© 2001 Per Johansson All rights reserved

2001-11-07 Wow ! I'm still so lazy ;-) That means, I almost never update this site. Not so this time neither, I'll just write a few lines. First, I've finally built myself a new computer as my old can was getting annoyingly slow, especially under Windows XP and also very much when using this Dreamweaver Ultradev 4.01 I always prefer. Not talking about games, the newer ones where practically unplayable on my old PC. So what did I build ? Being on a very tight budget, I didn't want to waste as much as when I bought the old one way back when it was modern(I'll probably use it for something, it's still functioning). Here it goes:

1. ECS K7S5A SiS735 mainboard DDR/SDRAM AGP4x. The SiS735 chip got a topranking at tomshardware.com, as in some aspects, the fastest chipset for the Athlon platform. Only barely beaten by the new VIA KT266A. But way cheaper. Using latest AGP driver of 26/10 2001 (New)
2. Duron 1GHz(Morgan core) CPU w. Titan fan. The new Duron features also a new core aka Morgan which is identical with the Palomino core utilized also in Athlon MP, XP and mobile Athlon. Of which XP is the direct competitor to Pentium 4. Only difference from XP is smaller cache size, but I got it very cheap (New)
3. 512MB DDR PC2100 cas2.5 SDRAM running@200MHz. Yes, a fast computer needs fast memory, double data rate bus gives a 200MHz bus with Duron and a 266MHz bus with XP, compared with the common 100MHz or 133MHz bus with Pentium III. DDR memory also has much lower latency, which is very nice in productivity apps which gets a very responsive feel even under the slow Luna decorated Windows XP (New)
4. GeForce 2 MX400 64MB DDR SDRAM AGP4x TV-out. Well, this is actually a knowingly crippled GeForce 2 GTS/Pro in that aspect that it uses only a slow 64bit bus to communicate with the very fast DDR memory aboard. GTS/Pro uses 128bit, it was necessary for nvidia to do it that way or the MX400 could possibly be even faster than an GTS in gaming. On the positive side, this is a extremely cheap card boasting very quick and sharp graphics under 2D productivity apps and also a at least competent gaming platform. Bonus is both normal video out and s-video out plus a built in hardware mpeg decoder. Using Detonator XP 22.80 Beta (New)
5. Maxtor 7.200rpm 20,4GB 2MB buffer IDE ATA66. This one is a year old now and functions perfect as a very fast system disk. Mabe a little small in size though (old)
6. IBM 5.400rpm 10,1GB 512kb buffer IDE ATA33. This small hdd hosts my Mandrake Linux install, even though much slower than the Maxtor it at least is amazingly fast and silent for a two years old 5.400 (old)
7. Aopen 1240 12x DVD ROM/40x CD ROM. Just a normal bulk internal ATAPI DVD player. Lets just say it works. Cheap (old)
8. HP 8100 2x4x24x CD burner. This one is old and it's slow, but it's also rock solid and I've used it successfully for a long time. As I don't do any illegal stuff, I'm not in particular use of a much faster burner so I'll keep it til it dies. Mostly just for backups. ECDC Platinum 5.0 XP (very old)
9. SB Live! Emu 10k1 PCI soundcard. Industry standard, but the weakest point here, considering I possibly use this rigg for creating music. Aquireing a "real" sound card is a priority. Nice though, that there's at least functioning XP drivers out now. Using stripped down Liveware 3 and the new XP update from Creative (old)
10. Asante Fast 590 10/100 PCI ethernet. The standard ethernet option from my isp, it have done it's work gracefully both in Windows and in Linux so there's nothing to complain about. Uses the Lite-on aka Tulip chip (old)
11. Intel EthernetExpress Pro 100 10/100 PCI ethernet. From a slaughtered workstation at work, which had a burnt mainboard. This is a great ethernet card afaik, but I only use it for my LAN. Works perfect, of course (old)
12. Sony 3,5" floppy disk. From another slaughtered box, which was done. I needed it because my new case has a large slit showing the front of the floppy, and the old one had no front...(new)
13. Vestit ATX Midi tower 300W. "Noname" from China, but a nice box though with a reasonably silent power supply and generous space, easying the task of changing parts (new)

