Vista.

I can see that Microsoft’s crazy pricing technique here is put in place to stop people from working the system: For instance; if you were to get Home Premium at its upgrade price of £80, it would cost you £5 extra to then upgrade to Ultimate than it would to have bought Ultimate at its upgrade price in the first place. If I remember correctly; Microsoft have been caught out like that before, and aren’t going to let it happen a second time.

- Do you think this pricing is fair? How does it compare to the pricing of Vista in your opinion? Please comment.

A question for you computer repair people and builders: How long does it take you to fit a stick of RAM? 2 minutes? Less than that?

My web-hosts; fasthosts.co.uk, probably the slowest hosts in the known universe, must hold the record for the longest time ever taken to fit a stick of RAM, with the assistance of some red tape: -

(Actual times are approximate and recalled from memory to the best of my ability.)

Monday 14th September 2009 – Day 1

After a weekend of repeated sudden server crashes I hire an engineer at fasthosts.co.uk – my web-hosting company – to look into the matter and try and sort it out. He reports back that my blog is overtaxing the server with its current resources, and says that although he has managed to suppress the Apache’ server’s processes somewhat, he recommends that I either reduce the complexity of the blog, or have the server upgraded.

My experience with servers, prior to hiring this dedicated Linux server, is nil. My experience with Ubuntu Linux prior to hiring this Ubuntu Linux server is not a lot to say the least.

As a Fasthosts customer; a Google for “fasthosts are crap” will terrify you more than the first time you watched the film “The Evil Dead” as a teenager back in the 1980s, and then walked home alone across a dark deserted heathland in the early hours of the morning straight afterwards. (– Yes, I did exactly that, and ruined a pair of knickers doing it.)

Monday 14th September 2009 – Day 1 22:00 HRS: 

Having given the engineer’s report a lot of thought, combined with my own findings, I decide to have the server upgraded. Having just shelled out one hell of a lot for the engineer’s fee, I contact Fasthosts, and  as I arrange to have the server’s RAM upgraded I am told that the fee for doing so is more than it would cost me to buy 3GB of DDR2 1200MHz.

The upgrade is seemingly a necessity, and is agreed upon anyway eventually after negotiations. I am told that the job is queued.

Tuesday 15th September 2009 – Day 2 11:39 HRS:

I notice that the server has crashed again. I reboot the server from my remote control panel and phone Fasthosts to enquire when the RAM upgrade is scheduled for. Their answer is vague; only that it is queued and will be carried out ASAP.

Wednesday 16th September 2009 – Day 3: Time relative

An uneventful day as such, where the server behaves itself and doesn’t crash. Visitor numbers are back to normal due to the absence of downtime. I notice that the RAM upgrade still hasn’t been carried out, and so I chase it up. I am informed that the matter has been referred to a manager to give final approval to the result of the earlier negotiations over the exorbitant cost of the operation. I am told that it’s almost a certainty that this will be approved; though I feel a little uncertainty due to this extra unexpected piece of red tape.

Thursday 17th September 2009 – Day 4: Time unspecified.

Another server crash in the early morning goes unnoticed by myself until around 14:00 hours. I reboot the server and once again phone Fasthosts; who assure me that the upgrade operation has been given the green light and is queued. I phone again at around 18:00 HRS: The result of this call being that the upgrade itself is scheduled by negotiation between myself and their dedicated server support representative to take place at 23:00HRS BST, and should take no more than 1/2 hour. I write a post informing my readers of this and publish it.

Thursday 17th September 2009 – Day 4 22:21HRS:

The server goes offline while I am uploading files. I am unable to gain access to the controls to reboot. I phone Fasthosts asking if they have started the upgrade operation early. I am told that the Ubuntu server went into a kernel panic and that everything has now been restored.

I begin to monitor the server, expecting to be taken offline, as agreed, for the upgrade to take place at 23:00HRS. This doesn’t happen.

Thursday 17th September 2009 – Day 4 23:55HRS:

I phone Fasthosts and ask why the schedule has not been kept to. I am informed that the engineer is behind schedule as he had to do unexpected maintenance on some of the shared-platform servers. I am assured that my server will be taken offline and the upgrade carried out within the next 15 minutes.

Friday 18th September 2009 – Day 5 00:36 HRS:

The server; which I am monitoring at 5-second intervals using a FireFox add-on which refreshes the page automatically, is taken offline, the upgrade performed, the server reconnected and rebooted. An email arrives almost instantly confirming this; along with another from around 18:00HRS asking me to confirm that I am willing to accept the extra server-hire charges incurred due to the increased amount of RAM, which I’ve already agreed anyway.

British business – the leading force of the economy: Part of the reason the UK is in billions of dollars of debt.

In this article we’ll take a look at installing Windows 7: This article deals mainly with moving from XP straight to 7, bypassing Vista. Upgrading from Vista to 7 is quite a doddle in comparison.

With Microsoft’s proposed launch of Windows7 only a couple of months away at the time of writing; I thought it a good idea to write a piece on installing it; for those who’ve never done it yet. Microsoft have been fairly good this time round: They’ve asked their customers what they want included, they’ve given us a beta version to try, and also a Release Candidate following on from that, which sends telemetry back to Microsoft as you use it; therefore giving the makers the perfect statistics from millions of computers to tweak the release to near perfection prior to Release To Manufacturing (RTM).

