Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

So long, Alienware, it was nice to know you

According to the Wall Street Journal (paid subscriptions only), Dell is about to buy Alienware. (More details from ZDNet here.) Pretty soon Dell customers will be able to spend $10,000 for a PC.

It will be interesting to see how those first buyers react when they have a problem with that Dell PC and get shunted into the world’s worst technical support system. I’m still getting comments on posts from 2004 like this one, and the quote from Dell CEO in this post is priceless and clueless at the same time.

In the six months or so since I last wrote about Dell, their service has become worse. I’ve now been waiting 24 days for Dell to repair a defective motherboard on a notebook computer that’s still under warranty. The sheer incompetence of their support organization is breathtaking.

If you’re thinking of buying a Dell – or an Alienware – think again. There are plenty of well-run companies you can give your business to. You’ll get a better computer, and your blood pressure will stay within medically acceptable bounds. Trust me on this one.

Time flies…

So, what have I been up to for the last 10 days?

OK, let’s see. I waited till a blizzard blew past and then drove eight hours to Arizona. Saw more jackknifed trucks in 200 miles than I had seen in a decade previously. Also saw Barry Bonds hit a home run and sacrifice bunt in the same game.

Flew to Seattle for two days’ worth of meetings at Microsoft with various members of the Windows Vista team.

Did I mention the part where the notebook’s hard drive failed and, after running diagnostics for about two hours, I lost a week’s worth of e-mail and all my meeting notes from Microsoft? Do you mind if I skip that part? It’s still a little painful.

Came home, found the backups, reinstalled everything.

I’m not sure exactly when the fever appeared, but it was sometime over the weekend and it seems mostly to have passed now.

Oh, and in the most delicious irony of all… My co-authors and I finished a conference call this afternoon to finalize the outline for Windows Vista Inside Out. Not 30 seconds after I hang up the phone, Josh sends me a link to this blog entry and this Microsoft press release:

Microsoft Updates Windows Vista Road Map
Business availability for Windows Vista in November 2006, consumer availability in January 2007.
 
Something tells me this is going to affect our publishing schedule. Ya think?

Wireless access anywhere

I’m traveling this week, which has given me a chance to try Cingular’s Broadband Connect service.

So far, so good. I’ve had reliable service in every location where I tried it, including some where my mobile phone could barely get a signal.

The best use so far? This past weekend we drove from New Mexico to Arizona on I-40, into what the National Weather Service described as a “severe winter storm.” I checked the forecasts and satellite images before leaving home, but things can change during an eight-hour drive. We were prepared to stop halfway and spend the night if necessary. Instead, I was able to monitor the weather ahead in real time (from the passenger’s seat, of course) and determine that we could safely press on.

For the next few days, I’ll get a chance to try the service in airports, hotels, and office buildings.

Mastering your own domain

Yes, I know I promised Part 2 of Changing web hosting companies next, but Dan Richman of the Seattle P-I asked a series of really good questions (as one would expect from a top-notch reporter) that deserve answers before I continue:

what do you mean by “own my own domain names”? versus “using an ISP’s domain name”?

i thought no one owns domain names — we simply lease them.

could you perhaps get a little more basic?

these postings have the potential to be extremely useful.

I sometimes forget that the Internet is still basically in its infancy, and some of the concepts I take for granted aren’t at all obvious. So let’s start with a brief tutorial on domain names here.

Continue reading “Mastering your own domain” →

Changing web hosting companies, Part 1

[I know I promised this weeks ago, but the story turned out to be more complicated than I originally thought. So rather than delay the whole thing, I decided to publish it in several parts. Here’s Part 1.]

Last month I switched hosting companies. I had never done this before, so I approached the task with some trepidation. Everything seems to have turned out just fine (so far, anyway – knock on wood).

As promised, in this post I’ll share why web hosting matters and why I decided to switch. In Part 2, I’ll give you an idea of the decision-making process I went through. Finally, in Part 3 I’ll list the hosting companies I looked at and explain how I settled on my new hosting company, A2 Hosting.

First, a word about what web hosting is and why it matters. (Update: For some basic background information on domain names and hosting companies and how owning your own domain is different from being assigned an address by your Internet service provider, see the tutorial here.)

