Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1

Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is a powerful software virtualization solution that allows you to run multiple PC-based operating systems simultaneously on one workstation, providing a safety net to maintain compatibility with legacy applications while you migrate to a new operating system. It also saves reconfiguration time, so your support, development, and training staff can work more efficiently.

… and it’s free!

Holy cow! This is one my favorite apps of all time. Why? I do a lot of deployment/servicability work on the Toolbar team. VPC has a feature just for me - undo drives. See, after I’m done installing something, I just close VPC and boom! My virtual hard drive is restored to the way it was before I ran the test. Sweet! No more installing and uninstalling - just installing! Now, I always have a clean machine to test on.

This is also important for usability tests. In the old days, you’d have to write a script to clean up and restore the machine to the way it was before the participant started using it. Now, with VPC, I just close the app and VPC forgets everything that was done.

Sweet!

Mike found a guide to Windows Live:

Windows Live - Product Team Tour

Hey it even Reeves! Hi Reeves!

(BTW, Reeves is not in Red-West A as the opening screen implies - but rather here in Silicon Valley Campus)

Wow… The Onion has reached its 10 year mark already. Here’s a classic from 1996:

‘Midwest’ Discovered Between East, West Coasts | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

September 4, 1996 | Issue 30•04

A U.S. Geographic Survey expeditionary force announced yesterday that it has discovered an unexplored and heretofore unknown land region between the New York and California coasts.

“We shall call this land ‘the Midwest,’” said Dirk Zachary, New York City native and leader of the 200-man exploratory team. “And its primitive inhabitants shall be known as ‘Midwesterners.’”

Zachary and his men discovered the region while searching for the fabled Midwest Passage, the mythical overland route passing through the uncharted areas between Ithaca, NY, and Bakersfield, CA.

“I long suspected something was there,” Zachary said. “I had flown between the city and L.A. on business several times. The duration of my flights seemed to indicate that some sort of a large area was being traversed, an area of unknown composition.”

It’s deadpan humor has cracked me up for years. It’s one of the few sites I check every week! Otherwise, gems like this might be missed:

Year in Pictures: 2001 | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

New Grill To Revive Foreman-Ali Rivalry

April 11, 2001 | Issue 37•13

Alas… some mocking articles tend to foreshadow reality… like this one from their famous September 11th issue:

A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

Shaken by the tragic events of Sept. 11, people across the nation have abandoned such inconsequential concerns as the Gary Condit scandal and Britney Spears’ skimpy outfit at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. No longer are they talking about shark attacks or what’s-his-name, that Little Leaguer who was too old to play. Instead, they’re focusing on the truly important things in life: friends, family, and being good to one another.

How long can it go on like this?

Three weeks after the horrific attacks that claimed more than 6,000 lives, many Americans are wondering when their priorities will finally be in the wrong place again. Some are wondering if their priorities will ever be in the wrong place again.

(You can click on the picture to see the full sized version.) Less than 5 years later, Britney, Michael Jackson, and Tom Cruise’s personal lives are often featured as top stories.

gizmag Article: The Yelpie portable outdoor lightweight personal safe

The US$75 Yelpie is a Portable Outdoor Security Device that allows users the secure their belongings at the beach, camping, fishing, swimming pool, sporting fields, gymnasiums etc – all those places where someone can target your belongings while your back is momentarily turned. The Yelpie is a portable personal, lightweight, electronic safe about the size of a shoebox. Users place their valuables inside, and enter a PIN number to lock and arm it, then Motion sensors inside detect unauthorized movement and emit a continuous 90 decibel alarm if it is moved.

Sadly, I don’t think this would’ve prevented the theft of my phone and camera. Where we were at, even if we had heard the alarm, it would’ve been pretty tricky to get back to the spot due to the rock hazard. Nonetheless… I might just buy it

Yesterday I had to reboot my work pc at least 3 times because explorer.exe was getting slow, or generally weird things were happening.

So this morning, the first thing I did when I got to work was reformat my computer.

WOW.

I feel like I just got a new machine. It’s so much faster now. Amazing.

I sure hope this kind of scenario is fixed in Vista.

Update: I tried the same trick on my pokey Toshiba M200. No such luck. Doh.

I was reading through the Wikibook for the set-top box that Comcast gave me - the Motorola DCT6412. I finally understand why my unit turns itself off at :00 intervals such as 10:00pm and 11:00pm.

How to use a Motorola DVR/Bugs - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

Box turns off by itself

* Cause: Viewing began after box had turned itself on for a scheduled recording. Recording concluded.
* Remedy: None.(Never turn DVR off)

Ah hah!

Here’s my favorite entry on the page:

How to use a Motorola DVR/Bugs - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

The picture quality of analog recordings is not very good

* Cause: Motorola has a reputation around the circuitry world for having really bad digital to analog conversion. The digital video recording is made by Motorola and the signal for all analog stations have to go through this converter before appearing on the screen.
* Remedy: Wait til STB stops using Motorola based products.

Ouch! I hope no one ever has to write an entry like that for one of my products!

I want to create a short (embeddable) video to show off a feature I’m working on.

Would anyone care to share what tools they recommend for doing something like that? Free would be a great price point.

It’s rare that I buy something that I immediately want to return, but that happened last week after I bought the Casio EX-S600 Exilim Card Camera.

As you may recall, my beloved Panasonic FX-9 camera disappeared along with my cellphone while I was at the beach in Maui.

Immediately afterwards, I went to Costco to buy a camera for the wedding and the rest of the trip. The S600 caught my eye because of its amazingly slim size.

Well, as with everything else in this world there are tradeoffs. One immediate tradeoff was that due to the tiny size, there was no plug for charging it. To charge the battery, you had to connect the charger to the docking station and then stick the camera into it. Yipes! That’s not very travel friendly!

With regards to the picture quality, it was mixed due to auto-focus. Some pictures came out spectacularly well, some came out very poorly. I found the auto-focus to be pretty darn slow. I’m sure it would’ve been better with Anti-Shake turned off - but that’s not a compromise I wanted to make. I also found recording movies to be a confusing process.

But the deal breaker was the fact that it kept crashing during the wedding ceremony. Yep. It crashed. Periodically the screen would blank out and an error telling me to power-cycle the device would appear. I think it was due to the incredibly intense sun - the camera was pretty hot to the touch.

Fortunately, Costco took the camera back without a hitch. (Thanks for taking one for the team, Costco!)

Now… back to saving up for the successor to my FX-9, the Panasonic FX-01 - why 01 comes after 9, I have no clue.