How to install it depends on which operating system you were running prior to installing. I’m assuming you were running either Windows XP or Windows Vista. If you were running Windows 2000 then it’s time to change it fast: Its support lifecycle is ending. The same applies to Windows XP and Windows 2000 users – That being: No upgrade is available. – More on that later. If you were running Windows 9x then shame on you: Anything from Windows ME backwards is obsolete; meaning that Microsoft no longer issue patches for newly-discovered critical vulnerabilities that exist in the operating system, and your best bet is to reformat your hard-drive instantly, as your machine is probably crawling with malware and part of a botnet. – You’re also an unprotected propagation haven for it, you’re assisting in the spread of it, and the criminals who wrote and use it love you. – So much so that they’ll probably empty your bank account when it comes up on the massive list of accounts they’ve harvested from people like you who can’t be bothered to get a decent secure operating system, as they process that list. – I’d change your account password fast if I were you, but don’t use that old computer with Windows 9x on it to do so: For all you know someone could well have sneaked a keylogger onto it via a port opened by malware that got in through an unpatched vulnerability.

Back to the subject in hand: -

First; if your machine is capable of running a 64-bit operating system then I do suggest that you install Windows 7 64-bit. There is no reason, other than restriction by your machine, for you or anyone else to be running a 32-bit operating system with all its restrictions in this day and age. – None whatsoever. Let’s all work to kill off 32-bit computing once and for all. You can go from 32 to 64-bit straight off in a change of operating system without any problems; provided that your machine will run a 64-bit operating system. If your machine was built before 2005 then it might not be able to do so. If it was built after 2006 then it almost definitely can. (Although you might have to upgrade the processor on a few models – ?)

You might consider building or buying a whole new setup to run 7 on, as I did; leaving your old machine to run XP while your new box runs 7. There is a utility on the Windows 7 installation disc called The Migration Wizard (Windows Easy Transfer). This can extract your files and settings from your old machine and transfer them to your new machine, just like the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (FASTWiz; as I call it (Even though it was slow. – It’s faster in 7; though still a bit sluggish.).) did in XP: -

Navigate through the Windows 7 DVD to the \support\migwiz folder. Run the migsetup.exe program. The migsetup.exe program will scan your Windows XP installation drive for files and settings that can be migrated and show you a list of them. You can de-select and re-select items that you do or don’t want to migrate, and you can even add things from other drives. When you’re ready, the wizard compresses and stores all the items selected in a single file on a drive of your choice. (You should choose a drive other than the one to which you plan to install Windows 7 for this purpose.) You can even have migsetup.exe write to an external hard drive, flash drive, or writable DVD if you prefer.

If you’re installing Windows 7 having previously been running XP then you can’t do an in-place upgrade: You’ll have to either: -

• Back everything important; reformat, and install Windows 7.
• Dual-boot Windows 7 with XP.
• Upgrade XP to Vista, and then upgrade to 7.
• Install 7 on top of XP.

Back everything important; reformat, and install Windows 7. Remember to ensure that you have backed up everything important/irreplaceable if going the first route: This is in my mind the best route to take when upgrading from XP to 7.

If you own a "full" version of 7, then it’s safe to format the drive first before you attempt to install 7. If, on the other hand, you have an "upgrade" version of Windows 7, Windows XP must be running when Windows 7 is installed, otherwise the product activation will fail, unless you have the original Windows XP CD with you.

Insert your Windows 7 DVD and run Setup. When you’re asked if you want to format the target drive say "yes". The "Quick Format" option is faster than a full format, and it’ll do the trick. If you want to be pedantic then a full format will be fine too; if you have the time to spare. Setup will erase everything on that particular drive before it starts to install Windows 7. Now re-install all the things you saved with Migration Wizard if you wish to do so, or reinstall from your backup(s). – Target neutralised!

Dual-boot Windows 7 with XP. The dual-boot (Or triple-boot.) option is worth considering; particularly if you already run a dual-boot system; such as Windows XP and Linux. – Particularly if you want to keep your Linux installation; but triple-booting with Linux is beyond the scope of this article. I prefer to stick with Windows.

You may find that some Windows XP applications will not run under Windows 7. You can either do as this linked article suggests, and run XP inside a Virtual Machine inside 7, or you can partition your drive if you have lots of space, and install a separate OS per partition: – A “dual-boot setup”. – When you boot up you choose which OS to run. You’ll need to create a new partition on your hard drive, and probably  resize the existing partition also. Paragon Partition Manager and similar programs will do this for you, as will a number of free and demo-version disc-management programs, such as  Bootit NG from Terabyte Unlimited.

Once you’ve created your new partition, insert the Windows 7 DVD and run Setup and install to the new partition. When you restart your box after installing 7, you’ll have the option to start Windows XP or Windows 7. – ‘Good eh?

You might, alternatively, install a new, second, hard-drive and install Windows 7 on that after formatting it and getting it recognised by the operating system. This would be an alternative idea for a dual-boot setup if your existing disc is getting rather full and doesn’t have a lot of room on it to install 7.

Upgrade XP to Vista, and then upgrade to 7. The double-upgrade seems a crazy idea to me; and I can say with some near-certainty that something somewhere will go tits-up; even though you might not at first notice it. Myself I wouldn’t risk that. Do it if you must; but on your own head be it. I refuse to advise on this. – Sod that for a laugh!

Install 7 on top of XP. If you attempt to install 7 on top of XP the following will happen: Windows 7 installer will gather up all your XP operating-system files; including the My Documents folder, your profile folder, the lot, and stick them in a folder called “Windows.old” on your system drive. Windows 7 installer will then install Windows 7 in the space remaining. If your hard-drive is rather full prior to this I would suggest that you use the first method instead, or your new installation won’t have a lot of room to operate in. If you have more than 1 hard drive then Windows 7 installer will leave any secondary and subsequent drive untouched: It’s only interested in your system drive (C:, or whatever drive letter you choose to install to, only).

Although the Windows 7 installer will preserve most if not all of your files inside the XP installation intact inside Windows.old, there is no guarantee that it will preserve every file in a working condition, exactly as was before. You will not be able to run XP from inside of Windows.old either. The machine will boot into Windows 7 when started. Windows XP as an operating system is lost.

