uvageek

So after the long wait, Microsoft Office Beta 2 Technical Refresh (TR) was finally released on Thursday, though with not quite the fanfare that I expected it to be released with. A week earlier it was released to Microsoft staff (according to blog postings) and so it was inevitable that it would be released to the public shortly there after. Nonetheless, I’m quite pleased with a lot of the bug fixes (though I’ve yet to confirm all 6400 of them ;)), the polished UI among other things and the fact that the crash rate has decreased ten fold (primarily thinking of PowerPoint when opening up files from a SharePoint site) or the flickering refresh issue I was having with InfoPath.

All in all, I’m a happy little kid with this upgrade Fortunately it looks like it expires on May 15, 2007 which gives me ample time to procure the software once it actually comes out on market. So far as Kramer would say, “I’m lovin’ every second of it!”

Well, I actually left work early today… in other words at 6 PM. I know that by most standards that’s pretty early, but when you’re showing up at quarter of eight it turns into a long day. Nonetheless, the sun continues to set later and later, summer is just around the corner.

Okay, so I won’t deny it, I have a problem. If there were such a thing as Gadget Owners Anonymous, I would be a weekly attender. My desktop alone is ridiculous. The Dell 2001FP 20.1″ flat panel monitor, the IBM Thinkpad T40, the Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse, the 1 GB Sport Drive from Lexar, the Dlink Blue tooth transceiver that is broken :-\. The VeNture True North stainless steel mug, the 20gb 3rd generation iPod, the 40gb Western Digital ATA hard drive, the other 256 mb thumb drive, the 6 in 1 card reader, the gigabit 5 port netgear switch, the Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Yeah, like I said, I see it, I see it as being an improvement, I procure it.
So AnandTech has an article about Dell putting out the Intel Dual Core processor chips in their high end machines (Dimension XPS and Precision 380). Check out the specks:

Dell Precision 380:
* Intel 955X Express Chipset supports up to four SATA II drives and RAID 0,1,5,10
* DDR2 ECC memory for reliable operation
* Future support for Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64
* Rack-mountable chassisDimension XPS:
* Intel 955X Express chipset with integrated Intel XD antivirus protection
* Six expansion slots (1) PCIe x16, (1) PCIe x4, (1) PCIe x1 and (3) PCI
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Media Center Edition 2005

Needless to say that it will require a considerable amount of will power to steer myself from procuring said computer. Granted, I’m content right now, with the Dimension 8300 and Dimension 8400 happily crunching away and Folding proteins from Stanford when I’m off at work.
I must say though that the Dell Precision 380 is looking mighty tempting… must resist

[Listening to: Who Said - Planet Funk - The Italian Job (3:45)]

Do you have an old computer sitting in the corner of your bedroom? One that you haven’t used in a while? Do you ever miss the contents of the computer, the files on them? Did you dual boot the box and use LILO or some other boot loader? Are you unable to get to the files that you so dearly miss?
Enter Symantec’s PartitionMagic 8 (recently purchased from PowerQuest). So I have a towering computer that sits in the corner of my room. I’ve been meaning to pry it open and remove the harddrives and the data that resides on them, if for nothing more than to zero them out using Jetico’s BC Wipe and hand them off to someone more deserving of them, like Greg of GregNews.org. So after purchasing Symantec’s Ghost and Partition Magic bundle I was able to find my way into my old hard drive and restore some files that I had forgotten about. Needless to say I’m truly amazed at the power of Partition Magic.

[Listening to: Lovers in a Dangerous Time - Barenaked Ladies - Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits 1991-2001 (4:06)]

Firefox 1.0.1 Released
homeobocks writes “Firefox 1.0.1 has been officially released by the Mozilla Foundation, with some important security fixes. An announcement and release notes are available.” Presumably this fixes the window injection vulnerabilities.
And much like my colleague over at GregNews.org might say, “And everyone said… amen”
According to Firefox Release Notes, the improvements in the ..1 update are as follows:

• Improved stability
• International Domain Names are now displayed as punycode. (To show International Domain Names in Unicode set the “network.IDN_show_punycode” preference to false.)
• Several security fixes

To say the least, I’m happy to see the Mozilla Organization continuing to work on this fine product, enhancing it and fixing bugs in a timely fashion like other companies should.

[Listening to: Brave Words, Braver Deeds - James Horner - Glory (3:10)]