February 21, 2013

SSD – Not for my OS, but for my frequently used programs

I previously wrote that I wasn’t sure what I should do with my 120GB SSD. Should it run the OS? Should it hold the pagefile? Should it hold the TEMP folder? Well, everyone has an opinion and no one agrees. But I do have an idea. So here’s what I did. The main OS, Windows 7, is on the 3TB Barracuda. The pagefile (all 16MB of it) is on the secondary 3TB Barracuda. The SSD now holds my most frequently used apps. I didn’t put anything as clunky as Office on there, instead I install apps like Notepad++, Firefox, CCleaner, Irfanview, FastStone Image Viewer, FastStone Image Resizer, WinRAR, FocusWriter and XYPlorer. I run these every day and multiple times a day. It makes sense to put them on the fastest drive in the system. And they do start up amazingly fast. I’m sure there will be other small utility apps I’ll install there as I continue to get this machine […]

Windows 0 2 min read
March 12, 2010

Making progress with Ubuntu

My endeavors with Ubuntu have been very favorable. In fact, I’ve gotten apps to install that I never thought would work. First, using Wine 1.1.40 and PlayOnLinux I got Notepad++ running. A small accomplishment, but Notepad++ is a fantastic editor. Then I moved onto something more impressive and got Digsby to install and connect correctly. It installed without incident and let me connect to Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. Not bad at all. Then came the Uber test. Using PlayOnLinux I actually got Office 2007 to install and run. I was able to use Word and OneNote within Ubuntu. Word seemed to run flawlessly, while OneNote had some issues at shutdown. It seems to crash on exit, which is noted on the WineHQ site, but it doesn’t seem to lose any data. I’m note sure I would actually use Office in this configuration, VirtualBox seems safer, but it was one heck of an experiment and incredibly interesting to get it working. […]

General 0 1 min read
March 12, 2010

Windows 7 crashes when going to Sleep

Not only is Windows frustrating when I’m trying to use it, but it’s equally annoying when I try to make it go away. Sleep mode just doesn’t seem to work for me. About every third time I put the machine into Sleep mode it completely crashes or it hangs and never shuts down. When it does crash it goes for a full on "Blue Screen". If it doesn’t Blue Screen it disables the monitors and then hangs on exit and I have to force the machine off. Since I can’t see anything it doesn’t give me much choice in the matter. I now shut down all the apps before I put it to sleep so I don’t lose anything I’m working on. Windows 7 seems to have issues galore with Sleep mode (just look it up in Google); can’t control the network when it comes out of sleep and now most of the time I can’t get the thing to […]

General 0 1 min read
March 10, 2010

Dual Video Card Dilemma

This is just one example of the many problems I’ve been facing with Windows 7 and why it infuriates me. Things that used to work under XP without incident, don’t work under the "new and improved" OS. I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 630 to replace an older Dell Dimension 5150. The Inspiron is an AMD Athlon II X4 chipset since I didn’t want to go with Intel this time around. Instead of using the onboard video I installed an Nvidia 8500GT PCIe video card and an Nvidia 6200 PCI card. I have two monitors plugged into the 8500GT card and one into the 6200 card for a total of three monitors across two video cards. The funny thing, the system and Windows both recognize the cards. The drivers are installed and updated. And, when Windows initially starts it can see both cards and puts a display across all three. On the surface everything looks fine. Until I start arranging […]

General 0 2 min read
March 8, 2010

I’ve reached my limit with Windows 7

To put it bluntly, I can’t stand Windows 7. Since the day I installed it I’ve spend everyday fighting against the quirks, odd behavior, bad design and just one problem after another. At first it seemed like such a good idea, but I can’t find one single feature I like. I’ve run into problems with the machine crashing when it goes to sleep, losing the network when it wakes up, problems with 32-bit apps, fights with the UAC, troubles with multiple video cards, strange slowness issues and more damn updates than you can shake a stick at. I just can’t do it anymore. This relationship is too trying and too taxing on me. And through it all I can’t say I’ve gained a single feature from my days of working with XP. And the funny thing is, I can’t go back to Windows XP because I don’t have the 64-bit version and even if I did, that OS is such […]

General 4 4 min read

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