Category: Technology

Yesterday, Microsoft made Windows Vista Beta 2 available to the public through its new Customer Preview Program (CPP).

It’s an interesting initiative that deserves some merit, but I think Microsoft underestimated how many downloads they would receive following the initial announcement.

Let?s just say that Microsoft had to resort to sending out an announcement from their Switzerland headquarters regarding the availability of the beta today.

Let?s do some math.

100,000 users wanting to download a 3.2 GB ISO of Vista + several high-bandwidth Akamai content delivery servers all maxed out = Microsoft putting up a web page stating that they don?t have enough bandwidth available to serve the requests.

Maybe, Microsoft should have been smarter and set up a torrent to distribute the rather large ISOs.? Anyways, I’ll let you decide.

If you want to get in on the action, do the following (just be prepared to wait a very long time to download the beta):

1. Run the Upgrade Advisor to ensure your system can handle Vista.
2. Ensure you have a DVD writer installed.? Blank media helps 😉
3. A fast broadband Internet connection is a must.
4. Register to download the Windows Vista Beta 2 DVD ISO.

Have fun!

Just when you thought it was safe to pick up an Intel CPU, there’s news of yet another price cut. Don’t get me wrong. Price cuts are good. Well, very good for consumers.

Personally, I’m waiting until Intel releases their new Conroe (aka Core 2 Duo) CPU before purchasing any new components for my desktop system. On the other hand, I may just delay my purchases until Windows Vista actually ships to OEMs. That would be good for two reasons: 1) first-hand reviews of the RTM version of Vista and 2) there will be more price cuts (I bet you saw this one coming).

Intel issued price cuts on four of their LGA775 chips this past Sunday. Another price cut is due on July 23rd, the tentative release date for the Core 2 Duo CPU. Hopefully, this gets the ball rolling for AMD price cuts.

From a price/performance perspective, I think most desktop users are better off going with an Intel dual core LGA775 CPU at this point in time, that is until AMD issues significant price cuts on their dual core X2 CPU’s.

Update:

Intel to cut prices on processors by up to 60%.

Today, AMD?announced their socket AM2 processor, two weeks ahead of schedule.

I think the early announcement was a positive move by AMD, especially with the upcoming Intel Core Duo price cuts on May 28.

What does this announcement mean for you. Don’t buy any AMD socket 754 CPU’s, especially if you want to upgrade in the future. Why? Socket 754 CPU’s will be obsolete by the end of the year.  Socket 939 CPU’s will follow suit shortly thereafter (second half of next year).

What’s new in the socket AM2 CPU. Geek speak: an integrated DDR2, memory controller and AMD Virtualization.  In Layman’s terms: faster memory access and the ability for a PC to act as multiple virtual machines (eg. run multiple operating systems and share a pool of resources).

Don’t expect any performance miracles by moving from socket 939 to socket AM2, yet. Give it some time.

Yes, you heard right. Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled the minimum requirements for its upcoming operating system.

To summarize: you need an 800 MHz CPU, with 512 MB of RAM, at least 15 GB of hard drive space and a video card that supports DirectX 9. That means my state-of-the-art Pentium III 1 GHz Linux box is capable of running Vista. Not bad. Would I want to? No. Ever try running Windows XP on a similar configuration? It’s as slow as molasses.

So, that brings me to the next point — the premium requirements. 1 GHz CPU. 1 GB RAM. 128 MB dedicated graphics memory for the Aero experience. 15 GB of free space. Ooooh, I’m impressed Microsoft. 15 GB of free space?!? Interesting. The reality is that you will need to double each of the premium requirements for the ultimate Vista experience.

Hardware manufacturers: rejoice.

Update:

According to Jim Allchin (Co-President, Platforms & Services Division), Vista will run on machines with less than 512 MB of RAM, but performance will increase with more RAM:

“Our performance analysis today says that on low-memory machines, XP beats Vista, and the more memory you give it, Vista beats XP…”

That title caught your attention, didn’t it? (Well, it should have ;)).

I’m going to start writing little snippets such as this one to share some knowledge with the public, specifically on hardware price cuts.

If you’re like me, you hate purchasing computer hardware only to see the price drop significantly within a couple of months (or weeks, or even days). Then, you kick yourself for not waiting (or not knowing).

For those of you contemplating on purchasing new hardware in the next two months, it’s probably best to wait if you are deciding on a Core Duo notebook. On May 28, Intel will be issuing price cuts on their Core Duo chips. On a side note, I bought a Toshiba Satellite M100 last week to test it out and was impressed with the performance of the Core Duo chip — the Intel T2300 CPU performed on par with an AMD X2 3800+ CPU. It outperformed my P4 3.2 GHz HT system by more than 50% in some of my tests.

With Windows Vista around the corner (read: distant), it’s best to stick with the Intel Core Duo or AMD X2 (or AM2) processor for your next system. You might get a good deal on an AMD Turion or Pentium M 740 (single core) notebook today, but what’s the use if it runs Windows Vista like a slug after a service pack (read: Windows XP SP2)? Spend the extra couple hundred and save yourself some frustration in the future. Windows Vista will require some beefy hardware to run optimally — dual cores or processors and 128 MB dedicated video memory to name a couple.

On to the second advisory. AMD should be releasing their new AM2 processor in June (tentative), which supersedes the current Socket 939 CPUs. That means more price cuts on their current Socket 754 and Socket 939 desktop processors. That said, the AM2 processor is not pin compatible with the Socket 939 CPUs out there, so that means that your Socket 754 and Socket 939 motherboards will soon be obsolete.

Advisory three. Now is a good time to purchase flash memory (yes, those USB memory sticks and what not). Flash memory yields are doing very well at the present time, so expect to pay less than $40 CDN for a 1 GB USB thumb drive.

That’s all for now

Update:

NCIX is was selling the 1 GB OCZ flash drive for only $40 between April 28 and May 2.

This post is meant to save others time in finding a solution for the above.  Since the solution isn’t documented anywhere on the Internet, it was a matter of trial and error before QualysGuard passed a server scan (for a friend) with no level 3 vulnerabilities (port 25 over SSL).

First of all, some background information.  By default, QMail configured with TLS support uses a default set of OpenSSL ciphers:ALL:!ADH:RC4+RSA:+SSLv2:@STRENGTH

The @STRENGTH keyword sorts the ciphers by strength.

Qualys does not consider SSLv2 ciphers to be fairly strong, due to various vulnerabilities, nor does it permit anonymous authentication ciphers.

The solution is to create two files containing a modified set of ciphers:
ALL:!aNULL:!ADH:!eNULL:!LOW:!EXP:!SSLv2:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM

The files that must be created are ‘/var/qmail/control/tlsserverciphers’ and ‘/var/qmail/control/tlsclientciphers’.

Restart QMail and voila, your QMail server is now configured to use strong ciphers that Qualys will approve of