Vostro 1510 again

Here’s a great benchmark on the laptops we are testing:

70 MB/s average read? 210 MB/s burst speed? Pretty impressive. Let’s compare it against my D830:

This is obviously not a serious benchmark, the OS are not even the same (Vista x86 vs Windows Server 2008 x64). But other than the CPU upgrade (T8300 vs T7500), it explains why is my experience so much better with this unit. Great disk!

Choosing a mobile graphics card

Here’s a great link for those who need to choose a card.

Trying out Dell Vostro 1510

We are testing the next generation of laptops for our company.

We have been using Dell Latitude D820 and D830 for some time, but this line has been refreshed and we are trying out other options.

I’ve just tried the cheaper Vostro line. Dell has the following lines:

• the Precision series: hi-end;
• the Latitude: mid-range business class, focused on reliability, durability and subtlety;
• Inspirons: consumer-oriented with more powerful media-centric features;
• Vostro: economy-class;

And here it is, my first impression of the Vostro 1510 after the first day. Let’s start with the configuration I received:

• 15.4’’ XGA
• T8300
• 2GB
• 160GB 7200 RPM (a must!)
• Intel GMA X3100 (oops…)
• 9-cell battery (uau…)

Build and design

What the D830 had in metal, the Vostro has in plastic. For better and for worse. For better on respect to weight (and using them over naked legs, cold metal can be hard :) , for worse on how long can your laptop survive.

The glossy lid if cool, but couldn’t resist 10 minutes until it was fingerprinted like there is no tomorrow. I can only imagine how it will be one year from now, probably full of scratches.

The good news comes when you open the lid: the experience you get over the keyboard is fine, and all the plastics work fine here.

Screen

The 15.4’’ XGA display is slightly better than the one I have on  my D830. But this was D830’s  Aquille’s heel.

Ports and devices

D830 was a pain in the back of the laptop, it only had 3 USB. Now we have 4, as expected. <update>Unfortunately they are not conveniently placed – they are too close to us… </update>

DVD is slot-loading – this is cool!

Only a touch pad for mouse input. Oh, well, most people hate the other one on the keyboard, so why complain?…

Battery

I received a 9-cell battery. Battery life was a strong-hold of the D830 with a 6-cell battery, but the autonomy is great! I’m getting closer to 7H of autonomy, just incredible!

This comes with a price: a small hatchback on the back of the Vostro, which tends to unbalance the laptop when placed on most stands. Vosto is actually not very stand-friendly, has it holds the memory card reader, audio and mic sockets on the front panel…

Software support

No 64 bit support announced yet. This and the 4GB memory limit is something that makes me very unconfortable…

Performance

Performance was something of a surprise. Not that I had any doubt about the mid-range T8300, particularly when  helped by a 7200 RPM disk. What I was surprised to observe was the responsiveness of the Intel GMA X3100, even with Aero on and packed with heavy effects. The only thing I’ve reaaly missed was more graphics memory – when I plugged an external display I couldn’t get more that 1240x800, I am assuming this was memory related, though I didn’t yet tried to allocate more shared memory.

Conclusion

Though not very impressed with the Vostro specs, this configuration ended up better then the lower expectations I had. With some minor changes, it can be a fair desktop replacement for a not very demanding software developer. Though the D830 will be missed, and a Latitude E5500 is more what we’re used to.

Isolating data on my data disk

As probably most of you readers, I’ve been using separate disks for applications and data for ages. I usually name the volumes with an old programming segment convention: CODE and DATA :)

Since Windows 2000 I’ve trying a different approach: moved “c:\Documents and Settings\<my account>” into d:\ , unmounted d: and mount it back as a mount point on “c:\Documents and Settings\<my account>”. With this strategy I also recovered from re-installs pretty fast, though some few apps mysteriously failed – ok, not so mysteriously, this folder holds the hive and SID references…

So now I’ve just tried  yet another strategy: first, and using explorer, I moved all the special folders I could into “d:\users\<my account>” (like “Documents”, “Desktop”, “Music”, …). But AppData was a big thorn on my side and explorer didn’t a UI to move it, so I try using a junction point manually.

For that I’ve used SysInternals’s junction utility, and started by the bigger subfolder, Local:

c:\users\mario.romano\AppData> robocopy /yourfavoriteoptions Local d:\users\mario.romano\AppData\Local

c:\users\mario.romano\AppData> move Local Local.old

c:\users\mario.romano\AppData> junction Local d:\users\mario.romano\AppData\Local

 

For now my system seems stable enough. Let’s see how it goes.

Steve Job’s health

Steve Jobs has just written is own “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” statement. It seems like his weight loss reason has been found: a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” him of the proteins his body needs to be healthy. And the good news is that the solution appears to be quite simple.

Great news for Jobs. Great news for anyone who has a Mac. Great news for anyone who understand the need for strong competition on this market. Great news for me, hoping to be able to keep posting hard ball articles against Steve Jobs.

Good luck for your recovery :)

Microsoft getting ready to lay off 17% of staff

Well, it seems like the rumors are getting stronger. 17% of 90.000. 15.000. Oops…

Online division seems to be an obvious choice, though the gaming division is surprisingly being hunted. EMEA is also mentioned. Wait, I’m on EMEA, hope no one I know of gets laid off.

Unregistering Windows Services

Sorry, this isn’t the cool PowerShell version, just an ubiquitous one:

sc delete <windows_service_name>

Here a useful link to get more info.

Error connecting to undo manager of source file ‘<whatever>.designer.cs’

Arghh, here’s a recurring one I hadn’t posted yet. In my case, it happened after a hard checkout – I forced the checkout after offline changes, Visual Studio didn’t detect the changes – no Go Online…

Most of you suggest:

1. exclude the file from the Web Application Project
2. recompile
3. re-include
4. the recompiles

I just touched the ‘<whatever>.designer.cs’ file and recompiled it. Oh, I’ve finally undone the change :). It was suggested here.

5 Reasons for Software Developers to Do Code Reviews

Here’s a cool list of 5 Reasons for Software Developers to Do Code Reviews (Even If You Think They're a Waste of Time):

1. Developers know their code will be evaluated, so they work harder.
2. It improves a developer's own programming skills.
3. It's an opportunity for mentoring, so the programmers you work with get smarter (and thus, more fun to hang around with).
4. It creates consistency and a culture of quality across the project
5. It encourages team bonding

Ultrastar

Now that the holiday season is on, here a great way to help us through the season family and friend’s parties: UltraStar.

Ultrastar is a PC conversion of famous karaoke game - SingStar. It allows a computer to evaluate how good you are when you sing by analyzing your voice pitch.

Great way to waist some drinking time over the new years’ eve :)

Digital signature policy error installing an msi

I got a digital signature policy error message when installing a large Microsoft Windows Installer (VMWare 2) on an old box.

The problem seems to be related to insufficient virtual memory to represent all the msi. Here’s the patch that saved me.

Merry Christmas everyone :)

Failing to connect to a document library WSS3.

Arghh, this one is recurring with me. If you can’t open a WebDav document library on WSS3, check if the “WebClient” service is running!…

If not, try this.