A few days ago my CPU fan started to make a funny noise! Desktop’s PCs create enough noise already and there’s certainly no room for any extra annoying noise!
So I decided to buy a new fan. After doing a bit of research I got myself a CM Sphere fan! I have to admit that I fell for the design rather than the functionality although it seemed promising! Installing the fan was bit of a headache since the manual was confusing and I had to take out the motherboard and screw the fan from the back side; sadly it won’t work with the fan stands that come with some motherboards. Afterwards I didn’t see much of a difference in terms of the CPUs’ temperature, but two things changed! Less noise (the fan is reasonably quiet) and the case temperature which dropped by 2 degrees! I’m fairly happy with it now and the only downside is the lack of support for Intel Core i7 CPU which means I’ll need to change it if I upgrade the pc.
Like every other Linux fan I upgraded my 9.04 Ubuntu to 9.10 version as soon as it was released, a decision that soon I came to regret! First time I upgraded using the update manager. After that not only I started to get random errors here and there! the two main software that are the reasons for me to have Linux started to perform slower! I thought well, maybe I need a fresh install! That got rid of the random errors but caused incomparability issues for some software such as Houdini (to fix the issue with Houdini 10 you need to delete the libs in your Houdini directory/hsvg folder). But this was not the end of story; I updated the grub using the update manager and then the system wouldn’t boot, turned out it’s a bug! And to fix it you have to do a very long and complex process! I’ve been enjoying Linux(Ubuntu) but I don’t think it’s the most stable system! As a matter of fact I find windows 7 more reliable these days! And if you are using Ubuntu, you better stick with 9.04 for now!
Google’s web browser Chrome has been becoming increasingly poular and apprently they have some plans to develop it further for the coming Google Wave. When I tried to install Chrome in Windows 7 x64 but It gave me an error! (Google Update installation failed with error 0x8004071c), and apprently this is the case for many others using Windows 7 since the browser is not supporting W7 officiallyyet;however, there’s a way to skip this error.
Now run the installer and it should work!
Our computers at digital effects studio run Linux. The version we use is Ubuntu; very similar to windows interface with nice visual effects for the menus. I decided to install it on my PC so I could carry on working on my assignments in a similar environment at home. There’s a windows installer called Wubi which allows you to install Ubuntu from windows and as an application! so you can easily remove it from add/remove programs option in control panel. If it works(!) the process is extremely straight forward and you will have the options of booting Windows or Ubuntu when the system boots up, however, if it goes wrong, as it did for me, it could take you ages to get it installed properly. I ended up reinstalling Windows 7 again and then trying to run Wubi right away; the trick was it only works if you have a fresh copy of Windows installed without any updates! apparently one of them is messing things up! Although Linux is considered stable but it’s easy to make a big mess there! so you should be a little careful and avoid logging in a the ‘root’ user if you don’t have too. And learn a bit of Shell Screipting as well if you are considering trying Linux since without knowing those commands (programs) you can’t do much! they are similar to DOS commands but with much more control over everything. It took me another 6-7 hours until I was finally able to install Houdini and Shake on Ubuntu; for Houdini only the latest version downloaded from the Side FX works with no problem. It is possible to install some of Windows software/games using Wine emulator. I was able to successfully install Photoshop CS2 and it runs fairly smoothly.
Like windows vista hibernate is not enabled by default in windows 7. To enable it type cmd into the start menu search box and in the command prompt type in the following command:
powercfg /hibernate on
You may need to restart to finalize the process but usually hibernate is enabled right away.
The new Microsoft operating system “Windows 7″ is scheduled to enter the market this September.
There are many features in this version but after a brief review I found three things very interesting;
1- Ability to see all the opened windows without clicking!
In windows just by hovering the mouse you can see all the opened windows!
2- Automatic driver download and installation
windows 7 detects , download and install all the drivers right away! just plug in your device and seat back!
3- Access some of the opened windows function using right click
when you right click on the selected program on the taskbar you get access to some of the functions so you can start using it right away!
The beta version of the windows 7 has been out for while now and it’s becoming very popular and many are using it as their main platform although it’s not the final release. Since it’s still developing, users may face different issues. One of the problems is installing Dell AIO 810 printer’s driver. Windows 7 detects and download most of the drivers automatically but after installing the driver for Dell AIO 810 printer, windows can’t communicate with the device and only scanning option functions properly. The solution is easy. First you need install the drivers from dell website (windows vista drivers work in windows 7). After that you need go to the printer’s properties and enable ‘bidirectional support’ under port.
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