Alex over at The Next Web actually goes so far as to call the 27” iMacs “iLemons”….  A little harsh, but the Mac quality problems have been well documented since the iMacs and Snow Leopard came out last fall.   

Although I couldn’t resist using the “rusty apple” graphic, in all seriousness I believe it’s important to compete respectfully with Apple, and not to make light of a competitors’ misfortune or the pain it causes consumers.  Hopefully, they will be able to get their current quality problems under control.   

For more info, the site Hardmac has the original report of Apple’s decision to stop manufacturing the iMacs, here.

The Toyota analogy only goes so far, of course… fortunately, the buggy iMacs just make people unhappy versus unsafe. 

I wonder if there’s a recall coming? 

Ok, this is cool regardless of political views.  MSN has created a photosynth giving a 3D view of the State of the Union Address in the US House of Representatives chambers at the Capitol Building. 

Most folks have seen the podium in the US House of Representatives on TV or in pictures many times, but I found it interesting to navigate around and see the rest of the chambers.  Could even zoom in for views of the artwork!  There’s good pic of George Washington to the left of the podium… but who’s on the right? 

BTW, you can create your learn more about photosynth – and even create your own photosynth here. 

Codemash is still going and it’s been a great event this year – as in years’ past.  If you’re not one of the 700 people who trekked to the Kalahari indoor water park and convention center in Sandusky, OH, for codemash – or even if you are – there’s yet another fantastic opportunity to get your geek on and learn some stuff next week in Nashville, TN! 

Steve Ballmer will be keynoting a special 1-day event at Vanderbilt University that will cover a bunch of the topics from PDC09 last November.  With 16 tracks overall, this is a great way to get some free training on Microsoft technologies like Windows Azure, Windows Server 2008 R2, .NET 4, Windows 7, Silverlight 4, and more.  

Hope to see you there!

I’ve pasted the announcement notice below, complete with registration links and links for more info. 

Lap Around PDC featuring Steve Ballmer

Did you miss the Professional Developers Conference in November?  If so, join us as we bring the “highlights” from the PDC09 conference to you!  At this special FREE event we will cover the latest Microsoft technologies and exciting announcements from PDC09 and deliver over 16 sessions presented by Microsoft, Partners, MVPs and Community Leaders.  The keynote will be delivered by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and will cover Microsoft’s three screens and the cloud strategy.

Microsoft is releasing more than 25 products and frameworks over the next six months, more than at any other time. Our goal is to get you up to speed on what is coming, and how it can help you do more with what you have. The sessions will cover multiple technologies such as Microsoft® Windows® Azure™, Visual Studio® 2010, .NET 4, Silverlight™ 4, SharePoint Server® 2010, SQL Server® 2008 R2, Windows® 7, and Windows Server® 2008 R2.

During the event, we encourage you to network with your peers and chat one-on-one with the speakers at the “Ask the Experts” area to get all of your questions answered. You can also visit the Customer Showcase area to see how customers are using the latest technologies in real world applications, and the amazing results they are seeing. We will also showcase the latest Windows powered gadgets and mobile devices in the Customer Showcase area.

If seeing isn’t enough, we will also have a fully staffed Hands-On-Lab area packed with PCs, labs you can practice with, and expert staff to help you learn the new tools.

We will be hosting the event at Vanderbilt University Student Life Center in Nashville, TN. Specific information about event parking and shuttle service will be posted on the registration site and emailed to you prior to the event as well. 

Every attendee will receive a Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 DVD, a t-shirt and an event bag filled with a collection of product information, case studies and other great resources.  We will also be raffling off some great prizes at the end of the day!

Come spend the day with us and learn about the future of developer technology!

January 20, 2010

8:30am – 5:00pm
Vanderbilt University, Student Life Center, Commodore Ballroom
Seating is limited, so register today! Event ID: 1032438491

 Click to register 

Really enjoyed the Ford’s Keynote at CES today. Too much to talk  about, really.  A couple of very quick notes:

1. It was fun to see Ford briefly mention the American Journey 2.0 project that I (and others at Microsoft) have been working with them and the University of Michigan on.    The design course is just getting started, and my colleague @DevarisPBrown, an Academic Developer Evangelist, gave the lecture today (and will again on Tuesday next week).  (Thanks Devaris!  Heard you rocked it! :) )
   
2. Also very excited to see Ford unveil their API to allow mobile apps to use SYNC for voice and touch interaction!  As Ford said in the keynote, this marks a very small beginning to a Ford developer network!  Although there may only be three companies in it today (Pandora, Stitcher, and OpenBeak), it’s a huge step for Ford and automotive computing generally. 
   
