This is a video that MUST be watched even by Vista lovers. The video will present how Windows Vista install screen should look like. To be honest the truth hurts real bad if you like Vista, but if you used if for a while i’m sure you will find out that at least one mentioned problem occurred to you also.

Here’s a transcript of the text from the video:

- Please wait while windows checks your computer’s shitty performace…

This line refers to the reputation that Vista built, that you need to have a 1337(leet) computer in order to run it and actually play games or run programs on it.

- Time is money. More than ever you need a system that is simple, easy, doesn’t take all your resources, doesn’t crash when you least expect it—so you can get things done and focus on what matters most to you in life…which isn’t much

The line above says it all. When the blue screen of death will pop up in front of your eyes you will know what i’m talking about.

- It’s now safe to connect with the people who are trying to spy on you. Whether you choose voice,obscene hand signals, nasty videos & photos, or plain text you’ve got an amazing array of options with Windows Vista.

No comment on this line.

- With simplified tools for downloading illegal software, cropping, cutting, creating photos Windows Vista makes it harder and less enjoyable to share your copy-protected music, software and games.

Yup…the developers of Vista did their best to stop piracy. Thats a big MINUS from many peer2peer users for them.

- With windows Vista good luck quickly finding programs, files, bank statements, your credit card information, your precious wedding pictures and e-mail. It’s not very easy connecting to the internet.

Much has changes in Vista if we compare it to XP. I used it’s search function and i can’t say that i was disappointed, it has same results similiar to the ones at XP which i got used to. One thing is for sure. If you have to setup an advanced internet connection(PPPOE for example) and your a newbie good luck finding the right way.

- You can rely on Windows Vista to keep your important documents less safe. It is now easier for strangers to access your data without you knowing about it. It’s OK because now you can browse and take their files too.

There have been many many many reports on how much Vista security blows. Many usersadvised to stick with XP for a year till the holes are filled in.

Other funny lines:

- Please wait while Windows Vista searches your valuable data and deletes what means the most to you…

- Windows is now installing necessary spyware for you…

- Windows is now deleting all your saved game files…

- Remember you have less than 10 minutes to register Windows Vista.

The end of the video is worth watching the whole video. I taught from the beginning that the author will incorporate the blue screen of death into the video. As said before truth hurts.

Today a friend asked my help to disinfect his computer. After telling him on messenger how to do it, he said to me with a smiling face: “what did you just say? can you translate it to common language?”. Then i told him to go and setup remote assistance. He didn’t even know that remote assistance exists, so i had to explain to him step-by-step how to setup remote assistance. This is the 4th friend to who i explain this.

Because of this i decided to create this simple tutorial. I’m sure that on the web there are thousands of people who have no idea what remote assistance is.(and it will save me a lot of time when someone in my messenger list asks for my help)

Step 1: Head over to Start Menu -> Programs -> Remote assistance

Step 2: Select the option Invite someone to help you

Step 3: In the bottom of the screen select  Save invitation as a file (Advanced)

Step 4: Enter your name and the expiry time. The shorter the period the safer it is, because your computer may be hijacked during this process.

Step 5: Make sure you set a password! This is VERY important! Also make sure the password isn’t your windows  login password, nor a password like 1234. You will only communicate it to the person who is helping you.

Step 6: Save the file and send it to your friend. Make sure you save it to a commonly used location. The default name of the file is RAInvitation

That’s it. Your friend will now be able to connect to your PC. By default he will only be able to view your desktop. You have to grant him access so he can take full control.

Remote Assistance is a pretty noob program. For advanced users and for more complicated tasks(file sharing/advanced remote PC management) i highly suggest rAdmin

I could have posted about the release of Internet Explorer 8 BETA 1 right away after it was launched but i decided to wait till now and include with the overview a few user reviews.

First of all the beta release is for web developers and designers only, and of course to those who want to check it out and play with it a little.

You can install it and uninstall it without a problem and you will get your system back to the state before the install

You can visit the official IE8 Beta page by clicking HERE.

