In the east of Sydney I've had one blackout in 30 years. Maybe you could
apply to immigrate here?

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE441B1B76ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=blue]
> Today, Lang Murphy made these interesting comments ...
>[color=green]
>> Why would he not want to schedule a defrag and backup
>> overnight? Easy... Can you say "paranoid malcontent?"
>>[/color]
> I'll reply just for myself: I do not schedule ANYTHING at night,
> even though I have an APC UPS for battery backup. The battery is
> only good for about 20 mintutes, then it will attempt to shut the
> PC down gently. In my city, we have several, sometimes many, very
> short hits during the day or at night. Some are very short duration
> brownouts and the others are very short duration blackouts. Usually
> the power is off only 100-200 ms, just enough to blink the lights
> and make the APC boxes on my 2 PC beep a warning. But,
> occasionally, we will get 5, 10, 20, minute total blackouts and
> very occasionally 1,2 6 hour jobs. I partially lost a partition
> doing a defrag during one of the longer ones before I had UPS and
> lost my entire C:\ partition from a mutli-hour blackout that it was
> very difficult to even get the XP install CD to FDISK and format
> the drive.
>
> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.
>
> Now as to monitoring or not. One builds judgement not only from
> doing things right, but from learning from things done wrong. In
> fact, GOOD judgement cannot be formed without making some mistakes,
> but learning from them. So, those of us who are paranoid to a
> lessor or greater degree have had their fingers burned in the past
> and didn't like it. To them who've been successful, I congratulate
> you, and to each his/her own! <grin>
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry[/color]

Today, made these interesting comments ...
[color=blue]
> In the east of Sydney I've had one blackout in 30 years. Maybe
> you could apply to immigrate here?[/color]

It's a little far for me, mate! Was born and raised here, worked
here, retired here. Troy, MI, where I live has almost 100%
underground powerlines and is served by the better of the two
electrical utilities in SE Michigan, yet the number of power hits
is far, far larger than when I lived in the same county with the
same utility. Go figure! But, thanks to some good luck and the
smarts to buy those UPS boxes, not had a problem since.

BTW, in 2003, a dummy at a major power distribution center
somewhere in NW New York incorrectly interpreted what his gauges
were telling him, let some major grids stay on but turned others
off, and within minutes, had created a cascading HUGE blackout from
SE Michigan to southern Ontario, Canada, to all of New York, and
much of the western part of New England. And, the power was 100%
off for the better part of a day-and-a-half! Our house is on high
ground so my basement didn't flood when the sump pump quit, but
lots of my neighbors did have a mess. Everyone lost food, including
the supermarkets, and there was very little choice as to where to
eat, because no one had power during the blackout, and when the
powerr slowly came back on, they had to restock their food. I
didn't starve, there were just enough restaurants around if I drove
a bit.

--
HP, aka Jerry

The whole world knows about the USA/Cousins blackout. We tut tut about it.
We have above ground power lines and in the west of Sydney I would not be so
smug (bushfires and lightning strikes). But in the east one blackout in 30
years (that's where I've lived at any time). A big mains burnt out somewhere
three years ago. Took 2 hours to fix.

Our healthcare system is something you'd kill to belong too.

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE4F5C9E57EReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=blue]
> Today, made these interesting comments ...
>[color=green]
>> In the east of Sydney I've had one blackout in 30 years. Maybe
>> you could apply to immigrate here?[/color]
>
> It's a little far for me, mate! Was born and raised here, worked
> here, retired here. Troy, MI, where I live has almost 100%
> underground powerlines and is served by the better of the two
> electrical utilities in SE Michigan, yet the number of power hits
> is far, far larger than when I lived in the same county with the
> same utility. Go figure! But, thanks to some good luck and the
> smarts to buy those UPS boxes, not had a problem since.
>
> BTW, in 2003, a dummy at a major power distribution center
> somewhere in NW New York incorrectly interpreted what his gauges
> were telling him, let some major grids stay on but turned others
> off, and within minutes, had created a cascading HUGE blackout from
> SE Michigan to southern Ontario, Canada, to all of New York, and
> much of the western part of New England. And, the power was 100%
> off for the better part of a day-and-a-half! Our house is on high
> ground so my basement didn't flood when the sump pump quit, but
> lots of my neighbors did have a mess. Everyone lost food, including
> the supermarkets, and there was very little choice as to where to
> eat, because no one had power during the blackout, and when the
> powerr slowly came back on, they had to restock their food. I
> didn't starve, there were just enough restaurants around if I drove
> a bit.
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry[/color]

"Justin" <None@None.com> wrote in message
news:%23j3$72dYHHA.448@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> Hum...it took MS 5+ years to chisel out a new wheel. What's going to
> happen when they try to make a whole new wheel?[/color]

Mu guess is they'll just do what they always do.
Add more patches & service packs on top of the old OS, make a bunch of
unneeded changes to the UI like renanimg and relocating everything to fool
the fanboys, toss in some more eyecandy then release it and call it a new OS
....again.
And once again guys like you will just lap it up.

