Trevin Chow: Vista

Instacalc Vista Sidebar gadget

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:33:43 GMT

I just noticed that the guy behind InstaCalc recently released a Vista
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Vista speech recognition

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:18:45 GMT

Prior to seeing this video, I thought Vista speech recognition was pretty good. Admittedly I didn’t use it for very long, but this user apparantly tried creating a perl sc

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ReadyBoost on a Sony Vaio SZ notebook

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:14:24 GMT

Recently, I was researching trying to find the best option for adding flash memory to my Sony VAIO VGN-SZ381p notebook to take advantage of the Vista ReadyBoost feature.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any good information on which flash memory options were best for the Sony SZ. With flash memory being so cheap these days, it’s conceivable to get a 2GB USB or SD card for ~$40 and ideally leave it in my notebook fulltime.

According to the ReadyBoost information, you need flash memory that has at least 2.5 MB/sec for 4kb random reads and 1.75 MB/sec for 512kb random writes.

The Sony SZ series notebook have a few different options for connection flash memory.

First it has the conventional USB 2.0 ports so you can use simple USB keys. I don’t like this option since all USB keys would potrude from my laptop forcing me to remove it every time I shut it it down.

Second connection option is through the ExpressCard slot through a 5-in-1 memory card adaptor which supports Memory stick, Memory stick Pro, SD, xD and MMC.

The third option is through a dedicated Memory Stick DUO port on the left side of the notebook.

To do my tests, I used the built in Vista tool winsat which can be run from the command-line as follows:

Read speed:

winsat disk –read –ran –ransize 4096 –drive <drive_letter>

Write speed:

winsat disk –write –ran –ransize 524288 –drive <drive

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How to get Vista working on your Sony SZ

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 21:37:32 GMT

Even though I got Vista to work with my Sony SZ notebook (VGN-SZ381p), my machine has still unstable due to the beta drivers I was using.

Thankfully, Sony finally released non-beta versions of all their utilities and drivers. Since some of the Sony utilities depend on others to be install beforehand, the install order is critical. I just wish sony would include a setup wrapper to do the installation in the correct order.

But since we don’t have that list, I thought it was worth giving the installation order that worked for me and direct links to all the installers.

Vista drivers and utilities Sony Vaio SZ available

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:03:59 GMT

Hallelujah! I just noticed that Sony released their driver and utility updates for Windows Vista.

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Vista error: "The specified print monitor is unknown"

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 17:15:52 GMT

Yesterday, I tried mapping 2 new network printers at work on my Sony VGN-SZ381P Notebook running Windows Vista RTM. When it connected to the printers, it attempted to install new print drivers but failed with the error message “Th

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Update on Vista and Sony SZ Series laptop

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:48:14 GMT

My Sony VGN-SZ381p on Vista is still trucking along happily. Today, I man

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