   There are still some questions about how Ford plans to manage their fledgling developer network.  A few questions that occurred to me: Can anyone join?  How do you get access to the API?  Are there SDKs for different environments, or merely an API specification?  Is there a certification process? 
   
   I will post with answers when I have them.  :)
   
   In the meantime, check out this short write-up and hands-on Pandora demo video from CES with Julius Marchwicki of Ford. 
   
   And if you’re really interested in automotive computing, also check out this good article on Gizmodo about the future of vehicle apps.  IMHO, Gizmodo does not capture the full story on the future of car apps, but the angles they do cover are well done.  In particular, one thing I think they get right is the automakers’ interest in enabling control of mobile device apps as a strategy to shield themselves from liability. 

Can Pioneer successfully set itself up as the platform provider for consumer device and internet services integration in automobiles? 

Looks like they are going to try, by providing an Intel Atom-powered device of their own called a “Platform for Aggregation of Internet Services” (PAIS).  While I wonder if they’ll be able to pull it off, it does appear on the first look to be an interesting “platform play”. 

I believe their motivation is on target: people really do want their devices and gadgets – including their cars – to work together well.  This is one reason why Ford’s SYNC system has been so successful.  The feature set of SYNC continues to grow, but the core of the system remains voice access to media and phone.  As phones and media players continue to offer an ever wider array of apps, many of them internet connected apps, it’s natural that Pioneer (and others) will want to find a way to get into this game. 

After all, Pioneer’s automotive consumer business providing aftermarket audio equipment is not what it used to be.  People just don’t switch out factory installed radios like they used to, and especially not if it would mean losing unique factory-installed features (for example, those that Ford and Microsoft technologies make available in SYNC). 

Seems to me that the challenge – or rather, one of the challenges – is that there are a number of other players that would not want to cede this platform position to Pioneer.  But for automakers who are not Ford, Hyundai, Kia, or Fiat (all of whom have embraced Microsoft Automotive), the Pioneer solution might provide a way to begin offering some similar capabilities – for example, VoiceBox speech to text recognition and voice control of some other device a driver might bring into a car. 

A question on my mind: It’s not clear (to me) at this point, whether Pioneer intends their PAIS device to simply be a device aggregation platform, or whether it also aspires to be an software application platform.  Whichever way this goes could also influence Pioneer’s opportunity for success with their Atom-powered device. 

Finally, I have to wonder about cost.  Pioneer separately announced at CES that they have a device to allow people to listen to Pandora radio through their car stereo system for only $1200!  (Note: I’m going to assume for the moment that this system uses PAIS, though I’m not sure of that.)  Now, to be fair, this huge cost does include navigation system functionality, as well.  But even so, this Pandora-connectivity solution from Pioneer also requires you to first have an iPhone with the Pandora app installed! 

Wait a minute…haven’t people been able to load a Pandora app on a multiple kinds of phones, plug them into the car, and get Pandora over their car stereo for quite a while now?  Yes! 

Even if the Pioneer system gives you in-dash screen controls for a Pandora app running on an iPhone, which it reportedly does, is that + navigation worth $1200 (on top of the iphone cost)?  I’m having a hard time imagining this taking off at such a high price point.  Particularly given that a system like Ford SYNC is only about 25% the cost, and that platform is not standing still. 

To net it out, I’m not super optimistic this particular offering will be a commercial success, but I *am* nonetheless very excited to see this announcement.  Why?  Because it’s an exciting time for automotive computing! 

We’re still really early in the automotive computing era, and we will only see the pace of innovation on this front continue to accelerate.  (Proof that if you say the same thing long enough, you eventually will be right! ;) )    Despite Ford and Microsoft’s early success, no one approach is pre-ordained to dominate, and I’m expecting exciting, occasionally turbulent, times ahead.  It’s a fun, and necessary stage, in the development of the automotive computing market! 

Interesting interview of Alan Mullaly here and also here.  Mulally is Ford’s CEO, and ran Boeing’s commercial airplane business until 2006 when he replaced Bill Ford in that role (Bill Ford is still Chairman).  In my mind, hiring Mulally may have been Bill Ford’s best and most important decision.  Both articles are worth a few minutes, but one thing that really stood out to me is this proclamation from Mulally:

“The most important thing that you do is size your production to real demand and not overproduce.”

In some respects this sounds like “Business 101”: supply and demand have a relationship, and over the long term it’s generally more profitable for a producer to adjust supply than inflate demand with price cuts.  BTW, This is what people in lean thinking circles mean when they say let demand pull production volume levels for goods and services. 

