The 32-bit or 64-bit DVD image can be downloaded by going to the following URL:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx

It might be a worthwhile download if you are curious if your existing applications will run on the new operating system. The basic hardware requirements are a 1 GHz or faster CPU, 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of disk space. As noted on the Microsoft TechNet web site, Windows 7 Enterprise will not be available through retail channels.

The download process went smooth, but the trouble started after iTunes began to prepare the iPhone for the software update. It failed… twice. Error 1604. I was directed to the following page each time:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1275

I restarted my computer to no avail. My iPhone was staring at me with a black face, and the backlight was going strong. I was slightly worried, but I remembered going through my iTunes folders a few days before. I navigated to the directory containing my iPhone 2.2.1 restore file and double-clicked on it. It started the restore process. A half-hour later, my iPhone was restored to factory settings and was re-activated. iTunes prompted me to download new carrier settings from my iPhone carrier (Rogers) and asked me if I wanted to restore from backup. Next, I was prompted to restore from a recent iPhone backup and was good to go. However, the software restore didn’t go as planned…

I noticed a new Voice Memos icon on the iPhone. Right then, I knew it was running 3.0 instead of 2.2.1. I was a little puzzled. Even though I double-clicked on the 2.2.1 restore file, iTunes decided to use the 3.0 software (in the same folder) for the restore. Hey, I’m not complaining. It worked perfectly, and all my contacts and applications are available for use.

I had run a Seagate Cheetah before (and a Quantum Atlas before that), but I didn’t like having thick cables and extra expansion boards in my computer case. I had also run two 74 GB Raptor’s in RAID 0 (backed up to a NAS device, of course). Cables. Cable terminators. Expansion boards. More heat issues to worry about. In the end, it came down to reliability and speed, and I needed both… (and before you state SSD’s, I think I’ll pass until I see some long-term numbers).

The first thing I noticed about the VelociRaptor was that it was QUIET. Really quiet. As quiet as my WD Blue and Black Caviar’s. It runs cooler and appears to draw less power as well (and no, you can’t run it in a notebook).

How does it perform? I decided to find out.

I used the same test configuration as my previous WD Blue/Black test to maintain some consistency.

The numbers speak for themselves

Download it here.

This Release Candidate debuts Windows XP emulation mode, which something I’ve been looking forward to. Users can now install legacy Windows XP applications inside a Windows XP virtual machine. I, for one, don’t foresee myself upgrading from Windows XP unless my current business applications work correctly with Windows 7. Likewise, plenty of businesses I’ve talked to plan on using Windows XP until it’s no longer supported (sometime in 2014).

New features in this build include faster installation, more themes, new drivers and an updated build of Internet Explorer 8.

Microsoft claims the release date should be sometime in January 2010. However, many PC manufacturers will be installing it on new PC’s before the holiday rush.

Update (06/03/09):

The official release date is supposedly October 22, 2009.

This is what you need to do:

1. Select the Settings icon on the Home screen, then select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
2. Select Add Account.
3. Select Other.
4. Enter your name, e-mail address and password. Select Save.
5. Select POP.
6. Enter your incoming mail server: mail.yourdomain.com
7. Username: your username @ yourdomain.com
8. Password: should be set already.
9. Enter your outgoing mail server: mail.yourdomain.com
10. Select Save.
11. Select Yes when the ‘Cannot Connect Using SSL’ message appears.
12. If presented with a SMTP certifcate warning, select Continue.
13. Select the Mail icon on the Home screen.
14. Select e-mail account to retrieve e-mail messages from your account.

Can’t send e-mail with Rogers?

First make sure the following settings are set:
1. Follow step 1 above and select your account.
2. Scroll down to Advanced.
3. Under Incoming Settings, set Use SSL to Off.
4. Set Server Port to 110.

You can also try using port 587 with Plesk, provided the Plesk configuration is set up to allow that port. I think it’s under the Server-wide Mail Preferences and is called “Enable message submission”.

Still doesn’t work?

1. Follow step 1 above and select your account.
2. Scroll down to Outgoing Mail Server.
3. Select SMTP.
4. Under Primary Server, select your domain account.
5. Set Server to Off. Go back.
6. Under Other SMTP Servers, select Rogers SMTP server.
7. Set Server to On. You should be able to send now.

For Step 6, you can also select smtp.gmail.com provided you have a Gmail account set up already.

That’s it

Does the WD Caviar Black really live up to the hype? I hate to say this, but no. It actually performed slower than my older WD 640 GB AAKS with a single processor and 16 MB cache!

Don’t believe me? Take a look below!

Test configuration: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3 GHz, 4 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800, Gigabyte P35-DS3L (F8b), Seasonic S12 600W power supply and of course, APC RS 1200VA regulated power. Operating system: Windows XP Professional w/ SP3. Both drives were imaged using Ghost 2003 and defragmented using PerfectDisk 2008 Professional. Software: HD Tune 2.55. Hard drive 1: WDC WD6400AAKS-00A7B and hard drive 2: WDC WD6401AALS-00L3B. AAM was confirmed as disabled on both drives using Hitachi’s Drive Fitness Test.

Each benchmark was run four times. Time for the benchmarks:

As you can see, the Caviar Black 640 GB doesn’t perform all that better than the Caviar Blue (SE16) 640 GB.

I was initially wary of purchasing the iPhone due to the exorbitant data fees being charged, but I managed to get a 6 GB promotional data plan for $30/month from Rogers Wireless. I’m currently using 2.5% (or 150 MB) of my monthly data quota. As you can see, I overestimated my data usage by a long shot . Going to a cheaper data plan doesn’t make sense, as it only gives me 250 MB for $5 less now. In fact, Rogers recently stated that 90% of their data customers use less than 500 MB per month. As most of my data plan is going to waste, I wish I could share my data plan with my family, but Rogers doesn’t offer such an option at this time.

