2009 Summer Solstice
The Summer Solstice occured at 17:47 UTC on 21-June-2009.
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Garmin GPS
Thinking of buying a new GPS?
I highly recommend you consider Garmin, or a device that can run Garmin’s GPS software.
Why?
Garmin does an excellent job of updating it’s GPS software and maps… and after all, current maps are why you probably have a GPS.
If the roads, speed limits, etc never change where you drive — it doesn’t matter. Why would you even think of a GPS if you’re always in a place you’re familiar with that never changes?
Garmin has a fairly broad range of GPS devices; and they also offer software that will run on your cell phone (Garmin XT), Windows mobile devices (Garmin XT), and your Windows laptop (Garmin PC).
I run Garmin XT on my HTC Smart Phone, I run Garmin PC on my Netbook (using an external Bluetooth or USB GPS), and I’m going to play with hacking my GPS to see if I can get Garmin XT running on it (it’s Windows mobile based, currently runs Destinator software, I’ve played with Tom Tom software on it, but I’d prefer everything run the same GPS software).
Visit Garmin’s site for more information on their products, and do an internet search for more information on hacking an existing device with a copy of Garmin’s software.
HTC Touch Pro
I’ve admired HTC cellular (PDA) phones for a very long time… their cost, though, has always made me choose an alternate.
With the release of the very popular Touch Diamond and Touch Pro (Windows Mobile 6.1) phones has come the opportunity to buy one at an aggressive price ($200 with no contract if you shop wisely on Craigslist).
Most all of the HTC phones are hackable, and there’s a large community preparing custom ROM sets for them.
You’ve never seen a HTC phone? Well, you may not have seen HTC’s phones, but you’ve probably seen a derivative of their Touch Flow 3D interface… whether they’d like to admit it on not a company in Cupertino popularized that type of interface on a phone they sell in the US through AT&T.
You can check out HTC’s site (URL below) for a list of all the various handsets they make (and not all of them are Windows Mobile — you might notice they also make the Android based G1).
I purchased the Touch Pro because it has both a touch screen and a keyboard… it’s a little thicker than the Diamond Touch, but I’m just not willing to give up on the keyboard yet — but I wanted a touch screen to make browsing the web a little less tedious. And with Windows Mobile 6.1 you can internet connection sharing built in (so you can tether you notebook very easily without paying any additional fees).
One of the first things you’ll want to do (even if you’re not changing phone carries on the handset you get) is unlock your phone… primarily so that you can flash a custom ROM in that matches your own tastes (you can even customize many of the ROMs yourself).
Touch Flow 3D is wizzy and cool… and will amaze your friends, but let’s face it — isn’t battery life and functionality more important? And simplicity goes a long way in making the phone more practical for everyday use (after all, you’re probably going to use it as a phone most of the time… or not).
At the moment I’ve got Mighty ROM loaded in my handset; it’s fairly clean, fairly light-weight; and works… I’ll consider upgrading to a Mobile 6.5 versions once those are more stable, and I might consider customizing my own ROM to remove a lot of the apps I don’t every intend to use.
By-the-way, one of the things you may find you no longer need if you go to this phone is a GPS… you can run Google Maps on it, but that requires you have an active internet connection (and that doesn’t always happen in many places), I also loaded Garmin XT on my handset, so I basically have a Garmin GPS with access to Garmin Live (weather and gas prices, I think you can pay a monthly fee for traffic, but there’s no traffic in my area).
All I can say is it’s a GREAT phone, and a wonderful PDA… and my feeling is HTC has gone a long way towards providing us with a convergent device. Microsoft is rumored to be working on their own handset; let’s hope they’ve studies HTC and will leverage off their design.
The only negatives are battery life (always an issue with a PDA phone, but far less of an issue when you can Touchflow 3D), and radio quality (I suspect that has to do with the way they designed the radio — it’s certainly adequate when cell coverage is reasonable, but you might not get good reception in fringe areas).
Windows Component Clean Utility
When you install Windows V6 SP2 you will also get the Component Clean Utility (compcln.exe).
This utility will remove previous component versions from your computer, saving disk space and reducing the size of the installation catalog.
The caveat is that once you remove previous components you will not be able to go back to them.
Before running this utility it’s prudent to insure that you computer is stable after the last update and to create a backup (using something like Acronis or with the included tool that comes with Vista).
Performing simple maintenance tasks and reducing the amount of “fluff” on your disk (remember, the disk clean tool is a good thing to run occassionally as well — and even the included disk defragmenter will help after a great deal of use [though not as much as something like O&O Defrag]) will help keep your computer running well and running fast[er].
System Update Readiness Tool for Windows
If you have any issue installing Windows V6 SP2 or an update for Vista or Server 2008 you might want to download and run the System Update Readiness Tool from Microsoft.
You can read about it and download it via the link below.
Windows 6 Service Pack 2
It’s out… it’s been in BETA for quite some time.
Just so you’re clear; Windows 6 covers all the Vista family and the Server 2008 family, and there’s an installer for 32-bit and one for 64-bit; there’s also a DVD image that you can install either from.
You can find a number of articles on the web telling you all about what was originally supposed to be in SP2, and what ended up in it… other than Bluetooth 2.1 and Blu-Ray support there isn’t that much that caught my eye as for “features”.
The big thing you will notice is that this makes Vista noticably faster… and includes the compcln.exe tool that allows you to remove previous component versions (saving disk space — of course once you do so, you cannot go back to previous versions… but if your machine is stable after SP2 you probably wouldn’t want to).
You must have SP1 installed first (Server 2008 comes with SP1 “pre-installed”).
You can access the Microsoft TechNet article via the link below and download the file(s) you desire. At the moment SP2 is not included in automatic updates, but it will likely be pushed out soon.
