Rick Savoia

Windows XP SP3 causes reboots on AMD PCs

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(TheForceField.Net ) May 9, 2008 — Windows XP Service Pack 3 causes an endless cycle of reboots when installed on certain computers with AMD processors, according to users in a Microsoft TechNet forum who experienced the issue after installing Service Pack 3.

The new service pack, which was pulled two weeks ago for a compatibility issue with another Microsoft product was re-released to the public Tuesday. According to users who posted in the forum, the issue is most prevalent with AMD systems. Several reported the issue with an Asus ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard. At least one user experienced the issue with an Asus board and an Intel processor.

Users said they were unable to fully boot the PC, even in Safe Mode. One user known as Fragem said "I downloaded SP3 from the update website last night and went to restart, and got to "How do you want to start Windows", tried all options, and they all reboot my computer". 

Several posters said they were able to get into their computer after connecting a USB flash drive. There was one caveat. "You have to keep the memory stick everytime that you boot the computer", said someone called esadof. "If you take it off, it comes back to the endless loop."

Users were understandably upset, given the recent recall of Windows XP Service Pack 3 a few days after its initial release to the public. "WAY TO GO MICROSOFT!  You know, most people in the business world would be FIRED for this kind of lousy programming!!!", user known as Olykev wrote. "I'm not sure I have enough faith in you people to try reinstalling sp3 again and will NEVER go to your POS vista", Olykev added. "Dirty money grubbing Microsoft.  Build an OS that works for pete sake!"

A Microsoft  employee allegedly asked users on the forum to submit more information but did not comment further.

 

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The Force Field Launches New Features

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If you haven’t browsed TheForceField.Net lately you may want to check out some new content and features that are currently being added to the site. Some of these new features are already in place and a few are still under construction and will be released shortly. All of them are designed to enhance your edification, enjoyment and overall experience inside The Force Field.

Blogs – Previously our blogs were officially listed as editorials. To allow for more personal commentary we created a separate Blog section for our administrators, contributing editors and writers. As with the other content on the site you can rate and comment on the articles. You can access the official, personal blogs of The Force Field team by clicking Blogs on the main menu on the left sidebar.

Team Bios –  Ever wondered who the Team administrators are? Read their professional bios! Several have already been published and more are on the way. You can read bios on The Force Field team by clicking Team Bios on the main menu.

Media Center – This new section contains a selection of audio and video podcasts, tutorials, webinars, special publications and other media resources hand picked for the members of The Force Field. Some of the podcasts in this collection are my personal favorites and are highly recommended. We also accept member and visitor submissions and suggestions. You can access the Media Center from the Media Center link on the main menu.

Free Publications – The Force Field has partnered with a major media distributor to bring major trade publications, white papers and other resources in 35 industries to your fingertips in one convenient location. These publications are FREE to professionals who qualify. I personally subscribe to many of these publications and have learned much about trends the IT industry from both a technical and business aspect by reading them over the years. This is a dynamic business unlike many others and if you want to remain profitable and successful you need to keep up with it. Reading – even skimming through industry trade publications and white papers help keep you informed of the latest in industry trends.

I have subscribed to some of them for many years. My personal reading agenda includes such trades as CRN, eWeek, PC World, Technet, Redmond Magazine, Videography, Windows IT Pro, RAM and Electronic Design. While some of these are not currently available through The Force Field.Net, many others are. PC Magazine is here as well as Electronic Design, SC Magazine and Cisco on Cisco News.

If you want to know more about the business of technology, this is a great way to educate yourself. Best of all, it’s FREE and you can’t beat free. You can access the Free Publications by clicking Free Publications in the main menu on the left sidebar.

Updated content in the IT Business Resources Directory and the File Downloads – We are currently adding more entries to existing directory listings as well as new sections and categories. During the next few weeks you will be able to search through lists of legal resources, business tax information and marketing. We are also planning an update in the next few months to make it easier to find and access the information.

As always your feedback is welcome. Any suggestions and ideas for new features and improvements are encouraged. You can send feedback by clicking on Contact Us on the main menu or you can send an e-mail to media@theforcefield.net.

Rick 

 

 

OpenOffice.org Releases version 3.0 beta

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(TheForceField.net ) May 7, 2008 — The OpenOffice.org Community announced the release of OpenOffice.org 3 beta to the public this morning. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the latest release of the open source office suite originally developed by Sun Microsystems and is considered by many to be one of few serious competitors of Microsoft Office.

In an e-mail announcement distributed to members of the OpenOffice.org community Marketing Group, John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead, told members of the marketing group that the beta was released publicly to provide a broader base for testing the new version but was not intended for use in a production environment.

