It looks like my local cable company is getting worried with Verizon FIOS moving into the area. A lot of my co-workers are telling me about letters they have been getting in the mail about speed increases, while others have just been ninja upgraded. My connection went from 7/0.6 to 20/2, but I am hoping to get a little more up speed.  Here are the results of my speed test.

It has been little over a year since the release of Vista and now the first set of improvements are hitting the streets. Service Pack 1 is now available to MSDN subscribers. As I understand it, Service Pack 1 is mainly focused on addressing specific reliability issues, performance and supporting additional hardware and not being used for new features.  

Here are some things to know about SP1 from Microsoft TechNet:

• If you have a prior version of the SP1 beta installed, you must uninstall it prior to installing the final version. Use the Control Panel applet "Programs and Features" and select "View installed updates" from the top left of the task pane. Under Windows, look for "Service Pack for Windows (KB936330).
• Some TechNet Plus subscribers may encounter an issue with a small set of hardware devices that may not function properly after updating a Windows Vista PC to SP1.   This is an issue with the way the device drivers were re-installed during the SP1 update process, not with the drivers themselves—these drivers worked on Windows Vista RTM and they work on Windows Vista SP1.  This problem is typically corrected by simply uninstalling and reinstalling the driver.
• We are working with the manufacturers of these devices to get the drivers and their install programs updated, and also on other solutions we can use to ensure a smooth customer experience when updating to SP1 over Windows Update. For new PCs provisioned with Windows Vista SP1, this is not an issue.

Tampa Code Camp 2007

Saturday July 14th, 2007

St. Petersburg College EpiCenter
13805 58th Street North, Largo Florida

What is Code Camp? Code Camp is a FREE one day event held on Saturday July 14th 2007. This is the third year for Tampa Code Camp. The event will have speakers from the local community and beyond. Speakers will be presenting some of the most requested topics like ASP.NET AJAX, Visual Studio Orcas, Silverlight, Widows Presentation Foundation, Share Point 2007 and SQL Server 2005. This event is like Tech-Ed for Free but its community driven and its the only place you can get this content for free.

We even supply breakfast and lunch.

Event Code: 117791

5/25/2007

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Welcome Time:
5/25/2007 8:30 AM Eastern Time

Join new and experienced Microsoft winform and web developers for a day long FREE Developer Event covering Enterprise Library and Software Factories from Microsoft Patterns and Practices. Learn to increase developer productivity and application quality using Enterprise Library building blocks, code generation, and proven practices for Smart / Mobile Clients, Web Clients, and Web Services.

More information here.

I haven't tried this myself yet, but here are instructions on how to setup an ultra fast USB flash drive with the Vista's installation files. You will then be able to boot and install Windows Vista to your computer from the USB flash drive.

This all sounds like a great idea for a tech support person. Microsoft seems to like the Apacer 4GB Handy Steno USB Flash Drive HT203, 200X Hi-Speed USB 2.0 due to it's 25 mb/sec read rate and 14 mb/sec write rate. These also make excellent drives for Vista's ReadyBoost technology, which can improve your computers performance. If you are lucky enough to find them in stock, you can order one for $56.99 from directron.com. Good luck on that.

Here is the link with details instructions on how to format, partition and copy the necessary files from the install DVD to your USB drive.

Looks like one of my favorite web blogs, "TheDailyWTF", is going PC and changing its name to "Worse Than Failure". You can guess what the original "WTF" stood for.  It is his blog, so he can do what he pleases with it, but I do like the original name better.

From an article on TechRepublic entitled Don't be misled by these 10 Windows Vista myths, here is a summary of the myths. 

Myth #1: You'll have to buy a new, high-end PC to run Vista

Myth #2: Vista will solve all your security problems

Myth #3: Vista is no more secure than XP SP2

Myth #4: The only thing new about Vista is the eye candy

Myth #5: You can't dual boot Vista with another operating system

Myth #6: Vista requires (or includes) Office 2007

Myth #7: Most old applications and peripherals won't work with Vista

Myth #8: You have to buy a Premium version of Vista if you have a dual core machine

Myth #9: You won't be able to play ripped music in Vista

Myth #10: Vista costs a lot more than XP

Since I use Vista on a daily basis, I can assure you that these are false. 

Most people with a iPod don't know you can use it as a external hard drive, but you can. Windows sees the iPod as a USB mass storage device and mounts it with a drive letter. Your music file are in a hidden directory structure can easily be accessed.

The Microsoft Zune can't be accessed in the same way. It is it's own device and not accessible. Well, so we all thought.. Some industrial folks have found a way to enable pseudo hard drive support. It doesn't get assigned a drive letter, but does allow you to drag and drop files from it.

Turns out it's just a registry value to enable visibility in the shell. 

Here are the instructions:

1. Make sure your Zune is not plugged in and your Zune software isn't running
2. Open up regedit by going to the start menu and selecting "run". Type regedt32 and hit "OK"
3. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Enum\USB\
4. Search for "PortableDeviceNameSpace". This should be contained in the Vid_####&Pid_####\########_-_########_-_########_-_########\Device Parameters within the above ...\USB\ The ##'s listed here will be numbers and letters specific to your Zune
5. Change the following values: * EnableLegacySupport to 1 * PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell to 0 * ShowInShell to 1
6. Plug in your Zune, and make sure the Zune Software starts up.
7. Hopefully at this point you can open up "My Computer" and browse your device, though it does NOT show up as a drive letter.

This has be the best offline blog writing tool I have seen to date, and it is free. Live Writer  lets you create and edit your weblog entries just like a word document, without the need to be constantly tweaking the html. It is compatible with DasBlog, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and of course Windows Live Space as well as others. 

One of the problems I had with some of the other tools was a quick way to link my images to thumbnails. Live Writer has a very cool feature to help you do this. You simply "Insert Picture" and edit the properties to link to the original image at full size.

The WYSIWYG support is as good as anyone could want. You can switch between Normal, Web Layout, Web Preview, and of course HTML. It is smart enough to collect all relevant information such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, margins and block quotes and show you a true view of what to expect.

Another excellent feature is it's rich plugin support. It is still in beta, but already has a vast array of available plugins including Code Formatter, Inserting Maps from Windows Live, Inserting video, and pictures from Flickr.

Download Windows Live Writer.