So, it's been a while since 'Rigo installed Windows Vista RC1, and I have been intrigued watching him adapt.
He used to have Google as his home page, Trillian as his IM client, Firefox as his browser.
He now has Windows Live as his home page (customised with his favorite feeds), Windows Live Messenger for IM, Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live Favorites, IE7 and has tweaked the sidebar.
So, is he a convert???
Game, Set & Match
Adam Cogan (Local Regional Director, Chief Architect at SSW, MVP, User Group Leader, Star of DNRTV, and man of many rules), dropped me a note about a project he has been incubating - by Tim Kremer (which was developed in his spare time, with no affiliation with Adam or SSW). The project is Spyk Property Search.
It is a property search application, using the goodness of Microsoft Virtual Earth, and "Atlas" (now known as Microsoft AJAX Library & ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions).
When you click on a pushpin, you get info about the property
Cool!
Nice to see these local mashups which use the microsoft maps, appearing online.
So far, I have spotted 6,
Any I have missed?
[ Current Listening to : The Drugs Don't Work by The Verve from Urban Hymns ]
This week I went out to Harris Technology and got myself a 2GB USB Key. It was a good price so I couldn't resist.
My intention was to get it plugged into my Windows Vista system and see what ReadyBoost could do for me.
I plugged it in and got the "Speed Up My System" option
But after I selected that option, the device failed the test (said the device was too slow) and I didn't get my boost.
What The? I thought I bought a high speed USB device.
I went looking on the web for some information
I found Tom Archer's blog, in which he had a few posts on ReadyBoost - ReadyBoost - Using Your USB Key to Speed Up Windows Vista and ReadyBoost Q&A
Q: What perf do you need on your device?A: 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writesQ: My device says 12MB/sec (or 133x or something else) on the package but windows says that it isn't fast enough to use as a ReadyBoost device... why?A: Two possible reasons: The numbers measure sequential performance and we measure random. We've seen devices that have great sequential perf, but horrible random The performance isn't consistantly fast across the entire device. Some devices have 128M of lightning fast flash and the rest of the device is really slow. This is fine for some applications but not ReadyBoost.
Q: What perf do you need on your device?A: 2.5MB/sec throughput for 4K random reads and 1.75MB/sec throughput for 512K random writesQ: My device says 12MB/sec (or 133x or something else) on the package but windows says that it isn't fast enough to use as a ReadyBoost device... why?A: Two possible reasons:
Hmm - informative but doesn't solve my problem.
Then I spotted the article, USB Flash Memory for Windows Vista ReadyBoost in which they road test a number of USB Flash Memory keys.
The tests didnt include the one I had, but they did test one which I considered buying, Sandisk Cruzer Titanium, and it passed the test. It's speed specs are 15MB/s read speed and 9MB/s write speed. The one I got has the specs of 10MByte/s read speed and 5Mbytes/s write speed. It seems like it would be fast enought, but my system rejected it. (from Sandisk's comparison page)
Did I buy a dude? Maybe for ReadyBoost. On the plus side, It's still handy have a 2GB USB Flash Drive.
[ Current Listening to : Mind's Eye by Wolfmother from Wolfmother ]
They started with a bang, but like the GenY'rs that they are, they seem to have lost interest and havent posted for a week.
If you want to keep score, I have made a little scorecard
GuestBlogger Total Posts Latest Post Bernard Oh 9 An Q&A with Carrie Read - A Microsoft Recruiter Long Zheng 7 Free is the new black Scott Savage 5 Communities are built with Links Steven George 4 What’s the deal with… C# 3.0: Implicitly Typed Local Variables Ken Soedjatmiko 1 My Intro - Ken. Marty Gnanananthan 1 Tech.Marty Reporting
Hope to see some more stuff from you guys. Some of those posts have been really good.
BTW - If you want to find out more about the student partners, have a look at the aussie student partner mashup
[ Current Listening to : Everything Will Be Alright by The Killers from Hot Fuss [Limited Edition] ]
I purchased one of those TechEd Dells PCs for use at home.