As you can see in the image below the download size of the installer is 14.4 MB. Don’t worry the guys from Microsoft didn’t pack IE8 up in a such small installer. The installer will download the required files from the internet

Microsoft download servers are great(yes yes, they are better than rapidshare) i downloaded the installer in less than a minute.

The installer will check your Hard drive for malicious software(adware/spyware/viruses) and only after that will proceed with the installation of ie8.

The whole Download and installation time is about 8-10 minutes(depending on your PC and internet connection. I got 4mb/s internet connection and i pay 9$/mo, lucky me eh?)

If you have an old PC don’t install IE8, respect the system requirements:

Although the system requirements are low(233mhz/64RAM) i wouldn’t suggest installing it unless if you have at least 128 RAM and a 500MHZ Computer(you might experience system crashes - i tried it on my 250MHZ PC, the OS crashed every time i opened up more than 2 tabs).

At the end of the install you will get the well known Restart Your PC message.

After i press restart later a message pops up saying that its highly recommended to restart my pc. This message is just stupid. If i already chose not to reboot my PC then i stick by it(i had photoshop/firefox/and some other applications open)

As promised here are a few reviews:

Dever’s review:

- I really liked that it let me choose my default search provider even though by default it’s Live search.

- Compared with firefox the IE8 Addon manager sucks big time. I don’t think it will look

like this in the final version of IE8. On the other hand i really liked the feed viewer which looks cooler than firefox’s.

- The most interesting features are the tools for web developers: Overview and Debugging.

- Uninstalling it requires the classic system reboot. At least everything went fine and without problems.

BETng4U’s review:

- By showing the main URL with a darker color the user knows if he accessed a pissing page or a valid one. I think this is a great idea and in my opinion better than IE7’s pishing filter.

Other things that i enjoyed

- javascript console
- multi-tabs view (if i’m correct it was first implemented by opera)
- CSS3 (ex img link)
- IE develeper toolbar can display an element’s properties
- there’s an Emulate IE7 button, but i think the button will disappear after Beta testing will end.
- all in all, you can say what you want but this BETA is an important step for Microsoft.

Places where you can find more reviews:

John Resig’s blog  -  JavaScript in Internet Explorer 8

Roger Johansson’s blog -  First impressions of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Fortune magazine recently published a list of top 20 most admired companies in the US. In the top 20 we find well known brands like Apple(1st place), Google(4th place), and Microsoft(16th place). What is odd that Yahoo isn’t part of this prestigious top 20 Most admired companies list.

Here are some informations about the above mentioned companies:

Steve Jobs really knows how to run a company.By creating high quality products like iPod, iPod Nano, iPhone, Apple Touch, iMac and ofcourse the MacBook Apple built up a great reputation. And the best thing in their products is the warranty and the quality. If you buy a Macbook for example you know that it’s not MADE IN CHINA and that you can rely on it. The prices aren’t too high, so even if you can’t afford to buy a iPhone for example then you can save your funds and buy it the next month knowing it’s a good investment. The other thing that gave Apple a good reputation is that you can connect one item to each other and link them together. It’s like expanding your PC with stand alone components.

Who doesn’t know the story of the no.1 search engine in the world? 2 Stanford university students - Page and Brin create a simple search engine in 1998 which today is the world’s no.1 search engine which offers other services like: contextual advertising, free mail, feed tracker(feedburner) and will soon break into mobile operating systems niche(with the OS Android). As i read on other websites life at Google is great and the employees are really satisfied with their jobs. Well to be honest, who wouldn’t want to work at google?

Most of us use their product(Windows) day by day and lots of times swear saying how much it sucks but yet we still use it to be able to play our favorite games, run our programs and enjoy the GUI. In my opinion Bill would never taught that his “hobby” will turn into a such big company. I’m really curious that will he retire this summer. You need an iron will to do something like that when your on top of a huge corporation. It seems that Microsoft gained the american’s trust and admiration which got it on 14th position.