Continue reading “Changing web hosting companies, Part 1” →

Tip of the day: Customize Disk Cleanup tasks

Last week I explained how to schedule the Disk Cleanup utility to perform basic maintenance tasks. But the Disk Cleanup utility can be overkill, and in some cases you might not want it to run through all its options. How can you tell it you just want it to just clean out the Windows Temp folder? The answer is found in some amazingly useful command-line switches that most Windows users know nothing about. (They’re documented in Windows XP Inside Out and in Knowledge Base article 315246, How to Automate the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP.)

To control how the cleanup process works, you need to first know the executable command for the Disk Cleanup utility, cleanmgr.exe. Then you need to learn to use the following switches to modify its behavior:

  • /D driveletter  Runs Disk Cleanup using the drive letter you specify in place of driveletter (for example, type cleanmgr /d c:, to apply the utility to drive C). (This option is ignored if you use the /Sagerun switch.)
  • /Sageset:n  Opens a dialog box that lets you select Disk Cleanup options, creates a registry key that corresponds to the number you entered (where n is an arbitrary number from 0 through 65535), and then saves your settings in that key.
  • /Sagerun:n  Retrieves the saved settings for the number you enter in place of n and then runs Disk Cleanup without requiring any interaction on your part.

To put all the pieces together, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, Run (or open a Command Prompt window) and type the command cleanmgr /sageset:200. (This number is completely arbitrary; you can choose any number from 0 through 65535.)
  2. In the Disk Cleanup Settings dialog box, choose the options you want to apply whenever you use these settings. In this example, I’ve cleared all the check boxes except the one in front of Temporary files.

    Cleanmgr

  3. Click OK to save your changes in the registry.
  4. Create a shortcut that uses the command cleanmgr /sagerun:200. Save the shortcut in the Windows folder using a descriptive name – Clean Temp Files, for instance.
  5. Open Control Panel’s Scheduled Tasks folder and start the Add Scheduled Task Wizard. When prompted to select the program you want Windows to run, click Browse and select the shortcut you just created. Follow the wizard’s remaining prompts to schedule the command to run at regular intervals.
  6. Repeat steps 1–5 for other Disk Cleanup options you want to automate.

That’s it. As long as the Task Scheduler service is running, your cleanup chores will be handled automatically on the schedule you specified.

About the Windows Vista user interface

Over at ZDNet, a commenter tweaks me for getting one key fact wrong in Vista versions not so confusing after all. I wrote:

Windows Vista Home Basic is for cost-conscious PC buyers who want basic functionality without a lot of extras. It uses the simplified Vista user interface… Windows Vista Business adds the Aero interface…

And PB replied:

Home Basic does use the Aero user interface. It fully uses the DirectX-based DWM (Desktop Window Manager)–note the window shadows.

However, it looks like glass effects will not be available in Home Basic. But that’s the only difference.

This is a common point of confusion, and it’s going to become even more so as tech journalists who aren’t immersed in esoterica from Redmond begin writing about the alien landscape of Windows Vista. Here’s what the deal really is.

According to Microsoft, the Windows Vista user experience (or UX – don’t call it an interface) consists of two layers:

All computers that meet minimal hardware requirements will see the Windows Vista Basic user experience, which provides the benefits of the refined interface features already mentioned.

Windows Aero is an environment with an additional level of visual sophistication, one that is even more responsive and manageable, providing a further level of clarity and confidence to Windows users. … Windows Vista Aero provides spectacular visual effects such as glass-like interface elements that you can see through.

Here’s a snippet of an Aero effect in a typical window:

Aero user experience

Here’s the same view using the Basic UX:

Basic_user_experience

Quite a difference, eh?

If you install Windows Vista Home Basic, it doesn’t matter how good your video card is, you get the Vista Basic UX. In all other Vista versions, you get the Aero UX if your hardware supports it. If you choose, you can turn off the Aero UX by fiddling with the registry or with a simple keyboard shortcut (AltCtrl+Shift+F9). Update: Corrected the keyboard combination, which I have now been told will not be available in the final release of Windows Vista.