It amazes me (sometimes, but not always) how people can, in one instant, be so smart and informed about computer technology and software and yet, in the next sentence, be so completely off the mark that you can't help but gasp in horror. (Okay, not really, but it at least gets a healthy rise of the eyebrow.) It seems that one of the major points of contention is 64-bit operating systems... Most people seem to agree that 64-bit lets you have more RAM, but then they go on to say "it only recognizes 3.5GB" or "nothing but 64-bit applications work" or something else that makes absolutely no sense, and, to make it worse, they just went on to say something brilliant in the paragraph before!

Vista is the best version of 64-bit Windows... XP was more of a hobbyist thing (and still is). I just want to straigten out a couple of things. First, 64-bit operating systems can address 4GB of memory total, period. That doesn't mean just RAM and that doesn't mean just video card RAM... It also means things like BIOS ROM, RAID cards, low level programs like keyboard controllers, and other things. 16kb here... 128kb there... If you have 1GB of video card RAM, the OS will only recognize a little less than 3GB of RAM. It's not "64-bit lets you have 3.5" it's "64-bit lets you have 4GB of memory in your entire computer and system RAM takes the lowest priority of being counted". Second, Vista 64 runs 32-bit applications just fine, thanks to an emulator similar to what XP has to run 16-bit applications. Unfortunately 64-bit doesn't emulate 16-bit, so programs that you used when Windows 3.1 was the prime of the pack won't work anymore... But let's face it. People who use these programs at home should upgrade by now... People who use these programs at businesses haven't upgraded because those in charge never justified the cost and this will help the employees in their quest for easier to use software when 32-bit becomes a thing of the past. (Now, to be perfectly honest, the 64-bit memory allocation is far, far, far more complicated than that, but I won't get into that for the sake of your sanity.)

As such, if you buy a new computer RIGHT NOW? You should not consider a 32-bit operating system. Even now, 4GB is cheap enough to be expected in a computer you buy RIGHT NOW, and 64-bit is required to see all of that RAM. It doesn't cost any more when you pick 64 over 32 and it offers many more advantages. Anyway... It's people like these who make me think that I would be an AWESOME system builder and repair person. You know, I even caught someone saying that Vista SP1 was a piece of trash... In the spirit of my not believing stuff like this without proof, I asked them to provide links and numbers so I could see myself (I even linked them to the benchmarks that say Vista SP1 fixed graphics performance)... Of course, no response, but there've been a few others who jumped on my bandwagon with "what the heck are you talking about, man?"

What's worse than a noob who claims something without giving proof? A noob who claims something without giving proof who thinks that all of us should take their word for it because they think they're a professional... Ugh. No wonder Windows gets such a bad rap. Even the "pros" don't understand computers.

Oh, and while we're at it, a while ago, Slashdot ran with an article that spelled doom and gloom for the market share of Windows, and they were all praising the fact that Windows MIGHT drop below 90%, as if that is some sort of huge deal. They, of course, took the time to promote how Apple rose an entire 2% in the last year. (It's funny that they didn't note the 0.2% increase in Linux use... Not the exciting "year of Linux" everyone foretold in January, is it?) Well, if you're going to use this chart to condemn Microsoft, you have to use the same numbers for everything. Can't selectively say "Windows is failing" and then ignore "Linux is stuck". Of course, these are liberal, anti-capitalist, open-source fanatics we're talking about. They'll pick and choose whatever they darn well please and the Slashdot "editors" won't bother to check facts.

What I want to point out (which is what PCWorld was also keen to point out) is that over the last year, Vista has grown over 300%, from 4% to 16%. Now, this is just Vista, not "Windows". The upgrade rate is growing steadily faster than Apple's... People keep claiming that Vista is "dead" and that because Microsoft is already creating a new Windows, it means that Vista doesn't have Microsoft's own "blessing". Absolute hogwash. Upgrades of this magnitude have always been slow... People wouldn't upgrade to XP from 2000, but when they were finally forced to, they enjoyed it all the same. People don't want to upgrade to Vista from XP, but those of us who are finally forced to decide it's really not as bad as everyone says it is. Take it from me... Vista on a new, modern system (as it was designed for) is absolutely amazing. Vista upgrading from a computer that can barely run XP? Not so hot.

All part of my "please, use common sense, you clueless rabble" theme for this blog.

More Anti-Microsoft blather from Slashdot:

"Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond."

