Colin Charles Agenda

So, I promised a bunch of people I’d write up how I used the P1 W1MAX WIGGY on my Mac. The gist behind this is VMWare hosts a guest OS that is Windows, and the host OS can be either Mac OS X or Linux, and all should be well, in terms of sharing the Internet connection, out to the host OS (via bridged networking). This will work if you have Linux as your host OS as well – you just need a Windows guest (since the bloody Wiggy drivers only work using Windows).

First up, I downloaded a modern VMware Fusion. Without realising this, I actually had a license for the 1.x product lying around, and I just upgraded it, for free. Win. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just use VirtualBox? Its because for some reason, I can’t seem to get Windows Vista running in it — I’ll work on it later, but I just use what works and gets the job done.

So once Windows is installed (a very streamlined process, I didn’t even have to do anything, and it was ready in about 20 minutes), I proceeded to getting my Wiggy working on my Mac.

Create a wireless network on the Mac

Click the airport logo, click “create network” and just have a random network created, with the default channel. You now have a “computer-to-computer” network, on your Mac.

Change VMWare settings to allow for bridged network

Click on the settings of your particular virtual machine, hop over the the network, and select “Connect directly to the physical network (Bridged)”.

Plug the Wiggy in

Now, the Wiggy should be detected in Windows, and it will install the driver. Once that is sorted, it will attempt to make a connection and it should just work, provided you have WIMAX in your area.

Go to Control Panel -> Network Connections, and select the second connection (in my case, Local Area Connection 2). Hop on over to the properties, and make sure you turn on Internet Connection Sharing.

You may have to disable Local Area Connection (1) and re-enable it for all this magic to take effect. But at this point in time, you should be able to, on your Mac, browse the web, with no problems, whatsoever.

You just have to keep Windows running…

Anything else?

I tend to keep a really tiny VM running for Windows. Yes, the standard 1GB might make sense, but that’s too much, if all you have is about 2GB of RAM… Windows Vista seems to plod along just fine with 512MB of RAM. I’m told that with Windows XP, you should be ahead, with 256MB of RAM even…

Some more semi-useful screenshots:

Some wimax info, at my residence – that’s the Windows VM, and a Mac backround

Also, if you care how fast the Internet is at my residence, is a paltry 6.9mbps. Upload speeds aren’t that hot, but the download speed definitely is – so I’m wondering if I should be getting WIMAX in my house now…

The build quality seems to be quite high. Its black in colour, but the issue there is that it loves getting fingerprint smudges — so after a while, cosmetically, it looks rather dirty. It comes with an SD/MMC slot, which can be useful with consumer cameras and video cameras, though all the little video cameras I’ve been experimenting with come with a USB slot. It has 3 USB ports. Holding conversations with the built-in speaker and microphone, seem to work well too, so no complaints there. At some stage, maybe I should try recording a podcast “on the go”. The 1024×600 resolution is great — its hard to read and do anything with just 800×480.

Windows First Impressions

I’ve not used Windows on a desktop, since Windows 3.1. Nowadays, at most, I use it in a VM, because I need it for testing. But in these last few days, I’ve been occassionally using Windows, and its been an experience.

First up, I ran Windows Update. Then I installed the following:

• Avast! – this is for anti-virus protection. I used to normally install AVG-Free on Windows machines that I came into contact with, but it seems that Avast! is all that and more. So far, it seems to be getting virus definition files updated almost daily.
• Firefox, and the Flash Plugin – just because
• Evernote
• Google Chroome – not essential, but I’ve always wanted to give it a try, ever since it was announced.
• PuTTY – its crucial for SSH access, which seems to at least give me a semblance of what I’m familiar with
• Dropbox – now my files are synced across my Linux and Mac boxes
• Notepad++ – On Linux, I use vim(1). On the Mac, I use TextMate. And on Windows, it seems like NotePad++ might be what I’m after. Is it? I’m unsure, but so far, I don’t mind it — it has text completion, it can be configured with plugins, I installed aspell so I can run a spell-check (how I wish it would show me an error while I type, as it does in TextMate).
• 7-zip – In the old days, you might think of WinZip. Today, there’s 7-zip, and now I can access my .bz2 or .tar files. Its also opensource software, and I like this, naturally.

You know what I do miss? Keyboard shortcuts. I’m so used to hitting Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E, and Ctrl+K, in the command line, that I can’t seem to get the same responses in Windows. Ick.

What about remapping the Caps Lock key that I never use, to being another Control key? For that, I had to edit the registry! Seriously, what world do we live in?

REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

The PowerToys set of tools seem interesting. I installed the Virtual Desktop Manager, which makes Windows more usable – I can now have several workspaces, and move around by pressing the Windows key+1,2,3,4. This is like Spaces.app, and like virtual desktops that you see in GNOME.

I miss Quicksilver. Just hitting Ctrl+Space, and entering the name of an application makes so much sense — does this exist in Windows land?

I have no idea how to perform backups in Windows. What’s the Time Machine or rdiff-backup equivalent?

I find it funny that this little laptop has more disk space than my MacBook Air (which I paid a lot more for). It has a 1.6GHz Atom processor, and its mostly incapable of playing back HD video (stuff that comes out of my Kodak Zi6 for example). But for most purposes (browser, SSH, NotePad++, Evernote) it seems to be fine.

What about the battery life? So far I’ve noticed:

• 5 hours 40 minutes with Skype video running
• 7 hours 50 minutes with just a browser, NotePad++, SSH, Evernote, running

I think I can considerably improve the battery life if I disable Avast!. But should I? I mean, this is Windows, and I am deadly scared of catching a cold.