And yet for so many years this simply did not happen in the American auto industry.  The reason, according to Mulally, is this: 

“In the auto industry, they would keep the production up because they thought every cost was fixed.”

In particular, labor was treated as a fixed cost, thanks to the so-called Jobs Bank program that paid UAW workers 90% of their regular salary whether they were working or not.  This program was designed to provide companies with a financial incentive to focus on growing demand versus laying off workers.  By structuring the program to work in harmony with the way production volume decisions were made inside the auto companies, the program created the *appearance* that it was more profitable to produce and sell additional vehicles at lower prices than reduce production levels (and jobs) to just meet the real demand levels.   Keep in mind, the people making these decisions were some of the smartest and most dedicated people working anywhere. 

I personally believe the problem was that over-producing *appeared* to be a profitable strategy because the decision-making system was set up to focus on only a part of a picture, when people should have been seeing a series of bigger pictures over time (i.e., a “movie”, to push the analogy a little farther).  In other words, the metrics guiding the decisions did not cover enough of the total business, and did not provide sufficient insights over a sufficient time horizon.  Of course, everyone is different and some individuals surely saw things more broadly and over a longer time-horizon than others, but, overall, the normal decision processes continued to encourage over-production. 

Although Mulally neatly articulates the importance of producing to meet demand, this was not a brand new idea when he arrived at Ford.  While I was at Ford, I recall this mindset was changing even before Mulally took the reins in 2006.  I’ve been told that in the early to mid-1990’s (before I joined Ford), Eli Goldratt, author of the iconic book The Goal about the theory of constraints, was working with Ford to help them adjust the way they thought about the flow of their product development and manufacturing processes.  The Ford Production System was modeled in some ways after the lean Toyota Production System (itself based in part on Henry Ford’s own system of production 80+ years ago).   I don’t know, but I suspect Jim Womack of the Lean Enterprise Institute did his share of consulting with Ford.  And I do recall that process improvement initiatives were seemingly continuous (not exactly the same as “continuous improvement”, but i digress… ;) ).  I suspect most if not all of these drives to improve efficiency and quality helped make important improvements. 

Even so, my perception is that these improvements tended to help Ford run it’s sub-optimal system more efficiently, but did not really change the decision structures that created the sub-optimal system of over-production in the first place – and therefore allow for a more optimal system to replace it.  In my opinion it was actually the emergence of tools to understand and describe complex adaptive systems that made this possible. 

Tools like Systems Thinking and Systems Dynamics gave people a rigorous way to learn about the relationships between, for one of many possible examples, fleet residual prices and new vehicle pricing power at one point in time, and production volume and price discounting strategy three years earlier.  And just as importantly, to communicate those ideas in ways that let people have reasoned discussions about the assumptions of the “old” model of over-production and the fit of a new alternative model that was more encompassing.  This allowed for things like losses in future years due to low fleet residuals to be factored into current year production planning, and thus show a truer (if not perfect) picture of the higher costs over time that existed in the old over-production model. 

By the way, my own thumbnail sketch version of the story of how fleet residual pricing, new retail pricing, previous price discounting strategy and production volumes relate goes like this: 

Over-production leads to price discounting, and price discounting leads to more vehicles getting sold, and more vehicles getting sold leads to more used vehicles in the marketplace 2-3 years later, which itself lowers used vehicle prices, which then contributes to less pricing power for new retail vehicles and also lowers the residual value of vehicles coming off lease, which in turn raises the payment price for new leases and lowers demand, which then leads to more over production and price discounting… a spiraling, self-reinforcing vicious cycle.  Worse, this whole little vicious cycle contributes to thinner (or non-existent) profit margins, which *can* lead to incremental cost cutting and delays in new product development, which leads to less competitive portfolio of vehicles to sell, which leads to even lower demand, which leads to more over production… ugh! ANOTHER vicious cycle!

Finally, if you’ve read this far you might be thinking, this is sort of interesting, but how does it apply to IT or software development?  This blog is on MSDN, after all!  :)  The operating model that Mulally has helped establish in the mainstream at Ford are based in large part on the principles of Lean Thinking and Systems Thinking.  These principles are equally relevant to IT and software development as they are to manufacturing! 

