Thursday, March 20, 2008

take an inventory of your computer

The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

[from Bill Husted, 2/29/08]

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Vista is an upgrade??

Here’s one story of a Vista upgrade early last year that did not go well. Jon, let’s call him, (bear with me — I’ll reveal his full identity later) upgrades two XP machines to Vista. Then he discovers that his printer, regular scanner and film scanner lack Vista drivers. He has to stick with XP on one machine just so he can continue to use the peripherals.

Did Jon simply have bad luck? Apparently not. When another person, Steven, hears about Jon’s woes, he says drivers are missing in every category — “this is the same across the whole ecosystem.”

Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.

It turns out that Mike is clearly not a naïf. He’s Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. And Jon, who is dismayed to learn that the drivers he needs don’t exist? That’s Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And Steven, who reports that missing drivers are anything but exceptional, is in a good position to know: he’s Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows.

* * *

[4/26/08] Microsoft's operating systems run most personal computers around the globe and are a cash cow for the world's largest software maker. But you'd never confuse a Windows user with the passionate fans of Mac OS X or even the free Linux operating system.

Unless it's someone running Windows XP, a version Microsoft wants to retire.

Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.



Save XP Petition

Monday, March 10, 2008

plastic bottles vs. the environment

According to the New York Times, more than 90 percent of the environmental impact from a plastic bottle is already done before the bottle is opened, because plastic bottles have a surprisingly high carbon footprint.

Production of the 29 billion polyethylene terephthalate (PET) water bottles used in the United States (about one bottle per person every four days) requires nearly 900,000 tons of the plastic, the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of crude oil annually.

But that is just the cost of the bottles. There are other costs in the production of bottled water.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Ethanol Demand in U.S. Adds to Food, Fertilizer Costs

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. plans to replace 15 percent of gasoline consumption with crop-based fuels including ethanol are already leading to some unintended consequences as food prices and fertilizer costs increase.

About 33 percent of U.S. corn will be used for fuel during the next decade, up from 11 percent in 2002, the Agriculture Department estimates. Corn rose 20 percent to a record on the Chicago Board of Trade since Dec. 19, the day President George W. Bush signed a law requiring a fivefold jump in renewable fuels by 2022.

Increased demand for the grain helped boost food prices by 4.9 percent last year, the most since 1990, and will reduce global inventories of corn to the lowest in 24 years, government data show. While advocates say ethanol is cleaner than gasoline, a Princeton University study this month said it causes more environmental harm than fossil fuels.

Oil prices tripled since the end of 2003, causing the government to consider alternative fuels. Now, the competition for corn is leading to higher costs for food companies, raising prices for everything from cattle to dairy products.

Corn doubled in the past two years, touching a record $5.29 a bushel today in Chicago. The price of young cattle sold to feedlots gained 8.7 percent in the past year, reaching a record $1.1965 a pound on Sept. 6 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Average whole milk rose 26 percent to $3.871 a gallon in January from a year earlier, the Department of Labor said yesterday.

``For thousands of years, humans grew food and ate it,'' said Andrew Redleaf, 50, chief executive officer of Whitebox Advisors LLC, a Minneapolis hedge fund that manages $3 billion. ``Now we are burning crops to make fuel.''

Researchers led by Timothy Searchinger at Princeton University said their study showed greenhouse-gas emissions will rise with ethanol demand. U.S. farmers will use more land for fuel, forcing poorer countries to cut down rainforests and use other undeveloped land for farms, the study said.

Searchinger's team determined that corn-based ethanol almost doubles greenhouse-gas output over 30 years when considering land-use changes. Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington, said the study used a flawed model and overestimated how much land will be needed.

Ethanol is important in reducing emissions, ending energy dependence on the Middle East and creating jobs in rural areas, Dinneen said today at the USDA conference.

``There are still some who want us to choose between food and fuel,'' said Dinneen, whose organization represents ethanol producers including Archer Daniels Midland Co. ``I don't think we have to choose.'' Research shows cellulosic ethanol made from grasses and crop waste may contribute 21 billion gallons by 2022, and farmers will be able to boost yields, he said.