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Windows 2000 Release Candidate 2 is finally up and running on my desktop. I had to sacrifice my entire
Windows 95 installation though, because the OS didnīt recognize it. No
big deal, since I have all my applications and data recorded on CD-ROM.
So now I use just two OS:s:
Windows 2000 and SuSe Linux 6.2, because the Linux installation was totally
OK to have on the harddrive together with Win2K. One annoying fact though,
I have not been able to burn any CD:s yet, it seem to be on purpose as
of Microsoft. I have to solve that somehow, I guess I have to read over
the files to Linux and burn them from there. What do I think of Win2K
otherwise ? Certainly a big improvement, stable as a rock. All parts of
my computer have been improved. Itīs almost like a significant hardware
upgrade ! Downtime
doesnīt seem to be present at all, and everything runs faster and smoother.
I guess Iīm already stuck on it, and will have to buy the full release
when it arrives in february ( of course I write this in Win2K ). Now Iīm
really busy testing what software is working under it, most software Iīve
tested so far seems to be OK, except the CD-R/RW option. Of course,
as with NT4, not many games will work under this OS so I do hope the new
Windows Millenium really do arrive at the shelves. Millenium
is the replacement for Windows 95/98, and itīs future is still uncertain,
but said to be released sometimes next year. If it lends but some of the
stability and smoothness of NT it will be a great partner to use for gameplay
together with Windows 2000. Other news related to this change of my desktop
OS is that it will take some time before I get my music stuff really working,
even though the SB Live! soundcard do seem to work OK in default mode.
But what happens with the addition of Live! ware and music studio software
? I will tell you about it. As for my making of these pages, I have really
grewn comfortable with Macromedias Dreamweaver and Microsofts Front Page
2000. But now I feel like expanding my experience a little, so from now
I will be using SoftQuad:s HoTMetaL PRO 4.0 and NetObjects Fusion 2.0.2
for a while and see how that goes. For one sake, none of them are so easy
to get the grips on, and they are not so forgiving as to coding mistakes.
So one has to be more cautious as to what one does. I
hope these "problems" will eventually expand my knowledge of site making
? Anyway, you can read it all here, and I do hope to have some new
songs ready made under Windows 2000 soon. |
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There is a really cool site
named "Betanews". Here you can find prereleases of software yet to come,
or the latest released. If you, like myself, enjoy experimenting with
your system you should definetely give it a visit: For the latest in music software,
you should visit: And, did you know, that it
is now possible to get superior antivirus software for free ? And if you, like me,
are one of the many using Creative 3D Blaster Banshee ? Then you should
know that there is a brand new update on the drivers and the BIOS(newer
than 3Dfx BIOS) at Creative:s site.
It solves a lot of bugs, rendering a rock solid monitor view, go get it
! At the same time, go get
Live! ware 3.0 for Soundblaster Live!, a clear upgrade and improvement
in sound quality as well: http://www.software-technology.com At one time I promised a review on Cubase VST 24 3.7, now itīs on ice for a while since I have little hope of running it under Windows 2000, as thatīs what Iīm at for the moment. Now Iīll be happy enough if I can actually make some music under it, in any way... |
Time flies ! Iīm through with evaluating Windows 2000 , at the moment. I did think it was great, but some of my most important software didnīt work O.K. yet. Guess what ? Iīm back with good old Windows 95 OSR-2 again. As Iīm a musician, I canīt do without the multimedia abilities of Microsofts much hated OS. Computer nerds may excuse, but all other OS:s are in practice useless in multimedia ( except Mac OS ). Well, BeOS has a great architecture for multimedia, but who cares when theres no software available ? So now Iīm back with my favorite software again: Cakewalk Pro Audio 7.0 ( full version ), Cubase Score VST 3.5 ( my VST 24 3.7 is a "save" disabled demo, Score VST 3.5 is a full version with all extras ), Soundblaster Live!ware 3.0 and Real Producer G2. That means: the future for new songs from me, is once again bright :-) As I wrote the other day: I nowadays use Windows 2000 Professional RC2 as my default OS. Both good and bad. Stability is as a rock. Not full hard/software support yet, is sad. Some bugs still there, at least SP2 after full release to be perfect. Read my initial response at my Newspage. More deep coverage on the mechanisms of Microsofts OS:s at "Microsoft Developer Network" http://msdn.microsoft.com , very interesting. Live!Ware 3.0 for the Creative Soundblaster Live! soundcard is available for download/CD, not Windows 2000 ready yet though (unprofessional, as MS has given good advice on the WIN2000 driver model and backwards compability installing techniques). Go get it here
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Per
"learns" you how to get a better Windows ( 95/98 that is, Windows
2000 seem to perform much better, as to my current evaluation of RC2): |
A
tip which is not so obvious, is that a lot of applications you install
puts various routines running at upstart, some visible in the system
tray, they usually steal resources heavily but to remove these routines
without removing the actual software is not always so easy. Donīt
worry, thereīs a wonderful little program called "StartEd", which works
really well. It shows you a list of all executables initiated at upstart
and gives you the possibility to remove those startup entries you do
not want, without hacking the registry or editing sys-files. It can
be found at: http://www.download.com/.
