In the last post I noted the kerfuffle over Vista Home Basic and Home Premium keeping backup copies of deleted data files. In Business and Ultimate editions, these backups are accessible via the Previous Versions feature. In the two Home editions, the Previous Versions feature is turned off.

So, you don’t want Windows to waste CPU cycles and disk space backing up copies that you can’t get to? Fine. Move your data files to a separate volume (instructions here). You can use a different partition on the same drive or a separate drive – the key is that it have a different drive letter than the volume that holds your Windows and Program Files folders.

By default, Vista enables Shadow Copies (the feature that snaps those backup copies) only on the boot drive. It’s disabled on other drives. (Look below for the way I have my drives partitioned, with the E: drive for all data files and F: for backup images.) So, with data out of System Restore’s way, you have no worries that you’re going to waste space, squander CPU cycles, or compromise your privacy.

The side benefit is you have a cleaner, neater backup solution as well. Do an image-based backup of the C: drive, which you can restore as needed to recover from driver or application problems, and back up your data files in any way that makes sense to you.

You’d think someone had given Chris Pirillo a Super Atomic Wedgie, judging by the amount of yipping in this post.* He’s bemoaning the fact that Windows Vista has a feature that keeps backups of all deleted data files but doesn’t allow you access to those automatic backups if you’re using Vista Home Basic or Home Premium editions. (For a more complete description of the issue, see this post from Dave Methvin, a longtime friend and trusted colleague, which was Chris’s jumping-off point.)

Anyway, in mid-rant, with the subtlety and savoir faire that characterizes everything from Pirillo World Headquarters, Chris tosses a gratuitous insult my direction:

My guess is that Ed Bottand the other Windows apologists will have a completely logical explanation for this “feature” before too long. After all, why would a Home Basic user ever want to recover data? It’s a well known fact that Home Basic and Home Premium files aren’t as important as Ultimate files.

Who are these other apologists? Did I miss a meeting? Do we have t-shirts?

Actually, I’ve been saying for as long as I can remember that the existence of three separate backup programs in Vista is stupid and user-hostile. What Chris doesn’t mention (probably because he was too busy measuring the thickness of borders in the Backup dialog box), is that Home Basic users have it even worse than he thinks. Although they can perform a backup manually, they can’t schedule a file-based backup, so they can’t have their files automatically protected. Home Premium users can. And Ultimate users get the ability to do image-based backups.

Nothing, but nothing will buy you user loyalty like saving someone’s ass. Microsoft knows that, so whoever made the design decision to cripple the backup utility for home users was not thinking clearly at all, and the decision they wound up making (bare-bones backup in Home Basic, slightly improved backup in Home Premium, full access to all features in Ultimate) was bad for Microsoft and bad for its customers.

Hey, Chris, you have my e-mail address. In fact, you even have my phone number. Next time you could ask the question instead of assuming you know the answer. Hey, you could even use The Google(TM), where you would have found me saying this back on October 31, 2004 (I highlighted the interesting part for you):

The Windows XP Backup program is installed by default with Windows XP Pro. Based on user surveys, Microsoft decided (incorrectly, in my opinion) that anyone using Windows XP Home Edition wouldn’t be interested in the Backup program. That’s why you have to manually install it.

Now go back up and read what Chris wrote and compare it to what I wrote, two and a half years earlier.

Ironically, the Backup tools in Vista Home Basic are better than those in XP Home, and the ones in Home Premium are better still. But neither one can hold a candle to the full-featured Backup program in Vista Ultimate, and some third-party developers do even better still (Acronis True Image Home is my current favorite).

And for added irony, Chris (who shows signs of developing at least a small Mac dependency if not an outright addiction) throws in this reference to a feature in Apple’s upcoming Leopard:

To be completely fair, Time Machine only works in *ONE* version of OS X. Then again, there’s only one version for users to buy.

Oh, those pesky verb tenses. Chris, you mean there’s only one version OS X that Time Machine will work in and only one that users will be able to buy. In October, now that Leopard has been delayed till nearly a full year after Vista’s debut.

If I’m going to play the apologist role, I guess I should say, “Sorry about that.”

* I’ve updated the link, which broke some time ago when Chris redid his website. He also, for some reason, removed the dates from every post. This one was originally from April 10, 2007.

Apple delays Leopard; blame the iPhone

Apple said its operating system upgrade Leopard won’t be released in June as planned. … Apple also added that Leopard’s features will be complete by June, but the company couldn’t guarantee the quality.

So many punchlines. So little time.

Update: Delayed “until October,” says Dwight, who quotes Apple’s announcement:

[W]e will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.

I’m getting flashbacks. A lot of Mac book authors just had their summer vacations ruined.