If you’re installing Windows 7 on a machine running Vista, then you can either use the first method, above, to do a clean reinstall, or simply upgrade your operating system with an in-place upgrade. I’m not sure why Microsoft have punished those people who didn’t upgrade to Vista in this way to be honest. – But they have, for whatever reason.

Have you installed Windows 7 yet? Do you have anything that you’d like to add to the above?

As you may know, or may have gathered by now; I’m a computer builder and an AMD fan. Yes I’m aware that Intel are the market leaders in chip design and that they produce some extremely top-class processors that are pretty much unbeatable at the time they’re released. – There are 2 negatives with new top-end processor technologies, though: -

The first is that the new designs/technologies haven’t been tried, tested, and trusted. Intel geeks will ask;

“So what? If you’re truly a geek you’ll be the first to try out anything new.”

I disagree – You see if I try out any new device I want to make sure that it works well and in the way that I want it to work.

I don’t play computer games; so having the latest and fastest multi-processor chip and the biggest and hottest graphics processor would do absolutely nothing for me. – On top of that there’s the fact that anything that’s a brand new concept is going to cost a fortune, and may initially be full of bugs.

That brings me on to the second point – That being price: What is the point of trying out some new device when I have to pay thousands for it? I’d rather wait a month – If I particularly like the device, for whatever reason. – and only pay hundreds for it; by which time it might also have a new version out in which any gremlins that found their way into the first line have been ironed out. Result = better product for less. Alternatively I could wait a while longer until the product is being produced en-masse and pay even less for it.

Three months ago I built my triple-core Phenom powered box and installed Windows 7 (Beta, then RC.) on it. I could have built almost exactly the same box a year earlier for a greater financial outlay using a buggy Phenom. As it was, had I waited another month until May 2009, the processor would have cost £10 less and the motherboard would have cost me £20 less. – All in all the entire thing lost over £5 value while I was waiting for delivery of the parts and then building it! Personally I’m not into throwing £5 notes away as a rule.

You may or may not agree with my angle on it all. Your personal opinion is, of course, completely up to you, and I have no intention nor right to try to change that opinion. – The purpose of this post, however, is to alert you to some amazing deals that are currently out on some of the tried and tested technologies at this moment, in addition to a few of the newer products on today’s market in the realm of computers and computer construction: -

If, like me, you’re a computer builder and/or someone who likes to upgrade their existing box(es) from time to time, then you’ll always try to keep abreast of the current products, their latest developments, product news, and where you can get some great deals on existing and new technologies. – Both tried and tested, as well as recently released.

I’ve been browsing around lately through some of the online retailers; both my usual suppliers as well as others, and overall I think that some of the best deals available right now can be found at dabs.com.

dabs.com currently have some amazing deals on Phenom processors, in addition to which their flat-screen TV sets are going through a recession-busting price-knockdown too.

I mean things such as an LG Electronics 37LH7000 Full HD 100mhz Freeview set for under £700 inc VAT for example, some great deals on processors, Crucial RAM, even whole pre-built computers! Seeing is believing; so hurry along and see for yourself. Now is an amazing time to grab a bargain at dabs.com; but hurry while current offers last!

Click on this link and your browser will take you straight there. Happy shopping.

The internet is probably the most useful place any American can go to for a bargain. In the UK the situation’s slightly different: Yes; UK people can find things at a decent price on the net most of the time and/or cheaper than in most High Street shops; but the way the cookie crumbles favours Americans. I’m not sure whether this is why Americans use the internet a lot more than the British; or whether it’s a result of the British using the internet less, possibly due to the comparative lack of education and abundance of negativity in UK culture when compared with the American equivalent. – ‘Sorry Brits; but honestly we’re going to end up a nation of half-witted moronic thugs and delinquents unless something radical happens, and soon. I’m not going into politics right now: But perhaps I should; as the stuck-up self-interested privileged “elite” currently in UK politics who have allowed this situation to deteriorate over the last few generations seem to hardly be able to run a bath; let alone a country.

The term “Americans” herein refers to those who are resident in the US and Canada. I found it rather, to all intents and purposes, racist, that an overwhelming number of sometimes crazy offers that appear on the internet are only available to US and Canadian residents.

One such offer concerns Microsoft’s up and coming operating system; Windows 7:

An article by Rich Menga on PCMech.com; which is run from Tampa, Florida, by David Risley and others, announces the headline: -

“Windows 7 Home Premium Pre-Order, $49.99 Upgrade, $199.99 Full”

Inside the article; Rich clearly states: -

“Starting today, if you pre-order Windows 7 as an upgrade, the Home Premium Edition (which is what most people would go for) is just a tick under $50. See below.”

Wow; that’s amazing! I can order my own copy at a massive discount!

(The three images below are copied directly from Rich’s article on PC Mech.)

“The full versions start with Home Premium at $199.99. That’s still steep, but it is cheaper than Vista. See below.”

“What versions of Windows qualify you for the upgrade?"

Windows Vista or Windows XP. Yes, XP qualifies be it Home or Pro Edition. Is says so right on the Office Depot sale page for this product. “

Brilliant! I run XP professional and Windows 7 RC. – I qualify!

“A near-60% discount on the purchase of Home Premium means this is the cheapest Windows upgrade we’ve seen in a very long time.

I use Windows 7 RC on a daily basis. It’s stable and solid. And now, thankfully, cheap (at least for the upgrade).

This upgrade offer lasts from today, June 26 to July 11.

Where to get it?

• Amazon
• Office Depot
• Microsoft Store

The links go directly to the Windows 7 pre-order page for the respective vendor.”

I attempted to order from Amazon.com: They are unable to ship this product to my address.

I looked at Office Depot… Office What? ‘Never heard of them. – An exclusively American company.#

I tried the Microsoft Store: The words “United States” were written in the banner at the top of the page. I was asked to  sign in with my Windows Live ID: No problem yet; but it wouldn’t allow me to leave the ‘state’ field blank, neither would it allow me to enter a British postcode in the ‘Zip’ field – So I’m stuffed there too.