This rigg gives 3047 3DMarks in 3DMark2001.
My old rigg would probably not even run 3DMark2001 ;-)

Even though some parts where in the old box, none is original, so I have completely replaced what I once bought. And what did this upgrade cost(not that I'm finished yet) ? Including the PC2100 DDR SDRAM I bought just today, a mere 450$ :-) Now running the final retail version of Windows XP Professional(and Mandrake 8.1 of course) this computer rockets on the desktop, while not being the fastest gamers PC around, now I can at least play ALL new games without problems. But where this PC excels is as a work PC, it's really fast, no glue whatsoever and this mighty Ultradev which I prefer to use for writing my site now behaves neat as Windows notepad ;-) Not talking about multimedia, now I can just almost play softsynths LIVE from my keyboard even though SB Live! doesn't have any ASIO support !?! It's that fast :-) Now I just wish to upgrade to ie Soundblaster Audigy which sports full ASIO support and I will never need any hardware synths at all anymore, isn't that amazing ? I have installed Sonar 1.3 and Cubase 5.0 VST32 already, and they both seem to work as champs under XP so I have lot's of thing to do to start to utilize my new computing power, that's all folks SeeYa / Per

2001-08-28 Todays report on state of things; so now I'm running the final version, RTM, of Windows XP Professional. Build 2600. It IS very good, even speedy. I used the new XP powertoys to tweak menuspeed amongst other things, so now it even feels faster than Win2k. I'm not starting to build my system around it yet though, as I've only got me a 120day evaluation version from Microsoft and I've just installed lot's of useful software under Win2k. But Microsoft has said that they will ship betatesters a boxed full version in october/november, so I guess that will be the time when I will wipe out Win2k for good(I also have an 180day version of XP Home edition RTM, but I hardly believe I will ever use it. Professional is the clear choice for a power user). Linuxwise; RedHat have released Beta 2 of Roswell but I'm not running it. Roswell Beta 1 is already wiped out, but it was good. Now I'm running Mandrake Linux 8.1 beta 1 instead, and that one is VERY good I believe. Still only beta 1, can I believe that ? No hehe. Best Linux I've met so far, which is promising for ML 8.1 as a final product. In fact, it seems like the standard of Linux distributions in general have dramatically improved just during this year. Also, EXT3 have debuted in full scale as the filesytem of choice for Linux. I ran it myself under Roswell, and it felt no worse than ReiserFS but much better than the old EXT2. Now theres also reports that EXT3 is extremely robust under very heavy file transactions, which hasn't been known to be the fact for other journaling filesystems under Linux even though no shortcomings are usually discovered under normal use. I'm pretty sure I will begin to use EXT3 from now on. I've also done the ocassional thing of aquiring me a new piece of hardware; a DVD player. An Aopen 1240(12x dvd 40x cd). The purchase was motivated by myself receiving Beta 2 of VisualStudio 7.0(.net) on DVD. I really had to have full information about this monumental software release from Microsoft, so I had no choice but to order the DVD version. Over 3GIG:s of software and documents. So now I got me a DVD player it seems like I have to get me some movies. Any suggestions ? I don't have an mpeg card, so I have to use the new PowerDVD VR-X. It will be extremely interesting to see if my computer actually stands the challenge of playing back a DVD movie in software ? The program itself seems super; I even got me dolby surround effects when playing back a simple mp3 and I'll eat my shoes if this program didn't even sound better than all normal mp3 players I've used. I'll have to wait til I've got me a movie, but PowerDVD seems like a really promising piece of software. Well, well I'm getting tired now, so over and out... / Per

2001-08-11 Lot´s of things going on at my desktop. My Windows XP Professional installation is now up in build 2535, post RC2. It´s rock solid, and even the christmas lightning is running quite fast now. Well done Microsoft ! And Linux ? I dumped Slackware 8.0, as I didn´t feel like going back to the stoneage ;) But RedHat has things going on in their corridors; a brand new beta epically named "Roswell". It´s not so alien as one might imagine, in fact; it´s the best OS RedHat have ever made. Even though it´s a beta. Of course I´m running it, I´m very satisfied and can almost promise that RedHat 7.2 will be a killer in the Linux-world ;) Unfortunately, I´m not supposed to show any screenshots from those of my desktops, as they are betas, even though I don´t think RedHat would complain. So I thought I´d give you a glimpse of my common everyday workhorse, Windows 2000 Professional SP2. First, the plain desktop with a nice Hubble telescope image of Mars against a simple gradient background(click the picture to wiew it large):

