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Windows update nuked my computer
Submitted by Capt. Xerox on November 20, 2009 - 8:56pm.
Hi all,
If you were hoping for a blog update yesterday, blame Microsoft for nuking my computer. I made the mistake of allowing it to install Service Pack 2 for Vista. Once it finished the install and tried to reboot, I got the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. No amount of tinkering would get me past that screen. None of the system restore points worked, I couldn't boot into safe mode, nothing. I could get to the command prompt, but couldn't roll back the update from there either. My only option was a reformat and a clean install. What a drag.
Fortunately, most of my data was backed up so I didn't lose much, but I have to reinstall my apps which is time-consuming. One of these days, I've got to get my act together and devise a real backup strategy which saves disk images so that I can be back online much faster.
It's not the first time Windows Update has killed my computer, but it usually only happens ever few years so I tend to forget that it is a dangerous practice.
I'm looking forward to trying the Google Chrome OS. They claim it will boot in 7 seconds or less. Nice.
Capt. Xerox
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Sadly it's a "feature" of Windows
The thing about the Chrome OS is that it'll be made for netbooks, so it'll work on yours, but on your desktop machine not really.
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
Chrome for stations
Actually the Chrome that's available right now is only for standard computers, it's not capable of functioning on a notebooks yet, they are not fast enough and Chrome is taxing the power a bit much for those units. I plan on installing it this weekend if I have time under virtualisation to give it a try.
http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/
for those of you who would like to try it out, here are the instructions to install it using Virtual Box from Sun (it's free)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/19/guide-install-google-chrome-os/
Andre Vandal
Chrome much easier than I thought
Well that didn't take long, 15 seconds and I was ready to play, and even under virtualisation it run fast. Mind you, I already had VM Box installed on my machine (running Ubuntu and XP Pro) so you have to count that in as a time factor if you don't have it yet.
Here are some screen shots of Chrome running on my iMac intel
Andre Vandal
Virtualization
When I finally get my machine repaired and configured the way I like it, I'm going to install some VM software and give it a try. It looks pretty cool. It's not going to replace destkop OS's soon, but perhaps one day.
C.X.
It's a virtual world
When I finally get my machine repaired and configured the way I like it, I'm going to install some VM software and give it a try. It looks pretty cool. It's not going to replace destkop OS's soon, but perhaps one day.
<jobhat>
It may be sooner than you think or know. Virtualization is becoming pervasive and some people don't even even realize when they're working under a virtualized platform. Some BIOSes (Phoenix) have a built-in hypervisor so any installed OS is already virtualised. A lot of handheld devices are running virtuallized under the hood.
But there are security pros and cons to using virtualization. If you have a 'clean' virtual machine, you can set it up with all your defaults and favorite settings/configuration and then make a fresh copy and use it every time you want to perform security sensitive operations (eg perform transactions, online banking, etc). Then you destroy the copy once you're done. You therefore operate with a malware free environment every time, so you can keep your mind at ease that your transactions were secure (at least from the point of your own endpoint). But all this is contigent on the fact that your initial VM was clean and pristine. One of the nice things about VMs is that you can download tons of VM with just about any OS that ever existed, or even with specifc apps preloaded. But you should never trust these OSes as they may already be infected with malware. (And yes, some are indeed infected). So if you are going to rely on VMs for security, make sure your source VM can be trusted.
You can download VMWare 'player' for free, but you cannot create VMs with it. You need a full VMware suite to create VMs. I've gone to several courses where they require students to bring a laptop with the free VM player installed. The instructor then provides many VMs for the courseware, all with the required preinstalled OS and apps.
For the Linux heads out there, XEN and KVM are also options. The nice thing about them is they both let you create 'empty' VMs into which you install whatever OS and apps you desire. I've worked with XEN and had no problems running 4 VMs at once on some antiquated servers. The best part is that you can easily tweak the enviroments (HD space, memory, etc) to give just the right amount of resources needed for the VM.
The one area that VMs are not recommended for are graphics demanding apps (i.e. gaming). Games want (and often need) to hog everything!
</jobhat>
~ Lazarus ~
Annoying Windows
It seems that Windows Update pushed Service Pack 2 on me then tried to install it automatically even though my OS doesn't have SP1 installed. Result? Disaster.
C.X.
I downloaded the gtgt image
I downloaded the gtgt image of Chromium, and VMWare can't read it. Izarc can read *.bz2 files, so I'll try that.
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I'll sleep when my writing muse wants to.
I don't know how VmWare
I don't know how VmWare works, but remember that the file you receive should be considered a fully formated drive (with the OS preinstalled) to activate, not an OS to install. Look around the net, I'm sure you will locate a VMWare instalation page just like I found the VM Box one.
Andre Vandal
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