All the 3 above mentioned companies are well known and solid names in the world of IT&C, and each one of them has made a great contribution to its users and will continue to do it.

Yesterday was an other bad day in my calendar.

It almost started as an usual day, the thing that prevented it to start as an usual day was the power supplier in my city. Before i went to sleep i set my alarm clock to ring at 6:30 AM so till 8AM i can study hungarian, and at 9 to go write my midterm from hungarian.

What happened was that the power supplier cut off the power for i don’t know how much time at night for maintanance->the alarm clock got reset and it didn’t ring.

I woke up at 8:10 am wondering what time it is. When i went out to the kitchen and noticed its 8:10AM i said to myself: “oh f*** it” and similar more “beautiful” words. I took out my hungarian book and ran over the lessons real quick and went to write the midterm.

Good thing that i like literature(you can say lots of bla bla’s from yourself to write more). The midterm was a success(phew that was a relief).

Monday i told a good friend of mine(Adam) that my pc could use a windows reinstall(after installing service pack 3(you know what they say: you regret something after you’ve done it) ). He told me that he has the original XP CD which he got at the university(its an original CD, mostly given out for system administrators at universities, he is the system admin at the campus of the university where he studies).

I told him: “Okay so Wednesday come over at 11″

He did come over and he did bring the cd, he brought 2 just in case 1 wasn’t working. Heck, both cds were scratched like hell and since i loaned my CD to someone(i have no idea to who) i didn’t have an other choice but to install it from one of those CDs.

Everything was running smooth till the setup wizard started copying the files, i got the error message: “setup cannot copy the file” so i took out the cd and placed in the other one. When files couldn’t be copied from the other i switched cds and so on till the files got copied. After that everything went as normal.

I restored my bookmarks, setup the network, internet connection, pc configuration, did everything that’s necessary at a reinstall + a little extra.

I decided to install an internet monitoring application, after installing it i rebooted my PC, when i wanted to connect to the internet(i connect using a PPPoE connection) it just wouldn’t connect.

I kept getting several ADSL errors:

#718 error: The system is busy - try to connect later

#678 error: The connection could not be completed because the remote computer did not answer.

I rechecked everything, i deleted the program, used system restore, even reinstalled windows(got CD from neighbour(that one worked like a charm )

I started checking out the TCP/IP settings, i checked everything 3 times, did a few changes(as i usually do on os reinstall) but still nothing. This went on for like 3 hours when i got pissed(almost ended up like the guy in the picture on the left)

Having no other solution i called a friend of mine at my ISP.

Here’s the reconstructed conversation:

Friend at ISP: Hello, if i may ask who am i talking to?

Me: Alexander, cut the crap, it’s me, Tom.

Alexander: Hey, whats up?

Me: i’m in a small, well big trouble here, i can’t figure out what i messed up, i’m 100% sure that all the connection and TCP/IP settings are correct still i can’t connect to the internet, i get #718 and #678 erro, i even reinstalled windows, reconfigured everything, but its still the same. For3 hours im bugging this shit and still can’ figure it out.

Alexander(laughing): Dude…some of my colleagues are working on the network in your area, thats why it isn’t working.

Me: WHAT? DAMN idiots, can’t they call or let people know that the internet will be cut off?

Alexander(still laughing): sorry man, i’m not in charge of the operation.

Me: ah…i really love this country(you know in which way)

Alexander(laughing harder): yeah, me too

Alexander: i’ll give you a call when my colleagues get back to me saying that they finished

Me: alright, next time tell those retards to let people know when they are stopping the internet

Alexander: okay, will do

He called me around 10PM saying that everything is back to normal now.

You know what i’ve learned from all this? If you have internet problems check settings and if you think everything is ok don’t start reconfiguring stuff and reinstalling windows, simply call your ISP and ask them if the problem is on their side.

If its on your side ask for support

Remember my glorious post where i said that service pack 3 is great and it increased the speed of Windows XP.

I installed Service Pack 3 almost a month ago and now the conclusion is: Windows XP service pack 3 DOES speed up your XP and stuff, but overall its crap .

