Beyond

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the public beta of Windows 7 would be released on Friday January 9th.

Ballmer sees the future as being the total integration of the computer, television, and telephone through the Windows operating system on the PC. Interacting with the cloud he envisions a fully user-friendly integrated computing environment in the near future. He indicates that Windows 7 is a step towards that future,

Watch Ballmer’s entire keynote speech:

Click here.

(Opens Windows Media Player.)

There’s some rather hot stuff coming up in the Windows scene, as you may well have seen:

As well as some pretty innovative hardware, there’ll be partnerships between Microsoft and Facebook, now giving the ability to connect Facebook with Windows Live. A partnership with Dell, who will pre-install Windows Live essentials on all of their PCs worldwide. Plus a partnership with the Verizon network in the United States to bring Windows Live Search to cellphones running Windows Mobile.

I for one am looking forwards to Friday 9th with eager anticipation.

Last year, about this time of year approximately, during a lull in business, I was experimenting with designing screensavers. I was just venting some artistic talent possibly? Whatever the case I zipped them into self-extracting .exe files and stored them on disk.

A year later I’ve still got them, and the ones that I don’t install on customer’s computers when I build them; i.e. the arty-farty ones as opposed to the advertising ones that is, are wasted.

With that in mind; having just found the files whilst searching through my disk contents, I thought ‘Why not let my readers have one?’. - So here you are if you want it; a free 3D screensaver which I designed originally as a piece of art:

It’s supposed to be an artistic representation of a quad-core processor. I designed many variations on the theme, but this is one of my favourites.

I’ve just tested the file a few minutes ago. It was on the other computer; so I networked the file over to to this one and , after scanning to ensure it hadn’t picked up anything during storage, I installed it on this machine for the first time ever and without any problem. After checking everything was OK I FTP’ d it up to kustomkomputa.co.uk so you can download it.

As I say; it’s in a .exe file, which when you click it will install the .scr file straight to your C: drive. Quad Core.scr gives you a choice of 3 options, which you can see by right-clicking on the file: Test, configure, and install. Clicking "Test" will allow you to preview it only. Clicking "Configure" will give you an advertisment for the Xara software that I created it with, and clicking "Install" will install it fully as one of your screensaver options; configured as default.

If you don’t want it to be your default screensaver; just right-click a blank area of the desktop, click "Properties" in the dialogue box that appears, click the Screensaver tab, and configure something else as default.

I’ve been making some changes to the header and background of the posts and pages on this blog; which is one reason I didn’t get a chance to post anything within the last 24-hours. To make amends I thought, having rediscovered the screensaver folder, that I’d share one with you.

I apologise for the size of the download; nearly 7 megabytes. (It might as well come with its own service pack at that size.) It is animated and it is a 3D design. I hope you’ll enjoy it if you download it. It’s nothing fantastic; but it’s free anyway.

I’m declaring this screensaver as “open-source” (Even though I don’t have any source-code.); no copyright. - If you want to do anything at all with it then feel free. The download link is http://www.kustomkomputa.co.uk/Quad_Core.exe . Enjoy.

Before we go into the fairly easy process of fitting a graphics card; Let’s look at why you’d want to do so in the first place:

Most if not all motherboards are equipped with onboard graphics: The Northbridge of the chipset gives them a limited graphics capability.

"Limited" is the operative word here; especially on lower-end motherboards: The low-end AMD motherboards that I tend to use more-than-not, (Customers who request a cheap computer for no more than office-type work get what they ask for. In fact; despite the motherboards in question being allegedly "low-end", they’re fairly versatile.) usually have a paltry 64MB of graphics capability; in addition to which they ’steal’ the 64MB of memory for their operation from system RAM. - Yes they eat into the memory-sticks that you fit into the RAM - slots and gain priority to their full potential, whether or not they’re using it. Most other motherboards operate on a similar principle, to a varying extent. The top-end motherboards tend to be suitable for use with less attachments; However these motherboards are commonly used by gamer/overclocker-types; who add the latest of everything at the cutting-edge of technology anyway. - Just so that they can be proud geeks, until the following week when technological advancement moves on another notch.

How much difference, exactly, does this RAM-robbing by the onboard-graphics actually make? : In reality not one heck of a lot; especially if you fit a minimum of 2GB RAM to every computer like I do. RAM’s now fairly inexpensive; particularly if you’re using DDR2, which is dirt-cheap these days. Why the big fuss then? Well it’s not just the fact that the onboard graphics make 2GB - Nice round figure. - RAM, look like 1.94GB; it’s also that the graphics are really lousy with that tiny amount of memory. As we’ll go on to discuss; 64MB graphics blows at the best of times:

Any figure below 128MB of graphics RAM, (That is RAM or memory allocated exclusively for use with the graphics module.) will cause your graphics to suck big-time on a decent modern desktop or laptop. Oh you’ll without doubt get a great picture; a great still-picture that is. Anything moving at speed = fail. Try scrolling up or down fast: It’ll take the raster a fraction of a second to catch up with itself.

