Blog of a Long Distance Worker Tech

The blog about mobile tech

Tag Archives: Windows XP

Software Compatibility History

There has been quite a bit of talk about this video and how amazing it is to see Windows upgrade from 1.0 through to the present Windows 7. However the narrator and originator of the video pushes the view that it is so commendable that Microsoft has maintained ‘compatibility’ for over 23 years.

If you use Mac, then you have absolutely no hope of doing this and that is not just because of the changes of processor from 68000 to PowerPC and then to Intel, but also because fundamentally MacOS is not OSX. Apple has taken great pains to move its users through several major step changes in platform architecture to improve the user experience and LEAVE the old behind. Through this, in my view, they have always ensured that they give their customers a great experience that builds on the latest features and not the oldest. They do not expend effort now making sure that software produced 10 or more years ago still works for corporate users.

You can see where I am going now with this… think about how much better Windows 7 would be if Microsoft put all its effort on the new features and ensuring programme compatibility with just the last decade and not 23 years+.

There is actually little business case support for Microsoft in keeping ancient software that does not attract revenue still working and actually holds them back in my view. I think Microsoft have begun to understand this, which is why they are finally (albeit slowly) making it clear that they really only support now and yesterday, and not the day before yesterday… so now Windows XP is finally dying and is almost dead (2014 if not already) and the newest software from Microsoft like Windows Live and IE9 will run on Vista or later only. This should improve things all round.

How old are your oldest software apps?

Travelling … service resuming

ASUS1005HA Things have been a little quiet on the site for a while, mainly because I have been involved in a pretty intense period of project work which has required me to do a multi-country commute for almost six months now. During this time, I have really appreciated the smallness of my netbook main machine and gained a (poor) appreciation of hotel provided WiFi, as well as just how far ahead of the game the UK is in Mobile Broadband (particularly in terms of PAYG tariffs). I have also experienced a sea change in my phone experiences also as I have moved from Windows Mobile to the Apple iPhone. One thing I can really push is that the iPhone has proven a worthy secondary device to go with the MSI Wind netbook – not a replacement, just a secondary device. With the release of the v3.0 software, the Apple iPhone has become a great business device for the mobile worker, particularly one that travels to multiple countries. The applications and the iTunes App store are THE killer aspect for the phone. So much in fact, I had to get two – one for the UK and one for the remote country :-) . I guess an iPhone with support for two SIMs is still too much of a specialised requirement.

More on that another time, but I would like to return to the ‘secondary’ device comment. Walking around, the iPhone is a great emailer and mobile work business helper but it simply cannot replace a PC for working email and documents. You do need a PC to get the job done, and netbooks are really a good package for that, particularly when you have a large screen and keyboard installation in your semi-permanent working locations.  Working with the MSI Wind though has really punched my buttons with regard to battery life – my MSI Wind is simply too short lived at 4 hours, although good for many I am now looking at the latest batch of machines that give 8+ hours. However I am torn between waiting for Windows 7 based machines or getting an XP based machine now. I will have to see how long I can tough that one out. You can sense an update coming…

How about your experiences with iPhone? Netbook? Recommendations for a long life battery netbook? Feel free to comment.

Better Defrag

Recently I had a major problem with an EeePC. After configuration and installation of all the software on it and the optimisation of where all the files go, the machine ran slowly. Checking out the C: partition showed that it had a 30%+ fragmentation figure for the files on the disk, notably because of all the tweaking to get files in the right place. Now this performance issue was slightly counter-intuitive as it had an SSD with no seek times to think of, but file access was horribly slow. This screamed defragmentation (and after I did it, it certainly was down to fragmentation as performance is much nippier now). So the basic defrag tool in the Windows XP Home installation was used but it would not defrag the machine at all even though there was 1.4GB free out of the 4GB SSD. It was simply TOO fragmented.

smartdefrag

So I brought in the big guns on this one, which came in the form of IOBIT Smart Defrag. I ran this over the disk and with a small bit of manipulation (moving about 500MB of files to the D: partition), I managed to complete defrag the disk and give the performance improvement I needed. Now you may not have the same level of problem with fragmentation, but I can certainly recommend this software tool over the basic XP and Vista defrag tools, particularly as it gives a lot more visual response for what is going on and how fragmented the disk is, and also it offers a dynamic continuous auto-defrag function (not recommended for SSDs by the way – they have wear issues with file writes that make defrag an emergency tool only) that keeps you optimised.

