Pentankh Eternal’s Blog

Oh no, no! No, not the Vista!

Actually. I’d say "Yes yes the Vista". I quite like it. Very snazzy with loads more options that XP Pro shoulda had. Now, the only question is whether it is affordable or not. There’s going to be 7 different versions. Of course, I’d love to get Vista Ultimate, but the prices Microsoft charge, it’d probably be AUD$1,000! If I’m lucky I might be able to get Vista Home Premium.

Here’s a summary from PCWorld:

Windows Vista Home Basic: For consumers that want to simply use the PC to browse the Internet, correspond with friends and family over email or perform basic document creation and editing tasks, Windows Vista Home Basic will deliver a safer, more reliable and more productive computing environment.

Windows Vista Home Premium: Will help consumers utilize mobile or desktop PC functionality more effectively while enabling the enjoyment of new, exciting digital entertainment experiences - all with the benefit of added security and reliability. Windows Vista Home Premium includes everything in Windows Vista Home Basic, plus the Windows Vista Aero(TM) and Media Center and Tablet PC capabilities.

Windows Vista Ultimate: Windows Vista Ultimate is the edition of Windows Vista that has it all. It is the first operating system that brings together all of the consumer-oriented features available in Windows Vista Home Premium with all of the business-oriented features available in Windows Vista Business.

Quite probably Home Premium will be sufficient.

Vista runs very well on my PC. I got a "Windows System Performance Rating" of 3/5 which isn’t too bad, I suppose. If only there were some analysis of what the numbers actually mean. The upshot of it is when you go shopping for games and other applications, now you just look for ones that your PC is capable of playing. Supposedly so Microsoft and others don’t get whinged at when your Celeron 433 with 256Mb of RAM doesn’t run Doom 3 that well. If Doom 3 is rated "3" and your cruddy PC is only a 1 or 2, forget it. Incidentally, my specs (in case you want to compare your setup to my score):

Mobo: Asus K8N4-E | Sound: Builtin Realtek ALC850 | Mouse: Logitech MX510| Kbd: MS Natural Pro
1Gb RAM | NIC: Netgear WG311v3 (working) | Video: Xpertvision nVidia 6600GT PCIe w/ 128Mb RAM
CPU: AMD64 Athlon 3000+

Not set up yet (so may or may not work): Logitech Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000, iPod Shuffle (detected but haven’t installed iTunes yet), Motorola Bluetooth adapter. My WG311 didn’t work for ages then today I turned the PC on and it was working. In fact, the Netcomm modem I had in there the other day started causing reboots and bluescreens (even in Vista). I finally figured out the reason was the Modem and the WiFi card were conflicting. I moved the modem to a new PCI slot (er.. right next to the PCIe graphics card which I didn’t want to put it near due to the heat) and it all works well. I can map to the server via WiFi and all! I wonder if it had anything to do with Vista updates from the Microsoft website?

I’m becoming more and more attached to Vista each day and actually hate going back to XP Pro. Interestingly enough, Vista had my Canon Pixma iP6210D printer listed under Storage Devices hehehe.

I love the way Vista automatically detects my hp iPAQ 4150 Pocket PC and the new Mobile Device application rocks!

The visual effects .. normally you would think ‘oh..er yeh.. eye candy .. big woop’ but I think it actually makes the interface look VERY nice.

I’m still in two minds about the "Consent" application. You see, whenever you do anything which Microsoft decided could be destructive (change network configuration, delete folders, etc) the whole screen darkens and a bright box pops up asking if you want to go ahead or cancel the operation. It’s handy but a pain to hit OK all the time. Of course, you can turn this option off, but it then allows viruses to do stuff they shouldn’t do. I am an Administrator of the PC but still could not edit the "hosts" file until I took ownership myself.

WMP 11 is very nice as is the way Windows Explorer works.

Unfortunately, IE now seems to render my blog page properly (as Firefox always did) so I have to fix the CSS code which was set up for IE but not Firefox.

How about that? I borrowed a dialup modem from a guy at work and now I’m connected at 41.2kbps, so it’s my modem that’s shit. I thought it was my phone line since I have Pair Gain/RIM on it and I read on a website about the technology that it can cut your connection speed down below 30kbps. I’m gonna take the modem back to the shop I bought it at and see if they can refund me. I’m getting a Netcomm modem from Rebecca since she doesn’t use it. That should get me back online for a while.

This modem I already own is a Web Excel. Now when I dial up it won’t even route internet packets. I can’t get to any websites and 7-8/10 pings never come back!

I was talking to the guys at work about my PGS/RIM problem and one guy said he had that issue. Telstra couldn’t transpose him off PGS so he asked TPG and they did it (!?!?!!?!!). Made no sense to me, but i figured.. hey! give it a go. So I did. I signed up online and within an hour had a reply that my line has PGS on it and they asked if I wanted them to take it off again. I said ‘yes please!!!’. So let’s cross our fingers and stuff that they can fix it for me :)

Sienna is snoozing on the couch. She woke up way before me and went into the lounge and turned on TV to watch until I got up. She also found a packet of Chicken flavoured chips in the pantry and got stuck into that. It’s good to know she can look after herself. I’m so proud

Happy Birthday to Tomcat for yesterday. Hope you got lots of blowies and stuff

Just got back from watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man’s chest.