OpenOffice.org Logo

According to McCreesh, New features to the office suite include an ability to display multiple pages in the word processor called Writer,  a solver component and an increase to 1024 columns in the Calc spreadsheet,  chart enhancements and an improvement to the crop feature used in Draw and the Microsoft Powerpoint-like presentation program known as Impress.

The new version will support ODF 1.2 and will work with Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and Microsoft Office binary file formats.

In the e-mail, McCreesh told members of the Marketing Group that the new version would also be more compatible with OS X.  "OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be the first version to run on Mac OS X without X11, with the look and feel of any other Aqua application. It introduces partial VBA support to this platform", McCreesh wrote. "In addition, OpenOffice.org 3.0 integrates well with the Mac OS X accessibility APIs, and thus offers better accessibility support than many other Mac OS X applications", he added.

According to McCreesh, OpenOffice.org 3.0 is due for release in September.

The Office suite is released under the GNU/GPL and is freely available. OpenOffice.org v3.0 beta is currently available for download in English for Windows, Linux, OS X and OpenSolaris at http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta . 

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Microsoft Yahoo a no go, so? Time for Ballmer to Go?

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When everyone left their offices on Friday Microsoft was mulling over their next move in their bid to buy Yahoo. Everyone returned to their offices Monday morning to find that the tug-of-war was over: No deal. Microsoft decided it wasn’t worth the fight after all. Yahoo and its assets are safe for now. Zimbra is still alive and open. The public can breathe a sigh of relief. For now.

I won’t rehash the details of events during the last three months. It is replayed ad nauseum all over the net. This would become just one more redundant article on the topic. But it is important to discuss.

The question is, what does this failed attempt to purchase Yahoo mean for the company? What does it mean for Microsoft and Steve Ballmer, who overnight seems to have lost some virility as the CEO of the world’s largest and most powerful software company on the planet? What does this mean for the open source community? What does this mean for Google? Most of all, what does this mean for consumers?

No doubt the speculation will continue for the days and weeks to come, but one thing is becoming clear, while the other characters in this story dodged a bullet, Microsoft, who initially fired the round, ultimately took the hit.

Microsoft called out Yahoo for a showdown, Yahoo stared them down and Microsoft flinched. This likely will not bode well for Ballmer, whose tough talk last week suddenly turned to meek withdrawal. Ballmer, who was never really respected in some circles, seems to have lost even more overnight, and some industry analysts now predict his days as CEO are numbered. A few may even compare him to Darl McBride, the outspoken CEO of SCO who led the charge to own Linux and subsequently led his company to financial ruin. Such speculation may be presumptuous, but not unrealistic. After all, it is difficult to be taken seriously as one of the world’s richest and most powerful corporate leaders when your unofficial nickname is “Monkeyboy”.

Forum Post Party Tonight

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The Force Field will be hosting our second Post Party in The Force Field Forums tomorrow night!  All Force Field Forum members are invited.

Beginning 7 PM EDT Saturday, May 3, 2008 The Force Field Forums will host a Forum Post Party for all members of The Force Field.Net. All members old and new are eligible including Admins and mods except Rick. Prizes will be awarded for the most posts, longest coherent thread and the best content.

The Force Field May Post Party will officially begin at 7 PM EDT and end at 1 AM EDT.

I will also open the Skype line during this time and you can call in to The Force Field podcast, talk about a topic of your choice or leave a recorded comment in voice mail. Calls will be considered as posts and will be eligible for the Best Post Prize!

Three prizes will be given away and several additional prizes will be awarded spontaneously on the spot by our secret roving mod. The person with the most posts wins an nVidia PartnerForce T-shirt. The member who starts the longest coherent thread wins a $5 Starbucks Gift Card. A prize for will also be awarded for the Best Post : a 1GB USB flash drive.

To be eligible to win, there are a few simple rules.

1. All posters must adhere to the rules of the Forum.

2. The posts must make sense or contribute something to the thread.

3. The posts must stay on topic (except those in off-topic threads).

4. Members can promote themselves and their businesses in the appropriate areas and manners but no blatant spam.

5. You can post audio and video in the forums, as long as it is family friendly and work safe. 

6. Don’t spill any beer or drop pizza on the new carpet.

Our secret mod will be lurking in the forums during the party. If the mod spots something interesting you may win an instant prize and will receive a PM notification. You will need to be present to win one of these instant prizes so it may pay to lurk around yourself.

You do need to be a member to post, however membership is quick and easy. Best of all, it’s free, and you can’t beat free.