Another
problem with windows is that it loves to leak memory, so that after
using you computer for a while, it always hangs(thatīs why people love
Linux amongst others). That
one also has an easy cure, another program called "Ram-Booster" actually
cleans the RAM-memory whenever it gets critical. Those
files that could be needed again are saved to swap, while orphan DLL:s
are killed. See Ya/ Per
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Here I have tried some HTML-editing software (as usual), read what my opinion was at the time ( about may/june -99 ):
2/. 3/.
4/.
(
main | news | bands
| songs | about | guest
| linux | inspire |
On HTML-editors: as I mentioned above; my favorites is Dreamweaver and Front Page 2000, but I have recently added two tools to my weaponry: First is Soft Quads HoTMetaL PRO 4.0 suite, a complete site building package with WYSIWYG and different code editors as well as a web-server and a Java IDE plus all kinds of graphics utilities (Ulead). Itīs great, I write this in it, no vital feature missing here except IE-style "floating layers". A drawback is that it is more inspired by a programming IDE than the others, which makes the learning curve a little steaper but instead when well learned gives a good sense of control. A more serious drawback though, is that it puts your hardware on serious strain. I use a PII-300 with 128Mb and a 16Mb 250MHz graphics accelerator, and under Win 95 OSR-2 with just a ordinary Quantum harddrive as system disk it was painfully slow. In contrast to both Dreamweaver and Front Page. As of now, I use Windows 2000 Pro RC-2 and a fast IBM-drive as system disk (I have Linux on the Quantum), and thatīs about what it takes for making the main editor of HoTMetal PRO come alive. To be righteous, I use the 4.0 incarnation, and as Soft Quad now has shipped a 6.0 version there is reason to believe performance is improved. In that case: it should be a very price-worthy choice to buy HoTMetaL PRO. It is cheaper than Front Page and ships with more tools than Dreamweaver ? Dreamweaver is the easiest webmaking tool yet, but itīs price is way above the others and itīs ships with nothing more than the Allaire Home Site HTML Text editor. A great text editor, but it offers no particular extra functionalty from the others. The other tool is Net Objects Fusion 2.0.2 (it is up in 4.0 now), this tool differs a lot from the others. It is mainly focused on controlling and maintaining a complete site rather than editing individual pages or samples of code. The up-lay is in fact rather original in itīs construction, some exclusive file formats used when constructing a site in Fusion is a handicap though. In the 4.0 version it comes complete with tools for building e-commerce quickly. It works well together with Allaire Cold Fusion application server, as well as MS IIS "Asp"-driven site server software. This tool is mostly interesting if you have your own cable and domain, so you can control everything that is happening on your server. For the hobbyist, many things with it is annoying, most benefit gained from itīs tight control over the entire site layout. But that can be done with CSS almost as easily. Rather unexpectedly, it did not put any bigger strain on the hardware than HoTMetal did, despite itīs advanced layout engine. A major drawback with such a advanced layout engine though, is that not all pages can be imported to your site, as it is very restrictive as to what pages can be displayed within it. I will come back with more on this, as it is an interesting tool nevertheless. /Per
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