To Vista or not to Vista?

Ok, so, what's my official advice on upgrading to Vista? I did it, so should you? Well, let's keep in mind a few important items:

• Some would consider me a bit of a geek and willing to futz around with my computer and change all sorts of settings just for fun.
• I specifically bought this laptop with the specifications needed to run Vista Ultimate edition and planned on upgrading it once Vista was released.
• I get paid to do this first and warn everyone else about the potential pitfalls.

So, with those things in mind, my official advice and this time is the following:

1. If you're going to be buying a new computer, get Vista. (Really, you won't have a choice but if you did I'd still say go with Vista.)
2. If you have a recently-purchased machine with one of those free upgrade coupons, go for it. I'm assuming you haven't had the computer long enough to customize it too much and you're probably not running any highly-specialized programs. (Check with vendors if you are. Hell, OCLC software had some problems with IE7. Who knows how they're reacting to Vista.)
3. You've got an older computer and the Windows Upgrade Advisor says the hardware can handle it, don't unless you're a masochist like me.
4. The Upgrade Advisor says you can't run at least Home Premium, don't even consider it. If you can at least run Home Premium, see #3.

To be honest, I love it despite the problems I'm having. (Second Life won't run, iTunes is fracked, I'm having some issues sharing files between the Vista computer and my XP computer, (let's not even consider the NT4.0 box,) and there's still an outstanding issue with upgrading my BIOS.) The bottom line, is that if everything's running fine on XP and you're considering upgrading everything in the library to Vista "because I can" or "because it looks cool" don't bother. Wait for the next round of computer purchasing and bring it into your system then. You'll be much better off in the long run.

Vista Window Switching

ALT-TAB still works in Vista but now gives you live previews of what's going on in the windows. It also gives the desktop as one of the switch-to-able options.

Additionally, Vista also gives you live window previews when you hover over a button in the task bar.

Lastly, if you're running Aero, you can get 3D-based window switching. I only wish there was a way to set this as the default so it works with ALT-TAB. (If there is, let me know since I can't seem to find the setting.)

Vista and Second Life - Part 5

Uninstall. Download new version. Reboot. Install latest version. Reboot. Run... Crash. Does anyone have Second Life running under Vista?

Vista and Second Life - Part 4

Nope, rebooting didn't solve the crashing problem. Next attempt will be to uninstall and reinstall the SL program.

Vista and Second Life - Part 3

Well, the video drive upgrade went smoothly and I wasn't even required to reboot. (Kudos to Vista for that one.) When I start Second Life I no longer get the video driver error. However, before I reach the login screen it crashes without specifying why. I'll try rebooting anyway, just to see if that might solve the problem.

Vista and Second Life - Part 2

I looked at the AMD site for a driver update to my Radeon X1400 video card and found no X1400 series listed as having available driver!

So, I took a look in Windows Update and I'm told there's an update available.

Let's see if that solves my problem...

Vista and Second Life

Well, I tried to run Second Life in Vista a got this:

I clicked Yes and then got

Who's fault is this? Well according to Linden Labs, it's ATI's fault:

Question
Under Windows Vista, my graphics card reports as a GDI Generic. Why is that?

Answer
Second Life requires that the Windows drivers for the system's graphics card fully support the OpenGL graphics standard. Any graphics card whose installed driver does not support OpenGL will detect as a "GDI Generic" instead. This message means that Second Life has detected no hardware OpenGL support.

It is up to the graphics vendor (Nvidia or ATI) to provide drivers that support both OpenGL and your operating system. As of this writing, we have successfully run Second Life on Vista under several PCs equipped with Nvidia's Geforce graphics cards. However, it does not appear that ATI has provided Vista drivers with OpenGL support. (Check ATI's website; they may have updated drivers since then.)

If you receive this message under Vista, are running graphics hardware that meets our Minimum System Requirements, and cannot find a driver provided by your graphics vendor which provides OpenGL support, you will be unable to run Second Life under Windows Vista on that computer.

As far as I can tell my driver's up-to-date so I'm stuck. Anyone got an answer that will actually help?