New wheel? pfffft a shiny new hubcap maybe
Same as it ever was...


[color=blue]
>
>
> <.> wrote in message news:uwB4m4cYHHA.2320@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...[color=green]
>> Most companies that start again from scratch go broke.
>>
>> Perhaps Microsoft will build new technologies into Vienna like they built
>> virtualisation and search into Vista - hold on, they were in 2000 and XP
>> too.
>>
>> So look at features you already have then get ready to upgrade so you
>> will use them. Because the evidence is if MS doesn't say it's a feature
>> noone will use it.
>>
>> "D. Spencer Hines" <poguemidden********.com> wrote in message
>> news:evFmdxcYHHA.3772@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...[color=darkred]
>>> Microsoft Vienna may well be worth the wait, if it is indeed as radical
>>> a
>>> redesign as this indicates:
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Windows Vienna - opening a new generation of operating systems
>>>
>>> September 7, 2006
>>>
>>> In the past 20 years, the Microsoft Windows operating system has
>>> accumulated
>>> old code libraries that brought it to the size it has today, 2.5 GB and
>>> about 50 million lines of code (Windows Vista).
>>>
>>> These old code libraries consume resources and are often the targets of
>>> security exploits.
>>>
>>> The best way to avoid such problems, is to start from scratch, which is
>>> close to what Microsoft plans to do with Windows Vienna.
>>>
>>> Windows Vienna will represent the start of a different generation of
>>> operating systems, bringing in new concepts and support for new types of
>>> hardware, along with a better security and a modular approach, which
>>> will
>>> allow future versions of Windows to be built more easily on Windows
>>> Vienna's
>>> engine.
>>>
>>> It is also likely that the future success of Microsoft's products will
>>> be
>>> strongly decided by the success of the new generation operating system.
>>>
>>> <http://www.windowsvienna.com/>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> STARTING FROM SCRATCH...
>>>
>>> Sounds Quite Sensible...
>>>
>>> Waiting for Vienna, if one can, sounds increasingly attractive.
>>>
>>> XP Pro SP2 is a sweet OS.
>>>
>>> Vista may turn out to be as transient and inconsequential as
>>> Millennium -- IF we can have Vienna in 2009.
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> New, But Associated Subject:
>>>
>>> I agree with Jerry, "HEMI-Powered" [what's your moniker mean, Jerry?],
>>> that
>>> I will NEVER leave any of my machines alone at night -- or any other
>>> time --
>>> to do a DEFRAG or a DISK IMAGE or a WINDOWS or AV UPDATE -- all by
>>> ITSELF.
>>>
>>> So, this silly-buggers business of "scheduling a weekly backup/download
>>> at
>>> 3AM" is absurd.
>>>
>>> I also will never allow the cursed AUTOMATIC UPDATES on any of my
>>> machines -- even for my Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware programs and Windows
>>> Update -- which would love to put IE7 on all my machines if I let it --
>>> because MS insists IE7 is a "CRITICAL UPDATE".
>>>
>>> Baloney et Twaddle!
>>>
>>> DSH
>>>
>>> Lux et Veritas et Libertas
>>>[/color]
>>[/color][/color]

Today, Zim Babwe made this interesting comment: Chrysler and Vista - Both
American Junk......


"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE41CD341E3ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=blue]
> Today, Justin made these interesting comments ...
>[color=green]
>> "HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
>> news:Xns98EDB8B3834F7ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=darkred]
>>> I used to be All Things Mopar but changed last summer. It
>>> simply means I have a 2006 Dodge Charger R/T with the 5.7L
>>> HEMI in it, and have always loved the Chrysler hemispherical
>>> engines all the way back to the 1951 FirePower. No sinnister
>>> stuff, I promise![/color]
>>
>> What!?!?! You didn't buy Charger Ultimate? I mean...the
>> Charger SRT8?[/color]
>
> I leased my car in August, 2005, the SRT8 hadn't come out yet. At
> the time, as most of the time, Chrysler won't give employee
> discounts on any SRT vehicle, which makes the premium over $14K
> from my car. First, SRT8's just plain cost more, then, they are
> all pre-configured - read: loaded - then, there's the lack of a
> discount. Right this minute, all the SRT cars except Viper can be
> bought or leased with my discount. Chrysler Financial is bugging
> me to turn my car in early and is offering 3 payment waivers, but
> that only gets me to June, which'd be a $1300 ding, so I'm still
> thinking about it.
>
> Now, as to the car with an engine tested to the same SAE spec as
> the 1966 Street Hemi and dyno'd at 467 bph, I am still mulling it
> over for a replacement car. I may go back on the Chrysler company
> car program, but they keep dinking around with what I can order,
> which is why I left and went to a dealer 2 years ago. I would
> LOVE a second mid-life crisis car - my first was a 1993 Dodge
> Stealth R/T AWD 30.0 Twin-Turbo - but I have to wonder if $160/hp
> is worth it.
>
> Then, too, I need to "time" my next lease to allow for the 2009
> Challenger, due to launch in the summer of 2008. Chrysler NEVER
> lets its lessees get first-year cars, so that is hopeless. If I
> stay at the dealer, though, I wouldn't be able to pop for a
> Challenger R/T or SRT8 or the rumored 500hp version, so ...
>
> decisions, decisions, decisions!
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry[/color]

