Kah Wai@spherebox

New Laptop – Wonder Vista

Got a new laptop 2 weeks back, here are the specifications for the laptop that I bought:

• Intel Duo Core 1.6GH, 2MB Cache, 533 MHz FSB
• Integrated Stereo Sound
• 2048MB (2 X 1024MB) 533 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• GENUINE Windows Vista(TM) Business with AERO experience (Had to upgrade, it was cheap – This will be the topic of discussion later after the boasting)
• 120GB SATA Hard Disk Drive
• Internal 8X DVD +/- RW Combi Drive wuth dual layer write capabilities
• 15.4″ Wide Screen XGA TFT Display with Truelife(TM): 1280 X 800
• 256MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7300 TurboCache

Ok enough with the boasting. On to the topic. Wonder… errr… Windows Vista.

Honestly, when I first saw it I was very impressed. The AERO experience with the shadow backdrops and the ‘fogged glass’ appearance for the borders of any window open that wasn’t maximised, was genuinely beautiful. Even the taskbar had that feature, which was semi-transparent when there wasn’t any maximised window open. Microsoft outdid itself by adding a ‘widget bar’, the stuff you can get from Yahoo or Google widgets if you’re the type that heavily modifies the desktop appearance just to look good. The widgets also give good functionality and flexibility, making your desktop a true DESKTOP, complete with a clock, sticky notes, weather, calendar… I can keep going. The drawback for that was (for earlier Window versions) the amount of memory that the widgets eat into while running in the background. Trust me, anything that has a ‘3rd party’ tag to it will definitely be screwing up with memory. This time, the widgets are integrated into Vista, making the startup times bearable with all the antivirus, instant messenger, anti-spyware, firewall… blah blah blah going on in the background.

I digress. The topic that I would like to touch on is the bloody administrator / user status of bloody ‘wonderful’ Vista. It’s a veritable pain in the nether region. In addition to programs being incompatible to Vista, (as to be expected, remember the start of XP? Same shit, different day) Microsoft had to be very anal about programs accessing the system files. Granted, with today’s hackers, crackers, spyware, adware and all those warez you see on the internet, one cannot be too careful about what program and who is accessing your information, much less writing stuff into your system files. Therefore, Microsoft came up with the brilliant idea of, “Hey, why not make the administrator, who is SUPPOSED to have total control over everything, start off as a normal user status?” Now you’re thinking, hmm, the idea sounds good since I might screw up stuff that I don’t know about if I have admin status. BUT! The trouble starts.

Updating programs manually have always been a norm for programs that update themselves once in a blue moon. This contrasts a lot with anti-virus programs, which always update themselves at the wrong bloody time of the day, when you’re rushing up an assignment, or trying to access a program that eats into memory like a glutton. Nevertheless, the manual updates happen when the program finally ’sees’ an update on the developer server, and prompts you to install it else it’ll blow up in your face. In Windows XP, you happily press the update button, not caring if the update is really an update, or just your mom checking if you’re still alive. Windows Vista however will complain. It’s not the fact of it complaining or not, it’s WHEN it complains. Usually a file is downloaded onto your computer before any ‘patching’ or ‘updating’ is done. After the download, it proceeds to execute the file. Here is where the problem starts. At the end (sometimes beginning) the program gives an error message saying, “Hey, get lost and get the manager to come see me. You don’t have any privileges to do crap shit with this computer.” And there you are wondering, “Hmm, I’m the manager, what the hell is it complaining about?” Ahah. THIS is the problem I’m talking about when Vista ‘demotes’ someone down to user status when executing programs. Couple that with the frustration of waiting out the long tedious update just for it to screw up on the last percent.

A workaround? Yeap, Microsoft decided to be generous about it (after finding out they screwed up) and gave a ‘Run program as administrator’ option to users. Once a program is run as an administrator, any file patches or updates can be run without it complaining. Bottom line: If you run a program and it says, “Hey check it out, a new patch / update is available and it’s extremely important I get it”, click NO, and close the program. Right click on the program shortcut to obtain this:

Click on that, click on YES for any following irritating confirmation messages that crop up (DISCLAIMER: please check the messages first!!), program starts, and here comes Mr. Message saying that there is an update (again). NOW, you can click on “Go ahead, infect my computer with what not and let me get on with whatever I’m supposed to do.” The program should then update itself peacefully without interruptions.

Another weird quirk with Vista is the incapability of users to save any files (through programs) into the program folder. For example, if you work in Matlab (a mathematical software), the default work folder will be under the Matlab folder itself. Saving into that folder will give error messages saying you cannot save onto that folder. Picky isn’t it? This is an encouragement to use the ‘Documents’ folder (similar to ‘My documents’ for XP). I can’t say this is a bad thing, since it centralises all your information, therefore reducing the headache of remembering which folder did you save it to. Of course, you can compartmentalise your data in the Documents folder by creating subfolders in it and saving into them. Vista isn’t THAT anal to prevent you doing that. When you save files, you will be prompted for the location to save to as well as the file name. Example shown below. (NOTE: The example used PROBABLY wasn’t very good as it was defaulted to save in ‘My Pictures’ folder, which is default writable to, but this can be extended to any programs whose default folder isn’t ‘Documents’ or any subfolder in it)

By using “Browse Folders” you can search for the ‘Document’ folder faster:

Well, another roundabout way is to run the program as administrator (you can set that to permanent status by right clicking on the shortcut and fiddling with the properties) but you will get all those irritating confirmation windows that you may as well save yourself the aggravation and use my way instead.

