Mike Salsbury’s Blog

When I last left you, it was approximately mid-March and Vista still wasn’t quite performing. So here’s what’s happened since then in my quest to implement Windows Vista Ultimate at home…

I ordered a replacement BIOS from Asus and installed it in the motherboard. The Asus online tech support experience was absolutely first-rate with this replacement. The machine booted immediately after the chip was installed.

With that hurdle overcome, I set out to resolve the networking problem. When I last tried, I could get maybe 60-100MB of a large file downloaded before Vista dropped the entire connection.

My computer happens to be connected to a hub that sits on my desk, which in turn connects to the router I had needed to replace earlier. Since the hub was purchased back when Windows 95 was the rage, I wondered if it might be at fault. I purchased a new 10/100/1000 switching hub at Staples and replaced my old hub with it. Sure enough, I could now download anything I wanted, no matter how large it was or how long it took. Problem solved!

At this point, Vista was functioning. All my hardware had working drivers, and it was all behaving like it was supposed to. I was happy at this point with Vista.

I began installing my software, only to run into a few compatibility issues…

First off, Ulead Video Studio 10 causes Vista to drop out of its Aero interface and back into classic Windows. Aside from that, it seems to work properly.

Nero 7.0 didn’t work with Vista. I had to get an upgrade to 7.7.

VMWare Workstation, which I use to run Linux on my machine, needed to be upgraded to version 6.

Pretty much everything else did what it was supposed to do.

So, after all the work, was it a worthwhile project? In some ways, yes. I’m learning a moderate amount about Vista. I’m finding several things I like, and few that I don’t. It has been completely stable, needing a reboot only to apply patches or install software. That’s no surprise since the same hardware ran Windows XP Pro reliably too.

Would I recommend Vista to someone? Maybe. If you’re buying a new system, you might as well get Vista. It’s proving to have fewer security bugs than XP Pro and Mac OS X so far. It’s reliable and stable. It looks nice. But if you have your hardware already, and you’re running Windows XP or Windows 2000 and it’s working for you, I can’t say that I would recommend Vista. The interface is nice and flashy, but not worth $100-300. The security is better, but if you’ve configured Windows XP or 2000 correctly, you’re probably just as safe. The Windows Sidebar is interesting, but only marginally more useful than the Dashboard in OS X is, and I rarely use that. On the other hand, if you do Windows tech support, you should probably invest in Vista soon because there are enough changes in the way things are laid out, in how you get to different things like the Device Manager, etc., that you may need some time to get familiar with. Then again, aside from things being located in different places, it’s really not all THAT different.

admin Windows Support

If you’re trying to sort out how to create a Windows Shortcut on the desktop from within VBScript (or VB6) the following code should do the trick for you.  It creates a shortcut on your desktop that launches the Notepad application.  With some modification, it should allow you to create any desktop shortcut you need.

Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject(”WScript.Shell”)

‘ Use WshSpecialFolders object to get to the Desktop
DesktopPath = WSHShell.SpecialFolders(”Desktop”)

‘ Use the Shell to create a shortcut to Notepad on the desktop
Set theShortcut = WSHShell.CreateShortcut(DesktopPath & “\Shortcut to notepad.lnk”)

‘ Set shortcut object properties and save it
theShortcut.TargetPath = WSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(”%windir%\notepad.exe”)
theShortcut.WorkingDirectory = WSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(”%windir%”)
theShortcut.WindowStyle = 4
theShortcut.IconLocation = WSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings(”%windir%\notepad.exe, 0″)
theShortcut.Save

admin VB and VBScript create a shortcut on desktop, desktop shortcut, VBScript, Visual Basic, windowsdesktop shortcuts

About 25 years ago, my family and I lived in Brazil, where my father worked on that country’s first nuclear power plant. One of my fondest memories of that time is a visit to a Brazilian restaurant called a “churrascaria”. These are a uniquely Brazilian invention which, in my opinion, would do well in the USA. They are an “all you care to eat” style restaurant that features barbecued meats of every variety. In a typical churrascaria, you are seated at a table, partake of a salad and vegetable bar, and when you’re ready for meat, you have a device (typically a card) on your table that indicates you’re interested in meat. Roving servers will drop by to tempt you with various cuts of steak, chicken, pork, lamb, sausage, etc. If you like what they have, they’ll slice some off the skewer they’re carrying and you grab it with tongs and put it on your plate. When you are full, you use the device to tell the servers you’re finished and they stop bringing the meat.