Visualize the blogosphere

The recently released Twingly Screensaver displays live blog headlines from around the world, with the source location visualized on an interactive 3D globe. The video below shows it in motion but be aware of two things. First, the video is sped up, your copy will not work this fast. Second, it takes a while to download the data a first so you won't see actual headlines for a little while. Third, some of the headlines may by NSFW. Fourth, it doesn't seem to totally like Vista. It'll run for a while then Vista will inform you that it has stopped working, despite it seeming to still work.

Great new features in Outlook 2007

Porn at my hometown library

Yes, folks, it's happening again. Another local TV station has done an "undercover investigation" (video available through the link) to catch people looking at porn in the library. (I grew up in a Rochester suburb and used the library in question regularly so that's why I'm posting this story.) What makes this story extra interesting is that County Executive Maggie Brooks is now threatening to cut $7.5M in funding unless the library changes its policy. The policy is the one that was upheld by the Supreme Court under CIPA in which filters are installed but are turned off for anyone 17 and older without being asked why. (It is not clear whether the library is required to follow CIPA or is just doing it anyway.) Because of this the ACLU has criticized Ms. Brooks stating “What real significant difference is there between denying an adult patron access to these sites and denying patrons access to Catcher in the Rye?” The most interesting part of all this, which isn't mentioned in any of the articles: Ms. Brooks used to be a reporter (even an anchor if I recall correctly) for the TV station that started all this. I smell a setup.

Wishlists via RSS

I just noticed that you can subscribe to someone's Amazon.com wishlist via RSS!

Stick Library

What do you get when you cross a library school student and an obsession with doodling?

Thanks Sarah

Catching up

Yes, as has just been point out in a comment to my last post, today is catch-up day for me. I start my new position as the Technology Innovation Librarian for the Nebraska Library Commission tomorrow so today's to-do list includes cleaning out my inbox, figuring out where to park (everything within a 10 block radius of the office is paid parking), and, yes, cleaning out my to-do list. Expect several more posts from me today on various topics and I prepare for tomorrow.

Internet Librarian 2007: Call for Speakers

The Internet Librarian 2007: Call for Speakers is out. Do you have something to share? Submit a proposal today.

Library Videos

The L-Team

Love the ending

The Library Ninja

Thanks Rosario!

Of Time Zones and Appointments

Well, this is a problem I've finally solved and it has nothing to do with Vista. It seems that when you change Windows' time zone setting (as I've moved from Mountain to Central) Outlook reacts by adjusting the times of everything in your calendar. So, an appointment for April that I said was from 10-11am that I set while in MST was moved to 11am-12pm CST since that would technically be correct. Trouble is, the meeting still being held at 10am local time. (This gets worse when an "all day" appointment gets changed to 1am on one day to 1am the next day.) Well, a quick search and I found not only an answer but also an explanation of the issue. Check out Outlook, Appointments and Time Zones if you're interested.

Vista and AVG redux

It seems that my problems with AVG Antivirus were not solved in the long run. Whenever I rebooted the computer, the resident shield stopped working until I did a repair reinstall of the program. I figured that was a problem I'd deal with eventually since I didn't reboot the laptop all that often anyway. (I usually put it into hibernation when I shut it off.) Well, this morning, AVG ran it's automatic update and as part of that process it game me a blue screen of death! I don't blame Vista, I blame AVG. After that unpleasant reboot so long AVG. I went hunting and found Free antivirus - avast! 4 Home Edition which is free for home use. And, according to the site, "avast! antivirus fully supports Windows Vista". So, it's installed, and running as I expect it to.

Why I like my ISP (for now)

Though I'm supposed to be getting 6mb/s this is still way faster than what I had in Denver with Comcast.

Vista and Azureus

Well, my Bittorrent client Azureus had a bit of trouble with Vista a first. There were two problems. First, all existing torrents continued to work as they should but all new torrents told me that they didn't have permission to write to whatever folder I tried to put them in to. Second, the program was leaving what I can only call artifacts on the screen. For example, I would click File, then Exit and the Exit menu item would stay on the screen hovering in place in front of everything else unless I either rebooted or chose to switch users and just logged back in as myself. (Both of these totally refreshed the desktop thereby removing the artifact.) So how did I solve these problems?