I know; how about if I go back and select ‘United Kingdom’ from the drop-down list that appears when I click ‘United States’ in the banner bar?..

-  NO! <stifled scream> :-

I don’t want Vista. I hate Vista; Vista sucks. I’m definitely not buying it just to get 7! Even if you charged me for 7 and gave me Vista free I’d send Vista back.

Hang on a minute: How much?

Unless there’s been a massive devaluation of the UK pound against the US dollar that I missed, then I make that offer about 5 times the cost in the UK as it is in the USA! – + I’ll have a copy of Vista to use as a coaster on my coffee table.

If you’re in the UK and are thinking of going for this offer; my advice is don’t. Microsoft are fully aware that a lot of British people don’t have the brains they were born with, and are too lazy to even browse the internet: That’s why they’re offering you the chance to increase their Vista sales figures, so that they can say “We did well with Vista in the UK; the figures prove it.” In the meantime you’re in reality paying probably full price for Windows 7 and also jointly all buying a backlog of unsold Vista DVDs at a knock-down price just to make some room in Microsoft’s warehouse while saving on their recycling bill.

Yes it stinks: It’s a big con, and if you’ve already fallen for it then Microsoft saw you coming a while ago.

Well Brits: Don’t all just sit there with your stiff upper lip, tutting and murmuring “Terrible!”: Get your arse in gear and complain; to the EU bureaucrats you’ve just elected, (– Let’s see how helpful the BNP can be, eh?) to Parliament, to the European Court of Human Rights, to Microsoft themselves even.

You, me, and every Windows user in the UK who owns a computer and wants an operating system upgrade are being ripped off! Are you going to let them get away with it?

What did you say? – “What’s it worth to me?” – About £120 odd; that’s how much you’re being ripped off for. Are you just going to take it lying down? – No don’t answer that.

Hello, and welcome to another newsletter here on kkomp.com. In the last week I’ve produced some pretty good articles; although I say so myself. If you haven’t had a chance to read them yet I suggest that you click some links in the list below and have a look at anything that takes your fancy for a short to medium read: -

WordPress 2.8 Baker

The above post was more of a link than anything else. Quite obviously WP 2.8 has already been released, and it’s most likely that most WordPress-user-bloggers have already upgraded, even by the time the article was written,and sampled it for themselves. The thing is that not everyone will be aware of exactly what’s been changed straight away, unless it’s staring them straight in the face. – Therefore I thought it a good idea to do a little piece about it and link to the WordPress blog for further details; even if only to somewhat enhance the traffic to the WordPress blog as a thank you.

Something that carries a lot more weight is a computer’s PSU. It supplies quite a vast amount of wattage at low regulated voltages for its size. Only 30 years or so before it was invented and prototyped you’d have been looking at a box at least twice the size of your computer, if not bigger, just to perform the same function and supply the same output. That huge box would have also probably heated your entire house as a side product.

Due to significant advantages in manufacturing technology since then, a lot of miniaturisation has been made possible through component integration and also further advances in technology. Voltage regulators no longer require a set of differential amplifiers built from individual large aluminium-canned power-transistors. (2N3055 keeps appearing in my mind’s eye.) These days the differential amplifiers, multiple-output-stages, everything, is all integrated into a single hi-current regulator package about the size of a matchbox or thereabouts, making the unit cheaper, saving resources, producing less in the way of heat and outputting more in the way of power.

-But, despite higher tolerances and vastly better performance, things still fail eventually: Nothing lasts forever. – When a computer power supply fails the result can be quite catastrophic in some cases; with damage occurring to other sensitive CMOS-based parts.

If you know and understand the warning signs of impending PSU-failure then you can avoid this scenario happening in the case of your machine: Saving you you time, money, and resources. This article will give you some ideas about what to look for: -

‘Dodgy PSU? Replace it Before it Damages Anything Else

Perhaps I’m a bit intolerant, or maybe I just don’t have a high-threshold when it comes to the thoughtless acts of others. – Now when people are thoughtless towards others then that’s just plain wrong, and those people need an attitude adjustment along with having their brain switched on and their thought-processes enhanced in my opinion. However, when a person’s thoughtless actions are detrimental to themselves and/or to the company that they work for, then the expression “thoughtless” takes on an entire new meaning: Brain-dead might be a better description?

OK maybe that’s a bit harsh. I have to take into account that not everybody’s a geeky-type; but it should come as no surprise to anybody that if a computer remembers their data it must be stored somewhere. – When the power’s switched off and switched back on it still remembers the data that’s been inputted into it, so  it must be filed somewhere inside the computer; it’s just obvious logic.

- So when someone puts their old computer in a public place for disposal because they don’t want to use the dinosaur any more, you’d think that they’d remove their sensitive personal data from it wouldn’t you? …But no; many times people don’t bother: They just trust to luck or have too much faith in human nature and hand their identities over to all and sundry to do as they wish with. Likewise when someone sells their old hard-drive on eBay. – Do they bother to clean their data off of it? Do they even attempt to conceal it? In my experience not always, no. If I was a criminal I could now be operating under at least two identities other than my own and have some sort of racket going on with at least one business because of this. – All without even trying!

Read this article: -

Don’t Leave Sensitive Data on Your Old Hard-Drive

The following post was one that I pushed out in a bit of a hurry as an extra article, firstly to explain how I seemingly managed to miss the Summer Solstice; or at least I certainly missed posting about it, and secondly to warn about an unpatched security hole that Microsoft don’t appear to be that bothered about; even though exploit code has been written and released to the wild with regard to it.

Extra: Summer Solstice + Advisory

Is it Worth Running a RAID Array?

Above is a brief article in which I basically share my opinion, for what it’s worth, on the idea of using RAID on servers and also on workstations.