I’ve just returned from “Sal & Carvao” (Portuguese for “salt and charcoal”), a restaurant located at the intersection of Finley and Butterfield in Downers Grove, Illinois. This churrascaria is one of three I’ve visited in the United States. The others were located in Washington, DC, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It’s definitely a good one.

My vegetable plate included asparagus, roasted spring vegetables in a balsamic vinaigrette, and jambalaya (technically not a vegetable dish). I also had some proscuitto and salami. All of it was first-rate, fresh-tasting, and delicious. This was followed by the meat courses, which included “bottom sirloin”, marinated chicken breast, linguica (sausage), lamb, chili-lime chicken, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, and probably one or two other meats I’m forgetting. In addition, there were three side dishes offered. These included garlic mashed potatoes, a vegetable medley, and truffled french fries.

The service at Sal & Carvao is great, easily an 8 or 9 out of 10. I rarely wanted for anything.

The side dishes weren’t bad, but not my favorites of the meal. I don’t care much for garlic mashed potatoes, though theirs were better than average. The vegetable medley was good, but I’d gotten my fill at the harvest bar (salad bar) earlier. And the fries, well, I didn’t care for them but they were OK. (The side dish concept, by the way, is something I’ve only noticed in the U.S. churrascarias. I assume they’re provided to reduce the guests’ intake of meat items, which are probably cheaper in Brazil than in the U.S.) I generally ignored them during my dining.

The meats were all good. The filet was probably my least favorite since it was a little dry, but even that was good. The marinated chicken breast was excellent. The bottom sirloin was great. The linguica was perfect. The lamb was the second-best I’ve ever had (the best, interestingly, was at a churrascaria in Washington, DC).

On balance, I’d have to give Sal & Carvao at least an 8 out of 10. The service is excellent. The food is really good. The seating was comfortable. The “harvest bar” was very good.

I have only two real complaints about the place. The music got a bit loud during the latter part of my visit, and took away some from my enjoyment of the food. My other complaint is that they don’t have a location in Columbus, Ohio. If they did, I suspect it would become one of my regular haunts at home!

admin Food barbecue, brazilian restaurant, churrascaria, downers grove illinois, restaurant review, review, Sal & Carvao, Salt and Charcoal

For reasons I won’t go into here, I currently find myself in a Chicago suburb attending a rather-technical training course. This trip has, almost from the get-go, been bad news.

I was informed that I needed to take the class because we’d budgeted for it and would lose the funding if I didn’t go. Since I did want to take the class, I tried to schedule it in a locale I was more familiar with. I’ve got NOTHING against Chicago. It’s just that I have only been here once on a whirlwind visit and I really don’t remember it. Regardless, the only venue available to me was this one. I’m nothing if not easy-going, so I scheduled the class here and made arrangements through our travel folks to get here.

When I left for the airport, I realized my gas tank was low in the Mustang, so I stopped to fill it up even though I was already running a little late. It seemed that every car I got behind on the roads to the airport was traveling about 40 mph, even if the posted limit was 65. Not an auspicious start. I finally did get to the airport, got through the checkin line, and got through security literally just a couple of minutes before they boarded my plane.

The flight was reasonably smooth, though the landing was a bit rough. I made a wrong turn coming out of the gate and found myself going the opposite way from Midway’s baggage claim area. Eventually I got there, picked up my bag, and hauled it to a taxi. At this point, the backache I’ve been nursing for a couple of weeks kicked back in full-force.

I found an available cab. The driver told me it was going to cost $73 to get to my destination. No problem, I told him. He then began flipping through some books and/or maps to try to figure out where my destination actually was. This was not a good sign. At this point, it’s about 11:30am Chicago time on Sunday. Around noon, the cab driver called the hotel for directions. Not finding the hotel, he called them again, and again. Somewhere around 1:15pm he’d had enough driving around the area (and so had I,actually). The hotel had also, I suspect, gotten fed up with him calling them, and sent a courtesy van to pick me up. I didn’t have to pay for the cab ride, but I did tip the driver for being a good sport.