People always tout how a higher percentage of people don't upgrade Internet Explorer compared to Firefox users... Let me be the first to point out that Firefox pops up a window when there's an update for the thing. Internet Explorer DOES NOT. Now, I know that Firefox 3 doesn't spring a window on you to upgrade from Firefox 2, but let's face it. People who are smart enough to look for other browsers besides what comes on their computer are going to be smart enough to manually update their browser to the latest and greatest. I'm sure if whenever you started Internet Explorer and it announced a new version with a button to automatically download and install, far more people would upgrade (and far more people would complain about Microsoft's intrusive behavior). As it stands, Internet Explorer, as a whole, still counts for over 50 percent of the browser "market share". I don't think alarm bells are ringing in Redmond juuust yet.

Like I said about Intel, AMD caught them napping when they released processors that were more advanced than Intel's, and everyone was cheering and and whipping out the benchmarks to show that AMD was superior. Then the technological marvel that is Intel was startled into the reality that someone was challenging their roost as best chip designer and got busy and blew AMD away with Core 2 and Nehalem. Now AMD's playing catch up... Same thing is happening to nVidia. They've been king of the hill for so long that they've been releasing expensive cards simply because ATI has been playing catch up and nobody wants those cards for performance, but now that ATI is starting to turn heads with their latest cards, nVidia is churning out cards to compete properly. This is what also happened to Microsoft. There were no viable alternatives to Internet Explorer for a very, very long time, so development had pretty much frozen at Internet Explorer 6. Now that Firefox is starting to edge in on their turf, Microsoft made a hasty Internet Explorer 7 that addresses the major security issues, and now they're working on Internet Explorer 8 by making it just about as standards compliant as any other browser. There might have been alarm bells in Redmond before Internet Explorer 7 was release, but I don't think they're very worried about the amount of people who upgrade. After all, the people who complain about the shortcomings of Internet Explorer are going to be the ones to upgrade anyway, so it doesn't matter... Of course, we all know there's going to be the handful of holier-than-thou fanatics who won't even give IE7 a chance to prove its worth, and still think they have the knowledge to complain about what's wrong with the Internet Explorer line.

All in all, the Firefox community needs to focus on fixing their own browser and stop trying to mimic Apple with the whole pointing and laughing at your competition. It seriously cheapens anything you have to offer.

Ah... good ol' RCs. Whenever I see a Release Candidate version of software, I always remember the rabid Slashdot comments raking Microsoft over the coals for having the audacity to give us Vista RC2 and how poor they were for having to release a SECOND Release Candidate. They whine about how the RC1 had bugs that needed to be fixed... Boo-hoo. "A release candidate should be a candidate for release, not a beta, waah!" I made a post about it a while ago, back before I bothered to include links to the articles I was referring to, but it didn't take long searching Slashdot to find what I was referring to. Be sure to read the comments, of course. What brought that post on back then? Well, it was the fact that, on one side, Slashdot readers were blasting Microsoft about RC2 being the result of their inept programming, where, the very same day, October 9th, 2006, there was not a single similar comment to describe Firefox 2 RC2, even though, according to Slashdot's own logic and reasoning, Firefox should have been equally "inept" at coding when they released an RC that wasn't quite ready for release.

So what brought this post on NOW? Firefox THREE is Release Candidate 2 now, and, like I said, any time I see a piece of software hitting RC2, I remember all the morons who thought Microsoft should be the exception. I suppose it should be viewed as a compliment and that they really do think Microsoft is competent enough to get software right on the first go. Personally, I never did have a problem with RC1, and maybe you didn't either, but! Maybe you did... See, that's the wonderful world of computers for you. When you build something in a controlled environment and then release it to the public, the plethora of different configurations of PCs will literally compromise all stability you've planned on. Coding for PCs is hard work, unlike Apples that all come off the same expensive assembly-line with the same manufacture of parts. (But I abstain.)

Point is, Microsoft was somehow inept because they had to release Vista RC2, but the RC2 of Firefox was allowed without a hitch. I realize this really isn't as important as pointing this kind of stuff out in politics, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy, and I like to have documented instances of such things when I point out why the open-source community is comprised mostly of arrogant crap-heads who give themselves one set of rules and everyone else another. (Case in point: Open-source CAN have RC2. Closed-source can NOT have RC2.) Although I have to honest... There is ONE comment on the Firefox 3 RC2 article that complains about how there are bugs that Mozilla hasn't bothered to fix for YEARS. We all know that comment is absolutely correct (if you don't believe it, look as the link the comment provides). I'll put my money on someone driving by and leaving the typical "it's open-source, so fix it if you think it should be". Well, I'm sorry, but it doesn't necessarily take a programming genius to find a bug, now, does it? I, personally, can't program modern languages worth squat, but I am quite adept at discovering bugs (and exploits in games that I have been known for taking advantage of). I can't fix it, but I can show someone so THEY can fix it.

