One of my all-time favorite Windows programs, RoboForm, came out with an update recently. That’s not unusual. But I was surprised to see this dialog box pop up:

I’ve written about security problems with Skype before, and I’ve also noted one case where I discovered that a Skype add-on to Internet Explorer was causing delays of up to 90 seconds in page loading. But I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen one software developer specifically call out another as part of its installation routine.

For the record, I was able to confirm that the RoboForm dialog box is absolutely correct. With the Skype add-in installed, I had activation problems. When it was disabled, everything worked perfectly.

I was a very early adopter of TiVo, buying my first Philips TiVo box with a lifetime membership way back in 2000, less than a year after the company shipped its first box. I loved it then, and the Spousal Acceptance Factor (SAF) was high. High enough, in fact, that I bought an HD TiVo and signed up with DirecTV a little over three years ago when we moved into the home we live in now.

But DirecTV and TiVo had a falling out shortly after I made that purchase, and DirecTV introduced one of the suckiest DVRs ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public. So bad, in fact, that I willingly paid an early termination fee to get rid of it.

For the past year, our home entertainment system has been a Dell Media Center PC equipped with two external CableCARD tuners and two ATSC (over-the-air HD) tuners attached to an external antenna. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve had various Media Center extenders in other rooms of the house. The system has been an absolute joy to use, with an extremely high SAF.

Every so often I get an e-mail from TiVo offering me some sort of deal to come back. Today, just for grins, I decided to see what I’d have to pay to rejoin the TiVo fold.

Continue reading “Why I’m not going back to TiVo” →

If you’ve been looking for a Vista-compatible Media Center Extender, Dell Home has both Linksys models on sale for the lowest prices I’ve seen. The bare-bones (but very capable) DMA 2100 is $127.49, and the DMA 2200, which has a built-in DVD player, is $170.

I’m using both models here. In fact, I’ve been busily testing all five currently available Media Center Extenders. Stay tuned.

Excellent, wide-ranging interview with Mark Russinovich over at TechNet Edge. It was posted lasted week, but I just got around to noticing it. I’ll probably transcribe a few portions of it shortly, as they’re worth reading…

If you’re even slightly a Windows geek, it’s worth a listen.

I don’t claim to be an expert on web standards. In fact, very few people truly deserve the label of “expert” in this esoteric field. One is Jeffrey Zeldman, founder and majordomo of A List Apart, which I’ve been reading for years. Looking at my FeedDemon list, in fact, he’s the only web designer I consistently follow.

That means I haven’t been keeping up on the debate over how the community feels pover Microsoft’s decision to more fully support Web standards in IE8. Now, one thing they’re not going to do, apparently, is code IE so it passes the so-called Acid tests from the Web Standards Project.

I thought about this today as I was reading one persistent and annoying ZDNet commenter who seems fixated on ranting about the poor performance of IE8 Beta 2 on the Acid 3 test. I know that Microsoft could, if it chose to do so, build its browser to ace the Acid 3 test. Opera managed to do so. But Firefox has chosen not to. According to a chart Adrian Kingsley-Hughes published based on his testing, Their most recent builds come in at 71 out of 100 on the Acid 3 scorecard, and IE8 Beta 2 hits the low 20s.

I found this early 2008 article from Zeldman, in which he does a pretty good job of summarizing Microsoft’s “We can’t break the web” mentality, which has resulted in a feature called “version targeting.” I found this explanation especially compelling:

Non-standardistas have been writing JScript for years. While the CSS changes in IE7 may have “broken” a site’s layout, IE8’s JavaScript improvements could easily render a site useless. Real DOM support is a game changer. Enabled by default, it would bring many sites to their knees. That would break the web, and not in quotes. Providing IE8’s greater compliance on an opt-in basis is the only way to get everyone over the scripting hump.

Which brings us back to the question: Should a new browser pass some test, or should it move forward incrementally and continue to work as well as possible with the web as it exists today?

Frankly, I don’t care all that much about synthetic benchmarks. Getting a 100 on the Acid3 Test means that you will perfectly render a page that uses every known trick in the web standards guidebook, as written in that test. It does not mean that said browser will properly render the pages you visit every day or that your corporation uses on its intranet. Arguably, meeting that level of performance is more important. I would not want to have to explain to my CEO that no new sales came in this week because our new browser, which aced the Acid 3 test, barfs when it hits the order input page.

But I might be wrong. What I’d really like is some pointers to the experts out there who have already studied this subject and published well-considered opinions with lots of factual backup.

Anyone able to point me in the right direction? If you know your stuff, please help me out. I’ll assume that posting your comments here means you give me permission to use them (with attribution) in a follow-up post. And if it’ll help, I’ve got a couple of signed copies of Windows Vista Inside Out, Deluxe Edition for the most helpful, information-rich comments I get here.