1. I typically save my torrents to a external hard drive (F:). What I found (through a bunch of online searching) is that Azureus under Vista will only save new torrents to a shared folder that is not marked as read-only. So, (since I couldn't change the read-only setting on the rood of a drive,) I created a new folder (F:\Torrents), set it as shared on my network, and then unchecked the read-only attribute. I can now save torrents to that directory.
2. The artifacts was solved by updating my video driver through Gateway's support site. (As I did with my sound card driver.) A reboot, and the artifacts stopped appearing.

I've got another issue with updating my BIOS that I'm working with Gateway to solve byt that's not really a problem as everything's working fine (as far as I can tell) and the "issue" isn't causing any additional problems. I'll post more about that one once the issue has been solved.

Vista Upgrade Photos

The photos have been uploaded and are available in a flickr set. I'll see what I can do about putting titles on all of them sometime in the next few days.

Vista Upgrade and Antivirus Software

This post mostly relates to my experience with AVG AntiVirus and it's sudden non-working state after Upgrading to Windows Vista. However, anyone considering an upgrade should at least read through the next paragraph.

According to the booklet that comes with Vista one of this things you should do "before you begin" is to "update your antivirus program (if necessary), run it, and then disable it." To this I would add, uninstall it. I say this due to all of the Web pages I've read trying to solve my AVG-specific problem.

What happened to me has happened to many others from the sound of it. After upgrading to Vista, the free version of AVG insisted that the license code wasn't legit. Funny, since you don't generally need one for a free version. Every time it started (at boot) it asked me to reactivate my license with a code I didn't have. Because I couldn't fulfill its request, it failed to load and then continued to mess with Outlook since it wasn't running. So, off to the Web for a solution I went.

There were several suggested solutions that I found:

• Reinstall AVG over itself.
  This didn't work at all.
• Uninstall AVG then reinstall it.
  I, along with others, was unable to uninstall the program via any of the suggested methods.
• Delete the directory containing the AVG files then try to reinstall.
  I moved the files (so I could replace them if it didn't work) yet was unable to perform a successful reinstallation.
• Install an old version of AVG, then reinstall the current version.
  None of the previous versions I could find would install over the current newer version.
• Find an illegal license key online and try using it.
  None of them worked as a key & a user name were both needed. I no username so none of the keys would be accepted.

During one of the reinstall attempts I noticed that there was not only the "repair" installation option but also a "total reinstall" option. When I used the total option, a license key was displayed. So, I got that far and copied the license key. I then stopped the installation and reran the original program to force it to ask me for a key again. I pasted in the key but it still insisted that I needed a user name. I tried my name thinking I might have used it when I installed AVG way back when but that didn't work. Taking a chance, I tried the user name "free" and it suddenly worked!

I rebooted to make sure everything was alright and AVG did start as expected. However, the resident shield wasn't working. I performed a repair install and the problem was solved.

I hope someone else who has this problem finds this post and the solution works for them.

Vista Upgrade not without any glitches

It hadn't dawned on me how "quiet" the upgrade process was until I went to play a video and realized that my laptop was no longer emitting sound of any kind. Turns out I needed to go to Gateway, simply enter my laptop's serial number, then download and install the updated drivers for my sound card. All my audio is now playing as it should.

Vista Upgrade

I'm running vista now. Photos to come shortly. Screenshots in the next few days. In case you're wondering, no problems yet.

Upgrading to Vista

I've backed up and cleaned off. Defrag is running now and I'll give it one last reboot to run scandisk. Then the Vista upgrade DVD goes in and the laptop gets an upgrade. I'll report back when it's done.

I feel ethical again

Yes folks, the 6MB/sec DSL line is up and running and the (WPA secured) WiFi works throughout the house. (I'm blogging from my living room sofa right now.) I no longer have to mooch off the weak yet open signal from the neighbors.

Contribution #1000

I missed highlighting this blog's 3000th post but I was watching for my 1000th contribution to the Hot Plates pool in flickr. Here is is:

Wikis circa 1644

I'm listening to a podcast of a class on the history of Information from the University at Berkley and one of the lecturers equated Milton's point in the Areopagitica with that of wikis. Here's what I believe would be the relevant quote:

"And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?"
— John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644

In other words, if you let everyone have their say, the truth will come out. Sounds like the principle behind Wikipedia and most other wikis. Thoughts?

Happy Travelin' Michael

Thanks everyone!

Al Franken's running for a US Senate seat

Here's the story of why, from Al himselk.