Great tool, and here is the kicker – it is free.

Netbooks for the enterprise

HPMini1000 There is now a steady flow of netbook class devices coming through from many suppliers (HP, Toshiba, Samsung et al), with the new HP Mini 1000 being HP’s second generation device correcting the major problems with their first generation (using the C7 processor rather than the Intel Atom, using XP instead of Vista Basic). Notebook.com (via Digital Home Thoughts) have a review of this latest unit, and a fair review it is although it makes what seems to be a throwaway comment about netbooks not being ready for business use. This is something I cannot agree with.

The main driver of this seems to be a belief about build quality being poor or ‘soft’ compared to the business market’s requirements. Now I have been using laptops since before they were even that (having made use of the Toshiba and Compaq machines since before they were even called laptops, and were called transportables), and have come across all manner of machines, but I have not noticed anything deficient in the build quality/robustness of the netbooks I have used (admittedly Asus and MSI only), and would certainly not warn the business user off of these devices. In many respects they are the ideal business machines as they focus on basic functionality, portability and not high performance games and video handling. This is pretty much what all businesses want of laptops. In fact, the performance capability that modern netbooks offers generally exceeds the capabilities of most standard build laptops in mainstream business, simply because these machines are specifications that have lasted three years or more for standardisation purposes, which generally means circa 2002-2004 hardware builds. Certainly it is also true that machines since 2004 have also only grown in capability via more RAM and Hard Disk space. Netbooks also offer business features without the gloss of high speed graphics that can be used for fanciful needs, combined with a level of standardisation we have not seen in a long while (most netbooks are the same processor, RAM, motherboard and graphics chipset configuration as each other now the C7s and so on are dropping out), and also making use of the OS of choice for the modern business – Windows XP (although upgrades to XP Professional may be needed for the more corporate business user).

On top of this netbooks offer another advantage – the basic hardware is extremely low cost. Not much of an advantage when the support costs of a user can be upwards of €600 per year, but a slight advantage in these challenging times is important.

So, when are we going to see a mass adoption by a major company of a Corporate Netbook? Or is this something that Microsoft wants to fight against, simply because that would mean underlining the Vista Failure? Certainly the software licensing agreements for ‘netbooks’ as I have seen outlined, do seem to be against the concept of a business netbook.

Instant on boot systems

Windows_XP_Boot_Screen There has been some discussion in recent months about developments in making laptops and other computers start instantaneously. These developments seem to be based around fiddling the shut down mechanism so it part starts or by implementing a mini-Linux OS in flash like with Splashtop Linux, to give an option to the standard start mechanisms that are in the main OS (mostly Windows of course).

Somehow, I believe people have gotten things messed up. My last four laptops all made good use of Hibernation and Suspend modes, and I have had few difficulties with the startup aspects of these (well at least since Windows 2000 came on the scene). These mechanisms work really well. The focus on boot up time is a bit of a non-issue for me, particularly when mobile as I am not normally rushing to get started up with the machine, I am normally getting a coffee and talking with people on entry to an office and the machine can start up in pretty much whatever time it wants to (well a couple of minutes would be good).

Hibernate The problem area for me is shutdown. This is what takes time and needs focus on by engineers. Shutdown speed is governed more by how long it takes poor applications to notice the OS wants to go bye-bye, and this can be a reaaalllllyyyyy long time. So come on, make sure apps shut down quickly as well as start-up and then I would be really happy. This is really important of course because leaving offices are when we are in a hurry, and the time really drags by waiting for the end of the hibernation or the shutdown – when it is then safe for your disk to move, or for the machine to be placed in your bag (without the dreaded machine was still on syndrome noticed when the bag is really hot).

So this is where the effort needs to be expended – shutdown/hibernate, not start-up. What do you think?

