The turn of the century was a bad omen for computing industry stalwart Sun Microsystems. Once seen as leading the pack in the Unix server market, its decline in fortune may have stemmed from its refusal to accept early on the potential of the Intel x86 platform as a viable, computing workhorse for all but the most demanding of applications.
As far back as 2002, Sun faced quarter-upon-quarter of revenue decline even as analysts estimate the market was actually picking up steam with rising server revenues by most vendors (except Sun). And so it was that nearly 8 years later, Sun finally conceded defeat accepting an offer by database giant, Oracle, to be acquired for US$7.4 billion at 2009 levels.
Will the sunset for a veteran hardware vendor mark the official beginnings of the dawn of the software age? It can be argued that for many years most industry observers swooned to the music of hardware vendors. Even today we applaud with each new processor by Intel, or the new lineup of Thinkpad laptops, and tomorrow – January 27, 2010 – the much anticipated Apple tablet device (or whatchamacallit). Sure, we turn our heads when Microsoft launched the latest incarnation of its much despised yet very popular Windows operating system. Yes, enterprises raised their hands to view the latest SAP ERP software. And definitely, businesses are listening more intently on how Software-as-a-Service will reduce their CAPEX cost considerably and make them look better on the accounting books because OPEX doesn’t hurt their market positioning as much as CAPEX.
Its hard to figure out when the software revolution started. But you can bet that just as Apple revolutionized the MP3 market not with a neat, flashy, fancy music player (on the contrary it defined convention by being overly simple) but with software, so too will we finally see the years ahead as the period when software defined how consumers and enterprises will use technology.
For the moment, we bid fond adieu to one of the pioneers of hardware-based computing solutions – Mr Scott McNealy. He is, by many reckoning one of the more colorful characters of Silicon Valley. Hopefully his legacy will somehow survive under the watch of Oracle CEO, Mr Larry Ellison – another industry stalwart.
CEO farewells are fun to read because they are often drafted by wordsmiths who don’t fully understand the emotional turmoil that accompanies an executive’s departure. I am not sure if Mr McNealy hired a professional writer for his farewell but it certainly paints a sad story of the rise and fall of an icon. So before you take out that tissue to wipe away the sadness in his farewell message, watch this video to take the bite out of Mr McNealy’s bittersweet farewell.
My laptop takes 6 minutes to boot. Granted it’s been with me since August 2009 and I’ve installed a number of programs into it. A month after purchasing the Lenovo X200, I inquired from Lenovo’s local tech support about the long boot time. Puzzled themselves, I was asked to return it for a tune-up.
A day later I was told that there were two programs on the startup that appeared to be scanning the network ports looking for a connection. Unfortunately, this laptop was provided to me by my company so I couldn’t tell them to remove those programs. So I took back the laptop and surrendered to the idea of having a faster machine.
Months later and after a clean install (Windows XP died on me three months after owning this laptop), I am still stuck with a laptop that takes over 5 minutes to boot.
If ever there is any major fault in Windows XP, it is the excessively long time it takes to boot the operating system. Yes, I understand it does several tests to determine the integrity of the environment but other OSes (like Apple OS X) do not take this much time to do the same thing.
The slow boot time forces me to use the HIBERNATE function throughout the day when I want to leave my laptop for awhile or move around town. I would prefer a full shutdown so that any residual memory can die with the shutdown process, but the long boot process simply is not worth the effort.
At any rate, scanning the Internet to find a way to shorten the boot time, I stumbled across “RegistryBooster” from Uniblue. I installed the “free” trial version which indicated over 500 errors on my Windows XP Registry. The free trial ends there though. To clean or fix your registry, you will need to buy the software. Don’t dismay, most other similar packages do the same bait and sell technique all the time.
The Windows Registry is a database that stores configuration settings and options on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains settings for low-level operating system components as well as the applications running on the platform: the kernel, device drivers, services, SAM, user interface and third party applications all make use of the Registry. The registry also provides a means to access counters for profiling system performance.
What this means in non-Geek terms is that this is the heart of the operating system. Every time you install, tweak or remove a program, this Registry is updated. When Windows fails to boot, this is usually where some of the problems lie.
A common complaint about Windows XP is that Microsoft never included a program to manage this Registry. Yes, its got programs to defrag the hard disk and make it run faster. But as most people have discovered over the years, you tend to install new programs on your laptop as you add accessories to your daily computing process. Things like a new external DVD writer (in my case, a Buffalo ultra-slim DVD writer – I threw out my Samsung ultra-slim DVD writer after it conked out of me in under three months and Samsung said there is no warranty for this product because they don’t sell it in Hong Kong).
I also installed software drivers for my digital camera, video camera, a Maxtor external USB storage box, printer, mouse, and so on. In fact, any time you plug an external device to your computer, Windows scans the Registry to determine if the appropriate drivers are installed. The Registry is thus updated frequently. If you uninstall a program, the Registry is also updated to reflect this change. (more…)
In My Humble Opinion 