Anyway, there you are!

Ah, I really don't miss Slashdot or Digg... The comments there are so blindly anti-Microsoft that they can't tell a good product from a bad product anymore. They just lump everything Microsoft does into the "stupid" folder without bothering to be objective. With the moderation systems they have, they only encourage the baseless slander. Ah, good ol' "age of the blog". No accountability... Just spill what you think without doing any research and watch the flood of people pat you on the back. (Unless, of course, you share non-mainstream views.) But, I have RSS feeds from a couple Slashdot categories (nothing I haven't heard before it hits Slashdot, thanks to Google Reader), but sometimes I get to see hilariously short-sighted insinuations such as this:

"Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have shown a small snippet of the upcoming Windows 7 at Walt Mossberg's D: All Things Digital conference. It seems like the Windows team have switched their focus for inspiration from Mac OS X to the iPhone OS. Multitouch is the biggest addition, and will appear system-wide, usable anywhere. The most interesting part of the touch UI is not the eye candy, it's the Task Bar, which seems to have morphed into a pie menu."

Right. Microsoft needs to take inspiration from the iPhone because they never experimented with multi-touch on their own since 2001 with the Microsoft Surface. (That link is a PDF, just to warn you.) Nah... Of course not. We all know Microsoft can't research and develop things on their own. We all know that all the ideas they have are copied directly from Apple, and that Apple is completely innocent and minds their own business. (Boy, is that a laugh.)

Also notice the incorrect grammar. "...the Windows team have..." What the heck is that, anyway? I've heard no compelling excuses as to why people do this. You use "have" instead of "has" when the subject is plural. "The teams have switched..." "The team has switched..." It's one team. "Sony have decided to..." No! "Sony HAS decided to..." Sony is a single entity. "Microsoft have let Bungie go..." No! "Microsoft HAS let Bungie go..." When you want to be lazy and abbreviate it, you say "Sony's done that," not "Sony've done that." "Nintendo HAS the best console." Not "Nintendo have the best console." It might be a group of people inside the team or company, but they're still just ONE team... ONE company. If you wanted to talk about the people at the company, you'd say "the employees at Nintendo have", not "Nintendo have". Nintendo is a singular entity that HAS things. But I'm really not surprised at this. After all, this is the Internet we're talking about. (Not "these are the Internet"... Kind of like "these are the voyages"?)

But anyway. There you are. More less-than-truthful Apple fanaticism.

When Vista came out, people complained. Just like when XP came out... Just like when 2000 came out... Just like when 98 came out... Just like when 95 came out... (You get the picture.) One of the major things they complained about was the performance of videocards in games. With the radical redesign of the way drivers interface with the operating system, DirectX was also radically redesigned to accommodate the changes. See, DirectX was designed to offer a high-speed interface to the graphics system of Windows and was intendeed for developers to harness to full potential of the hardware without writing their own interfaces. It was a video acceleration breakthrough and anyone with an unbiased opinion of Microsoft knows this. It's what made PC popular for games.

Now, during the history of DirectX, Microsoft was experimenting with how to make it work. They tried to make DirectX not work directly in tangent with the kernel of the system, running in user-mode to promote stability, but that proved to be far too slow and they abandoned that approach. As a result, DirectX up to version 9 has been a kernel patch, more or less, but with Vista, drivers are no longer operated at the kernel level, so DirectX 10 couldn't either. This is what all the smart people bring up. I mean, you have the casual Vista haters who just hate for no reason, and then you have the true concerned performance mongers who dig up information and go: "Look, this is what Vista does and I don't think it's so great." Not for performance, maybe, but separating drivers from the kernel practically eliminates Stop errors. (Otherwise known as Blue Screens of Death.)

But fear no more! ExtremeTech has run benchmarks on Vista (SP1 and base) vs XP (SP3 and SP2) and I think the results will surprise you. Certainly there was a performance decrease with Vista base, but with the advent of SP1, you can see that the frame rates are on par with XP if not exceeding XP entirely. I tolerated the slower performance of Vista for the stability of the new driver model, but I think it's clear that Microsoft is figuring out how to make DirectX 10 (which runs safely in user-mode) work as fast as DirectX 9 (which runs dangerously in kernel-mode). Everyone needs to revise their opinions about Vista's performance and wake up and smell the roses... Vista is not the mammoth tangle of processor intensive garbage that everyone makes it out to be. Every operating system is released with issues, even immaculate Apple has bugs (that are just simply overlooked by fanboys). Vista just needed a bit of time to mature, and, slowly but surely, Microsoft is addressing the concerns of everyone who doesn't want to use Vista. Soon enough, the only reason they haven't upgraded would be because they don't want to. Which is fine, but don't go justifying your decision by making Vista out to be something it clearly isn't.