For more info, check out:

• Mary and Tom Poppendieck’s site for really, really good info on Lean Software Development. 
• Mary and Tom also have some highly recommended books on lean thinking and systems thinking in software development, including this one that just came out in October 2009: Leading Lean Software Development.   
• Alan Shalloway’s NetObjective’s site for another voice on lean software development.
• The book, The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge – this book really helped launch systems thinking as a discipline.  NOTE: The specific version I’ve linked here is the March 2006 edition, which contains significant new material, including a whole section on how former Ford CIO, Marv Adams, used Systems Thinking within the IT organization at Ford. 
• Society of Organizational Learning (SoL)

Happy reading! 

Roger Jennings over at Oakleaf systems published a handy, illustrated walk through of Codename “Dallas” today.  Definitely check it out.  Dallas was unveiled at PDC09, and is huge evolutionary step… not just for Microsoft or the tech industry, but across industries.  I think of Dallas as two things:

1. A portal for discovering, exploring, and consuming data as a service in real time. 
2. An open catalog, marketplace, and business model for people with data to provide it to people who need data (both public and commercial data)

The motivation behind Dallas is simple: We’re surrounded by data these days, and more is created every second.  It’s a truism these days to say that we often have more data but less information and insight, because we’re overwhelmed with data.  Despite the growth in data, putting it to use in interesting, relevant ways is too often still harder than it should be.

Why should anyone these days have to buy a CD or DVD with a data set on it, wait for it to be shipped, and then stand up a database server, load the data, explore the data, and only then build an app to use the data in some interesting way? 

In a world where cloud computing is a reality, why not just find the data online, explore it online to ensure it’s what you need, and then build your app to connect to the data, mash-up style?  Oh yeah, and only pay for the amount of data you actually use?  That’s what Dallas allows.

Dallas was just unveiled last month, but the data available through it is growing.  In particular, the US government is providing a significant amount of data.  If you’re a provider of data today, Dallas is definitely  something to look at carefully.  And if you have data that you’re not providing today, Dallas may represent a new business opportunity.

For additional information on Project Dallas, see these links below:

• Read: Codename Dallas
• Read: Codename Dallas – Developer QuickStart
• Watch: PDC09 Day 1 Keynote (Dallas announced/demoed) (start about 34:00 minute mark)
• Watch: Codename Dallas – PDC09 Session video

The Windows Server Division weblog announced yesterday that the people who build Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio and System Center will all now be part of the same organization, Server and Cloud Division (SCD).  

This re-org is part of a transition for the Azure cloud business from a set of incubation projects into a mainstream business, and is intended to help Microsoft continue and increase the “bilateral sharing of technology” between the groups.  

For customers and partners, bringing Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio and System Center together in the Server and Cloud Division should – over time – mean increasing the flexibility to:

• Choose on-premise, cloud, or third-party hosting deployment architectures
• Choose “hybrid” deployment architectures that span across on-premise environments, Windows Azure, and third party hosting partners
• Migrate solution components between the Azure cloud, on-premise environments and third-party hosters
• Manage applications and app portfolios that span across Windows Azure, on-premise, and hosting partner environments

Of course, these capabilities already exist in some ways… I personally read this re-organization as a positive signal that Microsoft is committed to additional innovation in this direction and is actively working to make these capabilities richer and more robust for our customers and partners. 

These capabilities are at the core of what Microsoft means when it talks about “Software-plus-Services”.  Ultimately, as computing devices (PCs, phones, TVs, cars, picture frames, industrial equipment, etc.) become more pervasively distributed, and the cloud becomes more mature as a complement to on-premise and hosting environments, we need all of our solutions to work together well – and be flexible, secure, and manageable, too.  

One of the best ways to learn more about where Microsoft is going with Windows Server, SQL Server, the Windows Azure Platform, Visual Studio, and System Center is to check out the videos from PDC09 here, and especially the Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia Day 1 Keynote.

In addition to the keynotes, you can see all the individual PDC09 session videos, and even download session PowerPoint files.

My colleague Jon Box did an interview on IE8 a while back with Keith and Woody for Deep Fried Bytes that was just posted.  Good, fun, educational conversation! 

A few of the topics Jon covers:

• Design objectives behind IE8
• IE8 Security
• IE8 performance
• Acid2 and Acid3 tests
• Gazelle

All in all, worth checking out!

BTW, here are a few of the links Jon mentions in the interview:

• IE8 Gallery for add-ins, web slices, accelerators, and search providers
• Microsoft.com/IE8 page
• IE8 Performance / browser speed comparison
• IE8 tops other browsers in 3rd party security comparison 

It’s been a crazy week, so a few minutes ago I just felt the need to see some innovative and cool technology to re-charge the mental batteries.  I went to bing and searched for “cool new technology”.  What caught my attention was actually a USA Today article called Cool new technologies are right around the corner.   

