Category: Computers

Windows 7: XP Mode

Windows 7
Windows 7

Time for a geeky post – it’s been a while. I was tinkering with the beta version of Windows 7 for a while before it expired and was… well, I’d not say “impressed”, as it had problems with basic graphic drivers on my Acer TravelMate 2410. Otherwise it looked like it had the nice stuff from Vista without running like a two legged dog that’s been shot in the back of the head, then buried in concrete. As Vista does.

One feature I couldn’t check out is the XP Mode, which uses the virtualisation (I’m Anglicising that) of a copy of XP SP3 because my PC won’t support it. The idea is that anything you can run on XP should run on 7 using this feature… as long as your PC is beefy enough to handle it. The thing is, it’s not just beef – it’s functionality of your processor that actually comes into it.

The core requirements for XP Mode to run are:

  • Minimum 2GB RAM
  • Chip-level virtualisation in your CPU

Do you know if your CPU supports chip-level virtualisation? No, neither do I. I’d assume anything made in the last 6 months or so has a good chance of doing so but there’s no guarantee. Thankfully, Intel and AMD both supply free downloads that will give you a ton of information on the magic box within your PC including whether or not you have this level of functionality:

Download the relevant one and run it. You’re looking for confirmation that you have some kind of virtualization (American spelling, ick) technology. If you don’t have it, then you won’t be running XP under Windows 7 without upgrading your PC – and possibly having to get a new Windows 7 license if it works like the old XP ones did!

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Experiencing BT Broadband

BT Group plc
Blinking Tripe

I’m staying with relatives for a couple of weeks and they’ve just had broadband installed. They decided on BT‘s Option 2 which has a 4.5Mb connection (I think) and a limit of 15Gb per month which should be fine given that it’s predominantly for my little cousin to access CBeebies and the folks to go on eBay.

BT’s policy if you go over this limit is also pretty fair, in my opinion:

If you exceed your monthly usage allowance your service won’t stop working; advisory emails will be sent to your BT primary email address if you reach 80 per cent of your usage allowance each month and further notification if you then exceed your allowance in a particular month. If you exceed your usage allowance for two months in a row, we’ll charge you £1 for each extra GB you use (rounded up to the nearest GB) starting from the second month you exceed your allowance. We’ll continue charging if you keep exceeding your allowance in the following months. These charges will appear on your BT bill.

So you actually get a “free” couple of GB as long as you don’t take the piss, the additional charges aren’t excessive and they do warn you in advance when you’re approaching the limit. Can’t complain about that.

Only there’s still one major issue. How do you know how much data you’ve downloaded at any one point in time? This can’t be difficult and BT obviously have a per-customer record of this that’s constantly updated. How else could they inform you of when you’ve gone over it?

To put this in context, I have my mobile from 3. I don’t have an internet usage limit on it, but I so have a certain number of calls and texts I can use before I get charged. At any time I can go online, either via my phone or elsewhere, and get an up-to-the-second list of every category of phone call and text (and internet, though it’s not relevant to me) used. That way I know as I approach the end of my billing month how much I have to burn through, or whether I need to throttle back.

BT do not do this. There is no way to find out how much data you’ve shifted. Their advice:

To monitor your usage, you can use a search engine to find and download an online-usage meter; search for ‘internet usage meter’. You may wish to try several until you find one that meets your needs.

In a word: pathetic.

They’re pushing wi-fi routers these days, the idea of which is that multiple devices can be connected at any time. A family may have a desktop and two laptops. One of the parents could have work laptop they’re not allowed to install software onto so that scuppers the idea. Then you have to go around all of the devices and total up the data used all the time.

What happens if a friend comes over, or you want to surf the net on your mobile? The 3G signal here is pants so I connect my phone to the wi-fi instead. There’s no such program for the Nokia E71 that I’m aware of and it would be pointless anyway as I’d only want to use it when I’m here. Likewise, if you pop a monitor onto a laptop, you have to ensure it’s only measuring data flow when you’re connected to the home network and nowhere else.

Essentially it’s completely unreliable and useless unless you have one solitary PC hardwired to the internet connection. If a mobile company can manage it, then why can’t BT? All they need is a “customer information” web page you log into which tells you. Easy as. If such a page does exist then they need to tell people about it.

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Bad GOMplayer!

Ask.com Search Suggest - eagles of death metal...
I didn't "Ask" for this...

I’ve been updating my old laptop after not using it for a couple of months and one program that told me it had a new version was the excellent GOM player, my choice of media player under Windows. Happily I clicked on “yes please, download the update” and sat back.