Bring a friend, bring your favorite beverage and most of all, have fun. See you there!

 

Rick 

 

Happy Birthday, WWW! Or is it?

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The World Wide Web is 15 years old today.

Or so some say.

Apparently some blogs are reporting that the web as we know it was officially born April 30th or May 1st, 1993, the date that CERN signed it into the public domain. 

This is a little confusing. Didn’t we just celebrate its 10th birthday three years ago? According to CNN the date is December 15, 1995. Slashdot posted it as November 13, 1995. Wikipedia claims it was created in 1989.

Of course, if you want to argue the date when it went into the public domain, that is still in dispute. ComputerWeekly,com claims it was sometime in 1993, BBC timeline puts it at April 30th, 1993 and Wikipedia apparently confirms it.

While there is some argument as to its actual date of birth – it seems to hinge on whether one considers that date to be its conception, gestation, introduction to the world or final release to the wild – there is no doubt the father was Tim Berners-Lee.

So, what is the truth? I guess it depends largely who you ask. Inconveniently, nobody asked Al Gore.

Let’s be fair about Vista

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This morning I read Preston Gralla’s blog about the trials and errors of Vista migration and came an uncomfortable realization that although a lot of the disappointment, frustration and occasional hatred for Microsoft’s latest Windows release is clearly the company’s fault, there is a measure that is also perpetuated by the media, and, admittedly, somewhat unfairly.

Gralla, who blogs on Computerworld, wrote about his own personal experience with a Vista migration. He and his 18 year old son decided to take on the task of moving his 80-something year old grandfather into the 21st century by moving him from an old Windows 98 PC to a new computer with Windows Vista.

Now, being an alumni for a large, renowned media outlet such as Computerworld, you would think Gralla would be completely prepared for this task. However, it did not go as well as planned, and in the end his conclusion was that there was no mystery surrounding the slow rate of Vista adoption. Vista was not popular, and no wonder. You can read about his adventure with Vista in Vista Fails the Grandpa Test . 

At first I took the article for what it was, a frustrating expedition into the world of Vista madness. By the time I finished reading it, I realized I wasn’t thinking this through myself. This wasn’t written by a novice user, it was written by someone who is aware of the issues surrounding Vista and is supposed to be prepared for such an upgrade.  This is a great story, but it is not great journalism, because it isn’t fair.

So, although I am not a Vista fan, I want to be fair. I posted the following response:

I understand Vista is not the easiest OS to migrate to and I have no plans to move to it myself. While I commend Gralla and Son for thinking ahead on the printer and scanner, I am somewhat confused as to why other items were overlooked. From what I read it seems that five hours of frustration could have been avoided had there been a little more planning and forethought.

For instance, why didn’t they copy the files with a thumb drive? It would have been more expedient than burning the files to CD. Obviously the old Win98 PC had a working USB port since the DSL modem was connected via USB. If it were a matter of drivers there are drivers available on the net to take care of it.

Second, didn’t anyone check all the devices and their connections on the old PC before purchasing the new one? I find it interesting that no one noticed the DSL modem was connected to USB until after the fact and assumed that simply plugging the modem into the USB port on the Vista PC would automatically connect it. Knowing this was a Win98 to Vista migration it would make sense to check device compatibility with everything connected to the PC, not just the printer and scanner.

Third, why on earth anyone would attempt to install DSL software from an old CD on a Vista PC and expect it to just work is beyond me. After all the articles and blogs on Computerworld about Vista and issues with legacy applications and drivers I would have thought Gralla would know better than this. I certainly am surprised that he was surprised it would crash the first time.

The USB memory stick would have eliminated the entire Gmail experience as well, although had he thought it through he could have used other methods to transfer the files over.

As for AOL, I won’t even go there.

Overall, while I will agree that from my experience this is somewhat typical of many users who migrate from an older OS to Vista, I also agree that they wasted five hours and two days of needless angst that could have been avoided had they thought this through and spent a few extra minutes planning it.

I would certainly expect this experience from the typical end user but not from a tech and certainly not from someone who purportedly knows the score, knows what he’s up against and blogs about it day in and day out on a high profile site such as Computerworld.

Now, that just fails me.

Rick Savoia
The Force Field for IT service providers
http://www.theforcefield.net

Who needs Windows XP? I do.

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I was reading a Computerworld blog today that commented on Microsoft’s current stance on the impending end of the line for Windows XP this June. I found the comments somewhat interesting and varied, but as I continued to read, the frustration began to simmer and then I read a reply by someone named Bob Bain.