Ok, that sounds promising. 

I was quite surprised to see the first part of the article was about refrigerator technology!  Ok, so that’s “cool” technology, I guess… but I immediately began to doubt I was in the right place. 

Nevertheless, I gave the article a quick scan, and it turns out that Ben and Jerry’s invested in research to create refrigerators that use sonic pressure waves to lower temperatures (instead of chemical coolants).  That is cool!  (And it’s also “cool”.) 

Bing, I’m sorry I doubted you. 

Aside: The second part of the article I mention above described something called the Magnetocaloric effect.  Basically, scientists built a refrigerator by spinning a new alloy compound so that it passes in and out of a magnetic field.  Also cool (and “cool”).  Ok, back to your regularly scheduled blog post, and the cooling wonders of ultrasonic pressure waves. 

If you recall my post on “touch-able” holograms, then you probably remember that the sensation of touch is delivered via focused ultrasonic pressure waves.  And if you haven’t see the video and research abstract linked there yet, definitely do check it out – it’s super cool, too.  (But only in the way you expect.)

Now that’s I’ve found two cool uses for sonic pressure waves over the last few months, it makes me wonder: what other interesting things could you do? 

Seriously, I’m curious: if you were an sonic pressure wave genius (ultrasonic, “regular” sonic, or “other” sonic), what weird, awesome thing would you want to build?  

Or, if you know of something unusually cool that you can already do with sonic pressure waves, please share! :)

I’ll keep my eyes out, too, and if find/think of/hear of ideas I’ll round them up in a “Top x weird, awesome things to do with sonic pressure waves” post.  :)

(Note: See this is the third and final post in the series.  See these links for SSD Odyssey, Part 1 and SSD Odyssey, Part 2)

I started this series with the quest for “Extreme Windows 7 Speed”.  With the results of the clean install, I knew I was on the right track.  Sure, there are faster desktops out there, and probably faster laptops.  But for a corporate approved, “IT Standard” laptop, the ability to boot all the way to a fully loaded MSN page in 34 seconds is pretty exceptional.  Especially, given the BIOS took 10 of those seconds and I logged in and launched IE8 manually. 

But these results were with a clean install of Windows 7.  What would happen if I paired this “IT standard” laptop with an “IT standard” Windows 7 Enterprise image, complete with security software, Office 2010 beta, and all my other apps and data?  In other words, what would the *real* experience be? 

To find out, I had to get the my existing system image onto the new disk.  After running into an issue I never truly understood trying to restore the system image from the Windows Recovery Environment using the disc I created, I decided to try the Acronis True Image Home 2010. 

Trials, Tribulations, and Resolutions

There is a free version of this software that works for 30 days, so I downloaded and installed that on a separate machine.  Turns out Acronis True Image can work with VHD files created by Windows, as well as it’s own proprietary format for system images.  Since I had already created the system image VHD with Windows 7, my first attempt was to restore this VHD using the Acronis software.  Similar to creating the Windows 7 Recovery Environment, using Acronis to load up a system image onto a new disk requires creating an Acronis boot disk to access their utility without loading Windows from the installed drive.  I re-installed the original HDD, created the Acronis boot disk, and then re-installed the SSD.  All worked as expected.  After about 45 minutes or so of this and that, I booted the new HP into the Acronis True Image utility. 

I found the VHD on my external USB drive without a hitch, and  tried to restore it onto the SSD.  It was then that I realized this feature is not available in the free product from Acronis.  If I read the documentation correctly it looks like you can restore between 2 installed drives, but not from an external USB drive.  Grrrr.  I didn’t feel too bad about coughing up the extra $50 for the Acronis software as it looks like a good product with additional features I’ll probably use.  And, I didn’t need to re-install the product – just get an activiation code, so that didn’t take too long.  Unfortunately, I did need to recreate the boot disk utility, which also meant swapping the original HDD back in again, and then back out again.  It was starting to get late. 

About 40 minutes after I booted into the Acronis utility for the first time, I did so again.  This time, using a fully licensed and fully functional version of the software.  I quickly found the VHD on my external drive again, and configured the Acronis software to restore it to my SSD. 

After churning for about 30 minutes or so, my machine was ready.  I rebooted to load Windows 7, and… got a nice little error message that said Windows could not be loaded, and advising me to insert my recovery disk.  Since I had already tried restoring the VHD from the Windows Recovery Environment, I decided to ignore the error and create a new system image using the Acronis utility.  Out went the SSD again, and in went the original Hitachi HDD (again). 