OH WOW! You Simply MUST See This: Is a post that, if I told you was an advert, might put you off reading it. – So what I did was give it an heir of mystery and allow those who are curious enough to drift towards it to do so. It’s not just any old advert though: Firstly, as my regulars will know by now, I don’t advertise crap on this blog. Secondly even I’m excited about this product, and I’m living proof that it’s worth getting excited about as I’m already part of it as a customer who’s benefitting greatly from the quality information-input from it.

In further marketing language; don’t just take my word for it: Read this: -

I’m just about to link you to a video that shows you, step-by-step, how to optimize your YouTube videos to help you drive an insane amount of traffic back to your website.Gideon, the guy who is not only a half of the Become A Blogger course that this article advertises, but who also created the video, tells me that he tried these exact same strategies on one of his own YouTube channels, and got like 67,400 views in just 8 weeks! At first I thought he was just kidding me but then I saw his channel, and my jaw dropped at the
results (He actually shows the same channel inside the video).

- So, yeah… if you want to get more traffic from YouTube, you’ll like this stuff…
http://www.becomeablogger.com/go.php?offer=kkomp&pid=4&u=http://www.becomeablogger.com/blog/youtube-x-factor/

But that’s only a part of it: Read the actual blog post itself for more links, on to an instructional video that actually features in the Become A Blogger course. – At absolutely no cost to yourself. – and another to a page where you can get another 10 instructional videos to do with the course.

Now that’s value in just the advertising alone…

Wednesday 24th June 2009 was this blog’s official first birthday: -

Happy Birthday Beyond

Lastly; when Microsoft launch Windows 7 on October 22nd 2009, they’ll be charging more for the Professional and Enterprise versions that have XP Mode included with them. – But why should you pay Microsoft more for the pleasure when there’s a way to scrub round it using free software? Read this article to find out how you could save yourself a few dollars more: -

How to Avoid Paying Extra for XP Mode(?)

That about sums up the week that was here on kkomp.com/Beyond since the last newsletter. Enjoy your weekend. ‘Next publication is scheduled for Monday; but you never can tell; I might get the bug like I did last weekend and publish something impromptu before then, and maybe I might not – ?

Namaste’

Peace.

In 2003; AMD introduced the first 64-bit processor targeted at the average consumer, the single-cored Athlon 64, onto the market. Six years later, and now virtually all processors produced at the present moment are 64-bit capable. Also most processors used these days have 2 or more cores, enabling approximately 1.7 times or more of the functionality of a single-cored CPU.

Meanwhile, leaving the minority operating systems, such as Linux, and Mac osX – which only runs well on an Apple computer anyway, aside; between 2001 and almost up to the present day the market leader of operating systems, namely Microsoft Windows, has in reality been fairly stagnant. Despite the release of Windows Vista in January 2007, which in many ways went down like a lead balloon from the offing, most people have been using Windows XP since 2001. (Myself included.(Well, since January 2002 to be exact. – I stayed with Windows 98SE until I managed to afford a new computer. – Things were a bit tighter then.) Back in the days when XP was launched, everyone was using a single-cored processor that was only 32-bit capable. In those days 250 megabytes of RAM was considered a vast amount, a 60GB hard-drive had a massive amount of space on it, the Intel Pentium 4 was the latest cutting-edge CPU, (The new machine I bought in 2002 had a first-generation P4 2.8GHz processor installed.) 32MB graphics were considered the norm, and 64MB were considered leading-edge… Nobody but the extreme-geeks wanted 64-bit operating systems; and therefore most of the XP CDs sold were 32-bit. 32-bit became the norm, became known. It was taught that computers went from 4-bits in the 1960s and 70s, (Commodore Pet) to 8-bits (16-colours!) in the 1980s, to 16-bits (DOS) and then to 32-bits (Windows 95 et al.) in the 1990s. – And from there a general feeling amongst the less-computer-literate that this was the ultimate destiny, that technology had no need to progress further than that. Windows 98SE became replaced by the excuse for an operating system known as Windows ME, and shortly afterwards by Windows 2000, which combined the advances made in ME with the lessons learned from ME: The limited and insecure FAT32 file-system which Microsoft had previously hailed as the way ahead, was falling out of favour, and customers had the choice now of using either FAT32 or the far superior NTFS disk-formats. Not far down the road came XP; which built on the lessons learned from 2000, and XP and 2000 were the in-thing. Many people stuck to using 98SE and ME, in addition to those using 2000 and XP.

Support for 98SE and ME was eventually discontinued; but to this day some die-hards still use those operating systems, despite their now being a massive security-risk both in terms of the user and of the rest of the internet-community as a whole. XP became the principle operating system, even holding out extremely well against the newer Windows Vista, which flopped from launch. – This caused consternation among many of the Microsoft faithful; many of whom switched to Linux and Apple’s Mac in protest.

Despite all this; the remaining Microsoft community – which only shrank in size by a few percent due to defectors to Linux and Mac – stayed in the 32-bit frame of mind. A few took up 64-bit computing with Vista after SP1. Even fewer took up 64-bit computing with XP after SP2 and 3.

Meanwhile; Apples Mac community; its numbers swelled with Vista detractors, was already completely 64-bit. Linux distros appeared utilising the 64-bit potential of modern machines also. Microsoft people either didn’t appear to know or care about 64-bit computing: 32-bit computing appeared good enough so why change? There was and still remains a danger of getting stuck in a rut.

What’s the big deal about 64-bit computing then? Why should I want to use a 64-bit operating system as opposed to a 32-bit operating system?