I’ve received a bunch of questions about IE8 Beta 2, so I put together a FAQ page over at ZDNet. It includes answers to a bunch of questions, plus links to installation instructions and downloads for all supported 32- and 64-bit Windows versions. It’s here:

An IE8 Beta 2 Q&A

Also, you might want to check in on my first look at the features in this release:

Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover

and the accompanying screenshot gallery has some good stuff with 14 fully captioned images, each illustrating a key feature or capability:

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

One of my fellow bloggers in the Federated Media network, Anita Campbell, has just launched a new site called the Small Business Success Center. It’s a spin-off of her regular blog, Small Business Trends, and it’s sponsored by Microsoft. (Full disclosure: Through the FM network, Microsoft is also running ads for Small Business Trends on this site.)

Along with a few other FM bloggers, I’ve agreed to contribute some posts to help get the conversation started. It’s fun to look beyond the nitty-gritty of Windows dialog boxes for a change and think about some of the broader concerns of small businesses, like the one I run.

Anita’s site is a great resource. My contribution, Is your business prepared for a data disaster? is up now. If you run a small business or are thinking of starting one, go take a look, and feel free to leave a comment.

In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service publishes depreciation schedules for hard business assets like manufacturing equipment and office furniture. On the IRS list, a personal computer used exclusively for business in a “regular business establishment” is considered to have a five-year lifespan and can be written off accordingly.

Back when a computer cost $2000 or more, I used to squeeze at least three, and sometimes four or five years of life out of each purchase. Today, with whole system prices typically under $1000, I’m comfortable letting  a PC go after two years, sometimes even less.

Of course, other peripherals follow different rules completely. I’ve had printers that have lasted 10 years, and monitors usually last for 7-10 years here.

So, how about you? How often do you turn over systems and peripherals?

Update 9-Sep-2008: This deal is expired, but HP has replaced it a similar one, which you can read about in this follow-up post.

HP is running a special right now that allows you to get a fully loaded Media Center PC, complete with CableCARD-ready digital tuner, for the best price I’ve ever seen.

The HP Pavilion Elite m9300t is the top of the Entertainment Powerhouse line at HP. Until August 31, you can use an online coupon to get 30% off any system you order in this line, which starts out with some pretty aggressive pricing to begin with.

Using this coupon, you could get a quad-core system with an internal TV tuner and an external ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuner for under $850, including tax and shipping. Here are the specs for that system:

HP Pavilion Elite m9300t
customizable Desktop PC

• Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 for digital cable tuner (32-bit)
• Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q6600 (2.4GHz)
• 2GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM (2 modules)
• 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9500GS, DVI-I, VGA, HDMI
• 750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
• Ethernet LAN port on system board (10/100/1000Mbps)
• LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
• 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, video, audio
• ATI TV Wonder external digital cable tuner + internal TV tuner
• Integrated 7.1 channel sound w/ front audio ports)
• HP keyboard and optical mouse

I wasn’t particularly excited to see Microsoft Works 9.0 and Norton Internet Security 2008 (a one-year subscription) on the list of configuration items that couldn’t be changed. There are probably a few other bits of crapware hanging around as well. And because you need to use this custom edition of Windows Vista to get digital cable support, you can’t wipe it away and do a clean install.

You could actually cut the price by roughly $50 if you accept the default 320GB hard drive. For a Media Center PC that is going to be used to record HD content, I think the $50 upgrade charge to bump this drive to 750GB is well worth it. The most interesting upgrade option I see on the list is for the CPU, where you can spend an extra $120 or $200 (less a 30% discount, of course) to go up to a Penryn quad-core processor (Q9300 at 2.5 GHz or Q9450 at 2.66 GHz, both with a faster bus than the Q6600, plus support for SSE 4.1). You can also throw in a Blu-ray drive for $150, which is a pretty decent price if you plan to use this PC in a living room or den attached directly to a TV and you want to be able to play Blu-ray disks.

It’s worth noting that you can’t get a second digital cable tuner as part of this order (I asked). Nor can you get Vista Ultimate or any 64-bit Vista edition with digital cable support as part of this system. If you plan to use a CableCARD tuner, you must choose the “32-bit Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 for digital cable tuner” option. (Before anyone asks: I seriously doubt whether the Media Center TV Feature Pack is included in this build.)

To get this configuration, start at the Pavilion Elite m9300t series home page at hpshopping.com. After building the configuration you want, add it to your cart and use the coupon code DT9021 during checkout to take 30% off the total. (My understanding is that this coupon expires on August 31.) Choose 5-7 day shipping to get no-charge delivery.

I’ve never seen a price this low for a fully equipped system that actually includes a digital cable tuner. Currently, the best price I can get for a similarly equipped Dell XPS 420 is about $400 more. If you’ve been thinking about getting one of these systems and you can live with a single digital tuner, this is a good bet.