As I was exploring the Acronis utility to learn how to create the system image, I noticed a menu option for disk cloning.  Whereas a system image creates a single large file that the restore software can use to make an exact replica of your data onto a new disk, cloning is a sector by sector copy of disk data from one disk to another.  There is no restore process.  I decided to give the disk cloning a go, and configured Acronis to create a clone of the original Hitachi disk onto my external USB drive.  All told, this took another 45 minutes or so.

Then, I swapped out the Hitachi HDD, hopefully for the last time, and re-installed the OCZ Vertex SSD.  I booted with the Acronis utility disc, and then configured Acronis to clone the external USB drive to the SSD.  This ran for about 30 minutes.  When it was done, I held my breath and rebooted.  Error.  Ugh.  It was now almost 4:00am, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  This was not going as expected.  The error advised me to insert my Windows Recovery disc.  I could try to create a System Image with the Acronis utility – something I had not done yet, but this would mean yet again swapping the SSD out, running the utility, and re-installing the drive, and running the restore utility a second time.  Having already spent most of the night doing this, I knew it would be 90 minutes before I could even try booting again.  If all went well, I would still not get to bed until 5:30 or 6:00am.  Not good. 

I went ahead and did as the error message suggested: I put in the Windows Recovery Environment disc.    I had no expectations of success, but I knew the alternative was another 90 minutes of work and I really didn’t want that. 

To my amazement, the Windows Recovery Environment automatically detected and fixed whatever was wrong with my load.  Not only that, but it found 2 Windows operating systems!  I think what might have happened is that I had cloned only the used sectors of my Hitatchi drive, and when Acronis wrote those sectors to the SSD it used empty sectors – leaving the VHD restore already there intact (or at least some of it)? 

In any case, with a re-start, Windows 7 booted just fine and all my apps and data were exactly as I left them, with one exception: Office 2010 beta told me it needed to be activated in the next 30 days.  I could definitely live with that for the time being. 

I’m not sure, of course, but maybe if I had followed the advice of the original error message I would have been done hours before.  Doh!  

What did I learn?

After all of this, my simple advice to someone setting up a new SSD would be as follows:

1. Try using the Windows Create System Image utility and the restore from the Windows Recovery Environment disc.  If you get an error message upon trying to boot that tells you to re-boot with the Windows Recovery Environment disc, do it. :) 
2. If that doesn’t work, buy Acronis True Image Home 2010, use the disk cloning feature, and keep that Windows Recovery Environment boot disk handy. 

Now that I have a real world, “IT standard” Windows 7 image running with security software, as well as all my apps and data, the overall experience is still very good.  Is it totally awesome? Not quite.  Some part of the slower experience is probably due to all the extra stuff that is loaded.  And I suspect some part may partly be because I have written a lot of data onto this drive, copying things back and forth.  Sure, the TRIM command is supposed to help with this… and according to this awesome article by AnandTech it does… but it’s still not quite the same experience as a brand new drive.  This just an inherent part of the MLC architecture used in every 120 GB+ SSD that fits into my budget. 

Performance Results

So what are my real world results for common tasks like boot times, loading MSN, loading outlook, etc?  See table below for comparisons overall system performance between the original Hitachi 7200 RPM drive and the OCZ SSD.

Ultimately, did I succeed in my quest for Windows 7 Extreme Speed in real world usage?  No.  Am I happy with the OCZ Vertex purchase at $499?  Sort of.  I’m happy with the drive, but not the price.  Would I buy it again?  Yes (but I would get it here for less).   Would I go back to a rotating HDD?  Not on your life. 

Finally, if you’re in the market for an SSD, here are some resources I recommend you check out:

• E7 Blog (Engineering Windows 7) – Windows 7 Support for SSDs, including overview of TRIM command and support in Windows 7
• Tom’s Guide – Upgrading to an SSD
• Tom’s Hardware – Review of Intel X-25M
• AnandTech – How SSDs work
• SSD overview – Wikipedia – Wikipedia version of what SSDs are and how they work
• Disk Cloning overview – Wikipedia – How disk cloning works, history of disk cloning, as well as links to other Wikipedia articles listing different disk cloning software utilities and comparing features of different disk cloning software utilities
• OCZ Forums for SSD – The place for answers OCZ and community support for OCZ SSDs
• Freddy’s Blog – Performance benefit from running Dynamics NAV on a SSD
• Christophe Fiessinger's Blog - Performance benefit from running SharePoint, Project Server VHDs on a SSD

(Note: Continued from Part 1, here.)

