labnol.org - Windows Live Sync vs. Live Mesh vs. SkyDrive: Which is Right for You?

http://www.labnol.org/internet/compare-windows-live-sync-mesh-and-skydrive/6166/

jkontherun.com - Windows Mobile vs. Android: WinMo Is Better Than You Think

http://jkontherun.com/2009/11/23/windows-mobile-vs-android-winmo-is-better-than-you-think/

AT&T UWIN - Unix on Windows

http://www2.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/

Google skipfish automated web applications security scanner

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2010/03/meet-skipfish-our-automated-web.html

HTML5 charset declarations & validation

http://oli.jp/2009/html5-charset/

CSS3.info

http://www.css3.info/

Acid3 test

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

SunSpider Javascript performance test

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/benchmarks/SunSpider/Default.html

CSS3 Selector test

http://tools.css3.info/selectors-test/test.html

IE9 Developer preview test page

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Mosaic 2.7 on Mint

Co-worker sent me a link to a copy of Mosaic for Linux, so I blew away my laptop's unactivated Windows 7 install (was just trying it out on 7 year old Dell hardware - worked great except for sound) and installed Mint, so next step: follow the instructions to install Mosaic and party like it's 1994!

Opera 10.5 exploit

http://my.opera.com/securitygroup/blog/2010/03/09/the-malformed-content-length-header-security-issue

BetaNews.com - Cloud-based Google app store

http://www.betanews.com/article/Google-unveils-its-cloudbased-Apps-Marketplace-wants-20-revenue-share/1268189454?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bn+%28Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN%29

BetaNews.com - IE usage remains steady

http://www.betanews.com/article/That-wasnt-supposed-to-happen-IE-usage-share-steady-since-choice-screen/1268168524?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bn+%28Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN%29

HTML5/4 differences working draft published

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/

HTML working draft published

http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/

HTML5 working draft published

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/

Rebuilding my system with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Decided to start a record of the customizations I make to and programs I install on my computer since I rebuilt it using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

• Installed all Windows Updates, rebooting as necessary.
• When the Action Center warned me that no anti-virus was installed, I installed Microsoft Security Essentials.
• Went to Tools > Folder Options > View in Windows Explorer and un-checked "Hide extensions for known file types".
• In a folder window, grouped everything by "Type" and then in Tools > Folder Options > View, clicked the "Apply to folders" button.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

• While re-organizing stuff on my drives, went to Tools > Folder Options > View and checked "Use check boxes to select items".
• Installed Foxit - fastest PDF viewer ever.

Monday, March 8, 2010

• Installed Firefox 3.0, 3.5 and 3.6 for development - I keep IE8 as my default browser, to stay in touch with the experience most people are familiar with, but I often use Chrome as well.
• Enabled Bookmark Sync for Chrome and cleaned up my bookmarks using Google Docs (got my social networking bookmarks organized finally!)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

• Installed TrueCrypt & FreeDownloadManager

Friday, March 12, 2010

• Finally needed to print something, so I used the "Add Printer" wizard to install my network printer - worked flawlessly as always.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

• Been noticing something since moving to 64-bit and have decided it's not a fluke:
  
  Explorer does not refresh views as well as 32-bit - at least, I didn't notice the behavior until moving to 64-bit, and I'd been using 32-bit for like a year prior.  Basically, if I move file(s) and/or folder(s) from one location to another, or rename files or folders, etc., any progress dialogs appear and then close as if the operation's complete, and it does appear to be, but the icons are unchanged in the view.  If I refresh the view (F5, right-click > Refresh, close/re-open, navigate away and back, etc.), the view instantly updates correctly.  Haven't been scientific about it (yet), but it seems to happen more often than not, and I think the view does update eventually if I let it sit a while.
  
  Just happened now - I'd created a bunch of files on my desktop while working on a project and I was ready to delete them.  I selected them all and then drag/dropped them onto the Recycle Bin.  The cursor and everything behaved as if the operation was complete, but the files were all still sitting on my desktop.  I waited about ten seconds, and then went ahead and refreshed (right-clicked > Refresh) and bang, they all disappeared from the desktop.
  
