Professional Booting

During Windows 7 beta I fell in love with booting from virtual disk (VHD). Now, with Windows 7 release candidate out, I decided it is time for new set of virtual machines.

In order to speed up process, I was using WIM2WHD script to make disk image. After images were done, small play with bcdedit solved booting issues.

For my first virtual disk I selected Professional edition of Windows 7. Booting went without hitch, setup sorted out it’s drivers and asked some questions. After final reboot I was greeted with “Licence error”.

That’s right. Nothing bellow Ultimate will give you option to boot from VHD file. While there is no good technology reason for disabling it, it seems that someone at Microsoft looked at whole picture and noticed that no matter how many Windows 7 installations you have, you are still on same hardware and thus one key will allow for multiple installations. Since preventing that would probably take too much effort, they decided to make it more expensive in the first place.

Windows 7 Pricing

Today Microsoft announced pricing for Windows 7. Since prices in Croatia (where I live) usually are not same prices like those in USA (our prices are somehow higher), that information is relevant only when compared with Windows Vista price. And price went down. Yes, Windows 7 will be slightly cheaper then same Windows Vista edition. I find this a good news.

Also for those who are willing to pre-order, there is limited offer which will get you Windows 7 in half the price. First wave of this offer is limited to USA and Canada. European pre-orders will start after July, 15th. Since Croatia is part of European market when it comes to cripled Windows 7 E, I do hope that we will be part of this offer also.

[2009-07-26: Because of compliance, it seems that upgrade will not be available in “E” version. However, upgrade pricing will still be available.]

Microsoft Security Essentials

Beta of Microsoft’s own anti-virus is out and account at Connect along with short survey is required before download may begin. While it was said that beta will be limited to USA, Israel, China and Brazil, I was able to download it anyhow (from Croatia).

Until now I was using freeware version of AVG anti-virus. Although I am it’s user for few years now, I was looking for replacement because of later version’s desire to attach it self in virtually every part of system. Most annoying ones were it’s attaching to e-mails and web pages. User interface was also quite annoying and you could never be clear at what exactly you have just done.

My two installations of Microsoft Security Essentials were on Windows 7 and Windows XP (Media Center Edition) and everything went without a hitch. Since download is fairly small (in range of 5 MB) and installation is really fast one, you are done with protecting yourself within minute.

User interface is clean and clear. While some would mind lack of advanced options, I find it quite refreshing. Bear in mind that in no way I can test how well it works in regards to actual task of catching viruses, so this alley will go unexplored.

What I can say is that I didn’t found anything wrong with it. If it is as good at catching actual viruses as other freeware solutions out there, I cannot find any reason why not to install it.

It is free after all.

[2009-06-30: Beta is closed. It seems that limit was set at 70,000 beta users. If you didn’t manage to download it now, you will need to wait until release.]

[2009-09-30: Final version is out there.]

Presenting

I occasionally do small presentations. Most of them are inside jobs, but sometimes I do find myself in front of unknown people. Here are some tips that I found useful.

Rehearse

Nothing is more important than rehearsing your speech before giving it. You don’t need to do it dozen of times, one or two times is enough. Just make sure that you rehearse it as you will give it. Go through all samples and use a clock. Timing is of essence here.

Check a room

Be sure to get overview of room at least few hours (minutes in worst case) before giving a speech. Check everything that you need: power, network, telephone… If you need it for presentations, make sure it is there or that you are aware of problem. Do not allow yourself to do network troubleshooting in front of audience.

Tea

Drink tea, not coffee. I personally tend to be quite speedy presenter and if you combine that with coffee you get really quick talk that nobody can follow. Give people enough time to absorb information as they get it. However, remember that some enthusiasm is quite a good thing.

I know few presenters that have beer before presentation (or even during) but I must confess that it does not work for me. If I want to give presentation it has to be alcohol-free.

Don’t be late

Don’t be an asshole. Be in room as people pour in. Wait if you think that some more people will come in, but be there.

Going Down

I am currently experiencing major technical difficulties for both my e-mail and web site.

My mail domain had non-default MX record settings (Google Apps) and that was not updated with move to new server. Without noticing, my e-mail account was gone since 2009-06-19. MX records are now corrected, but it will probably be few more hours until DNS gets new data. And then again, I will be e-mailable.

My web site is also down since transfer to new server broke some settings and I broke rest of it.

Long night awaits…

[2009-06-22 02:00: Web site is finally up but not with full functionality. I still need to restore 404 functionality (in case of non-existent file, I used to redirect it to newest version).]

[2009-06-22 03:00: DotNetPanel was a problem. If you don’t put * into sub-code text field it will not warn you, but it will just start displaying “The data is invalid.” page for all http requests. It seems that error checking is unknown discipline in this product. In any case, web page is back up.]

[2009-06-22 03:00: My e-mail is up, but in very weird and uncomfortable setup. Hopefully normal access will be restored soon.]

[2009-06-22 12:00: I also need to thank to my web provider. While this was caused by them while moving me to another server, I must commend their availability in middle of night and during non-working days. I will most definitely stay with them.]

[2009-06-23 08:30: I got first e-mail to my server! It is sent from my web provider so it should take some more time for it to propagate through all DNS caches.]

[2009-06-23 23:30: I finally got my error reporting system back on-line. Some servers send me e-mail to correct address, but big part of them still hasn’t updated their DNS records.]

[2009-06-25: Finally everything works. :)]