Jerry,

I guess those of us who don't experience a high level of power brownouts or
blackouts are lucky. I've got a UPS on one PC here... the one my wife
uses... but my other PC's are not protected by a UPS.

As a sidebar, I've been using Diskeeper 2007 (10) for a while now and it's
pretty cool. Has "new" technology called "Invisitasking" that replaces the
old "set it and forget it" stuff which could really bring a seat to its
knees if DK kicked off while one was using the PC. The new version is, to my
eyes, completely unintrusive; I have never detected a system lag due to the
DK service running.

And... my comment was not directed at you... you appear to be someone who
actually contributes assistance in this NG. Unlike the OP.

Lang


"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE441B1B76ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=blue]
> Today, Lang Murphy made these interesting comments ...
>[color=green]
>> Why would he not want to schedule a defrag and backup
>> overnight? Easy... Can you say "paranoid malcontent?"
>>[/color]
> I'll reply just for myself: I do not schedule ANYTHING at night,
> even though I have an APC UPS for battery backup. The battery is
> only good for about 20 mintutes, then it will attempt to shut the
> PC down gently. In my city, we have several, sometimes many, very
> short hits during the day or at night. Some are very short duration
> brownouts and the others are very short duration blackouts. Usually
> the power is off only 100-200 ms, just enough to blink the lights
> and make the APC boxes on my 2 PC beep a warning. But,
> occasionally, we will get 5, 10, 20, minute total blackouts and
> very occasionally 1,2 6 hour jobs. I partially lost a partition
> doing a defrag during one of the longer ones before I had UPS and
> lost my entire C:\ partition from a mutli-hour blackout that it was
> very difficult to even get the XP install CD to FDISK and format
> the drive.
>
> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.
>
> Now as to monitoring or not. One builds judgement not only from
> doing things right, but from learning from things done wrong. In
> fact, GOOD judgement cannot be formed without making some mistakes,
> but learning from them. So, those of us who are paranoid to a
> lessor or greater degree have had their fingers burned in the past
> and didn't like it. To them who've been successful, I congratulate
> you, and to each his/her own! <grin>
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry[/color]

I do see a marked performance bump.

DSH
---------------------------------------------------

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE42D6860E1ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...
[color=blue]
> Today, D. Spencer Hines made these interesting comments ...
>[color=green]
>> Defrag and Backup on the machine I'm currently using take all
>> of 30 minutes.
>>
>> I initiate, control and monitor those processes.
>>
>> I certainly don't sit there and watch the screen all the time.
>>[/color]
> I only defrag C:\, about every 4-6 weeks. It takes hours, I don't
> watch the grass grow, I do other things or watch TV. It ain't a
> biggie, I never see a performance bump, so I think it is both
> pointless and dangerous to schedule them often, especially
> unattended, but that's me, YMMV.
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry[/color]

Why is it called _Troy_ and what UPS boxes do you use?

Aloha,

DSH

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE4F5C9E57EReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...
[color=blue]
> Today, made these interesting comments ...
>[color=green]
>> In the east of Sydney I've had one blackout in 30 years. Maybe
>> you could apply to immigrate here?[/color]
>
> It's a little far for me, mate! Was born and raised here, worked
> here, retired here. Troy, MI, where I live has almost 100%
> underground powerlines and is served by the better of the two
> electrical utilities in SE Michigan, yet the number of power hits
> is far, far larger than when I lived in the same county with the
> same utility. Go figure! But, thanks to some good luck and the
> smarts to buy those UPS boxes, not had a problem since.
>
> BTW, in 2003, a dummy at a major power distribution center
> somewhere in NW New York incorrectly interpreted what his gauges
> were telling him, let some major grids stay on but turned others
> off, and within minutes, had created a cascading HUGE blackout from
> SE Michigan to southern Ontario, Canada, to all of New York, and
> much of the western part of New England. And, the power was 100%
> off for the better part of a day-and-a-half! Our house is on high
> ground so my basement didn't flood when the sump pump quit, but
> lots of my neighbors did have a mess. Everyone lost food, including
> the supermarkets, and there was very little choice as to where to
> eat, because no one had power during the blackout, and when the
> powerr slowly came back on, they had to restock their food. I
> didn't starve, there were just enough restaurants around if I drove
> a bit.
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry[/color]