The second image is of the same desktop running two essential apps of mine; Cubase VST/32 5.0 R6 and Samplitude Producer 2496 v6.0. Nice view, heh ;) Current music apps installed are also; Sound Forge 5.0, Cool Edit 2000, n-track Studio, ReBirth 338 2.01 and Cakewalk 9.03. Unfortunately I currently use these high-end apps with just a plain Soundblaster Live! using special Sound Fonts from EMU and an external Midiman sound module. I would love to have a digital mixer remote controlling Cubase and some ADAT:s , but, but for now my 7.200rpm Maxtor HD and a simple analog 4-channel mixer have to do. Only external effect I´m currently using is my ancient Roland GP-8 guitar processor. But it´s very good, except for the noise level. So here´s the second screenshot(click to enlarge):

I don´t have time for more updating now, but have a good time out there, SeeYa / Per

2001-08-01 NEW ! I´ve started collecting a, mabe soon comprehensive, synthesizer and software industry link-list ;) It already covers a lot, not thanks to me though as I lended most links from an american online music-store. I found their synth-museum most amusing, of course you should visit it :-) Nevermind. I will let it grow, and it´s usable anyhow to have these links in one place ;) Check it out folks ! See ya / Per

2001-07-29 So I´m running release candidate 2 of Windows XP Professional(build 2526). I downloaded it tonight, and I guess I was slightly ahead of the pack as I could read in the newsgroup today that the servers were jammed by 500.000 downloaders ;) Hah ! I got it installed this morning; it works like a charm - not a single of my reported bugs is remnant =) Even the Voodoo-support is back(did Nvidia read this site and felt threatened ?). Unfortunately, this release candidate won´t be publicly available. Only for testers. So the public have to wait for RTM in October, but I guess it´s worth the wait - at least for the Professional version ;) Also, the betas of Mandrake 8.1 should soon be here, I´m eagerly awaiting them as Mandrake Linux keeps getting better and better all the time. It´s BTW the first distro to be IPO:ed on the european market; on Marche de Libre´in Paris. Instructions on how to buy stock in Mandrake is found at their site; http://www.mandrake.com/ . Personally, I have kicked Windows Me from my drives now and only run Windows 2000 SP2 as my main OS and Windows XP Pro RC2 on the partition next to it. Additionally I have a fully dedicated Linux-drive, at this moment occupied by Slackware 8.0. This changing from using Win 9x at all to only using NT-based Windows also means I can´t use some of my music productivity apps or have to buy the newest Win2k-ready versions of them, luckily most pure wave-editors works fine, but sequencer/editor packages is another story. That´s sad, but at least Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.03 works fine on Win2k(it even works on XP), so I guess I´ll have to dedicate myself to that particular app for a while even though the music community favors Cubase or Logic at large(I have older versions of Logic, I haven´t tested them as I don´t like Logic´s interface much). Oh, I forgot, Sonar should work on Win2k - I even ran it on XP ;) I haven´t yet got used to it but I might, anyway, you will read about it here... SeeYa / Per

