Manas T

If you are one of the many users who is tired with a sluggish Windows Vista even on a high-end system ( with more than 2GB of RAM and a dual core processor ) then it’s time you give Windows Vista SP1 RC a try.

The Vista SP1 Release Candidate fixes a lot of things in the sluggish Windows OS. Here are some of the noticeable changes I found in my system after installing Windows Vista SP1 RC :

1. Start-up and shutdown of Vista is now much quicker. My laptop is now shutting down in less than half the time it earlier used.
2. Checking for Windows updates now takes 1/4th the time it earlier used to take.
3. Time taken for moving or copying files across partitions has decreased.
4. Extracting and creating zip files is faster now.
5. On an overall basis, Windows Vista is more responsive now.

These are just some of the improvements I have noticed. You can find a more complete list of what is included in Service Pack1 here.

Go try Windows Vista SP1 RC.

P.S. – I recommend using Windows Update to get Vista SP1 RC.

Daily Apps points to a method which will let you install Leopard just like you install Windows or Linux. Just download the Leopard ISO, burn it to a DVD and you are ready to install Leopard. No patching, hacking involved.

How does this work ?

The latest Leopard ISO image comes with PC-EFI built in. This allows normal BIOS based PC’s to boot off the Leopard DVD. You can find more about PC-EFI from the OSX86 wiki.

Ironically, Microsoft Windows support BIOS only, and Apple makes Boot camp to fill the gap. The EFI patch works in a similar approach: it emulates EFI data for normal BIOS-based PCs and let OS X treat them as genuine EFI-based Macs.

The EFI emulation is a long dream in OSX86 community, but prior to this, thanks the Apple’s open source Darwin Project and those Hackintosh gurus, we can still enjoy OS X on normal PCs, with patched kernels/kernel modules which just bypass EFI. Now with the EFI patch, the hackintosh can boot off “vanilla” (unmodified) OS X kernel and use vanilla kexts, which gives a more clean room and great peace of mind for future system updates.

How to Install Leopard on vanilla PC’s

1. First get the EFI patched ISO from some torrent site like Mininova. You can find it by performing a search for iATKOS v1.0i.
2. Then burn the ISO to the DVD.
3. Boot from the DVD, select what you want to install and proceed.

That’s it. You have got a fully functional Mac OS X Leopard on your PC.

P.S. – I am yet to try this method. So I cannot tell whether the Leopard installation plays nice with existing Windows and Linux installs.

Via – Daily Apps Blog

This is surely one plugin which will really take your blog to the next level. Get ready to try Yahoo! Shortcuts – a brand new WordPress plugin. It lets you liven up your blog posts by letting you insert images, shortcuts, badges all based on what you write in your blog post.

The Yahoo! Shortcuts powered WordPress plugin is an easy way for you to enrich blog posts with great content (maps, finance quotes, news headlines, Flickr photos, and much more.) As you compose your blog post, the Shortcuts plugin looks for content related to what you are writing about. A Shortcut may lead your reader to a finance quote for a public company, a map of a point of interest, a Flickr image, or information about specific companies, products, and people. When it finds relevant content, it lets you know.

The process is simple. You just upload the plugin and activate it from your Dashboard. Next time you will write a blog post, you will see a new box on the right hand side which will say something like “4 Shortcuts Found”. Click “Review this post”. You will be taken to a page where you can see all shortcuts that have been found. There you can insert the shortcuts you want.

You can add Flickr images too which will be shown at the bottom. All the images are also Creative Commons licensed. You need not worry about the copyright !

As simple as that. So try Yahoo! Shortcuts today and liven up your blog posts.

Visit Yahoo! Shortcuts

Via – Digital Inspiration

Microsoft has released Windows Vista SP1 RC to the public today. You can download it through Windows Update or as a complete package from Microsoft Download Center. SP1 contains changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several new technologies. SP1 also addresses some management, deployment, and support challenges. Microsoft has also published documents on how SP1 will affect Vista performance and what are the changes it brings to its operation.

If you have a prior version of SP1 Beta installed, you will have to uninstall it prior to installing RC. Windows Vista SP1 RC will no longer operate after June 30, 2008 and should be uninstalled prior to that date.

Download Windows Vista SP1 RC

Complete list of changes in Windows Vista SP1 RC

Did you try SP1 RC ?

I recently brought a Dell Vostro 1400 laptop and set out to install Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon on it. The installation went out smoothly and Ubuntu booted up. But there were some issues like sound was not working, wired internet was slow etc. After a bit of searching on the internet, I have solved many of these issues. So I thought I would write a single post to sort out all issues on a Dell Vostro 1400 with Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon installed on it. This will help the owners of Dell Vostro laptops sort out the issues they have with Gutsy Gibbon easily.

Issue #1 – Sound comes out alright through headphones but inbuilt laptop speakers do not work

This is the first thing you will notice when you login into Ubuntu. To solve this problem :

1. Go to Terminal.
2. Type sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
3. Then paste this at the end of the file : options snd-hda-intel model=5stack
4. Save the file and reboot.
5. Play something, now sound will come from the laptop speakers.

Issue #2 – Fans not working in Vostro after you boot into Vostro

Although I hear the fans working, they never work at full speed. Why heat up your laptop because you don’t want to hear noisy fans ? This procedure will let you install Gkrellm along with the I8K plugin which lets you control your laptop’s fan speed.

1. Goto Terminal and then type the following commands.
2. sudo apt-get install i8kutils gkrellm gkrellm-i8k
3. sudo modprobe i8k force=1
4. sudo gedit /etc/modules
5. Add the following line to the end of the file: i8k force=1. Save and exit.
6. Go to System > Preferences > Sessions > Startup Programs
7. Click ADD and put the command: gkrellm
8. Log out and log in. Gkrellm should start up. Go to plugins and enable the I8K plugin.

Issue #3 – Wired and Wireless Internet are slow

After some searching on the internet I have found that this is due to IPv6. Due to IPv6 the DNS names are not resolved properly. So all you need to do is disable IPv6 for Gutsy Gibbon.

1. To disable it, open Terminal.
2. Type command : gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/aliases.
3. Find the line alias net-pf-10 ipv6 and change it to #alias net-pf-10 ipv6
4. Add the following lines to the file alias net-pf-10 off and alias net-pf-10 off ipv6
5. Save the file and reboot.
6. Your internet should work properly now.

These are the three major issues that have been solved till now. Still my laptop’s wireless card (Broadcom) is not working. I am yet to make it work. When I find the solution, I will post it here.