  This seems to happen often, and it seems to happen in any Explorer view.  I found a thread about it, which is unhelpful so far:
  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproui/thread/8afb8b65-900c-4f42-b1df-3c2394417b6e
  
  Gonna monitor this for a while.
  
  
  
• Installed Yammer to get updates from my work network.
• Installed Komodo Edit.
• Used ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) to connect my laptop (running Linux Mint which has no drivers for my laptop wifi NIC) to the Internet via my desktop - worked FLAWLESSLY.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

• Installed Microsoft SuperPreview

Thursday, March 18, 2010

• Installed Microsoft LiveSync

Saturday, March 20, 2010

• Installed FileZilla to manage my several websites.  Windows Explorer has integrated FTP so you can manage a remote FTP location just like a local folder, which is great for on the fly operations, but for large-scale file transfers FileZilla is faster.
• Installed RealVNC to manage the other systems on my network.  Remote Desktop is better in some ways, but Microsoft has just messed with it too much over the years, rendering it almost unusable, and now it's not even available in Home Premium, so, okay Microsoft, I get it, you want me to use VNC instead.  Fine by me.  Message received.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

• Installed Microsoft Live Mesh to try it out - allows access from my cell phone as well as my computers.

Monday, April 5, 2010

• Installed DeepBurner - Windows has had CD/DVD burning built in for a long time, but it's still stupidly slow and involves making a copy of the files to a "burn" system folder - that can be ~4.4 Gb of data!  What if the reason you're burning the files is because you have less than 4 gigs remaining on your drive?  Stupid!  DeepBurner is free, lightning fast, and burns your files directly from their original locations, so no making duplicate copies BS.
• Installed IrfanView to view PSDs quickly.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

• Installed The Gimp - Photoshop is soooooo expensive. And therefore uninstalled IrfanView.

Windows 7 RC1 to Windows Home Premium 64-bit

The RC1 install I've had on my system for most of the last year began rebooting every two hours starting March 1st, right on schedule, so I decided to finally install a copy of Home Premium from the Family pack I bought a while back.  While reading up on Paul Thurrott's excellent guide on how to do a full custom install from upgrade media, I realized that now might also be the time to move from 32-bit to 64.

A year ago I'd seen some horror stories on the web about living with 64-bit Windows, mostly regarding lack of compatible software, and especially hardware drivers, but while researching the laptop I bought for my sister last Christmas, I noticed that the majority of Windows systems being sold to average consumers these days are all 64-bit, so I'm confident most of the issues have been resolved.

Not knowing anything about 64-bit software, the first question I had was: can my Dell XPS 420 desktop run 64-bit Windows?  Below are the instructions I found on Microsoft's "32-bit and 64-bit Windows: frequently asked questions" page:

To find out if your computer is running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows, do the following:

1. Open System by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

2. Under System, you can view the system type.

I was happy to discover that my system was compatible with 64-bit Windows, so the next question I had was, does the family pack I bought include 64-bit?  Turns out that most available copies of Windows one purchases include both versions.

After that, the process of installing was the same one I'm used to: Microsoft recommends a clean install from RC1 rather than an upgrade, which makes sense, and I prefer to clean install anyway when I get the chance, since I love working with a brand new system every so often.  The installation procedure itself was exactly the same as I'm used to.

I have had absolutely no hardware incompatibility issues so far - my audio, video, USB, Logitech webcam, wireless NIC, etc., all installed themselves automatically and "just worked".  The only differences I've encountered are:

1. I now have two "Program Files" folders in my C: drive.  The first is called "Program Files", but the second is called "Program Files (x86)".  I'm assuming that there's some kind of 32-bit emulation going on that allows 32-bit software to work within 64-bit Windows, and that second folder is where they get installed, but that's just a guess.
2. Whenever I download a program to install, I look to see if a 64-bit version exists.  If not, I just download the default, and so far, they all work.

I'm going to tag this post "rebuild" and begin a series of posts itemizing the steps I'm taking to rebuild my system.

PositionIsEverything.com - IE

http://positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

Sent from my HTC smartphone

SitePoint.com - hasLayout

http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/haslayout

Sent from my HTC smartphone

In Search of Lost Sounds

http://www.slate.com/id/2245891/

HTML5 - custom datasets

http://www.javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/customattributes.shtml