Let me ask you this: (I know a question in answer to a question may be considered lame; but bear with me here.) Why would you want to use a 32-bit operating system as opposed to a 16-bit operating system? Because 32-bit has more capabilities, right? – Like 32 million colours as opposed to 256 colours…

No I’m not saying that there’s several trillion colours in 64-bit…. Well there may in fact be so; but it’s a bit pointless to use that as a reason to upgrade, as the human eye only sees just over 24 million different colours. The main thing about 64-bit operating systems is that they enable your computer to work with more memory. (RAM) – Vastly more in fact: These days applications are demanding more and more RAM and other system resources to be in use on your computer in order to run them. – But there’s a limit to how much RAM you can use per system. If you’re running a 32-bit operating system you can use up to around 3.5 gigabytes of RAM. In 2001 that must have seemed like a colossal amount of memory. These days 2 gigabytes is standard. – On a computer with a 32-bit operating system that is.

I’m typing this on a computer that I built in December 2008. This computer has 2 GB RAM, an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 dual-core 64-bit capable processor… Yet as with most such computers belonging to most people, it’s currently running a 32-bit XP Professional operating system.

The computer next to it, which I built in April 2009, has 4GB RAM – and today I bought another 4 GB RAM which I intend to fit soon. It has an AMD Phenom triple-cored 64-bit-enabled processor and is currently running Windows 7 RC 64-bit.

My point is that this year a new Windows operating system is going to be launched. – But this is no Vista: This one’s Windows 7. It works almost flawlessly and neither I nor several of my online acquaintances can find anything to complain about with regard to it. – And this is before it’s even been fully released! – OK ‘straight to the point: Which is that 32-bit is so 1990s and 2000s. Next year we’ll be entering the 2010s and, as usual, technology will be moving on at its standard fast-pace.

Windows 7 will be available in both 32 and 64-bit versions. If you have a 64-bit capable computer and buy and/or load 32-bit Windows 7 you won’t be doing yourself any favours. When Windows 95 was released it was possible to run a 16-bit operating system on a 32-bit computer designed to run Windows 95. – Try running one of today’s apps in a 16-bit environment though. It wouldn’t run. Even if it did run; the machines that were around when 16-bit was the in-thing would hardly be capable of running a single app that’s used today. (I tried running XP Home on a computer powered by a Pentium 1 processor. (1996/7 IIRC.) It was 32-bit capable so it ran: Badly and tediously slowly. It took 1/2 hour to boot…)

In a few years your 32-bit operating system won’t be capable of running the applications of the time properly and in multiples, because they’ll need more memory than is able to be utilised by a 32-bit operating system. Remember; a 32-bit operating system can only see about 3.5 gigabytes at one time. A 64-bit operating system can see and use over 16 million terabytes of RAM though. That should be all you need for a few years yet.

Do yourself a favour: When you move up to Windows 7; get a 64-bit version of the operating system (Provided that your system is 64-bit capable.(Most systems built in the last 2 years are 64-bit capable. If unsure ask your retailer or an experienced geek.)) It’s time everyone snapped out of this 32-bit mentality; it’s so yesterday. – It’s like choosing to drive a Reliant Robin in favour of a Porsche.

Let’s all break the mould and go 64-bit. I intend to do so; and it’s in everyone’s best interests to do likewise.

Do you agree?

With advancement of technology, SATA (Serial – ATA) drives are becoming ever more popular. The SATA controllers that operate them are smaller and cheaper to build; therefore giving motherboard manufacturers the advantage. But it’s not only the motherboard manufacturers that get something from it: The user also benefits from faster transfer times to and from the drive, thus reducing any data – bottlenecks, and also the connecting lead can be longer than that of a PATA ( Parallel – ATA) setup. (See this article.)

For the novice constructor, or even the casual observer/user seeking to upgrade their hard-drive for the first time, the difference may not be immediately apparent; hence this article. (I noticed that someone Googled this blog with this very enquiry yesterday.) In this article I’ll show you how to identify a PATA and a SATA drive visually.

PATA

(Also known as ATA or IDE.)

A PATA drive has connectors like this on it:

On the left in the picture is the 4-pin Molex power connector’s socket. To the right in the picture is the parallel data connector, to which the ribbon-cable attaches. Between the two in the picture is the jumper connector: the position of the jumper(s) will determine whether the drive is seen by the PATA controller a master or slave drive. The ribbon-cable has connectors that look like this:

SATA

SATA drives have connectors on the drive itself that look something like this:

On the left in the picture you’ll see a 4-pin Molex connector’s socket. Some SATA drives have one, some don’t. On the right in the picture you’ll see the larger SATA connector, which is the SATA power connector. This supplies the drive with a number of voltages. You can buy an adaptor which allows a 4-pin Molex connector to be used to power a SATA drive by adapting the SATA power connector, which will work in most cases. The smaller connector in the middle in the picture is the SATA-data connector. The lead that connects to it is pictured below. (The colour of a SATA lead is usually red, but I’ve seen yellow (Gigabyte Technologies) also, and in this case, blue. (Shuttle Inc.))

(There is no jumper connector on a SATA drive.)

So that’s how you can visually tell the difference. I hope that helps someone.

If you’ve never done this before; Please read the entire article before you begin any operations.

OK. The first thing you might ask is:

“Why would I want to upgrade a socket AM2 processor?”

AMD’s Socket AM2 has been around a while; and in some cases an AM2 motherboard capable of supporting a dual-core processor has been fitted with a single-core processor; an Athlon 64 for example. You may feel the need to upgrade to dual-core but not want to go to all the expense of a total rebuild.

If your motherboard has a single-core socket AM2 processor attached then it might very well be fairly easy to upgrade the CPU without doing very much else. An AMD Athlon 64 x 2 processor is a good direct replacement for a single-core Athlon 64. In many cases it’s also a good replacement for a socket AM2 Sempron too. (Please bear in mind that the Sempron processor is commonly a 32-bit processor. A 64-bit version is available and was used on some occasions. Check that your motherboard is capable of supporting 64-bit architecture, in addition to the checks below, before upgrading a 32-bit Sempron to a 64-bit Athlon.)