Down it came, install started, answered the usual questions and then hit a new screen. Do I want the Ask Toolbar? And to change my default search engine to Ask? And to have my homepage set to Ask?

Well, no. I don’t. I also don’t like the fact that agreeing to the license is the same choice as agreeing to have the Ask toolbar installed. Of course, by now you’ve downloaded and installed the software so you’ve overwritten your old version. So unless you have the install file for that, you’re screwed.

Only you’re not. Fortunately there’s an “out” although whether by accident or design, I don’t know. I simply unchecked all the boxes and hit “Cancel” which – to my surprise – didn’t roll back the install. Instead, it opened Internet Explorer (itself strange as it’s not my default browser) on the download page for the Russian version of GOM.

And that was it.

So very, very bad form from GOM. A warning that the license has changed and toolbars are going to be enforced should be mentioned before download / install. Alternatively, there should be an option not to install the toolbar while still using the software/ Many other programs manage this, so GOM should as well.

It’s still my preferred media player, but only as long as I can skip around it installing bloody search bars. Mind you, if it only installs it on IE – which seems the case – I could almost put up with it on the basis that I never use IE anyway.

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Time Gentlemen, Please!

Clowns teaching Sex-Ed - what more do you need?
Clowns teaching Sex-Ed - what more do you need?

Time Gentlemen, Please! is the sequel to Ben There, Dan That which I railed about some time ago. Both are made by Zombie Cow Studios which seems to be a one-man act as far as I can ascertain.

I loved BTDT – it was one of the best graphic adventures I’d played in some time. If you like your humour quirkly and slightly disgusting then this is definitely for you. Playing right through will take you a couple of hours, even if you know the solution so the asking price of £2.99 is well worth it. After all, a cinema ticket costs twice that.

Pop over to the web site and nab yourself a copy. It’s Windows-only, which is a shame, but I’m sure it’ll keep me busy on the flight to Bangkok next week!

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Firefox and Chrome have no security

Windows Internet Explorer
IE

Microsoft have a nice new page telling you how great IE8 is and how it’s miles better than Firefox and Google Chrome. Well, they would say that. The “facts” they’ve put forward, however, are dubious to say the least.

Apparently Chrome doesn’t have crash recovery or tab isolation. Well, as far as I was aware, tab isolation (where if one of your web pages crashes, it doesn’t take the whole browser down with it) was one of the major features of Chrome. This makes crash recovery less of an issue, but if the whole thing does go belly up, then trust me – Chrome will recover, send info to Google should you choose and then ask you if you want all your pages back. If that’s not crash recovery, I don’t know what it.

Firefox, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t have tab isolation. Although it may be in v3.5 which is due out at the end of this month. This version also features “private browsing” where your history and so forth aren’t recorded on your PC. This is to secure your privacy. And ensure you can look at porn without your wife finding out. According to Microsoft’s little table, Firefox doesn’t have this… which is true for about 2 weeks. Chrome, on the other hand, does already feature it. If you’re using Chrome, try hitting Ctrl+****+N and you’ll find yourself in “incognito”.

OK, technically the table says that IE8 has “InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering”. Given these are copyrighted terms then it’s fair to say the others don’t have them. For some reason, though, MS is effectively saying their privacy is better than the others’, but not justifying it.

Security: IE8 has it, the other two don’t. Well, unless you add extensions. A fair point “out of the box”, but the sheer volume of plugins available for Firefox alone says that it’s got better protection. If you want more protection, download AVG‘s free antivirus. It offers a cobble-on for IE and FF which protects against malware.

As for “compatibility”, for some reason MS are claiming that IE8 is better as it works with more web pages than the others. I’d be really interested in knowing how they tested this. The only way to check if a page has rendered correctly is to look at it. And I seriously doubt they sat a handful of temps down and got them to check several billion web pages.

Microsoft’s claim that IE8 is best for development as you don’t have to install other tools has a flipside as well – bloat. If you decide you don’t want to use the MS tools then you’ll have to install other ones alongside the cludge already there.

Then there’s something MS don’t mention – user base. Where’s the link on the web page to download the Linux version? Or the Mac? Both alternative browsers are available for both platforms (Chrome only in beta on Linux and Mac, admittedly), as is Opera. Even Safari is available for Windows.

At the end of the day, pretty much every Windows user will end up with IE8 as a part of Windows Update. Non-Windows users can’t get it. So why bother trying to plug it?

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