Last day statistics

It's my last day @ BCR and there's not much left for me to do. So, I've pulled together some numbers (thanks Stephanie) that might be on interest. Basically, the numbers say that in the past 9.5 years I've presented 686 live workshops with a attendee total of approximately 7256. That's an average of 69 workshops and 726 students per year. (Of course, this short year is throwing off the averages.) The number of online workshops and presentations is around 100 but considering that we just started doing those about three years ago, that's not too bad. (I don't have attendee numbers available for the online classes.) Add to those numbers a few dozen conference presentations at the local, state, and national level where attendance was not recorded. (I believe my reference presentation at Computers in Libraries 2000 and the Second Life presentation at IL2006 both topped 400 attendees each.) So, I've met a lot of people and unfortunately, don't remember most of your names. (Don't take it personally, I have a problem when it comes to remembering names until after several meetings.)

I'll just throw out a few other numbers just for fun. Number of BCR bosses: 3. Number of BCR directors: 2. Number of computer bags/backpacks I've been through: 6.

Outlook Web Access

I've recently gained access to an Exchange Server-based e-mail system and was told that the Web access worked through both Firefox and IE. Well, take a look at these screenshots:

IE7

Firefox 2

As you can see, Firefox "works" but there's more options and a smoother interface in IE. Go figure.

(I wasn't going to blog this but someone saw the screenshots in my flickr account and sent me an e-mail regarding how they'd been using Friefox for this and never thought to consider that it might work better in IE. I figured that with one person there might be others so I've shared it with you here.)

Another two lasts

Yesterday was my last board meeting for the Friends of the Aurora Public Library. I'll continue to be the group's Web master since that's something I can do remotely (and since no one else knows how,) but the bookstore manager duties have been handed over to the capeable hands of Jackie. I know she'll do a wonderful job and be an asset to the organization.

This afternoon I did my last (online) presentation for BCR on wikis. (I've read and heard some interesting things about wikis lately that I'll be blogging about (probably) next week when I get a little free time.) Thanks to everyone that attended my workshops over the past 9.5 years. You all made all the hard work worth it.

Another way to find in Firefox

Did you know that there's something called Quick Find in Firefox which works like CTRL-F but automagically disappears for you? Check out this cool tip at Lifehacker.

Valentine's Day

Source: xkcd

Having trouble with some new technology?

Call tech support.

Thanks Rosario

Flickr find

Misery Loves Company
Originally uploaded by blue_j.

Stumbled over this one and I just couldn't not share.

Doctor Who and the French Dalek

Can't... stop... laughing...

Tony Bennett humor

In today's Real Life Comics.

Origami

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Paper just doesn't fold that way!"

When single shines the tripple sun...

It's official folks, there will be a sequel to the classic Henson film, The Dark Crystal.

Battlestar Simpsons

FanTent has images of what the Battlestar Galactica characters would like like if they lived in Springfield. I think my favorite is the one with baby Hera.

Firefox 3 details

So, wondering what's up with Firefox 3.0? mozilla links has some details.

Migrating to the new Blogger

For those that have old-school Blogger blogs and are looking for some information on the hows and whys of moving to the new version (you'll have to do it soon) here's a short PPT that provides the information you're looking for.

March of the Librarians

An altenative view of attending and ALA conference.

Thanks Rosario!

Want Vista and XP?

Here's a set of instructions for installing Vista in dual-boot mode with XP. (It looks like the hardest part is partitioning the hard drive. Installing a second drive might be easier.)

Windows 386 is on the attack!

Must be seen to be believed!

Web 2.0

Explained in a 4 minute video by a professor at Kansas State University. (No, it's not boring. Watch it.)

Last meeting #1

Last night I attended my last Board of Trustees meeting for the Aurora Public Library. I've spent the past four years on the board and have enjoyed every minute of it. The other members, the library staff, Tom, the library director, and even responding to the few book challenges we've received in that time.

The extra special part of last night's meeting was I got the chance to participate in the interviewing of two people applying for several openings on the board. (I'm not the only one leaving, a few others are term limited in the next few months.) I've always enjoyed being able to talk to regular (i.e. non-librarian) citizens about their feelings and opinions when it comes to libraries and it's role when it comes to censorship and its role in the city. I was especially honored to be able to assist in finding my own replacement. We interviewed two people and our recommendations will be passed along to City Council (the folks who make the board appointments) in the next few days.