The first thing I would suggest before doing any upgrade of any kind is that you back up all of your data: Operating system as well as other files. – In essence ghost your disk(s) and have a backup ready on a USB device or another computer.

Why? The reason for making a ghost backup is that if you’re upgrading from a single-core to a dual-core processor, you’ll need to perform a maintenance-reinstall of your operating system after you’ve physically upgraded your processor. If the maintenance reinstall goes tits-up then you’ll have the original backup to reinstall. (A maintenance-reinstall is completely different to a full reinstall. The only data you’ll lose, if you’re using Windows, is probably the Microsoft patches and upgrades. – But you can always download these again anyway.)

So you have backed up all of your data: In effect ghosted the contents of your hard-disk(s).

You now need to ensure that your motherboard is capable of supporting dual-core processor technology. Go to your motherboard’s manufacturer’s website and look up data on your particular model and revision of motherboard. If yes then we can proceed. If no then that total rebuild that you were trying to avoid appears to be the only option if you want to go multi-core.

Select the exact AMD Athlon 64 x 2 processor that you want to use.

A word of caution here: Some motherboards will only support a processor operating frequency of up to 2.2 GHz. This may be particularly true in the case of older boards. (pre-2007) that are fitted with a single-core socket AM2 Athlon 64 or Sempron. If this is the case then you may find that you have trouble getting hold of a new Athlon 64 x 2 with the required operating frequency, and have to purchase a secondhand Windsor – cored Athlon 64 x 2; 1.8, 2.0, or 2.2 GHz, or a Brisbane-cored 2.1 GHz model from eBay or Craigslist.

*Added 28th April 2009: A further word of caution, and something that I omitted to add to this original article: -

I am still working on this and another blog right at this moment as promised. The changes will be largely unseen as regards this one. The other blog is my new second blog called Shazza-Live – which you can view now if you like. It’s still in its infancy at the moment and is extremely light on content. Even the pages and posts that exist are in most cases only half-built and need further attention. Nevertheless, if you’d like to check out the proceedings then please feel free to mosey on over using this link.

Although the blog has a dot co dot UK URL, you can also use the dot com URL as an alternative, which redirects to the former.

“OK; so what’s going down then?” You ask. “In the last post you made on this site you said that you were working hard and wouldn’t be posting anything until Monday. You’re not very consistent at sticking to your decisions are you?”

You may have a point there, to some extent. The reason I’m making this post is due to a number of circumstances. I thought it prudent at this point, although it may be a little late in the day for some, to post the following: –

Part of the work that I was intending to undertake was a manual upgrade of my WordPress installation. had I done this it would have been a first for me, as I’ve only done the initial install, – twice now, with both this blog and also Shazza-Live too, – but I’ve always relied on automatic upgrades. These have all gone smoothly for me up until recently: -

…And that is the main reason for this unscheduled post. – That, as well as the fact that I have possibly cut an hour or two out of the weekends’ schedule by avoiding manually upgrading.

WordPress 2.7 has a built-in upgrading feature; whereas in previous versions of WordPress you either had to rely on a plugin to do the auto-upgrade, or manually do it yourself. I always used the plugin option without any problems other than fear that things would screw up in the middle of the process and I’d have to take an on-the-job crash-course in rebuilding the database. Fortunately that never happened under the old WP Auto-Upgrade plugin; at least not in my case anyway.

When I upgraded to WP 2.7; almost as soon as it was released in RTM format, I noticed that it had its own built-in upgrading feature, and I wondered if the WP Auto-Upgrade plugin would interfere with that. – Despite the fact that it had handled the upgrade to 2.7 without problem. I made a mental note and put it to the back of my mind… And forgot all about it.

When it came to upgrading from 2.7 to 2.7.1; which I wanted to get done as 2.7 was rather overly buggy for an RTM release, I clicked on the “Upgrade Automatically” button: CRASH! : -

Upgrade WordPress

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.7.1.zip

Unpacking the core update

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare pclziputilpathreduction() (previously declared in /538/linux/kkomp.com/hdoc/content/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/lib/pclzip.lib.php:5421) in /538/linux/kkomp.com/hdoc/admin/includes/class-pclzip.php on line 5498

‘Pretty obvious really – Like RTFM (Read The F…ing Manual.). I failed to spot the obvious, however, and nothing jogged my memory either. I even showed this to an alleged php expert; who said that it was probably due to a fault in the server’s php and that I should get on to the host about it. I did; and even the advisor at Fasthosts.co.uk missed the obvious; advising me that my WordPress install had screwed up and that I’d have to manually upgrade to fix the problem.

Fortunately I’d also put out on Twitter, but not getting a decent response for 24 hours wasn’t helping. I took my attention off Twitter and began planning the manual upgrade; going through every step with a fine-toothed comb.

I was distracted by my older computer, which had been acting strangely for a while, crashing with a repeated BSOD. I put that problem right, and as I reinstalled Twhirl I looked at the replies in my Twitter account: –

My thanks to @kwbridge, who came straight up with the solution:

“Do you have the WP Auto-Upgrade plugin installed? If so, delete it and try again.” Brilliant!

I found and deleted the WP Auto Upgrade folder in Root\WP-content\Plugins directory, attempted the auto-upgrade, and everything was accomplished in a matter of seconds.

Target neutralised.

I’m rather embarrassed that I failed to spot the obvious though. Rather than “RTFM”, analyse, diagnose, rectify; it was more a case of LATFM (Look At The F…ing Manual.) and panic:

“Oh sh.t my blog’s crashed: There goes my blogging career before it even started properly.”

Panic stations. Dial 999 and ask for the technical assistance squad. Shut down all operations. ‘Houston we have a problem.’ Gather all available financial resources and put them on standby. Go to red alert status. Battle stations. Evacuate all non-essential personnel. Mayday, mayday…

In hindsight the problem was obvious: The php code had already declared and set a value for the function “pclziputilpathreduction()” when the plugin activated, hence when the built-in Auto-Upgrade function was activated and attempted to redeclare it, it was unable to do so and caused the fatal error. It’s all there in the error description FFS; but me being a php novice caused me to go into a flap.