What’s there to like about the Apple iPhone 3G? The touch interface. The sleek form factor. WiFi connectivity. The ability to select and install hundreds of applications. Easy firmware upgrades.

There’s also a few negatives: occassional dropped calls, dismal battery life at times (improved with 2.1 firmware), random reboots (had one today!), non user replaceable battery and a few other gripes.

So, what do I use my iPhone for? In no particular order: email, financial market quotes, social networking, finding things and managing Linux servers.

A list of my favorite iPhone applications follows:
Bloomberg — offers updated financial market quotes, including commodities and currencies.
Facebook — iPhone interface for the popular social networking site.
Movies — view movie listings for theatres in your area; view trailers and showtimes.
UrbanSpoon — Use this to find a restaurant near you. Needs more cities added.
Locly — find nearby establishments and local events.
fring — connect with your IM buddies and make VOIP calls over Skype.
eBay — track and manage your eBay auctions. Search for items.
iSSH — manages SSH connections to my servers for remote diagnosis. $2.99.
Palringo — similar to fring, but no Skype support. I like the MSN interface they use.
Shazam — hear a tune you like on the radio? This app tells you the name and artist.
Units — great for unit conversion and limited currency conversion.
AirSharing — transfer files to your iPhone over WiFi. Share files with your buddies.

Leave a comment with your favorite iPhone apps.

Since the fix isn’t published online, I’ll post my fix here.

I noticed quite a few posts mentioned the cURL ‘-k’ or ‘–insecure’ flag, which does not verify the SSL certificate (eg. if a self-signed certificate is being used). If you can’t verify a SSL certificate, then its authenticity is questionable. The ‘-k’ flag does NOT send communications in clear-text, as I previously noted (sorry!). That’s not something I approve of, nor something I would recommend to a friend or client.

So, what to do? First of all, I determined the path to the cURL CA bundle on the system.

grep -ir “curl” /etc
/etc/init.d/psa:CURL_CA_BUNDLE_FILE=/usr/share/curl/curl-ca-bundle.crt
…

From the output above, we determine that Plesk is looking for the cURL CA bundle in /usr/share/curl/ and that the filename should be curl-ca-bundle.crt.

Next, we need to download cacert.pem from http://curl.haxx.se/docs/caextract.html. I recommend using wget to download it to your server directly. You will need to rename the file to curl-ca-bundle.crt once it’s downloaded.

Copy curl-ca-bundle.crt to /usr/share/curl. If you get an error stating the path doesn’t exist, then you will need to create it using mkdir -p /usr/share/curl. Once the path exists, copy the file to the new path: cp curl-ca-bundle.crt /usr/share/curl.

This is where it gets tricky. Open curl-ca-bundle.crt in vim or your favorite editor and search for “Equifax Secure Global eBusiness CA”. Copy everything in the block, including that text and including END CERTIFICATE. We need to copy that block to one more file (search for ca-bundle.crt on your system): /usr/share/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt. Append the block to the bottom of the file. Remember to press ENTER after the last line. Of course, remember to ask your payment processor who their SSL vendor is and use the correct block.

Next, simply restart the Apache process: service httpd restart

That’s it. You should now be able to process transactions using cURL and SSL.

Since several people have already asked me, you can download it by clicking here (32-bit version). It weighs in at about 316 MB, so it may take awhile to download depending on your Internet connection.

Some users have complained about various issues installing SP3, ranging from random crashes to endless reboots. However, none of the seven systems (all Windows XP Pro) I updated had any issues. Well, one did. I decided to install SP3 on a co-worker’s laptop over an UNC share and the installer didn’t like that too much. Once I copied it to the desktop, the installation went smoothly. At home, I installed SP3 on a couple of systems over a network connection without any issues.

A Microsoft PDF summarizes all of the changes in SP3: click here to view it. I believe this service pack includes 1224 bug fixes (cumulative since first release).

I’ve been running SP3 for a few days now and it seems stable. Of course, if it doesn’t work out, you can always uninstall it

I’ve been waiting weeks for my reseller to receive stock on the CPU. I kicked myself for not purchasing it earlier from another reseller, as it fell to a low of $199, and recently the price surged to $260 due to a shortage of the CPU’s. I managed to acquire it for $222, which was a price I was willing to pay.

The Core 2 Duo E8400 is one of Intel’s first 45 nm CPU’s. Intel’s 45 nm CPU’s consume less power and run cooler than their 65 nm (Conroe) counterparts. They are also very overclockable. The CPU (stock) is currently running at 24C, which is significantly cooler than my E6400 at 40C.

I ran wPrime v1.61 to compare the computing power of both CPU’s. wPrime is a multithreaded benchmark that calculates the square-roots of large amounts of numbers — 32 million in this case. For this benchmark, I used Gigabyte’s P35-DS3L v2.0 motherboard (BIOS revision: F8b).

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00 GHz): 32M test completed in 26.952 seconds.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13 GHz): 32M test completed in 41.297 seconds.

I realize it’s not a fair clock-for-clock comparison, but it shows the sheer computing power of each CPU. Simple math shows us that the E8400 should be approximately 29% faster than the E6400. The E8400 beat the E6400 by a significant margin (as expected), 34.7%, using a combination of higher clock speed, a faster FSB (1333 MHz vs 1066 MHz) and more L2 cache (6 MB vs 2 MB).

Given the price point of the new Intel 45 nm CPU’s (T8xxx/T9xxx), I recommend waiting out and purchasing them over the current Conroe / 65 nm CPU’s (T5xxx/T7xxx).