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It's not Italian. ;-)
I'm blogging all this... I'll post the thing when I'm done.
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Invisible wrote:
> I'm blogging all this... I'll post the thing when I'm done.
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/archives/350
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Invisible wrote:
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/archives/350
Well, since your blog won't let me sign up to comment, and you don't post
your email address here, I guess I'll put the reply here. :-)
Some hints: I suggest before you set up anything serious on the laptop, you
test the recovery disks so you know what they do. :-) Best time to do it,
after all. (And yes, I'm guessing with two DVDs it does the same thing as
the gateway recovery disks do: Puts it back to factory fresh, then uses the
second CD to install drivers after you "restore" the Vista install.)
As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar. It's way
way faster than trying to find something in the menus. You want mah jong?
Type "mah jong" in the search on the start menu. It actually works right.
The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your
graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc. Go to you start menu and search for
"welcome", then go to "view computer details", then "Windows experience
index" if you care. That'll also tell you the OS bitwidth, RAM, etc.
And yes, you can turn off the transparency and put the start menu back.
Right click on the desktop and pick "personalize", or right-click on a blank
part of the task bar and pick "properties".
The machine will likely be slow until you leave it on overnight or so, while
it builds search indexes and recovery snapshots stuff like that the first time.
Sound-wise, you can get "true surround sound" by plugging it into a dolby
system, even if your speakers aren't good enough. I.e., they're describing
the audio card, not necessarily the speakers.
eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports USB
and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.
HTH. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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Darren New wrote:
> Well, since your blog won't let me sign up to comment, and you don't
> post your email address here, I guess I'll put the reply here. :-)
Interesting. I have an email from WordPress notifying me that you just
signed up... ;-)
> Some hints: I suggest before you set up anything serious on the laptop,
> you test the recovery disks so you know what they do. :-) Best time to
> do it, after all. (And yes, I'm guessing with two DVDs it does the same
> thing as the gateway recovery disks do: Puts it back to factory fresh,
> then uses the second CD to install drivers after you "restore" the Vista
> install.)
Perhaps. I was kind of expecting the second DVD to burn quicker than the
first one - but no. Exactly the same speed. Both took about 20 minutes
to burn (and another 10 minutes to verify).
> As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar.
1. What's that?
2. You need to search for stuff = you haven't organised your stuff
correctly.
> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your
> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those
measurements in 0.2 seconds.
> Go to you start menu and search
> for "welcome", then go to "view computer details", then "Windows
> experience index" if you care. That'll also tell you the OS bitwidth,
> RAM, etc.
For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log
in and won't go away. Apparently the Windows experience index is 3.6. I
didn't see any more detailed stats - but those are probably under
"advanced" or something.
> And yes, you can turn off the transparency and put the start menu back.
> Right click on the desktop and pick "personalize", or right-click on a
> blank part of the task bar and pick "properties".
Already found out how to turn off transparency - but I kinda like it. As
I say, if you give it a slight tint, it makes it visible.
> The machine will likely be slow until you leave it on overnight or so,
> while it builds search indexes and recovery snapshots stuff like that
> the first time.
I was wondering why the HD runs *constantly* and never, ever stops, even
when the machine isn't doing anything. Nice to know that Vista has
built-in systems to waste my time and computer power on pointless tasks
that I don't want it to do. :-) Clearly M$ have put a lot of work into
keeping computers slow to encourage the purchase of new, faster ones.
> eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports
> USB and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.
Mmm, OK. But... they have the same electrical interface?
Also amusing was the manual's description of the covers on the bottom.
One is labelled "harddrive" and the other is labelled "secondary
harddrive". What, you mean you can put two in it? I suspect not! ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:36:42 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
>
>> As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar.
>
> 1. What's that?
http://images.google.com/images?q=vista%20%22start%20menu%22%20%22search%20bar%22
> 2. You need to search for stuff = you haven't organised your stuff
> correctly.
You will also find that the start menu in Vista expands sub-menus in place
rather than to the right. Decide for yourself if this is a good idea or a
horrible disaster.
>> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your
>> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
>
> Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those
> measurements in 0.2 seconds.
1. It does not take 20 minutes. A few minutes at the most.
2. How else would you perform a benchmark other than running tests and
timing them?
> For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log
> in and won't go away.