As @kwbridge said in a reply to my reply:

“…I wonder how many people have that plugin installed and are going to run into the same problem?”

Well if any of those people happen to be you then here’s the solution in case you missed it like I did.

Kkomp.com – Taking you beyond the comfort zone and ensuring that you don’t miss out in getting your geek on. I so hope pcmech.com don’t mind me combining their motto with mine. Lol.

And now, with that out of the way, back to the grindstone. Onwards and upwards with panic asunder…

Are you still using Windows 98, 98SE, or ME?

Released in 1998, Windows 98 was a MS-DOS-based operating system which used the FAT32 file format only. Windows 98 was pushing the DOS operation close to its limit, and 98SE (Second Edition) released in 1999, fixed a few performance issues that were apparent in the original.

For the sake of convenience I’m going to label those operating systems from 98 to ME collectively as Win 9x. Win 9x was showing its age. Various issues caused it to be somewhat of a liability and it just wasn’t a technology worth continuing with. The release of XP sounded a death-knell for the older MS-DOS system, and XP heralded a new, more secure and more stable modus operandi in its new NT-based technology which had been written from scratch, based in many ways on the design of the older NT system used by Windows 3.1.

Microsoft stopped supporting Win 9x in July 2006; therefore any vulnerabilities in any or all of the Win 9x operating systems discovered since then remain unpatched and will continue to be such. This means that using these operating systems today makes them a possible serious security threat.

Of course upgrading isn’t without its costs: A new Windows operating system such as XP or Vista, whilst preferable to 9x, isn’t free. Add to that the fact that some hardware may need to be upgraded, or in the case of moving to Vista, the entire machine will probably have to be replaced with a new one to meet the rigorous hardware specifications and requirements that Vista operation needs.

In the above case, if cost is a real issue, it might be possible to retain the machine as is, but rather than moving up to a new version of Windows, use a free Linux distro instead. A lot of Linux distros have lower hardware requirements than their Windows counterparts.

A note of caution here, though: When your older hardware components do finally give up the ghost, you may find that newer components are incompatible with your older machine, and that the required components which you need due to compatibility needs might end up costing you an arm and a leg in antique value.

Whether you choose to use Linux or stay with Windows at whatever cost, you may or may not have issues when transferring existing data, depending on which operating system you choose and which method of upgrade you choose also.

My advice here is as follows:-

First, back everything up – Yes everything. Back up your important data to disk as is if you can or as much as you can in addition to backing up the whole shebang using Norton Ghost or similar.

If you’re sticking with Windows then I suggest that you don’t upgrade your existing installation. Rather I suggest adding anything important to a brand new install. Problems that have built up over the years with 9x could transfer to your new OS if you upgrade your old installation. You might even like to try installing your old hard-drive into a new machine as a second drive after checking the file system’s rigidity and ensuring that it’s free from malware.

If you go the Linux route then I suggest you talk further about the move with a tech site such as PCMech in addition to following any relevant advice herein.

In short summary, then; if you use Win 9x it’s time to stop using Win 9x. Do you agree?

You may or may not be aware that I run this blog on WordPress; a ready-made php blogging suite available free from WordPress.org. http://wordpress.org/

Yesterday I opened the admin account to discover that a new version of WordPress had been released. It was emblazoned across every page (Not on the public blog but on the pages I use.): “A new version has been released – Upgrade now” or some similar linked wording. I ignored it for the time being, and went to Windows Live Writer to write up yesterday’s scoop. Having uploaded that to my blog I returned to WordPress the edit screen within WordPress to give it a final edit and proof-read prior to publication pending addition to the RSS feed. Still nagging me in my vision were the linked words “Upgrade now”.

After I’d published the scoop I decided to click the link in question: The manual upgrade instructions looked fairly straightforward and none too baffling but it was a case of getting it right first and only time: ‘Not one of my specialities. I decided to leave it for now and clicked the back button in my browser. “…Upgrade now” was the first thing I saw. Nag , nag, nag. OK it needed doing. but can I please turn the notification off until I reboot or something?

No. Upgrade NOW…NOW…It was starting to make me feel guilty for not doing so. I read a few other blogs – Words like “I upgraded my WP install today without any problems – ‘Piece of cake…”.

F..k this! I am not going to be made to feel guilty for doing my upgrade in my own time. I will not bow to pressure. I’ll do it tomorrow for definite. Close Page, make more coffee.

Today I log in. ‘First thing I see: “…Upgrade now”: Oh for f..k’s sake! Yes I’ll do it NOW – All right?! (Redhead part of me activated.) I’d heard or read somewhere that there was an auto-upgrade plugin. I know it’s NMA (Negative mental Attitude) but I knew I was going to make just the one mistake with a manual upgrade that would send the whole thing tits-up and lose everything: Murphy’s Law in action.

I Googled and found the plugin:-

http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade-plugin.html

Save to local machine – done – unzip- done -ftp up to the correct directory on kkomp.com – done…”This is too easy: Whatever you do don’t start panicking. Hold it together girl”… log in to account – done – activate plugin – done – run plugin (Hovers mouse over link; closes eyes…and…) – done:

Five self-explanatory steps or so later and – Yes: Target neutralised! (I sooo wish I’d captured the screens – but I was too emotional to care at that point.) Success!

My experience with the auto-update plugin was a happy and positive one. The plugin’s creator, Keith D’sousa, has put a lot of time and effort into making this plugin and fully debugging it to enable it to work flawlessly. If you use it either now or in the future please please do donate: Even $5USD is a minimum amount as a thank-you for all the effort that’s been put into it.