(It reminds me of those Looney Tunes cartoons; where characters run off at speed and their front-half almost disappears before their back-half starts moving. Imagine the inverse of that happening on your screen when you stop scrolling and you’ll have some idea of what I’m on about.)

…And if you mean to play any games…Well the Microsoft free games which have shipped with every M$ operating system since or before NT will probably run OK; but 2fps, if you’re lucky, won’t get you very far with Crysis or Doom. (Maybe a blue-screen?)

- So unless you’re intent on using Office and IM only; it’s always a good idea to upgrade the graphics capability with a graphics-card.

Most decent usable graphics-cards can cost anything from around £17 / $24 upwards. Unless you’re gaming with the latest games; a little above this price-range should suffice for low to middle-end systems. The exact card you choose will depend upon the operating system you’re running. - For instance, XP can’t run anything in Direct X 10; so it’s pointless having a Direct X 10-capable graphics card on an XP system: Unless you intend to upgrade to Vista or Windows 7 that is. (Check for hardware compatibility first.)

Most graphics-cards these days are PCIe cards.  (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express.); which is an active connection method that channels multiple serial-data-streams from the motherboard to the graphics-card; as opposed to its earlier counterparts, PCI, PCI-X, and AGP, which stream data in a parallel format as a single-channel.

There are all different types and sizes: Big ones, small ones, some as big as your…I’m not going into the particular types and sizes here as that is, really, beyond the scope of this article: For the purpose of which we’ll just keep it nice and simple; without referring to SLI…Oops!

I’m not going to write about VGA, DVI, RGB, etc, plugs/sockets either. Google is your friend; as are the links.

Screw that.

That’s the complicated part out of the way; in as simple terms as I am able to muster. Now the easy bit; fitting it: -

Everything you need to know is covered in the following article at this link.

Yes I am cheating. Yes it’s out of character for me. Yes I am behind schedule and almost out of time. It’s a good site anyway: It saves me taking pics or finding and snagging pics. It saves me writing loads more… OK I admit it’s probably better than I’m able to produce in the remaining time that I have scheduled. So go there to find out how to fit one. It’s certainly not rocket-science:

You’ll need a screwdriver, a screw that can be screwed in by the screwdriver and that fits the corresponding hole, (There’s my female technical terminology making its appearance again.) a PCIe graphics card, a computer with a PCIe x 16 socket to fit the card in, and about 5 minutes.

Go read it; and comment on this one before you do so. (Comment box is below.) (Why don’t they put a down-arrow key on keyboards? - Perhaps they could also put a f…  - File it! key on them also.)

Can you tell things aren’t quite going to plan?

If you’re Pagan; especially if you’re a techno-Pagan, interested in Paganism, or even just browsing, then please do visit this site. I very much doubt you’ll regret doing so.

What I am going to say is that I stumbled across it today; not for the first time, and had time to have a better look at it. I was quite amazed to be honest: So much so that I’m giving it a page of it’s own at no profit to myself whatsoever. - In fact I haven’t even notified the owner; who I have known online for a while, that I am doing so.

Why am I doing so? Because I like it: It’s a very good site in my opinion. I appreciate that you might not all be as enthralled with it as I was; but it’s well worth a visit.

This year I’ll be recommending a number of sites: Pagan, technology-oriented, individual; anything that really stands out to me. Some I’ll do for no profit: Some I’ll charge to recommend.

Feel free to submit your URL for consideration if you like. If I decide to review I’ll let you know along with my price, should I decide to charge. Drop me a line at urlsubmit at kustomkomputa dot co dot uk. if you want to submit your blog or a blog.

Have you ever wondered what route your internet activities are taking?

You’ve just visited kkomp.com from wherever you’re logging onto your computer or handheld device; but your download of the page you requested didn’t come straight from the server to you: Instead it went through a number of other servers, acting as relays, to get to you. You may be surprised how many of these it passed through en-route.

You can find out the identities of these servers with the Windows command "tracert". ("traceroute" on a Mac.)