Uncheck the box marked "Show the Welcome screen every time I log in".
>> eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports
>> USB and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.
>
> Mmm, OK. But... they have the same electrical interface?
Not quite, but close enough to provide basic compatibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#External_SATA
--
FE
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Interesting. I have an email from WordPress notifying me that you just
> signed up... ;-)
That doesn't help much if wordpress doesn't mail me the password. :-)
> Perhaps. I was kind of expecting the second DVD to burn quicker than the
> first one - but no. Exactly the same speed. Both took about 20 minutes
> to burn (and another 10 minutes to verify).
Some DVD burners (software) insist on writing the entire DVD whether there's
useful content or not.
>> As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar.
>
> 1. What's that?
Open the start menu. See the bottom left, where it says "start search"?
> 2. You need to search for stuff = you haven't organised your stuff
> correctly.
Perhaps. But since you're not especially in control of how the start menu is
organized a priori, it helps.
>> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your
>> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
>
> Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those
> measurements in 0.2 seconds.
Dunno. It takes about 5 on mine, IIRC, but then I have a kick-ass graphics
card. Much of the time is spent evaluating the abiltiy to scale textures, do
shadows and lights, stuff like that.
> For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log
> in and won't go away.
The checkbox at the bottom that says "Show this every time windows starts"?
Uncheck that.
> Apparently the Windows experience index is 3.6. I
> didn't see any more detailed stats - but those are probably under
> "advanced" or something.
See the link next to the rating? Click on that.
> Already found out how to turn off transparency - but I kinda like it. As
> I say, if you give it a slight tint, it makes it visible.
Yes. It's cool. It confused my wife till we set it to black for her.
> I was wondering why the HD runs *constantly* and never, ever stops, even
> when the machine isn't doing anything. Nice to know that Vista has
> built-in systems to waste my time and computer power on pointless tasks
> that I don't want it to do. :-)
Well, turn it off, then. It stops after it finishes.
>> eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports
>> USB and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.
>
> Mmm, OK. But... they have the same electrical interface?
As what? USB? No, of course not. Different shape connectors. I'm not sure
whether it's the same as SATA, but I'm not going to crawl under my desk to
check. :)
> Also amusing was the manual's description of the covers on the bottom.
> One is labelled "harddrive" and the other is labelled "secondary
> harddrive". What, you mean you can put two in it? I suspect not! ;-)
Possibly. Why not?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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>> Interesting. I have an email from WordPress notifying me that you just
>> signed up... ;-)
>
> That doesn't help much if wordpress doesn't mail me the password. :-)
OK, that's pretty random.
>>> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your
>>> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
>>
>> Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those
>> measurements in 0.2 seconds.
>
> Dunno. It takes about 5 on mine, IIRC, but then I have a kick-ass
> graphics card. Much of the time is spent evaluating the abiltiy to scale
> textures, do shadows and lights, stuff like that.
Mmm, OK. It just seemed to take an absurdly long time to do whatever it
was doing. (And nailing the HD while it was doing it.)
>> For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log
>> in and won't go away.
>
> The checkbox at the bottom that says "Show this every time windows
> starts"? Uncheck that.
Yeah, I already found that. ;-)
>> Also amusing was the manual's description of the covers on the bottom.
>> One is labelled "harddrive" and the other is labelled "secondary
>> harddrive". What, you mean you can put two in it? I suspect not! ;-)
>
> Possibly. Why not?
You mean other than issues of space, battery consumption and heat
dissipation?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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For some reason, every few seconds the WiFi light flashes. Anybody have
any idea how I can completely disable WiFi? (If it were up to me, I
would have purchased a laptop that doesn't *have* WiFi, but for some
reason that appears to be impossible...)
Specifically, I'd like to make absolutely sure it can't connect to any
networks of any kind, and that it isn't wasting battery power trying.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Mmm, OK. It just seemed to take an absurdly long time to do whatever it
> was doing. (And nailing the HD while it was doing it.)
Since the test of the HD takes about 15 seconds here, I'm expecting your
laptop was doing other things during the test (like building search indexes)
or was swapping.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> For some reason, every few seconds the WiFi light flashes. Anybody have
> any idea how I can completely disable WiFi?
Disabling it in Network Connections doesn't do the trick?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!
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