The hotel was excellent, as I’ve come to expect from a Marriott. I checked in, dropped my stuff in the room, and went out to find a place to eat dinner. I ate, came back to the hotel, and rested for a while. I later had dinner in the hotel bar and called it a night. Things seemed to be turning around.

This morning I missed the shuttle to my training facility while talking to a nice person who was also going there (and missed the shuttle with me). They sent another immediately. (As I said, nice hotel.)

When lunchtime came, I was told that there were places to eat “just across the highway”. I tried walking that direction but a large fence prevented me from getting there. I went back inside and located a map showing the nearby roads and eateries. I was told it was a short walk to the nearest places. That short walk turned out to take about 25 minutes…. and I walk pretty fast.

I got there, got a sandwich, and realized I had very little time to get back to the class before it picked up again, so I left immediately with my lunch. About 10 minutes into the walk back, it began raining… and I don’t mean a little. It was a downpour. By the time I got back to the training facility, my hair and my shirt were soaked. The rest of my wasn’t much better. I toweled off in the facility’s restroom with the tiny paper towels they offered, and wrung the rain out of my shirt into the sink. Yes, this was a wonderful day.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon in a nicely air-conditioned classroom wearing a freezing, soaked shirt. It (mostly) dried by the time the hotel’s shuttle arrived at 5:15. When I got back to the hotel, I stripped off the wet clothes, took a hot bath, and dressed in something much warmer and drier.

I’m now about to go out for dinner. There is a brazilian restaurant within walking distance of the hotel and I am hoping to make it there and back in one piece. If you don’t see an entry here tomorrow, I might not have made it…

admin Life

Recently, I rented “Destination Moon” from Netflix. Today I finally had the opportunity to watch the movie in its entirety. I have to say, given that it was produced decades before we actually set foot on the moon, it’s an amazing film. Most of the critical issues of early space travel, such as intense calculations, weight and safety considerations, weightlessness, spacewalks, gravity variations, and more are all considered. The movie gets many of the little details right, such as the fact that it takes seconds for a radio signal to reach Earth from the Moon. Even its prediction of the appearance of the lunar surface isn’t far off from reality.

The basic story of the film is that a military general comes to the conclusion that the moon could be used as a base of operations from which to launch missiles (presumably nuclear) at the Earth. On this premise, he convinces several leaders of “American Industry” to band together to solve the problems of space travel in record time. In a somewhat realistic depiction of our government in action, the pioneers are told that they can’t test their rocket, which is based on nuclear technology, because of the public’s fear of radiation. Never mind that the rocket’s location is in the middle of the desert. Never mind that those in charge of the project made sure no one was living within a distance that radiation could reach them. No, the government bows to pressure from protesters and denies permission to test the rocket. Faced with a crippling delay that could bankrupt them, the team decides to launch the rocket untested, before the government can outlaw the launch. Just as they’re making final preparations, some bureaucrat shows up with a court order to stop the launch. However, warned that he’s coming, the project team rushes to the launch pad and takes off in the rocket.

Without spoiling too much of the movie, I can tell you that they do make it to the moon. However, in getting there, they find themselves in trouble. They had to use too much fuel to land. Now they can’t escape the moon’s pull. They have to find a way to get rid of tons of weight.

Video quality on this DVD release is decent for a 1950s film. The sound is also quite reasonable for films of the time. Also, as we would expect from a 1950’s sci-fi flick, the music is at times overpowering. For that matter, some of the acting is a bit over the top too. All in all, though it’s a decent film and scientifically probably very accurate.

One amusing “treat” in the film is a short animated sequence featuring Woody Woodpecker. Woody’s job is to explain to the stodgy industrialists how the flight to the moon and back would work. It’s a cute cartoon and I expect it was created specifically for the film.

Perhaps the main reason the film does an excellent job of depicting the issues related to a moon trip is that Robert Heinlein (of Starship Troopers fame) helped to write the script, based on a story he had written previously. This makes the film far more intellectually interesting than much of today’s “science-fiction” coming from Hollywood, where it’s more important to pack in lots of celebrities, explosions, and love interests than to make a film that’s even slightly realistic and believable.

I’d say this is probably the best 1950’s era science-fiction film I’ve ever seen. It provides drama, emotion, and inspiration without taking the story line off track to tell love stories, show fantastic special effects (though there are special effects where needed), or blow things up.

Definitely worth renting or watching if you get the chance.

admin Movies