It’s almost here
My package has arrived in Santiago, so tomorrow morning will be the paperwork for custom clearance.
This is good news, because this means that I’ll be able to speed up my system. I bought 2 video cards (2x Saphire ATI HD 4870) and a power supply (1KW) online. These cards are significantly faster than the HD 2600 XT and the HD2600 PRO, which are the ones I’m using today. Can’t wait!
-- Jeroen
Monday, May 25, 2009 4:28:21 PM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00) 
Another blog is live
I just finished setting up a blog for my wife’s little club, the “Clan de los monos” (or in English: “The Monkey Clan.”) This name, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with Rokugan. She has a tendency to call everyone around here a “Mona” or “Mono”, which is Spanish for “Monkey”, so that’s why.
The blog will be a multi-athor blog in Spanish, which you can see at http://www.a-micos.com This blog is served on the same server as the blog of yours truly.
-- Jeroen
Monday, May 25, 2009 4:09:07 PM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)
Microsoft Aims Big Guns at Google, Asks Consumers to Rethink Search
Microsoft’s marketing department is a(t)/(dd)-it again… A $80-$100 mln for attacking their major Internet rival, Google. See http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136847
Come’on MS, create a better search engine if you want to attack Google, because your products are great, but Live Search sucks big time! Instead of spending all that money on advertising, you should spend it on hiring the best minds for this job and increase the quality of your product. $80-$100 mln buys a lot of talent, workers and knowledge.
-- Jeroen
(Yeah, I know this is my opinion, it’s also my blog so I’m allowed to express it.)
Monday, May 25, 2009 1:13:43 PM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)
Long Zeng: Higher resolution Windows 7 logo, presention style guide and retail concept all leaked in one big burst
This is some cool stuff! Microsoft’s marketing department did a great job again:
See the post here
Monday, May 25, 2009 10:40:08 AM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)
Passports – It’s that time again
My passport is due to expire in March 2003, but knowing that they are going to change the proceedings for passports in Europe, I’m going to change mine a bit ahead of schedule.
My brother alerted me on this and he told me that they are about to change the rules soon. I asked the consul here and guess what? I have 2 weeks to arrange it here, after that I have to go to Santiago to arrange my passport.
Santiago is about 850 kilometers from here, which means: a 2-day trip at the least.
To my brother: A BIG THANKS for alerting me! I’ll be arranging this A.S.A.P.
Monday, May 25, 2009 10:34:51 AM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00) Chilean Adventures
Disabling the secure desktop for User Account Control
I had lately somewhat problems with UAC… not UAC per se, but more the switch to the secure desktop. I’m sitting here behind 3 wide-screen desktops with a resolution of 1920 * 1200 each. My old video cards have some problems with these mega-screens and therefore simply respond a little slower. Aero works OK, but only with all the extra animations disabled. (I’m getting some new cards soon, so that problem is luckily resolved soon enough.)
Once the secure desktop for UAC kicks in, the 3D Accelerator of the card gets temporary disabled. So the system also switches from 3D video mode back to plain old 2D to show the UAC confirmation. On these old cards this transition took more than 45 seconds, which is enough to become a very big annoyance. Since I develop software for a living, I see those UAC prompts at least 20 times a day.
Disabling UAC is not an option, simply because of company policy. As an alternative I choose to go for disabling the secure desktop instead. This is not as secure as the default settings, but it does allow me to quickly use UAC. (Malware could get a handle of the window and press the continue button for me.) Since I am quite sure that no malware is running on my PC I guess that this thread is negligible for the moment.
How to disable the secure desktop without disabling UAC?
- Start –> Run –> gpedit.msc
- Select in the treeview:
- Computer Configuration
- Windows Settings
- Security Settings
- Local Policies
- Security Options
- Select the policy: “User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation”
- Select “Disabled”
Once you have done these steps, you’ll notice that the secure desktop will no longer show up on UAC prompts. Again, do this only when you know what you are doing, because that secure desktop is there for a reason.
-- Jeroen
Monday, May 25, 2009 10:27:50 AM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)
Oh dear, another language makes it into .Net
Microsoft will release a new programming language… er, 2 new programming languages with .Net 4.0. One is called “F#”, the other one “M”.
F# is a functional programming language that made it’s appearance around the end of 2004, but became more popular in the last year. Now, F# is so successful it will make it into .Net 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.
The other language is ”M” which allows a developer to model the solution in to basic blocks and verify that the code actually conforms to the model.
Both languages will mean a new steep learning curve for all those who are interested, but that’s what developers do: we learn new things as we go along. A developer who doesn’t learn can go and retire in about 5 years from now.
I’ve got the Visual Studio 2010 beta running, and I’ll be playing a bit with all this :)
Monday, May 25, 2009 10:23:00 AM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00) Programming | Visual Studio 2010
The blog is now (on Windows) Live
The blog is uploaded to my server in The Netherlands and the domain “www.jeroenlandheer.com” is functional again!
I’ve updated my Windows Live profile so that everyone can see there that my blog is live, and content has changed. Facebook will also be updated. Twitter integration is still on my wish list.
I’ll be posting some articles soon, things about coding, active directory and more. Hopefully that will fill up the void a bit :) Have fun, and see ya all soon!
--- Jeroen.
Monday, May 25, 2009 12:25:56 AM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)