Fact is: Service Pack 1 DOES increase performance to every bit the speed you had with Windows XP, AND you're getting a far safer and stable approach to drivers than you did with Windows XP. You have the best of both worlds now... I think it's time for some people see how nice Vista is for themselves. If history is anything to go by (and it usually is), all you performance mongers will eventually see the light and upgrade. After all, you upgraded to Windows XP, did you not?

Alright... Creative? Not so hot these days. They don't make working Vista drivers (after easily over a year of access to the Vista driver model), and some people say they actually cripple the software when it detects Vista. Actually, all you have to do is search Google for "daniel k creative" and you'll see exactly what the arguments are. (Here's an article from Wired, too.) Whatever the case, it has become painfully obvious that Creative is, for some reason, not in the habit of releasing working drivers for Vista. Heck, I have a Creative Audigy ZS PCMCIA card for my laptop and I'm using Vista's built-in drivers. What kind of company is so lazy that Microsoft's generic drivers are better than their own? I'm done with Creative. I'll let you know that Creative was my very first model of sound card I ever purchased (to play Myst with, even) and in all these years, I have never purchased from another manufacturer. Sure, I've used built-in motherboard sound chips, but only in the off-time while my Creative cards were shipping. Point is, I honestly considered Creative the absolute best sound card manufacturer there was... Actually, I still do. Their hardware is phenomenal. It's their whole Sony-like approach to marketing and customer treatment that has me ticked and I'm not going to support them any longer.

As such... Being the Creative-fan, I have absolutely no idea of alternative sound cards. I would prefer something of professional grade... 7.1 surround sound capable, if at all possible. The whole 24-bit, 192KHz thing, too, if you please. Better, if possible! I'm what they an audiophile... I can, I swear, tell the difference between sound chips and sound cards. 128KBps MP3s and 320KBps MP3s and uncompressed Wave files. I want the best of the best, but I'd like to keep the cost at or below $200. An external connector box is nice, like what the Audigy has that fits inside a 5.25" drive bay... Where you have MIDI and RCA-In and manual volume controls and such. A remote control option would be equally lovely. It should support EAX and such, and I have seen cards that aren't Creative that support EAX, so I know it's possible. Optical connectors are a must, because I plan on upgrading to surround sound systems in the future. It needs to play well with games and DirectX, obviously, because this system is going to be built for gaming first.

So... I need help, because I don't know where to start looking for something like this. I'm afraid that if I can't find something else, I'll be settling for a Creative X-Fi like I've been planning. It might not work, but it has everything I want... But if there's anything else even remotely close to a card containing the same features as this particular card, please! Let me know.

I wish I could have picked a less expensive hobby.

So my friend and I were talking about RAID a while ago... For you uninitiated geeks, a RAID is a set of multiple drives that interact with each other on some level. It's intended to preserve data, but there are modes that promote speed over preservation. Like, say, RAID 0 will take two drives and spread files out between the two drives, meriting a literal read time of 2x the amount of a single disk. RAID 0 increases speed for each drive, but each drive also increases your chances of failure. Since RAID 0 spans a single file over multiple drives, when a single drive fails, you lose everything, period. RAID 1 is a mirror! You have two drives, but you only use the space of 1 drive, and the 2nd drive is an exact duplicate. The ultimate in fault tolerance. One drive dies, use the other, buy a new drive, recreate the mirror. Data is secure! Then there's RAID 5 which is a bit more interesting. Basically, you have a minimum of 3 drives. The equivalent of two drives are used for data, and the equivalent of one drive is used for error correction. The error correction information is used for when a drive fails. When you replace it, the RAID interface can recreate all the missing information. The nice thing about this is that the data and error correction information is spanned across all the drives, so there's no single point of failure. This is probably the most popular out of the three basic RAID types when it comes to data preservation.

Now that I've explained all that, let me put a little word in for a nice RAID calculator I found. I knew there had to be some formula that would determine how much space was available for RAID 5, and I was right! Since all the drives have to be the same size in RAID 5, the formula is basically ((DRIVE SIZE times DRIVE AMOUNT) minus DRIVE SIZE). In other words, add all the drives together, and then subtract one for the error correction information. So a RAID 5 of three 350GB drives would get you precisely 700GB of space. As you can see, the more drives you add to RAID 5, the more space you get. The ratio stays the same, but you have more to work with. I think that if I ever actually used RAID 5, it would be three gargantuan drives. Probably 500GB or possibly 750GB... But, then again, the Seagate Barracuda series (which I adore as a drive) now comes in a lovely 1TB. Seriously... three 1TB drives in RAID 5. Expensive, but you wouldn't have to upgrade for a very, very, very, very, very long time. $250 a pop, right now, so... That's $750 right there in hard drive space. I would rather spend that on two video cards.