- For instance; if I wanted to see which servers my communication passes through to kkomp.com’s server; I first open a command prompt in XP. (Start>Run, and type "cmd" in the dialogue-box. ¬) I get a DOS window with the following in it: -

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>_

The _ is the command-prompt. At the command-prompt I type "tracert kkomp.com"; thus: -

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>tracert kkomp.com

The computer responds by pinging all the servers en-route and asking them to identify themselves: -

Tracing route to kkomp.com [213.171.218.145]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

The first stop is my BT Home Hub router: -

  1    19 ms   100 ms    99 ms  BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]

Then the separate BT internet network switches. (Because I use BT internet in the UK, and BT have their own mini-web which connects to the real internet at various nodes. You’ll probably get something different, unless you’re a BT customer in the UK.):-

  2    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms  217.47.206.250
  3    23 ms    23 ms   104 ms  217.47.206.161
  4   197 ms   103 ms    31 ms  213.123.109.6
  5    25 ms    26 ms   192 ms  217.41.169.17
  6   144 ms    64 ms    24 ms  217.41.169.66
  7   109 ms   193 ms    97 ms  217.41.169.126
  8   217 ms    69 ms   103 ms  217.41.169.38
  9   158 ms    24 ms    94 ms  217.47.144.50
10   229 ms    25 ms    26 ms  core2-pos12-1.reading.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.0.213]

It’s made it to the big switch at Reading…

11   161 ms   102 ms    27 ms  core2-pos0-0-0-13.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.201.201]

Which passed it on to another big BT switch at Ilford… 

12   127 ms   123 ms   179 ms  core2-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.118]

Which sent it to the real internet…

13   125 ms   245 ms    40 ms  linx.bb-c.the.lon.gb.oneandone.net [195.66.224.98]
14   116 ms   248 ms   144 ms  88.208.255.61

It’s just about to hit Fasthosts’ main server…

15   222 ms    82 ms    64 ms  pc2.prt0.fhdis.fasthosts.net.uk [88.208.255.1]

Followed by one of their internal web-servers…

16    53 ms    32 ms    32 ms  213.171.217.3

…And to the individual hosting server.

17   176 ms   158 ms    61 ms  server213-171-218-145.livedns.org.uk [213.171.218.145]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>

Target neutralised.

Here’s the actual window’s content without my comments: -

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>tracert kkomp.com

Tracing route to kkomp.com [213.171.218.145]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    19 ms   100 ms    99 ms  BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
  2    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms  217.47.206.250
  3    23 ms    23 ms   104 ms  217.47.206.161
  4   197 ms   103 ms    31 ms  213.123.109.6
  5    25 ms    26 ms   192 ms  217.41.169.17
  6   144 ms    64 ms    24 ms  217.41.169.66
  7   109 ms   193 ms    97 ms  217.41.169.126
  8   217 ms    69 ms   103 ms  217.41.169.38
  9   158 ms    24 ms    94 ms  217.47.144.50
10   229 ms    25 ms    26 ms  core2-pos12-1.reading.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.0.21
3]
11   161 ms   102 ms    27 ms  core2-pos0-0-0-13.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.201
.201]
12   127 ms   123 ms   179 ms  core2-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.
118]
13   125 ms   245 ms    40 ms  linx.bb-c.the.lon.gb.oneandone.net [195.66.224.9
8]
14   116 ms   248 ms   144 ms  88.208.255.61
15   222 ms    82 ms    64 ms  pc2.prt0.fhdis.fasthosts.net.uk [88.208.255.1]
16    53 ms    32 ms    32 ms  213.171.217.3
17   176 ms   158 ms    61 ms  server213-171-218-145.livedns.org.uk [213.171.21
8.145]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>

Try it for yourself: You can use any domain or IP address in place of kkomp.com .

Here you learn something new every day; even New Year’s Day. Happy New Year. May 2009 bring you much enlightenment.

The Vista blacK Screen of Death, or KSOD, (BSOD is already taken.) has been appearing rarely and at random since November in systems located here, there, and everywhere.

Let’s get straight to it. Yes I snagged this lot; but what the —- ? Let’s fix it: -

"There is a fix, courtesy of Mark from the SBSC & MSP Buzz Blog. He says the problem is related to the RPC service running under the LocalSystem account as opposed to the NT Authority\NetworkService account, and I quote:

• On the affected machine, boot using the Vista Media and Select "Next" and then in the bottom left you will see "Repair your Computer"; select Next and then Select Command Prompt.

• At the command prompt, launch regedit.exe and load the SYSTEM hive, follow the below steps.
  • a. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

• b. On the File menu, select Load Hive.

• c. Browse to %WINDIR%\System32\Config Folder and select "SYSTEM"

• d. Select Open.

• e. In the Load Hive dialog box, type in "MySYSTEM" box for the registry hive that you want to edit.

• After the hive is loaded, modify the following key value per the instructions below: You will need to know what ControlSet the machine is currently running on, this can be determined by going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\MySYSTEM\Select and find the "Current" value in the Right hand side. (Example: Current value is 1 then the ControlSet will be ControlSet001)

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet00X\

• Services\RpcSs (X is the Number from the Current Key from above)
  Value Name: ObjectName
  Old Value: LocalSystem
  New Value: NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService

• Unload the SYSTEM hive by selecting the key "MySYSTEM" and then select "File->Unload Hive" menu item.