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE4299DA03BReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=blue]
> I've done software and I know the car biz pretty well. Both are
> similar in this way: future "models" are ALWAYS under development
> in a staggered schedule depending on the make and model being
> updated or completely redone, meaning MS has many products, not
> just Windows, and it must keep its own product offerings in synch
> with anything that might partially or completely obsolete them. I
> would expect that the business decisions can get pretty dicey. But,
> back to the car biz, the trend is to stop completely redoing an
> entire vehicle line with all-new everything including drrive-train
> every 4-5 years because it is so expensive and quality suffers on
> every all-new launch - that's true for ALL car makers, BTW. So,
> most of the world's car makers are angling for what are being
> called decade platforms, meaning the basic stuff that is so
> expensive will be somewhat static and the cosmetics will change,
> along with feature and drivetrain upgrades as needed. I would
> speculate that MS is thinking along similar lines for its software.
> But, eventually, anyone making anything soft, firm, or hard HAS to
> start from a clean sheet of paper ...[/color]

The only problem I see with this analogy is that every vehicle I've been in
has a steering wheel, gas peddle, brake peddle, gear shift, common seating,
standard set of 4-6 tires..... I think you get the drift. They chisel out
new models, they don't reinvent the entire wheel. More times then not, they
even use the same old frame. With the exception of some new trucks hitting
the road soon (and now) have they made updates to the frame. However, even
when they do update the frame they TWEAK IT, make it better.

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE41CD341E3ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...[color=blue]
> Challenger R/T or SRT8 or the rumored 500hp version, so ...[/color]

Nice! Haven't heard about that. I can't imagine the gas mileage on that
one!

HEMI-Powered wrote:
[color=blue]
> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.[/color]


I'm with you entirely. I go even further than that. I won't even do a defrag
except immediately after doing a backup. Yes, I know that modern defrag
programs are much less sensitive to problems resulting from a sudden loss of
power, but I can't imagine that they can be totally immune to them.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Lang Murphy wrote:
[color=blue]
> I guess those of us who don't experience a high level of power
> brownouts or blackouts are lucky. I've got a UPS on one PC here...
> the one my wife uses... but my other PC's are not protected by a UPS.[/color]


Even without a high-level of power problems, why run any risk at all? A
decent UPS can be bought for only $60 US, or even less. My advice is that
everyone should use them all the time.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

HEMI, Ken:

I'm sorry that HEMI learned his lessons the hard way.

Backing up before making important changes to a hard disk and using a
UPS are second nature to most experienced users. And yet the newsgroups
are filled with posts from people who are unaware of these and other
precautions.

Somehow we as a user community need to be better at getting the word out
that a relative handful of simple steps consistently followed can spare
us from a lot of grief and frustration.

---
Leonard Grey
Since no one was buying 'Earl Grey'

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:[color=blue]
> HEMI-Powered wrote:
>[color=green]
>> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
>> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
>> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
>> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
>> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.[/color]
>
>
> I'm with you entirely. I go even further than that. I won't even do a defrag
> except immediately after doing a backup. Yes, I know that modern defrag
> programs are much less sensitive to problems resulting from a sudden loss of
> power, but I can't imagine that they can be totally immune to them.
>[/color]

That's a wise precaution.

Blake roots up an acorn.

Backup THEN Defrag...

Well Done.

DSH
-----------------------------------------------

"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:OIJoG%23nYHHA.1240@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
[color=blue]
> HEMI-Powered wrote:
>[color=green]
>> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
>> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
>> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
>> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
>> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.[/color]
>
>
> I'm with you entirely. I go even further than that. I won't even do a
> defrag except immediately after doing a backup. Yes, I know that modern
> defrag programs are much less sensitive to problems resulting from a
> sudden loss of power, but I can't imagine that they can be totally immune
> to them.[/color]

Which UPS do YOU use?

DSH
-----------------------------------------

"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:uTlrXBoYHHA.2448@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
[color=blue]
> Lang Murphy wrote:
>[color=green]
>> I guess those of us who don't experience a high level of power
>> brownouts or blackouts are lucky. I've got a UPS on one PC here...
>> the one my wife uses... but my other PC's are not protected by a UPS.[/color]
>
>
> Even without a high-level of power problems, why run any risk at all? A
> decent UPS can be bought for only $60 US, or even less. My advice is that
> everyone should use them all the time.[/color]