Netzero, Windows Vista

If you use Netzero for your dial up internet connection and plan on upgrading to Windows Vista you may want to postpone the upgrade for a bit. As I talked about in my last post, upgrading to Windows Vista is causing all sorts of incompatibility problems. Apparently the Norton AntiVirus and Internet Security products are not compatible with Vista. The makers of Norton AntiVirus and Internet Security will be providing NetZero an updated version in the coming weeks, so if you do upgrade, send Netzero an email to request a CD with the updated security software.
I think I'm going to wait until at least the spring before I order my new laptop.
BTW, check out this blog for more Windows Vista woes.

Windows Vista

I was thinking of buying myself a laptop when I receive my tax refund. Maybe I should have bought one before Windows Vista came out though. A recent review I read reports many problems with Vista. Apparently "upgrades can be a pain, games might not play properly, a financial software, Quickbooks, for businesses can fail, MP3 players might not work & even software architects use, CAD, may slow to a crawl". Hmmm, well that's not good.
Apparently Korea's banking system has already suffered sporadic computer failures. Vista's security restrictions are causing the gaming problems.
Microsoft took out an option allowing easy upgrades from one version of Windows to a newer version. Apparently now in order to upgrade to Vista, you need an old version installed first. So if your hard drive with XP crashes you can't just upgrade to Vista while you're fixing everything. First you have to reinstall XP & then upgrade to Vista. That's a pain in the butt.
Well, here's a link to a Vista guide if you do decide to upgrade. I may wait until the spring before buying my laptop. Maybe most of Vista's problems will be fixed by then. One can hope anyways.

Windows Vista, Applet, Toast.net, Wiflyer

Now available for prelaunch at Amazon is Windows Vista and its full line of Office 2007 products which will be launching on January 30. I'm planning on buying myself a laptop and debated whether I should get one now with XP installed or wait and get one with Vista installed. If I got one now, I could get a free upgrade to Vista, but installing an operating system scares me, so I'm waiting until Vista comes out. I'm interested in seeing what it's like. Security features should be better and menus for the office products will be completely different. Not sure what else, but should be interesting to see reviews.

So my svg, batik project, I built an applet on a laptop running java 1.4.2_09. Bring it over to my desktop running java 1.5.0_09 and it won't init. In the jsp which calls the applet, I was using ./ before the codebase path and archive jar file paths. Once I removed all instances of ./, the applet ran beautifully under java 1.5.0_09. Strange.

By the way, the wiflyer is still awesome. I haven't been able to connect at a speed greater than 26400 bps though. Still have other settings to try though. You can buy the wiflyer here or at Amazon.

Has anyone tried the dial up isp toast.net? Speed tests at cnet list it as being the fastest dial up isp. Reviews are good and it has a lot of access numbers in my area. Cheaper than netzero too. One drawback though is the terms say plans are not meant for always on access. Connections idle for 30 minutes or lasting more than 4 hours will be dropped. Yet the plans include unlimited access. Doesn't sound very unlimited to me if you can't leave your connection on as long as you want to, which is what I do. Guess this isn't the best isp for me. I don't know if toast.net is compatible with the wiflyer either.