• Exit regedit.exe

• Reboot the system normally "

Something is changing the ObjectName key value, but nobody is yet sure what.

I thought I’d make a quick post; additional to what I had planned, just so that Vista users experiencing this problem have an extra reference - point for a solution. …As well as a chance for me to put up some more adverts:-

Time for me to go all "Smashie & Nicey" on you in a pop-tastic kinda way; I’ve just found some super-sensational seasonal software from Sound Spectrum, for Windows or Mac, that’ll ensure that your computer sees in the New Year to the music in a fantastical funk-a-delic style with all the top trimmings-mungous taste of seasonal serene cyber-generated scenery.

From spinning glitter-clouds, sparkling Christmas-tree bulbs, scintillating snowflakes, popping bubbly-corks, boogy-ing snowmen, Canadian country scenes of winter with falling realistic-looking snowflakes… You have just got to experience it for yourself. The pictures just don’t do it justice:

Still-pictures alone simply cannot express this tune-tastic piece of software that gyrates and pulsates, changes colour and design-shape to tunes playing on your Media Player…Oh it’s all too much!

I have it running right now on my new-build comp running Windows XP with an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 2.2GHz CPU and 2GB of 667Mhz DDR2 RAM while the Windows Media Player 11 plays a compilation of tracks from the Ministry of Sound Funky House Sessions and also of course You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

This software is awesomely mega-tastic great mate. It’s a must to have on your PC or Mac this New Year’s Eve. The best thing is that you can download a free trial - less than a couple of megs in size -with a few features disabled before or if you buy the software. - Now that’s cha-a-a-ridee!

That’s what I’m running now and it is simply awesome in itself.

Sound Spectrum do some quite amazing software in that line, other than that described here. Their website is well worth checking out. Right now browse on down by clicking here and see what you think of this piece of software.

Perhaps I should have tried to find an affiliate program first? I have a feeling that this will boost sales. (?) Anyway - maybe unfortunately for me - I make nothing from it as yet if you buy this software.

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Windows is a good operating system in my opinion; particularly XP at time of writing. (Vista suffers from bloat.) One thing I’ve noticed with XP is how much disk space it allocates by default to System Restore: 12% of available disk space. That percentage can be quite a colossal amount on, say, a 1.5 terabyte disk. - And the more space occupied by the system, including System Restore, the less space available for you to store files.

Of course, the larger the disk, the more space Windows needs to store restore-point information: That is to say where a couple restore points covering all of the files on an 80GB drive could be crammed into, say, 4GB of space; it would take a lot more space to accomplish the same on a 1 terabyte disk. - Somewhere in the region of 50 gigabytes.

By allocating a proportion of the disk by a proportional percentage-value, rather than a given quantity of gigabytes, Windows always has enough available space to create a number of System-Restore points. However the percentage that Windows allocates for this purpose is to my mind overly large, and reserves too much space.

An option is to limit the percentage of the disk-space available to System Restore; which does limit the amount of restore points it can hold, but releases disk space for other things.

To do this:

*1 Right-click on the “My Computer” icon and select the System Restore tab.

*2 In the box select the disk on which you want to adjust the amount of space reserved for System Restore points and click “settings”.

*3 Adjust the amount of space using the slider. The default setting is 12% of your disk, but on disks of 160GB or more I find 6% is quite sufficient and a decent working amount.

If you have a disk below 40GB I don’t suggest changing this to below 10%, although I have got away with 5% before on a 40GB disk.

Do you think 12% is too much space; or do you think it better to sacrifice space to have more restore points available?

With all the economic prophecies of doom and gloom, plus talk of a deep worldwide recession; enhanced of course by the news media, who are making money from doom-mongering, you’d imagine that all industries were having a bad year during 2008. - But you’d be wrong: The computer industry’s retail sector, although having unexpected results, appears to be doing rather well:

The US figures for November 2008, released by the research firm, NPD Group, indicate that, while Apple made no progress but no losses either in this area, sales of PCs were up 7%.

-This despite the fact that sales of desktop PCs dropped by 20% overall. The fact seems to be that people are going for notebooks these days.

According to NPD analyst Stephen Barker: "For notebooks, there is a little extra value to consumers [to buy Apple], for desktops I’m not so sure. To me the real story is the iMacs need a refresh."

The forecast for this sector from IDC , which tracks sales of technology products, appears to nonetheless be rather gloomy: IDC said earlier this month that it expects global PC sales to fall 5.3% next year to $267 billion (£174.7 billion).

Would anyone care to speculate an opinion on their own thought regarding this? There is a comments section below, and you are allowed to use it. Who knows; people might just enjoy reading your comments too?