2001-07-21 Hi there ! It´s been a long time ;) I´ve had some vacation here during summer; bathing, fishing, boatriding and I´ve even started Inline-skating(no ice for regular skating during summer, so it seemed like a good idea). I just discovered a new webmail-service; http://www.hushmail.com . The fine thing with "Hushmail" is that it features todays strongest possible encryption so that not even your boss can read your mails. Great idea ;) To get the service fully secure in all stages though; you have to send/receive your mails to/from another user using "Hushmail" as well. No big deal, great for us boys chatting away rudely about the more computer-litterate of the girls - no risk of being discovered ;) So ? Of course I got me an account; [email protected] . There´s some other fun stuff going on like; you all know that "Napster" doesn´t work that well anymore. So what to do ? There´s many alternatives but I just tried "Win MX"( http://www.winmx.com/) and was completely satisfied. A great program with an excellent hit-ratio on desireable songs ;) Other than that; I´ve spent some time trying out the new Cakewalk Sonar sequencing/audio package. It´s to early to post an opinion, but I´m not so sure I really like it - we will see. In Linux; I´ve installed the new Slackware 8.0 and it was like going back to the stone-age after using Mandrake-Linux. No recommendation, other than for specialist use. Of course I use Windows XP Pro RC1 regularly and submit my bug-reports to Microsoft. Seems like it´s going to be an great OS after all, but it´s still to early to try and upgrade my everyday use Windows Me-installation to Windows XP Personal. It´s still to much that doesn´t work OK. Especially in the CD-burning department. Also, Nvidia headquarters should be bombed by tons of rotten eggs as Nvidia have pressed Microsoft to not include Voodoo-graphics support in XP(if you´ve lost out on recent Voodoo-drivers to use under XP, I can recommend http://www.voodoofiles.com as their Win2k-drivers works excellent under XP). Very childish, I´m sure I will get an ATI Radeon 2 instead of an GeForce 3 as my next graphics card :( Well, well that was about what I was able to share today, see ya !!! / Per

2001-05-18 Hrmpfffh, I was just back to write a few comments when my web-editor dived...save, save, save - always a beginner. Anyway, I´ve been using the final version of Mandrake Linux 8.0 for a month now; it´s superb and clearly the most matured Linux distro yet. Want Linux ? Get Mandrake. Microsoft has at the same time released three builds of their upcoming Windows XP OS; 2462, 2465 and 2469. I´ve been running the two former, 2469 have been seriously dizzed by the beta testing community(too experimental, very unstable). 2462 was great, but I´ve found even more pleasure in 2465(Professional) where I´ve succeeded to get many things to work that wasn´t too NT-friendly before. Looks promising. Still a lot of bugs though, mostly visual interface related ones - not very surprising as the interface is the biggest change together with the application compability scheme, which will render earlier Windows versions unnecessary. I still don´t like the new activation function though, as there are some resulting annoying issues ie don´t change too much hardware and that MS will get a perfect database on every piece of hardware out there coupled to an IP-number(even though they say they won´t use it in any other way than to counterfeit activation of illegal copies). The registration, or activation, works like a charm though. Very quick. I look forward to the next build after 2469, which should by then have gotten a little more stable and probably with more than a few new good looking interface tweaks. It should arrive any day now, and I will be quick to download it. Talking about download, Beta 2 of Visual Studio .net is out any day now. That one is also a must to check out, as it will most likely become industry standard in both Windows-programming as well as cross-platform programming. Of course, there´s more and more Linux now so a new set of Visual Studio tools aint so exciting today as it used to be, but anyway. Another big download recently was the long awaited Service Pack 2 for Windows 2000, I still haven´t installed it(I run RC2.52 in Win2k) because of lack of time(too much XP testing). I guess I will try it out anyday, the file is on my harddrive. But to be truthful; my production OS:s at home is Windows Me(maximum compability) and Linux Mandrake. Win2k doesn´t really fit in. That´s why I´m so interested in Windows XP and it´s evolving application compability; more than one MS OS on my harddrive is overkill as I feel. Today I have three - not so good. No, Windows XP and Linux should be enough, and I hope that that will be the case when XP gold arrives this autumn. And what about my much preferred hardware upgrade ? I´ve closed the overclocking/quicker cpu scheme. Today it looks like I have to buy me a DVD-unit, a GeForce 3 MX(should be out soon), a new motherboard, an Athlon CPU with 266MHz bus-speed, matching Athlon-certified memory, a new power unit and competent cooling. Possibly a new chassi as well, for the cooling to be efficient. I can keep my harddrives, CD-burner, soundcard, NIC:s and floppy and that´s about it(and the external hardware of course). This will cost me more than a dime, so we will see. I wan´t a 21 inch flatscreen too, ouchh ! Apart from what I prefer, my current hardware does at least really work well. It has actually swallowed everything in shape of OS:s I´ve thrown at it, and every piece of hardware has worked as expected in all OS:s. So I don´t know why I should complain, especially now when I´m running 256Megs, which seems to be a sweet spot for KDE 2.1. At least things are quite stable. But - haha, I´ve been catched by the speed- demon(or daemon); I want FAST. Well, see ya, and have a gorgeous time out there folks / Per