I purchased an OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD for $499.  (Did I mention they were expensive?).  Even though I’m using this in my work laptop, this expense did not fit in my hardware budget so I thought hard about taking this expense on my own shoulders.  In the end I decided to pony up my own cash, because I spend most of my waking hours in front of my work laptop – so I want the best experience I can get.  :)  Take that as an indication of what a difference an SSD can make.  In a few years when it’s time for a new machine again, the SSD will go with me to that machine – or to one of my home machines. 

The OCZ Vertex is a great SSD, but it was not actually my first choice.  I looked at the Intel X-25M, but ultimately rejected it for a couple reasons.  First, it’s even *more* expensive: $599 for their second generation model (with “G2” in the serial number).  You do get do get 160GB at that price, but the extra $100 was just too much for me. The second reason is the OCZ has higher write speeds, thanks to it’s Indilinx controller. 

The other model I looked at was the Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+ series.   This is actually Intel memory (the OCZ is Samsung), but I think Kingston provides their own firmware.  I have to admit I’m guessing about this.  These Kingston drives are pretty new, and I could only find one review (which was positive).   So a bit of a risk from that perspective, but the price was only $350 and if the specs hold up the performance should be close to the Intel X-25M (if not better).  I was all set to buy the Kingston drive, but unfortunately it was not available on New Egg.  Since I really didn’t want to wait any more,  I bit the bullet and went for the OCZ. 

Taking out the old drive, a 7200 RPM Hitatchi that shipped with my HP 8350w EliteBook laptop was very easy – it took about 5 minutes, if you include the time I spent hunting for the right screw driver.  Adding the OCZ drive was equally easy… the screw holes on the sled that held the Hitatchi drive line up perfectly with the screw holes in the OCZ drive, so the OCZ drive was securely installed is less than 10 minutes. 

Even though the physical install is easy, unless you’re doing a clean install, there can be a significant time commitment.  In my case, I had set up everything *except* my documents and data on the Hitatchi disk already.  For me, that’s 70+ GB worth of apps and such.  Since I didn’t want to set all my apps up again, I decided to clone the existing disk and write that image to the new disk.  In a desktop environment, this is pretty transparent.  You just physically install the disk, and use a disk cloning utility (e.g., like Acronis True Image Home 2010)  to create an exact replica of all the files from the old disk on the new SSD.  Alternatively, you can create a system image of the original disk, and restore it to the new disk.  Once you’ve got a replica of your image on the new SSD, you can just change the boot order in the bios to boot from the new disk and you should be good to go. 

In the case of a laptop that is only set up for a single internal hard disk, it’s a little bit more complicated.  Some SSDs have a USB port built right into them to ease the process.  For these drives, you follow a similar procedure as you would with the desktop, cloning the original disk to the SSD connected via USB.  Then, you physically install the the SSD and boot from that. 

Unfortunately, the OCZ Vertex is not one of the drives that offers a built in USB port.  To install this drive as the single internal drive in a laptop, without setting up the system all over again, you need to follow this basic conceptual process: 

1. Clone the original disk image an external USB drive (or network location).  You can do this with a disk cloning utility, such as the Acronis software mentioned above, or you you can create a system image that you will later restore to the new SSD. 
2. Make a system recovery disk, so you can boot from a CD, SD card, or USB into a prompt that will let you either access the cloning utility to clone the image on the USB external hard disk (or network location), or select your system image for restore to the new SSD if you created a system image. 
3. You then physically install the blank SSD into the laptop. 
4. Boot the laptop with the System Recovery disk in the CD/DVD-ROM drive (or in SD slot, or bootable USB, etc.).
5. From the System Recovery interface, access the cloning utility to clone the external USB hard disk (itself a clone of the original internal hard disk) onto the new SSD.  If you restoring a system image instead of cloning the disk, then select the system image you want to restore and follow the on-screen prompts to select the new SSD as the destination for the restored system image. 
6. Select any formatting/partition options for your new SSD and the validation options you want the recovery software to check for you to ensure a good install to the new disk.
7. Continue following the on-screen prompts until you’re done. 

If all goes well, you’ll have an exact copy of your old disk on your new SSD.  With 70+ GB of data, this process can take a while.  Whether you use the system image approach or the disk cloning approach, you have to basically move all the data at least twice.  And even though the SSD is fast, your original internal hard disk and your external USB drive are usually not nearly as fast… between them they will effectively throttle the data transfer rates for both data copy sessions. 