Today I finally got around to setting it up and asked 'Rigo to upgrade it to Windows Vista RC1.
He found the download site and some info over at neowin
He got the ISO file down.
He burnt it to DVD
He got a Product Key
He stuck the DVD into the new PC and performanced a clean install.
An hour or so later, Windows RC1 is running very nicely.
Not a bad effort by my 15 year old.
I have finally gotten around to getting our new TechTalkBlogs guest bloggers their account details.
For the next few weeks we are going to have the Australian Student Partners take over TechTalkBlogs.
What will they blog about? Who knows, I told them to write about anything they feel like. I will be interesting to see what evolves.
So, head over to TechTalkBlogs and see what Long Zheng, Scott Savage, Ken Soedjatmiko, Steven George, Marty Gnanananthan and their spiritual leader, Bernard Oh have to say.
[ Current Listening to : Swim With Me - The Wiggles ]
In my last post about map mashups, I had a comment pointed me to look at http://findit.com.au
Now, this sounded familiar. looking back in my inbox, I had been sent an email about it last week and I had seen some post from local bloggers.
The Findit online classified website recently moved to pre-beta release meaning that anyone can access the site and place ads. We are keen to get suggestions on how we can make Findit more useful for communities and community organizations. JWM has been retained by Findit which incorporates many popular social media features and will make them more relevant to an Australian audience. We see these social media features as at the core of what Findit is about. We want the site to be community-driven. For a start, like craigslist, http://www.craigslist.org/, most of the ads will be free. Ads for items under the value of $500 will be free and ads in more than two-thirds of the categories like personals, births, deaths, swaps, share accommodation will always be free. Advertisers will be able to upload videos of their items, as well as photographs. Users will be able to upload videos of local events, or whatever, and share these with friends. We think Findit is the first service of its kind which is horizontal and fully searchable. It also offers 'popular search' clouds and is RSS-enabled to help users to monitor categories and searches. A peculiarly Australian feature will be the involvement of newsagents. Already over a 1,000 newsagents around Australia have signed-up to sell ads. Findit is also positioned to dramatically reduce the cost of online advertising in Australia, which for the most part is outrageously overpriced. Findit has been created by Mark Fletcher who owns a software company and a newsagency and also writes the Australian Newsagency blog The Marketplace category is the only category currently completely live. Additional categories will move live over the coming weeks. Through this pre-beta phase all categories are available for no cost.
The Findit online classified website recently moved to pre-beta release meaning that anyone can access the site and place ads.
We are keen to get suggestions on how we can make Findit more useful for communities and community organizations.
JWM has been retained by Findit which incorporates many popular social media features and will make them more relevant to an Australian audience.
We see these social media features as at the core of what Findit is about. We want the site to be community-driven.
For a start, like craigslist, http://www.craigslist.org/, most of the ads will be free. Ads for items under the value of $500 will be free and ads in more than two-thirds of the categories like personals, births, deaths, swaps, share accommodation will always be free.
Advertisers will be able to upload videos of their items, as well as photographs. Users will be able to upload videos of local events, or whatever, and share these with friends.
We think Findit is the first service of its kind which is horizontal and fully searchable. It also offers 'popular search' clouds and is RSS-enabled to help users to monitor categories and searches.
A peculiarly Australian feature will be the involvement of newsagents. Already over a 1,000 newsagents around Australia have signed-up to sell ads.
Findit is also positioned to dramatically reduce the cost of online advertising in Australia, which for the most part is outrageously overpriced.
Findit has been created by Mark Fletcher who owns a software company and a newsagency and also writes the Australian Newsagency blog
The Marketplace category is the only category currently completely live. Additional categories will move live over the coming weeks.
Through this pre-beta phase all categories are available for no cost.
Anyways, the team from Find It have used Virtual Earth to provide their mapping services - cool!!!
I need to have a better look at the site now....