So there, I’ve been using Windows XP for about two weeks now. It worked wonderfully well while I was at the conference. The laptop is light. I can type on it easily. It seems to do everything I need it to do. I wish there was a real shell (PowerShell, people tell me to try — I will soon), but PuTTY puts me in control of other machines so I just get stuff done.

Would I recommend the Asus 1000HE? Yes, I would. Go forth and buy it!

I caught up with Zach Skyles Owens, a PHP Evangelist at Microsoft. If you missed the embed, watch the video. I have some sparse notes below.

I learned some new things:

• Microsoft spends time working with the PHP community
• They are porting applications to work with an SQL Server backend
• They are ensuring that the language should “just work”, with the IIS and SQL Server stack. This is quite different from the usual AMP (Apache = server, MySQL = database, PHP = language) stack that we’re quite accustomed to.
• There is a Microsoft Web Platform, and there’s a Web Application Gallery, that brings in dependencies that you need, to use popular open source software packages.
• Drupal for example, is a featured application, for the PHP on IIS stack. If the software allows, it brings in SQL Server Express Edition; otherwise, it even brings in MySQL!

In a fit of irony, its worth nothing that StarOffice has been dropped from the Google Pack while the Java Runtime Environment will now include the Microsoft Live Search Powered Toolbar on Windows.

I always tell people who use Windows to download the Google Pack. Maybe they would include OpenOffice.org 3.0? I’ve been a user of Google Docs recently, and there’s still something about OOo that makes it just that notch better. The other news though? Its days like this that I’m glad I don’t run on the Microsoft Windows platform.

Are you a user of Microsoft Windows? Are you a user of a non-licensed copy of Microsoft Windows? Does it happen to be Windows XP Professional? Have you seen “blackouts“?

Apparently, from about the end of last month (August 27 2008, to be precise), users of pirated copies of Microsoft Windows XP Professional that also happen to be connected to the Internet will see their screens go black, and have no icons visible.

The esteemed folk at Microsoft Malaysia seem to think that there are 8.6 million users of Windows XP Professional in Malaysia (seems like a huge number, considering the population), and about three million will suffer from these “blackouts”. Only 35% of Windows XP Professional users are pirates?

Its a most interesting tactic. Annoy the user by allowing them to change their background, and 60 minutes later, give them grief again. After all, an original copy of Windows XP Professional only costs RM580. That’s about 227 litres of unleaded petrol, at the current rate of RM2.55/L. Or nearly 6 tanks of petrol, in a more fuel efficient car. No wonder, people prefer paying RM5 for pirated media.

I don’t see why anyone in their right minds will be paying for last generation software, that already reached its end-of-life. Even industry pundits seem to think its a tactic to get people to upgrade to Windows Vista, which amongst corporations seems to have a slow uptake (read: massive failure for Microsoft’s coffers).

Software Freedom Day is this weekend (September 20 2008). Why not tell Microsoft to keep their software (and their “Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA)”), and go the open source route? There’s an alternative to almost everything they provide. I think the open source world might only be deficient for hardcore gamers (but even that’s being looked into, thanks to CodeWeavers).

That pretty much covers desktop productivity, I think. There are alternatives to IIS (Apache), MS SQL Server (MySQL), Visual Studio .NET (NetBeans, Eclipse), and the list just goes longer and longer. There is really no excuse in today’s world to be bogged down by Microsoft’s “Genuine Advantage”. Don’t even let me get started on open standards (which Microsoft flouts or doesn’t practice, period).

Don’t worry about piracy. Don’t bow down to another corporations silly moves. Think open standards. Think freedom. Just go open source.

Anyone from Microsoft reading this? If you are, get me a ticket to Microsoft Tech.Ed South East Asia 2008.

Interesting talks look like:

• ARC341: When localization goes bad by Chad Hower – the OSS world can learn a lot about just translating the UI text into another language
• The entire Database Platform Track is interesting (duh!), especially Database Recovery, reporting services, and the overview of SQL Server 2008 (one can always learn, esp. with info about spatial data types, database compression, and so on)
• TLA330: Concurrency and Parallel Programming by Justin Lee – seriously, I don’t think .NET when I think concurrency, parallel programming, high performance. But I’d like to be impressed, nonetheless
• TLA335: Conquering XML with Visual Basic 9.0 by Lisa Feigenbaum – Say goodbye to XSLT and hello to VB 9 is the tagline. Interesting (VB is now at 9…)
• The entire Office & SharePoint Track – obvious reasons, I like office software, and SharePoint I must say, is most interesting (though Khairil will tell me Plone does it all too)
• SBP322 – Messaging, Identity, and Workflow in the Cloud by Nigel Watling – It has the magic word “cloud” in the title, I must take a gander… esp. with Microsoft Live! and their APIs that they’ll announce soon enough
• WUX332 – How to Build an App like Twitter? by Dirk Primbs – Interesting, because I kind of know Twitter goodness, and have a real interest in messaging platforms. No specification of language, et al, but I am certain it’d be interesting.
• Most of the Windows Server Infrastructure Track, with regards to virtualization, SVR425 – SMB v2.0 in Action by Ralf Schnell (where he even mentions Linux in his abstract), et al

You can ensure I’ll write interesting blog entries (maybe with video interviews) from what I learn. Heck, you guys should learn to hand out media passes, because there are a few talks that really do interest me..

Let’s see if Dear Microsoft works like Dear Lazyweb ;)