Thoughts On Music

Switching to DRM-free music....I couldn't agree more.

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New Dell 24inch TFT

Today I ordered a new Dell 24inch TFT monitor for my main PC. I currently have a 19inch Sony (1280*1024), and the new 24inch widescreen monitor has a lot more desktop space, which comes in handy when you work with lots of open programs. The main reason for buying was that Dell had a special discount till the end of Februari 2007 (nearly 300 euro's off). The secondary reason was that I wanted to treat myself for my upcoming birthday :-). This evening I was surfing the net, and ended up on the US website of Dell, and saw the prices there..... just take a look at the pictures, and explain the difference to me (I know that you have to add sales tax in the US, but that's not what I'm pointing at).

US Dell Website

Dutch Dell website

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Mac Book Pro Wireless Issues

I have several wireless devices in the house. Some of them are not capable of connecting to 802.11g (54Mbps) networks. For these devices I have an older Linksys Accespoint (802.11b / 11Mbps). For my other wireless devices (Mac Book Pro, and a Windows Laptop from work), I have a Speedtouch DSL router with builtin 802.11b/g wireless. Somehow my Mac has some problems connecting to the faster networks. But the problem is that this used to work correctly in the past. The last couple of weeks everything works fine in the beginning, but after a while the connection gets terminated, eventhough the wireless indicator displays full reception. Switching the 54Mbps network to the Linksys access point (which also support this) is not helping. The only thing that keeps working is connecting to the slower 11Mbps network. I also tried modifing security settings (changed from WPA-PSK to WEP), but that also gives problems. I even tried different wireless settings (changing channels,SSID's, etc.) I found some possible solutions, like removing the com.apple.airport.preferences.plist file in /library/preferences/SystemConfiguration/. This removes all settings concerning the wireless networks for the airport. The result is that you need to reconfigure all wireless networks. After the reboot and reconfiguring the wireless networks, it seems to work a short while. Another thing, which is very peculiar, is that it seems to happen mostly late at night (like 10 minutes ago). This could be a coincidence, because that's when I use my MBP the most. It's is more than annoying. It's driving me crazy. I have even thought about buying a genuine Airport Extreme, but only if I'm sure that it solves my problem...... AAAAAAAAAAAARGH

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Terrible Voice Recognition

A while ago, I thougt that I had contracted a virus on my Windows laptop from work. Unfortunately, there's no chance that I can migrate to a Mac there :-(. The strangest things were happening on my laptop. Suddenly there appeared strange pieces of text in Word documents, and in e-mails I was writing. My first reaction was that someone was typing along with me. After scanning my laptop with three virus scanners and using several anti-spyware software suites, it turned out that there was nothing wrong. After that the uninvited pieces of text were gone..... Until yesterday. But this time I had a clue what had happened. I use the keyboard a lot for copy, and pasting (CTRL-C and CTRL-V). It seems that WINDOWS-V starts voice recognition. I must have pressed the wrong key combination. This key combo starts with a dialog box explaining that the mic needs tuning. I canceled that dialog, but somehow the voice recognition is still being enabled. There's no visual indication that it's running. It seems that Windows doesn't recognize the Dutch language, and therefor it starts guessing what you say and displays that in the focussed window. Lame ass Windows functionality if you ask me.......

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Crashing WM5 phones

LOL... I already reported that Windows Mobile 5 is buggy as hell. Even Trend Micro thought so. Well, nothing new if you ask me.

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Upgrade to Vista, Without Upgrading

The upgrade versions of Windows Vista are less expensive than the normal retails versions. If you want to install the upgrade it should be done from within (a legitimate copy of) Windows XP. There is however a workaround which doesn't need the presence of a Windows XP installment, or even the original Windows XP CD.

1. Boot with the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD.
2. Click "Install Now."
3. Do not enter a Product Key When prompted.
4. When prompted, select the Vista product edition that you do have.
5. Install Vista normally.
6. Once the install is complete, restart the DVD-based Setup from within Windows Vista. Perform an in-place upgrade.
7. Enter your Product Key when prompted.

That saves some money on the purchase of Windows Vista. It also saves you from installing a 'lesser' OS (which I personally doubt) first with all of its own problems etc.. I personally think that upgrading is always bad. Better start a new, and fresh installment of any OS (even Mac OSX).

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