Monthly Archives: May 2009

Windows 7 Update

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Just a short update on Windows 7. It turns out that media sharing with Media Center actually works pretty well, with little or no configuration. If you have Media set to be streamable in the Network and Sharing Center, then all you have to do on the other computer is open Media Center, select TV Shows, and move over to “Shared.” After a moment, it should show your networked computers and allow you to watch their recorded shows. However, it does not allow you to watch Live TV.

Continued Windows 7 Testing

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So, yesterday, I installed the Windows 7 RC (Again, 64bit) onto my laptop (a Thinkpad T61p).

At first, drivers seemed to be a bit of a problem, as I couldn’t get the generic Nvidia driver to install on my laptop (Most vendors only allow their specific video drivers to be installed for some reason).  However, Windows Update had a working driver for me after a reboot.  The main thing I find myself missing in Windows on my laptop is multiple virtual desktops, which is made possible via http://www.codeplex.com/vdm.  While not as good as a native solution, it does get the job done.

My tablet works very well, once I install the Wacom driver, and I’ve been using Evernote to take notes in class.  Battery life is right at what it was in Ubuntu Jaunty, which isn’t horrible, but still less than I like (of course, I’m the one that bought a desktop replacement), and wireless configuration is much improved over XP (and a little better than Vista).  The new wifi interface is similar to NetworkManager’s UI, and native WPA support in Windows is certainly nice.

As soon as I booted a second copy of Windows on my network, Windows asked to connect to the other install (my desktop) to share files via “Homegroup.” Sadly, one sharing feature that I wanted was in Media Center, as I’d like to be able to play back MCE recordings over the network to my laptop.  While I was able to get this working, it didn’t allow access to my tuners from my laptop.

Another big thing in Windows 7 is the new RDP.  With RDP 7, Aero is possible over a decent connection.  It funs flawlessly when I’m on the same network as my computer, and only lags a little bit when connecting from school using a VPN.  However, as I understand it, all the rendering is being done client-side, so it’s not streaming video from the server or anything.

So far, the more I use W7, the more I like it, which for a Microsoft product is very odd.

Wacom Bamboo in Ubuntu 9.04

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Today I got my Wacom Bamboo USB Tablet in from Newegg.  Installation in Jaunty was incredibly easy, I just plugged it in and the Wacom drivers were already installed and ready to go.  The corners of the tablet automatically mapped to the corners of the screen, which in some previous Ubuntu releases required a bit of editing to Xorg.conf.

I’ve really only messed with two apps so far, Gimp and Evernote.  Gimp is, of course, preinstalled in Ubuntu and allows pen input just fine, although it doesn’t automatically map the eraser to the Erase tool.

Evernote doesn’t have a native Linux version, but it runs quite well in Wine.  The only issue I’ve come across so far is that I cannot drag and drop files from Nautilus into a notebook.  My plan is to use this to handwrite notes for school, and I’ve already been typing my notes into Evernote for the last few days.  Evernote is nice because it automatically keeps your notes synced between multiple installations (for me, that’s Evernote/Wine Evernote/VistaVM and Evernote/W7) and also has a web interface for when I’m not at one of my computers.  This syncing allows me to drag files to Evernote either by opening a VM or remoting to my desktop and then they will automatically be synced back to the copy of Evernote I’m running in Wine.

Back to School

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So, it’s the last day of my month long Summer vacation before Summer semester starts up. I’m taking a lighter load this time, as there aren’t many classes I need being offered (at least that don’t overlap). At the moment, I’m just enrolled in the three: Intro to Electrical, Engineering Economics, and Discrete Math.

It’s been a slow couple of weeks.  I’ve been getting the most out of my unlimited Netflix strreaming, but I’ve been too lazy to go and mail back the physical discs to get any new movies.  I have made it through two and a half seasons of Quantum Leap, though.  The QL marathons haven’t been helping my sleeping schedule though, and my slow progression towards normalcy there was blown to hell the last couple of days, too.  I’ll have to start waking up before 2pm if I want^H^H^H^Hplan to make it to my classes this week.

With some luck, I hope to have a new programming project underway soon, and I’ll write more about that once I actually know the details myself.  With some luck, it might even be something useful.