So, for GoToMeeting, if you launch it from their web site (http://www.gotomeeting.com) and simply say “Create Meeting”, you will get an error saying IE8 is not supported.  I found that if I actually downloaded the GoToMeeting application from their web site, then move the application to my start bar and set the properties to be “Run As Vista” and “Run As Administrator”, I had success.

Hopefully, this will work for you.

I recently notice on Amazon a discussion thread of about 15 people saying how absolutely wonderful SSDs are and how the brought new life to their notebook computers.  Every one of them raved about the magic this brought into their lives.

Well, after checking out the prices and performance, it seems that right now there are two classes of these drives.  It seems there is a first generation drive that performs in the area of 15/40Mbs/sec and ones that perform in the 100/170Mbs/sec.  To put this in perspective, when people refer to SATA/150 or SATA/300, the 150 and 300 are the Mbs/sec.  With Vista resource manager, you can actually see for yourself how man Mbs/sec you are actually getting.  Below is a screen shot showing that.

The price point for a 64Gig SSD which performs in the faster category is now about $150.  Off to the computer store I went to get mine.  The one I bought is a Patriot Warp as shown below.

What Happened

So, I get home and immediately put this new drive in my computer and since I now only have 64Gig for my system ( C ) drive, I need to load Vista Business on my Lenovo W500 from scratch (see description at bottom of page).

Immediately, I noticed it booted faster and shutdown faster.  This in fact was power of suggestion because when I looked at the numbers, it really did not boot much faster.  Here is the comparison.

Well, then things really began to fall apart.  It normally takes me a while to load all my different software programs.  Usually I can work at the same time as I’m installing software (most of my software I have ISO’s for so I don’t need to mess with DVDs).  It usually slows me down, but not too bad.  I quickly found that on this SSD, while software was installing, all I could do was wait.  If I tried to do anything else, the computer just slowed to a crawl.

In disbelief, I kept going down this path thinking it was all my imagination and that things were fine and fast.  I even convinced myself this was normal.  Finally, when installing one of my packages from Microsoft I got a failure.  I decided, since I really needed this software I should see if it’s the SSD drive causing the problem.

Next thing I did was to make an image backup with my favorite software (Acronis, see link below), then restore the SSD data to my WD 7200RPM basic rotating drive.  Well, to my total surprise, everything is now fast again and the Microsoft software actually installed no problem.

Conclusion

Wait for the next generation of SSD’s to come out.  This generation just does not work for me.  Thank goodness for 15 day return policies!

Hardware and Software Used

First, it’s really nice to be able use one picture to cover your complete desktop (in my case, three monitors).  While in New Zealand in 2003 on a bike vacation, I took this panorama picture.  I forget where it is, but if any of you know, please add it to the comments.  Here is a picture of that picture.

Secondly, and also very helpful is that you now can have toolbbars on each monitor so you don’t have to guess where things are going to pop up.  It also helps decrease the clutter on your primary toolbar.  No more hunting for programs because you have so many open!  Here is a screen shot.  Notice the toolbars on the right edge of each monitor.  (you may have to click on the image to actually see them.

The third thing I really like is the cool feature where UltraMon adds a buttons to your program menu that lets you move any program to any screen, and another button that lets you maximize your program across all your monitors.  Here is a screen shot of what is added to outlook.

UltraMon also adds to your taskbar a configuration panel that you can right click on for lots of other things which I will explore soon.  Here is what that looks like:

That’s it for now.  Just a quick post to let everyone know about this cool new program.  I highly recommend it.  You can find more details at their web site. 

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

Good Luck!

Just had to share.

Today, while searching for email, it occurred to me this is one of those things (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong in the post comments).  I can say "Start / Search as follows:

And then, I get the following listing which I’ve clicked on the tab "E-Mail".  Notice I also have a nice preview screen to show me the details of the mail.

One issue I have noticed (if anyone wants to help me, please comment) is that sometimes I don’t get the E-mail preview window.  Not sure why.  Just another puzzle at the moment looking for an answer.

Well, that’s it for now.  If I think of other vista features I use often, I’ll post again.

Yesterday (May 8th 2007) I did a presentation at VSLive in Orlando Florida on Gadgets.  Specifically Vista Sidebar Gadgets.  On stage, I build a complete Sidebar Gadget from scratch that displays information for our upcoming Silicon Valley Code Camp.  Actually, the site still refers to last year, but the web service interface has been updated to show the new date which likely will be October 27th, 2007.

The gadget that was developed in the presentation is your basic countdown gadget.  It counts down the number of days until our Silicon Valley upcoming codecamp.  The way it discovers the date of the codecamp is using ajax.net to call a web service running on localhost.  It also allows for a setting that lets you optionally turn off those annoying spinning hours, minutes and seconds.  One more thing it does is to demonstrated the ability to project a dynamic gadget.  That is, using a Gadget Flyout, it completely replaces a span element of the flyout with it’s own HTML which is retrieved again, from a web service.

Below is a picture of the gadget.  Also, I’m including a pointer to a zip file which is the gadget developed.  Since it points to localhost, it will currently not function on your system but lets you see all the techniques. Keep an eye on this blog for a real gadget that works with the real codecamp site!

Gadget Source 

(Before Class started)

After going to many Microsoft shows and meetings and seeing all the cool new features in Vista, I finally decide to take the plunge. This plunge started around December 15th, and with all new technologies, the transition has been bumpy for me. My friend Richard Hundhausen who blogs at http://blog.hundhausen.com/ suggested I blog my experience for everyone’s benefit so here we go.

Feedback Welcome

All this Vista stuff is very new to me and I expect I’ll get things wrong in my posts. Please please please post comments on these posts with corrections and suggestions.

My Multiple Monitor Problem (MaxVista Stops Working)

Years ago I became addicted to programming on multiple monitors. First, using my portable with a small external monitor, then discovering I could use both the VGA and DVI ports on my portable and have two remote monitors, then finally, after reading a blog post by Scott Hanselman, I switched to using a product called MaxVista which allowed me to have 3 monitors! The other thing that was nice is using MaxVista, I could have just one computer that I used for all my programs and files, my notebook computer. Notebooks had gotten powerful enough and provided enough storage to make this a work well. How convenient!

Sadly, this era has ended for me. MaxVista no longer works with Vista for me. The following posts from MaxVista and Microsoft explain why. Basically, it boils down to the new graphics drivers in Vista don’t support this ethernet method of sharing monitors. I hope this changes in the future, but for now no solution.

So, you’re probably wondering how I’ve fed my addiction to multiple monitors? Back to 2 computers. Off to Fry’s and about $2500’s later, I now have a desktop computer with 2 Video cards and a large assortment of other things including a 2.4 Ghz 4MB Cache Intel processor and a few 10K hard drives. The performance is awesome compared to my Core Duo Acer 8200 notebook, but I do have the hassle of having to move data back and forth between my notebook and desktop as well as having to maintain two copies of the all my software. The Gig network support helps but I have already had some sharing "issues".

The Good News

Just so I can’t be accused of being a complainer, I always like to say something good about Vista and how it has helped me. Here are some good things I’ve found with Vista.

• Faster Boot and Shutdown Times (at least twice as fast as XP).
• Better Battery Life on my Noteboook (guessing 20% better).
• Nice to see thumbnails of my running apps when mousing over running programs start bar.