Mr. Bain apparently felt that the XP supporters were just Vista haters who, as he put it, fell into three groups: those who did not have the resources to support Vista, those who simply bought into the negative hype and those who just resisted change. He asked, “Who needs XP? Not me”, and proceeded to sing the praises of the OS and chide those who refuse to keep up with the changing technology.

This really irritated me. Is he saying he believes everyone should be forced to upgrade simply because the technology exists, and everyone who doesn’t or can’t do so when Microsoft decrees it should be cut off?

Who does he think he is?

There are many reasons for people not to upgrade to Vista. Just because Microsoft says I should do so doesn’t mean it is right for me or that I should. This is my PC, not Ballmer’s. I built it, I paid for it, I operate it and I decide when, how and if I upgrade, not the CEO of the company who sold the software to me. If I don’t want Vista, it is my right. If I want to buy XP, any company who aims to please their customers and sell more software would be stupid not to sell it to me. I am the consumer. I am the customer. The company should sell the customer what the customer wants, not try to force the customer to buy something the customer does not want.

What other business that wants to stay in business and keep its customers does that?

Do I hate Vista? No. I simply don’t want it. I have very good reasons not to want Vista on my systems.

Aside from my business as a reseller and system builder I do audio production. I do not use or recommend Vista for AV production at this time because of driver issues and, particularly, DRM. It causes too many problems in my environment and I neither have the time nor the resources to deal with it.

Why should I plunk down all that money for overpriced licenses and then deal with the costs and headache (time=money as well, you know) of trying to get it to play nice in my studio just to fatten Ballmer’s bottom (line) when I could just install Windows XP and go about my business? Why would I want to do that? Why should I? Because Microsoft said so? Because I will be branded as a Vista hater if I don’t? It’s my money. It’s my PC. It should be my decision. Where are my rights as a consumer here?

To all those who look down in disdain on those who haven’t adopted Vista – and contrary to a previous post, we are NOT in the minority – may I remind you that as consumers of software, whether home users, SMBs or enterprise – that we are the customer, we have a right to complain when we are paying through the nose for “the use” of this software and Microsoft, as a vendor and provider of such software ABSOLUTELY has an obligation to LISTEN and give the customer what the customer wants.

If not, they will lose that customer, no matter how tight a grip they have on the market.

That’s business. That is how the market is supposed to work.

The Force Field Podcast to Feature Special Guest Tonight

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As most of you know we’ve been running a three part series on Selling Linux. For those who haven’t heard it, this is an in-depth discussion on the current state of Linux adoption in the industry and how we can offer Linux based solutions in our computer businesses as a way to differentiate ourselves from other IT companies and create a profitable niche in an uncrowded market.

Tonight at 12:01 AM EDT I will release Part 3 of this series. It features an interview with the President and CEO of a desktop Linux vendor. To learn the identity of our mystery guest, you can hear a 30 second promo for the episode  below.

{play}http://cdn1.libsyn.com/theforcefield/ff_promo_linux_3.mp3{/play}

I created this series because I think the Wintel market is overcrowded and I really believe that there is more money to be made offering Linux and open source solutions in a field that is wide open than by trying to wedge ourselves into an an already saturated Windows world.

You may disagree with me but let’s be honest, MCSEs are a dime a dozen but there is a real shortage of techs and computer businesses that know Linux – and there is a real and growing demand for them.

Feel free to debate that issue but it is true. Linux is becoming very profitable. The Linux market is wide open.

Anyway, even if you disagree, you may still be interested in tonight’s interview. It is at least thoughtful and it may even change your point of view. Either way, enjoy it and let me know what you think.

Rick

Microsoft BSOD Screen Saver v3.2 Released

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(TheForceField.net ) April 1, 2008 — Microsoft Corporation announced release of the latest version of its famous (or infamous, depending on your sense of humor) BlueScreen Screen Saver to the public.

Actually, it was released November 1, 2006 but that is irrelevant. It's a screen saver. It's a BSOD. It's a BSOD screen saver – and it's from Microsoft. Amuse your friends. Amaze your enemies. Make new enemies from friends, or make new friends out of enemies, all courtesy of Microsoft.

The screen saver displays different errors depending on the operating system, according to Technet. It replicates disk errors in Windows NT 4 (someone still uses NT4?), a Windows 2000 splash screen in Windows 98 and Windows 2000, the Windows XP splash screen in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 splash screen in, you guessed it – Windows Server 2003. Blue screens cycle and simulate reboot every 15 seconds. The screen saver requires DirectX to run in Windows 98.

Best of all, it's free, and you can't beat free. 

You can download the screen saver  at Microsoft Technet .