2001-04-15 Last time I was in Mandrake 8.0 RC1 writing stuff, now I'm in Windows XP Personal (build 2462) again. I just installed Macromedia:s Dreamweaver UltraDev 4.0 in XP. Nice. Dreamweaver totally conforms to the Luna-interface and looks like an native Windows XP application ;) UltraDev is Macromedias answer to Microsofts, by now somewhat aged, Visual InterDev 6.0 (soon replaced by Visual InterDev .net). It is in most aspects totally identical with the "normal" Dreamweaver 4.0, but features lots of tools for easier management of database-driven web-sites (.asp is the most wellknown acronym of these kind of sites). For myself, I haven´t made any deep studies on how to run things with dynamic, "virtual" pages instead of my own static kind. Of course I have had different web-servers running on my "play-PC"; PWS, IIS4, IIS5, Apache Linux/Windows and tried with some pages connecting to databases. But that was all at home, and I was the only visitor. So far, I haven't had energy enough to move my site to a web-hotel with .asp-support (or Linux-wise .php, for that matter). My current host, fortunecity, does not support .asp on this free web-space I'm using. No wonder I haven't been to eager to teach myself. But things change, there are a lot more web-hotels out there these days and chances are I'll soon be moving. Anyway, I already like Dreamweaver and this UltraDev does, at least at the first look, seem like it's a lot easier to manage than Visual InterDev which has been on my HD for long, but not much used. Anyway, you won't see any of my experimental pages here at fortunecity, have to stick to the ancient static kind for now being, but when I move I guess you'll notice, as I use a "redirect" URL which won't change when I switch to another web-host. So far, I've just had a glimpse at UltraDev but it looks like one of these programs almost essential and well worth digging deep into, not to mention my miniscule knowledge of .asp and .php which really needs some serious improvement ;) But, as things are, this program gets me inspired to start teaching myself some more in this database-sitebuilding area - seems like it´s necessary too; who in the world still writes static web-pages ? (hint: old fools...) SeeYa / Per

P.S. I haven't really started now either, as I use XP Personal in this setup I´m not really sure IIS is included in the package(prbbly only in Pro)and UltraDev is *almost* non-functinal without a properly running web-server connection, have to check that out now... D.S.

2001-04-14 I got this sudden urge to overclock my main-PC, I haven´t had that before ;) Of course I´ve tried to overclock my old 3Dfx Banshee graphics card sometimes, mostly resulting in black screen ;) Now, I wanted to overclock my CPU; sad enough it looks like it just isn´t possible with the old garbage I have. The bus-speed on the mobo is locked at 66MHz as max. value - meaning I can never go higher than the 300MHz I have with a common P2-processor clocked at that speed. Sh-t ! So I went to a e-forum and got the tip to invest in a cheap socket-converter for my SLOT1-socket, and buy a Celeron 2 instead. Hmm, might be something. But would be nice to know if it works before buying...My main PC uses the by now totally obsolete Intel-chipset 440LX/EX, that was a version not made for modifying much, as is my ibm-customed acer-mobo. Upgrading isn´t for ibm:ers, obviously(if upgrading=overclocking). Then, I do have a slightly more modern PC-chassi in the wardrobe, a machine that went to machine heaven at work some time ago. Mabe it was just some parts that failed, and the mobo and riser-card might still be intact ? If they are, I could do some magic using that old chassi, as the mobo in it is equpped with the more modern 440BX-chipset - featuring many more bus-speeds to choose from. Mabe, if I move all my hardware out of the IBM and puts it in this chassi, I could finally overclock my P2-300 to at least 400MHz ? The good thing: that would be an upgrade totally for free, the bad thing: OhOh, It could take a couple of days to get things working....Then: buying a Celeron 2 - most likely no probs at all, but it would cost 100-150$ and who knows how much faster things actually get on my crappy motherboard ? The only other alternative is buying a new PC, that is out of my budget for time being - so I rather experiment ;) And it is fun.... SeeYa / Per