I'm proud to have served and look forward to possibly serving in a similar role when I get to Lincoln. (Though, I have promised myself a six-month hiatus from volunteering while I get settled into my new locale and new job.)

The first of the lasts

Today I taught my last two live workshops at the BCR offices. The last one was something like live class #650. (I'll have better statistics about my time at BCR sometime next week.) Other upcoming lasts are my last Aurora Public Library Board meeting, Friends of the Aurora Public Library Board meeting, and online presentation.

Jobs on DRM

Steve Jobs has written a 2000+ word essay, posted on the Apple, Inc. site regarding his feelings about DRM (digital rights management) on the iPod platform and in general. After a history explaining how we got to where we are today, this is the paragraph that makes the article worth it's weight in gold:

"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."

His thoughts only get more interesting from this point as he clearly states why it makes total sense for the mucis corporations to ditch DRM. Read it and give copies to all your friends.

Windows Vista Myths

There's a lot of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about Windows Vista out there these days. Here's a great article debunking 10 Windows Vista myths.

New site design

Those of you that read the feed you won't have noticed this but I've got a new design for the blog and the rest of the site. The blog's been converted and the rest of the site is coming along. Stop by, check it out, and let me know what you think. (Yes, I got the template somewhere else and then modified it a bit. I needed a change but was too tired to design something from scratch.)

iTunes and Windows Vista

According to Apple, Inc. the current version of iTunes is bascially incompatible with Windows Vista. The document describing the problems offers several "solutions" for those that insist on upgrading to Vista before an updated "Vista compatible" version of iTunes is released. Worst case scenario: "Ejecting an iPod from the Windows System Tray using the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature may corrupt your iPod. To always safely eject an iPod, choose Eject iPod from the Controls menu within iTunes." Apple is also offering an iTunes Repair Tool for Vista 1.0 that will also supposedly solve some problems.

IMHO this is totally unacceptable. Vista has been gold since something like early December yet Apple has yet to solve the problem. I'm glad I ran across this before upgrading as I run my iPod off the same laptop I'll be upgrading. Hopefully, Apple will release the updated version in the next two weeks before I get the time to install Vista.

Upgrading to Office 2007

Office 2007 0018 Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

I've upgraded my laptop to Office 2007 Professional. I've not yet had a chance to play with it much but I did document the upgrade. Click on the image to the right for the complete slideshow.

Of Combined Log-ins

I generally follow my own advice when it comes to creating somewhat memorable passwords. I have a phrase that I abbreviate to create the base of my passwords then I add a few additional characters based on the system I'm creating the password for. With this system, if I'm unable to remember the specific password I've used to log into a particular site, I can probably guess the correct one within one or two attempts.

However, in the past few days I've been forced to "integrate" two of my log-ins with the site's parent company: Yahoo! in the case of Flickr, and Google in the case of Blogger. I already had log-ins for both Yahoo! and Google but those passwords reflected those services. Now my Yahoo! password is my Flickr password and my GMail password is my Blogger password. My system is now broken as those passwords don't follow my rules.

Maybe I'm complaining a bit too much but I do find it bothersome. Anyone else?

Vista? Mac?

Vista? Mac?
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

It looks like Apple is jumping on the Vista bandwagon, just not in the way Microsoft would hope for.

Vista & Office 2007

They've arrived! I'll be upgrading my TabletPC but I may end up waiting a little while as my laptop is my only computer for the next two weeks. In the mean time, I could download and read the Vista release notes...

New Blogger

This evening I went to delete a spam comment from one of my blogs and I was finally forced to upgrade all of my blogs to the "New Blogger". Everything seems to be working and I do notice that there are a few differences in the interface between blogs hosted on blogspot and those hosted on third-party servers (such as this one). I'll post more on this in the next few days.

Lincoln Update

I'm in Lincoln waiting for my stuff to arrive at the house tomorrow morning. Today was a productive day which included investigating new bank accounts and cell phone service. Shelving equipment was also purchased for the basement as we'll be using it as the master bedroom. Most importantly (to me anyway) I got my Lincoln City Library card! I'm a legit citizen of Lincoln now.