Tannishblog

I look at my last few posts and I see the Week of the Geek. So, I turn again to politics, news and such, and am sucker-punched by my muse. I guess she’s been feeling neglected lately…

Looking more like Global Warming soon must be addressed.
Thunder clouds again are forming. Debaters acquiesce.
Threatening a greater storming in the East and West.
See the death of misinforming; are we truly blessed?

Another type of storm is brewing in the desert sand.
Culture wars, resentment stewing, blame the High Command.
Homeless hunger lines are queuing outside no man’s land.
Prince of Peace is sadly viewing, cannot understand.

I've been playing around a lot with software installations this week. After running out to buy Vista and experiencing the morning-after buyers remorse (or is it grieving for dearly departed money?) I look forward to a New User Experience (trademark pending.) I didn't go into this project blind - I did my homework. Several people, when writing about their experiences with the beta releases of Vista, recommending a dual-installation with XP. Paul Therott, whom I look up to as a mentor, recommends Symantec's Partition Magic to manage partitions and boot sequence. Yes, Vista has its own boot manager, but if Paul doesn't use it, who am I to argue? Symantec. I've had trouble with their stuff lately, but if Guru Paul says so, I'll try it. What's another seventy dollars?

For the un-geek, Partition Magic has two parts, the namesake program divides hard drive space into smaller, theoretically more manageable spaces. There as several benefits to this, but the one I'm interested in is to separate operating systems into their own niches. Then comes the need to inform the computer which system to run at startup. That's the job of Boot Magic, which loads before Windows does to ask us just that.

Don't you love the names? I could insert a whole litany here. It's enough to note that the first time I tried to prepare my hard drive in accordance with instructions in Partition Commander's skimpy booklet, Symantec's magical technology hung during the process. I waited an hour for a simple repartitioning command to complete. It should've take three minutes, max! End result: goodbye Windows XP and all its accoutrements. Now that's Magic! (They thoughtfully provide a manual in PDF format which installs with the program. When your computer fails to reboot, however, access to the manual is lost. Perhaps they thought everyone would waste paper by printing out the 90+ page document.)

I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I embrace adventure, install Vista alone and hope all my legacy programs work? Or do I still take Paul's advice and dual-boot? (Actually, my ultimate intention is to triple-boot with Ubuntu Linux as a third operating system.) I decided to stay the course and begin to rebuild my XP install. I'm still miffed about wasting money on Symantec - again - and give into the urge to try them - again. Several hours later, I have a working XP install with all the latest drivers, Partition magic installed, a new partition created for Vista, a working install of Vista, and Boot Magic managing the whole thing. I'm up past bedtime testing the configuration.

In the morning, the computer won't boot: something about a corrupted MBR (Master Boot Record, the first part of the hard drive where all the formatting information is kept.). Luckily, I made the recovery disks for both Partition Magic and Boot Magic. A quick adjustment from the recovery disk, and XP started right up. Vista, however, wouldn't. It seems that the fix provided by Boot Magic's recovery disk was incompatible with the way Partition Magic reads the MBR, resulting in corruption. Need I remind you that these programs are sold together on the same CD? Need I reiterate how I hate Symantec? Sorry, Paul. Your uncontested sagacity didn't work for me. Seventy dollars, POOF!

Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. Using Vista's native boot manager flawlessly, I ponder the wisdom of attempting to add Linux to the mix. Ubuntu uses it's own boot manager, which may cause conflict. I'll have do to some research.

Oh, but I LOVE computers, this is so much fun! Costly, sure, but still fun. It's sort of like paying for concert tickets and seeing a mediocre performance - you know, that dry taste in your mind as you tally the dollars-per-hour you just experienced?

Windows Update:

It’s nice to know a service is running that keep abreast of all the tweak and security fixes needed for the world’s most ubiquitous operating system. But those word-bubbles at the bottom right of your screen are hard to ignore, and once clicked on you get a friendly reminder that "You can continue working." But you can’t, really, because the installer invades the center of your workspace with at least four pop-up windows: I’m going to install now; is it okay to install now; legal-document-you-don’t-care-to-read listing all-the-rights-you-don’t-have despite the money you spent; Okay, I’m installing now…

I’m typing this as I finally give in to allow MS to install IE7 (I use Firefox, but I’m tired of the interruptions.) Seven times during the creation of the above paragraph, the caret focus inexplicably de-focused on what I was working on. In the middle of typing a word, I hear the digital plink-plink of wasted keystrokes, causing me to point-and-click at the top window to refocus attention on my work, insert the cursor into the correct spot in the document, and finish the word. Wait, it did it again?

Then comes the "please restart" window, which I ignore because - HELLO! - I’m working, here! But I have to wrap this post up. In a couple of minutes, ad infinitum, I will be reminded by my friendly operating system that its waiting to restart…

…Yep. It just asked me again. Microsoft should reassess its idea of "continue working." As the man said, "I don’t think it means what you think it means…"