2001-04-13 Well, Well ;) I just argued for this great WYSIWYG webeditor under Linux.... Hmm, I wasn´t completely wrong; it does work great. With Netscape, that is :-( I had this wonderful edit session, and now when I´m back in Windows I see that the differences between Internet Explorer and Netscape in rendering pages look worse than ever. Both are latest versions, IE5.5SP1 and Netscape 4.77. As Internet Explorer now has about 80% of the surfers, it looks like Microsoft has a stronghold on webdesigners. It´s impossible to design pages without looking at them in IE. If one doesn´t, it looks like Picasso did the site ;) One hope is using Opera as reference under Linux, as it renders more close to IE than Netscape, of course, and even Mozilla. I really hate those Microsmerfs...AARRRGH!!!

2001-04-13 Hi there folks ! It seems like I'm back yet another time ;) It's easter(time flies). I'm deep into the the first release cantidate of Mandrake 8.0, while I'm writing this.

As I've told you before, there IS at least one decent WYSIWYG HTML-editor for Linux. Forget Netscape Composer, as it is way crappy. No I'm actually happily using IBM:s WEB SPHERE 4.0 homepage builder, while editing my site this time. It is astonishingly competent, not much worse than my Windows favorite Dreamweaver when it comes to pure functionality. In fact, this is a Windows program too. Of course I'm using it under WINE(wine is not an emulator), which makes it possible to run Windows-programs totally without the OS itself ;) In contrast to most Linux progs, Web Sphere isn´t for free. But I do hope IBM makes some money for providing this great website-building tool. HTML text editors in all honor, but they aren't exactly time savers and we all have other things to do in life than edit text ;) So; if you happen to run Linux and want to keep your site alive - go for IBM:s Web Sphere 4.0 homepage builder. I still haven´t found any nearly as competent competitor running under Linux(let's just hope Macromedia sees the light and ports Dreamweaver & co. to Linux - even though not likely as Macromedia happens to do some business with Microsoft...).

Otherwise, Mandrake 8.0 is clearly the most cultivated Linux yet and makes my need to run Windows smaller and smaller - it's just games and music apps(of course) that keeps me there.

Despite myself trying to port all my work over to Linux, so does the new Windows XP Personal Beta 2 seem like a fresh new OS. I've been running that too for some time now and it is frighteningly trouble free ;) The new interface is also much needed, as at least I had grown very tired of the old Win 95 look that's been the standard for six years. The new Windows interface(Luna) will be possible to customize much more extensively than any previous version, or even third party apps. That does drain the PC from a few of it's resources, but I really don't see why that should matter much - probably there'll be a 2.2GHz P4 this autumn, and 256MB starts to emerge as standard RAM(with quad bus-speeed in the P4 case). Graphic cards will probably have 64Megs as standard soon, and "real time rendered movies" will be common stuff. On HD:s where soon talking 80-100GIG:s as "standard" and DVD-ROM:s are hitting the shops. Even the Internet will soon look like a giant LAN as broadband-connections of all flavors rapidly spreads over the world. So, those small extra resources required to run Windows XP does seem abysimal, in the light of where we're heading ;) It really runs quick enough on my by now extremely ancient PII-300MHz, so does Linux in all it´s KDE/Gnome glory too of course, even this IBM app I'm running right now writing this for you runs quite OK even though it´s driven by a software abstraction layer mimicing Windows between itself and the underlying Linux-core ;)

I don´t see many kinds of software being regarded as "heavy" on modern PC:s(1GHz and away...), I guess that the excellent site Tom's Hardware aren't that unrealistic when they run compressing/uncompressing speed-tests on downloaded DVD-Movies as benchmarks. Where soon talking a 2 hour long high definition movie as being of "normal" file-size, and so we will expect rapid handling of those our new favorite file-types. My own old favorite file-types of the audio kind, now seems mostly like kids toys ;) Haha, good I still like music though - and I do play guitar every day, hmm only struggling to find inspiration between all my "tweakin the shit out of my PC"-attacks.... See Ya at "Blakulla" ! / Per