Hilarious.

That’s actually Firefox, perfectly diguised.

From the author:

Yes, it’s true. There are some people that prefer the look of Internet Explorer to the way Firefox looks (though I’ve never met one). So, I’ve created this simple How To guide that shows you just what needs to be done to get Firefox looking just like IE. The goal of this project is mainly to demonstrate the power of Firefox’s themes and extensions in making the browser work the way you want it to.

The disclaimers and apologies are the best part. (Sample: “And, YES, I still think Internet Explorer should be removed, placed in the corner and set on fire.”)

(Via Scott Hanselman)

One of my favorite Windows utilities is Magical Jellybean Software’s Keyfinder. The latest beta version (Keyfinder 2.0 Beta 2–1/2) works with all versions of Windows XP and Office and with 32–bit versions of Windows Vista. (I discovered yesterday that it even works with VMWare product keys. Who knew?)

Alas, it doesn’t work with Windows Vista 64–bit versions. So how do you track down an installed product key if you’ve gone 64 bit? Use RJL Software’s Windows Product Key Viewer. It’s not as pretty or as comprehensive as Keyfinder, but it works.

I can understand why developers love the WTFPL. (Yes, the F means exactly what you think it does, so don’t click that link if you are offended by four-letter words.)

I found this link via Jeff Atwood, who introduces the concept thusly:

I hate software licenses. When I read a software license, what I see is a bunch of officious, mind-numbing lawyerly doublespeak. Blah, blah, blah.. kill me now.

Go read Jeff’s post, where he explains why a proper software license is a necessary evil and why the absence of a license is a terrible thing.

I’m looking at some hardware and software devices for managing username/password combinations and other authentication secrets. I’m looking at fingerprint readers, smartcard devices, and password storage/encryption utilities.

Anyone out there using these tools? What are your favorites? Any categories I’m missing?

Also, I’m curious about how security-conscious you are when creating and using passwords on websites. Do you use genuinely strong passwords? Do you ever reuse passwords? How often do you use weak passwords at sensitive sites? Do you save passwords in IE7 or Mozilla?

I’ll probably post something similar at ZDNet but I know I’ll get a much higher signal-to-noise ratio here.

ExtremeTech has a newly published article called Speed Up Windows Vista, which promises “tweaks that can help you turn up the throttle on your new operating system.” Of course, the usual Digg mob has descended on it.

My summary? Pure, unadulterated crap. Half the advice is painfully obvious, the other half is downright dangerous, like the ridiculous advice to “experiment with services [and] [s]treamline the system by shutting down as many services as you can.” Uh, that’s a really bad idea.

Even the commenters at ExtremeTech noticed that there weren’t any, you know, benchmarks or test results to actually substantiate what any of this stuff does.

And ExtremeTech, like so many Ziff-Davis sites[*], insists on chopping articles like this one into a dozen pieces so you have to click-click-click-click to read it. (Here’s the single-page, ad-free, printer-friendly link so you can scan this load of rubbish without driving yourself crazy.) [Oops, not surprisingly Ziff-Davis doesn’t allow direct links to their printer-friendly page. So if you must waste your time, go to the main page and click the Print button (in light gray type, under the Options heading beneath the post itself). Thanks to Ian Easson for the heads-up.]

Once upon a time, ExtremeTech published some interesting stuff. These days, it’s just plain junk.

[* Ziff-Davis is not ZDNet.]

Over the past two months, Judy and I have watched all six Star Wars movies, starting with Episode 1 and ending with Episode 6, in high-definition, thanks to DirecTiVo and HBO. The one thing we were struck by in every single episode was how truly stilted the dialog was.

Last night, we watched Joss Whedon’s Serenity (2005), which we missed when it was in the theaters. Great writing, great effects. Absolutely engrossing. If you’re a sci-fi fan and you haven’t seen it yet, you’re missing out.

Today, this little bit of news shows up in FeedDemon, via Slashdot:

The BBC is reporting that the film Serenity has been voted the number-one Sci Fi film of all time. Serenity is a followup to the series Firefly. The 2005 film beat out Star Wars better than two-to-one for the top honors. This result came in a poll of 3000 readers of SFX magazine.

Synchronicity? I know how I would have ranked those two. Although #3 on their list, Blade Runner, would have been #1 on my list.

Is anyone out there still using third-party boot managers? I’m researching dual-boot (and multi-boot) scenarios and I’m trying to work around the limitations in the Windows Vista boot manager and the Grub[*] and LILO alternatives included with Linux distros.

If you use a boot manager, which one is it, and why do you like it?

*Update: GRUB is actually an acronym, by the way, for GRand Unified Bootloader.