Not a bad show. I think it will even improve more in Part 3. I think I’m alone though in feeling the first one was better. From what I’ve read most people think Part 2 is best. Time will tell I guess. Since it broke opening weekend records and took the top honour away from Spiderman, I may be in a minority. Don’t get me wrong.. it’s a really good watch

Don’t forget to watch past the excruciatingly long credits for about 7 seconds of movie left. I give it 4/5.

It had some really good, fun moments and some totally unbelievable ones. Jack Sparrow’s humour is definitely something to love. He just pulls you into the show.

It’s interesting to note some people missed small references to the previous movie and did I catch a very subtle reference to a quote from DNA (Douglas Adams)? See if you pick it

Does anyone know a RELIABLE Australian web host company with CPanel =
support? They need to be competitive in pricing and hopefully do backups =
and allow 4 or more domains and allow account managing via WHM. This seems =
to be an impossibility in Australia.

Had a great weekend with Sienna again. She tripped over when we went
shopping and scraped her elbows and chest..  poor thing. She also tried to
get me to chase her down the hallway and went to hide under my bed and
banged her head on the bottom of the wooden bed=2E Strangely enough she
didn’t cry when it happened, only once I walked into the room and she said "Hi daddy!" then started crying… kids!

We did some shopping, painting, drawing, watched her favourite TV shows,
read some books, played with balloons in her room and also some other toys.

Her brother is heading back to Sydney today so it will be a bit quieter for
her around home. I think it might be a good thing because she gets so
overworked and uptight. Saturday afternoon she slept for about 3+ hours.
Yesterday when I was taking her home she fell asleep in the car as usual.

It turns out when I ran a site backup on this and my AusPUG site I put them both over their quotas which I had set. Therefore neither account (or any other domains I run under them) would accept email or any extra files. So, my email has been down for probably half a week.. maybe more. D’oh! I created a ticket with my webhost (I didn’t find out they have no phone support until AFTER I signed up for a two year invoice) and waited. Three and a half hours later I decided to go to an internet cafe and fix it myself. I’ve just checked their new Support Forum and they’ve all gone away for the weekend from last Friday until after today so there is SFA tech support available. Apparently one of the staff guys got married on the weekend, so Support comes second in their priorities. *Sigh*. They don’t even do backups.

I just watched a fascinating show on SBS about epigenetics. It’s about your =
experiences affecting not only the next generation but also later =
generations. The show was called ‘The ghost in your genes’.
For example, the trauma from 9/11 affecting children born afterwards. The =
holocaust stress affecting grandchildren of people who were in it causing =
stress even though the grandchildren were not around at the time. In fact, =
since children were only one year old when the study was done it proved the =
stress was ot caused due to a re-telling of stories.
Famine affecting grandparents would create genetic changes in their =
grandchildren.
Toxins affecting mice causing diseases many generations later (3-4 and =
more!).
It’s all new science, but very interesting.
For women affected by 9/11 directly it only passed on a genetic message if =
the woman was in her third trimester.
If a man is affected during his puberty he would pass on the genetic =
record.
They discovered IVF can turn off certain genetic sequences which can cause =
syndromes and also pass on problems to the IVF person’s future =
generations.

Lucky weekend

I’m back at work today. I had planned for today as a TOIL day to have =
Sienna for an extra day but once I got to work yesterday morning they told =
me they had to send most of the guys far away for updates and installs (we =
support most of QLD) so they needed me to come in after all. So I told them =
I’d have yesterday off instead. Unfortunately I didn’t get back to my train =
station until 10am but at least I got time off. I picked up Sienna and we =
headed back to my place.=20
I got the weekly clothes washing done and we watched some episodes of =
Little Einsteins. Sienna rode around the house on her bike and after that =
we rested.
She fell asleep at about 5.30pm and didn’t wake until after 6am this =
morning. I drove her back to Rebecca’s and caught the train to work. I saw =
the train arriving just as I pulled up in the car park and grabbed my bag =
and bolted for the train only to realise my phone was still in the car. By =
the time I got back to the car the train was leaving. It was the last train =
that would get me to work on time. The next one was 25 minutes away.. so I =
waited.

I went to the cinema on Tuesday and saw Cars. Man! That movie rocks!! I =
actually laughed out a couple of times. Gotta get it on DVD when it’s =
released. Still waiting for Da Vinci Code on DVD.

My bank stuffed me around on a new credit card so I told them I will keep =
my current one after all. They also tried to charge me for Home & Contents =
Insurance on the home I sold over a month ago!! I had my home loan with =
them. The bank just forgot to notify their Insurance branch of the sale.. =
they also forgot to pass on my new address!

A couple of weeks ago I cancelled my MBF membership. They got me to sign a =
form saying where to refund any outstanding membership payments. I filled =
it in and signed it. Today I rang to ask where my money was and they tell =
me they can only refund back into my credit card and I have to write a =
letter requesting such. I told them they should have told me that when I =
was in the branch!! So now I have written a letter and will take it in =
when I get the time.
Aaaaarghhh!!!!

Sienna and I had a fun weekend together. She was a bit fluey so we didn’t =
go out except to do shopping. I set up an oil burner with Lavender and =
Eucalyptus to help her breathe and it stopped her coughing in her =
sleep.

I bought her some paints and crayons and stickers to go in a colouring-in =
book. We spent Saturday and Sunday working on that. We also put stickers on =
her new table. Apart from that we also watched Little Einsteins on Foxtel. =
I’ve recorded about 8 or so episodes of that now. It’s so =
educational.

I found there’s a place nearby home where I can learn to fly glider planes =
so I might give that a go.