So my conundrum emerges from a little issue with read/write speeds. Remember that dream computer I built a while back, but then got the smackdown by college and couldn't finish my work? Yeah, well, the price dropped from a whopping $3250 to a measly $1950. But! The point is... It's a gaming system, and it's going to be built for pure speed, right down to matching bus speeds on the RAM. As such, I am going to have multiple drives, as I have always done with my desktops, sans the Linux server. One drive for the operating system and one drive for programs and documents. Yes, as a matter of fact, I installed all my games and applications on the second drive and I remapped My Documents there, too, so I can literally reinstall Windows and everything is still intact. However, I soon learned (as a true geek would know by just this second line) that the Windows Registry threw a wrench into that plan. I really should have known it before I started doing it, but I didn't... Even though all my programs were safe, they still needed to be reinstalled, more often than not, because of the Registry. (Or, even if they didn't, I wanted to do it anyway, because I'm obsessive-compulsive like that.) So... It didn't work out as well as I planned, and I relegated that drive to pure document storage. Moves and music and projects. Applications on the OS drive, documents and projects on the data drive. Worked like a charm.

But... I decided to look into RAID and I started seeing all these notices and warnings about RAID read and write speeds. RAID 5 seems to have it the worst (of course). Since it has all the error correction checksums, writing files to the drive is excessively slow, while reading is also negatively impacted for the same reason, but not nearly as much. So you get an impressive fault tolerance system, but it's not nearly as fast as, say, the completely unprotected RAID 0. However, I'm wondering if this RAID 5 performance hit is still better than operating off a single drive? In fact, I'm starting to wonder if RAID is even worth the investment as far as a gaming system goes. I mean, for issues of speed, anything but the dangerous RAID 0 is a no-go. But do I want to sacrifice fault tolerance just so I can load a game level 5 seconds faster than everyone else? Right now, I'm thinkin' no. If I do RAID, it'll be RAID 5, because I've been around this industry long enough to realize that losing data is a nasty experience... Even losing my bookmarks is a bad deal, much less losing an entire drive. Technically, I've had that happen a few months ago. My data drive began making clicking noises and it got incredibly hot and smelled terrible and Windows stopped reading it entirely. (I was able to get my sensitive information off of it using Linux, and then got it working in Windows again, but still... I know what it's like to lose data, even for a fleeting moment.)

But then there's my geeky side that enjoys screwing around with the dark depths of my computer and I've been known to cause some... Er... Problems that required a complete format and reinstallation. I was prepared for it, of course, but it's happened. That is one of the nice things about separating the OS from your data. But with RAID 5, it's going to put two huge drives together and treat them as one, so if I reformat it, it's going to wipe everything out, and I don't know if I like that idea. Having two separate drives for that reason is really nice, indeed. So my dilemma is... dangerous but lightning speed RAID 0, or slow, but absolutely fault tolerant RAID 5? Is RAID 5 faster than a single drive? Is it faster than two separate non-RAID drives? Do I even want RAID? Do I want to simply have 2 drives, one for the OS and one for data and leave it at that?

Or... How about this? A separate set of portable, external drives in RAID 5 for all my data, plugged right in to FireWire or eSATA? If I did that (which is, honestly, a much better idea that I just came up with around 10 seconds ago), it would completely forgo the problem of "where do I put my most sensitive data?" Then it would simply be if I wanted two drives in RAID 0 for that ultimate speed increase, or three drives in RAID 5 for that ultimate fault tolerance. But, honestly? If all my good stuff was on an external RAID 5, I could very easily just pick two drives on RAID 0 for the massive speed increase and if something goes wrong, I would only have to reinstall Vista and my programs. Unless, say, I didn't want to bother with reinstalling Vista when a drive dies. But, honestly, this is Windows we're talking about. Even though I'm in love with Vista, I still realize that clearing it off every now and then is a good idea. Doesn't need to happen nearly as much as pre-2000 systems, but it's still nice to do sometimes.

You know what? I think I just answered myself during this post. I think that I'm going to invest in a nice, external RAID 5 contraption that sports a high-speed connection that I can use to connect to whatever I want, and then shoot for ultra-fast RAID 0 on my desktop. I would put all my music and special, one-of-a-kind, commit-suicide-if-I-lost files on the RAID 5. The things that really don't need to rely on speed. Wow... I think this post was really informative! I should do this more often.