Heck, it has conflicts with almost all programs installed like: nero, yahoo messenger, even with Internet Explorer 6(check image). It freezes sometimes and photoshop isn’t running as smoothly as it ran on Service pack 2.

Today it pulled the plug, finally my Disciples 2 game arrived with the latest expansion, so i start installing it, everything ran fine till the end when i got the cool error message: “setup has encountered an error and needs to close” so i said to myself: maybe i messed something up, i’ll reinstall it.

I took Easy Cleaner and removed registry entries(it couldn’t be uninstalled, it said some file is missing) and i reinstalled it. Surpirse! Same error!

I went over to my other PC(i have service pack 2 there), installed it and the game got installed without any problems.

Most probably next week i’ll format the hard drive in this PC and will reinstall windows XP with service pack 2.

What i got from installing service pack 3:
- increased speed of the OS

- lots of errors

- incompatibility with softwares

- killed lots of my neurons because i got pissed because of it every day

If you want to enjoy the “great enjoyment” service pack 3 will offer you feel free to download it and install it on your PC. 

After releasing Service pack 2 in august 2004, it seems that yesterday, on 10th december 2007 the guys at Microsoft decided to Release Windows XP service pack 3 .

It was about time wasn’t it?

Although they released service pack 3 yesterday, Windows Xp Users along the years got updates via the Automatic updates system.

On the overview page of service pack 3 we find a brief intro supplied by microsoft:

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3.

On the bottom of the page you have the possibility to check out a more expanded overview of service pack 3( in excel format, or in PDF format)

Service pack 3 includes security fixes and hotfixes along with some new enchancements, and will fill in updates that the user declined to install during automatic updates.

Nothing unusual till now. But after this comes the cool part: Service pack 3 has some of the Windows S erver 2008’s capabilities such as NAP(Network access Protection).

The updates also contains Microsoft Management Console 3.0 along with Microsoft Core XML services 6.0.

Here comes the big kick in the face: Service pack 3 DOES NOT INCLUDE IE7(”Microsoft is not adding significant from newer versions of windows such as Vista to Windows XP trough XP SP3″) unctionality but it includes updates both fo IE6 and IE7 and updates will be installed to the IE version on your pc.

When i read this i said to myself: WHAT DA F***. I don’t understand this mentality, if they took the time to develop and release service pack 3 how much time would it have taken them to include it ?

We, the webdesigners and developers were very excited starting from the day when rumors of SP 3 appeared, that they will include IE7 in the service pack and the coding problems to optimise a webpage to IE6 also will mostly dissappear. Heh…this didn’t happen.

Quick reminder: Internet explorer 7 can be downloaded individually and can be installed on pirated versions of XP also(click)(you don’t need verification before installing)

You can read the full release notes at Microsoft support center

Overview and download of XP service pack 3 at Microsoft Download Center

General Info about the service pack + Installation

The Service Pack’s size is 336 MB.

The installation time is somewhat around 18-25 minutes + the time the installer takes to configure the updates after reboot.

Installation Step 1:

Read the license agreement and accept it.

Installation Step 2:

Choose the location where the system files will be backed up.

Installation Step 3:

Let the installer run and do its job.

Installation Step 4:

Reboot your pc and wait till your system gets configured, and voila! Service pack 3 is installed, up and running!

In case you encounter Problems:

Service pack setup creates a system restore point so in case something goes wrong reboot your pc, enter safe mode and select the restore point, and everything will be back to normal.

I hope everything will go as smoothly as it went for me and you won’t encounter problems :).

PS: One more thing: If you are a BIG Internet explorer fan and don’t want to use an other browser PLEASE Upgrade to internet explorer 7.

I stumbled across a relatively VERY funny pic that shows how enchanced and protecting the windows Vista security tends to be.

Just think about it a little what would happen if you would hook up A mouse/a keyboard/a webcam/an USB stick/a printer/external hard drive. You would get lots and lots of permission messages.