Well, that’s Windows Vista for you. Seriously, I’ll wait for the first major patch that ultimately kills all these little annoyances before getting it for your system. By that time, quite a lot of programs will then be Windows Vista compatible that shifting over from Windows XP (or older) should not bring you too much grief.

KW

Termination schemes? What the hell is that?

Ok… Delving into something that you use everyday (I HOPE!) and complain most of the time about it. The internet.

To be precise, it’s the connection rather than the internet itself. To most users that have started using the internet not long ago, I bet you guys have not even heard about dial-up. Dial-up was somewhat similar to the fast ‘cable’ connection that many users are using right now, albeit much slower. The fastest connection back then was using a 56k modem.

So… How far have we leaped in terms of connectivity? Internet pages that used to load so very slowly in the yesteryears now materialise almost instantaneously once called. In Australia, the fastest connection that can be afforded by average users would be the ADSL2 line, sitting comfortably at 24Mbps (Mega-bits per second). This means, on average, the speed should hit about 2.4 Megabytes per second. If you’re downloading a song which is about 6Mb (depending on encoding and quality) it takes about 3-5 seconds to download that song! Fast huh? A cheaper alternative (and the one I’m using cause damn Carlton is limited by the cable type to hit ADSL2) would be ADSL1, which hits a maximum speed of 1.5Mbps. This translate to about 150kb per second, which is a far cry from the ADSL2 line, but still good enough for the things I do.

How do these all work though? How are we able to move from a 56kbps to a 1.5Mbps line without ripping all the cables out of the ground and replacing them? (The same does not apply to 24Mbps since we NEED to rip the cables out of the ground and replace them) The answer lies in termination schemes. Now the question is… What are termination schemes? To put it in short, they are means whereby a transmission line is terminated. Then you’re thinking again… Why must they be terminated? This is a semi-complicated issue, but I’ll try to simplify it as much as possible.

Imagine yourself walking from where you are sitting right now, to say, the toilet. This is assuming you’re sitting comfortably at home, at which the toilet should be at a comfortable walking distance. Now, take that distance, and imagine an ant walking from point A to point B. Far huh? Well, this is what happens in transmission lines. Data bits are transmitted at a rate so fast, that even short wires seem long. This actually translate to the delay and the limitation on how fast data can be transmitted. With these kind of fast transmitted signals, wires which we always assumed to have almost negligable resistances, inductance and even capacitance, now have these properties ‘magnified’. These properties must now be taken into account when transmitting data.

This magnification of the impedances (I will now lump all of them into this term) will cause power loss, and at a worst case, ringing. No, this isn’t the telephone kind of ringing! Ringing occurs when the modelled capacitor and the inductor resonate with one another. Think of an opera singer hitting a note that breaks glass. The principle is the same since the fast changing voltages across those capacitors and inductors (due to the fast changing data transmitted) cause them to resonate. This causes unwanted signal propagating to and fro the transmission line. By limiting the rate at which the data is transferred, we can then avoid corruption of the data transmitted. This would be why we need to rip cables and replace them if we were to transit from ADSL1 to ADSL2. The properties of the cables would inherently be different.

How about signals ‘bouncing’ off the receiver end? Hmm… This actually comes down to refraction. Remember physics in high school? Optics? Well, the same principle applies. Light can be thought of as an extremely fast oscillating wave. By passing it through 2 objects of different medium, (a good example will be from air to water) the light beam will actually ‘bend’ and ‘reflect’. This depends on the angle at which the beam enters the 2nd medium from the first. If the angle is 90 degrees, the reflection will be superimposed onto the transmitted beam, with the ‘bending’ effect unable to be seen. The same actually occurs in transmitted signals. Due to the receiver end having different impedances compared to the transmission line, the signal actually ‘bounces’ back to the transmitter. This obviously corrupts the next signal that is to be transmitted.

The scheme I’ve described is called ’shunt termination’ or ‘end termination’. There are other methods like ’series termination’, ’split termination’ and ‘AC termination’. Each of them have their own pros and cons, and should be applied only where appropriate. Actual analysis of these terminations actually involves a lot of electrical terminology, and an average layman would not be able to follow anything I’ve typed out.

By having a good knowledge of the transmission line, current methods are able to obtain an optimum speed at which data can be transmitted. Ripping the cables out and replacing them will have to happen sooner or later though, since technology is always improving and that seems to be the only way to advance along with it.

KW

P/S: If you feel like I should just delve right into the mechanics of things, feel free to say so. My next posts will then concentrate more towards the basics of things, then moving on to the more advanced sections of electrical engineering.

Thank god for anti-virus programs

Recently, there has been a Trojan floating around doing it’s usual dirty job of deleting and disabling security products as well as *horror* deleting Porn, Music and Warez.

Related post in Slashdot.org

Well, from the post it seems that it tracks those P2P folders and deletes them. Lucky for me I leave only a few select files in those folders, and make a back-up of them. The rest I shift over to other folders (and they are not shared).

Muahahahaha… Yes, I’m a selfish bastard. So sue me.