Netbooks Returns update

This is an update on a previous post about Netbook Returns. Well it seems that more information about Netbook returns has come available and this was actually based on machines that are not short of RAM or performance, as the quote from MSI’s Director of Sales, Andy Tung found on the Digital Home Thoughts site. Their MSI Wind is one of the leading devices and comes with 1GB of RAM as standard, and the Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor. This does confirm that the ‘familiarity’ issue is prevalent amongst ordinary consumers and causing this returns problem.

Well the idea I pushed in the previous post could be a stopgap measure for those persons who feel uncomfortable with Linux after use, where a flash device with the install media of Windows XP could be used to step upgrade the Linux based device. However, it seems certain that a move to Windows XP is naturally going to happen for most new Netbooks, well at least until a new version of Windows is made available that solves Vista’s performance problems – whether that is Windows 7 or not.

Netbooks Returns

There has been some noise floating out there about the return rate on Linux based netbooks. Now I would like to see some more detail about this, as I could expect a certain lack of familiarity causing some people to return machines, but not at the scale being reported.

What is interesting about the date from the latest news, is that there is focus on one specific type of netbook that is being sold via the Carphone Warehouse stores. This netbook is the Elonex Webbook, a machine that is notable for using the Via C7 processor. Although clocked at a healthy 1.6GHz, machines based on these processors are really not fit for purpose and I feel that this is more likely to be behind the high return rate, as well as the miserly 512MB of RAM.

Using Linux is no excuse for being miserly with processor or RAM, and this can be shown that the newest releases of netbooks are pretty much Intel Atom Processor only, and have at least 1GB of RAM.

My own experience has shown that the machines with lower processors (in my case Celeron 630MHz) and RAM (512MB), do not work regardless of the OS – the applications that ordinary people want to run (basic wordprocessing and Internet) quickly uses that up. I can see the same thing happening with Netbooks with Vista running on them, these things are proven not to be functional for lightweight machines.

Upgrade Packs

For those people who have purchased machines with Linux on them, and truly feel the need for running a Microsoft product, there should be upgrade packs sold which include Windows XP Home on an SD Card or Memory stick which would allow in-place upgrade of these units. This should not cost more that £50 as long as Microsoft got over its hang-up about XP. Of course this is only for those machines that have the realistic minimum of RAM – 1GB. This is all possible, after all my current main machine, the Advent 4211, has a recovery mechanism based on a 2GB SD Card.

Netbooks and the Long Distance Worker

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has taken a look at several Netbooks and has posted a summary video as follows:

Walt pushes his review from the perspective that Netbooks are some sort of halfway house between Smartphones and standard Laptops. This may have once been the case when dealing with the little 7” EeePC 701 and it seems that much of his perspective comes from the review of that little device back in January 2008. I purchased the EeePC 701 and used it as a web/email device and did find the small screen, lack of storage and slightly limited performance a problem but the 2nd generation EeePC 90x, Acer and MSI Wind products have resolved those issues.

Earlier in the year, I moved over my primary laptop to being the Advent 4211, an OEM branded MSI Wind U100. This has sufficient performance (Intel Atom 1.6GHz), storage (80GB HD) and screen size (10” 1024×600) for my needs, which are largely email (Outlook), Office applications, Project planning, Blogging, IPTV Video playback and messaging – all in fact except playing games. The only issue that arose was one of battery life where for cost and supply reasons, the battery was limited to being a 2200mAh one which provided a little over 2 hours of use. This however was solved by adding the 4400mAh 6 cell battery which cost less than £50, although I would have much preferred it to have been included from the start. This provides over 4 hours of use and is certainly the most long running laptop that I have ever owned.

This is all in addition to having a Windows Mobile 6.0 Smartphone which allows on the go email (I use the HTC S710 Vox) but in no way replaces having a full PC. Even if I had the famed Apple iPhone, I would not see that replacing the Netbook as my workhorse device as it simply does not have the power, keyboard, and application capability of a full OS based device. All the same, interesting view and I look forward to the 3rd Generation Netbooks that are now becoming available that make use of onboard 3/3.5G communication devices.