While this is not all that complicated on a conceptual level, I did discover today that things can go wrong.   On my first attempt, I used the Windows 7 tools to create a system image and a recovery disk, so I could recover the original drive to the new SSD.  Unfortunately, the recovery process failed for some reason I have not really figured out. 

Just to make sure the drive itself is ok, I went ahead and did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate using a personal copy I purchased to replace the RC version on my wife’s netbook.  The entire OS and settings loaded up fast, and I was surfing the web in less than 20 minutes.  Although this install had no data and no apps, and that could change the final results for me, the experience made me very optimistic about this drive.  :)

A few anecdotal observations of performance with the clean install of Windows 7 x64:

• Boots from power-on to a fully loaded MSN page in 34 seconds, including entering my password and manually launching IE8
• A boot to the loaded desktop, including manually typing my password, is only 30 seconds
• Booting to the Windows 7 login prompt is only 24 seconds – 10 seconds of which is the HP bios. 

At that point, I just needed to get my data/apps on it! :)  Since I ran into some kind of issue restoring a system image, my next attempt was to try the disk cloning approach, using the Acronis software… In my next post, I’ll write about how it went, what I learned, and what the final performance capabilities are after the SSD upgrade– including a comparison to performance with the 7200 RPM Hitatchi hard drive that shipped with the laptop. 

(Note: SSD Odyssey, Part 3 is located here.)

If you’re like me, you always want your computer to be faster.   Speed is something you can never get enough of. 

If you’re not yet familiar with Solid State Drives (aka SSDs) yet, you probably will be at some point.  This technology is beginning to move into the mainstream.  Unlike traditional hard drives, an SSD has no moving parts.  This means they are more robust against shocks and vibrations, typically generate significantly less heat, and in some cases consume less power, as well (thus extending battery life). 

As good as those things are, they are really just the icing on the cake for most folks.  The real reason most people pay the price premium for SSDs these days is for an amazing increase in system speed.  The hard disk is often the bottleneck in both laptops and desktops these days, and putting in a fast SSD (not all are fast) can revolutionize your computing experience. 

The problem with SSDs is that they are expensive… I mean, really expensive, on a $/GB basis.  But if you think about how an SSD can turn a good laptop into a great one, or extend the life of an old machine, they are also one of the best $/performance upgrades you can make. 

I’ve been watching the prices of Solid State Drives drop over the last year, but in the last couple months they’ve started going back up.  Flash memory is a commodity, and as the prices rise, so do the SSDs I’ve been dreaming of.  With prices rising and a new HP 8350w laptop from work on my desk, not yet fully set up, I decided to take the plunge and pick up an 120GB SSD to use as a boot disk. 

Besides price fluctuations, there’s another reason this may be a good time to consider an SSD: with the RTM of Windows 7, many people will be setting up a new machine anyway.  And, it turns out that Windows 7 has some features that make moving to an SSD easier than it used to be.  For example, you just need to plug it in and Windows 7 recognizes it as an SSD and automatically optimizes disk management settings for solid state drives.

Additionally, a number of a number of SSD manufacturers have recently released new firmware updates to implement something called the TRIM command, which is only supported in Windows 7 (at the time of this writing).  TRIM support in Windows 7 is an important advancement because it helps SSDs to maintain their performance speeds over time by providing the SSD controllers with information about which blocks on the disk are actually in use so the controller can use more efficient write and wear-leveling algorithms. 

In my next post or two, I’ll write about how I chose the SSD I ultimately did, how to migrate to an SSD, my experience getting my own SSD set up (the good, the bad, and the ugly – there’s definitely some of all three!), and ultimately whether or not the performance benefits are worth the time and money.

(Note: Part II is now posted here. -John) 

At the PDC09 yesterday, Dominos Pizza showed up in a short video in the keynote talking about their work to move their ecommerce site to Windows Azure, running on Java.   The Dominos story is an interesting one on multiple levels. 

On the one hand, it’s a great example of using technology to solve business problems. It’s also very suggestive about changes in the technology industry, and in Microsoft. 

My team has been working with Dominos over the last few months to help them do this, and my colleague John Gilmour has a great little guest post on Jon Box’s blog about Dominos running Java and Tomcat on Windows Azure.  Enjoy!

Ok, they’re just prosecuting spammers for multi-million dollar judgements, that likely will never be collected… but it’s a great quote (and perfect for Halloween!).  And the effect is hopefully equivalent to the head-spiking from long ago. 

Ultimately, spam is bad for the internet, and it’s great to see companies with resources going after the spammers.

BTW, if you’re wondering, this is not a real head.  :)   

Happy Halloween!