No more direct links to this blog

I admit, the thrill of blogging has been snuffed by Twitter and even Buzz. Therefore all my public profiles will no longer have direct links to this blog, they'll be a couple of layers down. (For example, my Google Profile only has my Blogger Profile page, not the direct link to the blog)

I might post occasional editorials if something happens to get me to write a lot more than 140 characters and that wouldn't fit on Buzz. Vimeo videos from me will also appear here as they get posted.

My Ustream channels are still up and running, scroll down a couple of posts to find the embed players for the streams I do.

This is not the end of my blog, it's just it'll be way less active now.

Anyways, see you all on Buzz and Twitter. (and Steam too, if you game)

So what happened to my Computer...

If you've been following my Twitter for the past 2 weeks, you witnessed the quest for Genuine Windows take a nosedive then come right back up.

Here's how it all started...

Paul Thurrott repeated a blog post on the Genuine Windows Blog about the "Windows Activation Technologies Update" or "WATU" on his podcast on the TWiT Network called "Windows Weekly". When I got my 32bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, I never found out how it got installed. It was a "courtesy" repair job from a major retailer here in Canada and it was half the price of getting Win 7 OEM just to get 1 hard drive with it pre-loaded.

Not knowing how the operating system got installed is a real pain because you never really know if the repair was done with non-genuine techniques or genuine from a disc.

Well, Tuesday the 16th came and I installed WATU. Went into the Task Scheduler and let it run once. Rebooted, and it was indeed non-genuine. I have been ripped off.

Looking back, I noticed 2 things that might have tipped off the OS was not genuine:

1. The "Change Product Key" link was not present on the "View basic system info" page (the one where you have to right-click "Computer" in the Start Menu and go to Properties)

2. The Recovery Disc I burnt had the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD" text in German, not English.

What did I have to do? Buy Windows... offline. But first, I wiped the drive using my Recovery Disc and the DISKPART command. (I should have done an HDDErase, but didn't and I think my SSD speeds are a little slower than normal due to that.)

I decided I finally needed 64bit Windows, so on Wednesday I got an OEM Genuine DVD (with Holograms and a Certificate of Authenticity (COA)) from one of Canada's big DIY Builder retailers, NCIX. Installed it and restored all programs and backups and only around yesterday did I get everything back to normal.

It only cost me $220CAD to get this copy, compared to the kit online that costs $30-$40 more.

No worries now... And I'm not installing WATU on this new clean install since I know I installed it.

X25-V Review, once again in PC Perspective style

Intel X25-V Review - (unofficially) PC Perspective from Jack Zhang on Vimeo.

I'm hoping for your job, Ken Addison (PC Per Intern Video Editor)... If Jeremy can work from Canada, with Dropbox, I could edit from Canada too...

My ISP peers with BitGravity

So, I did a tracert on BitGravity and discovered that my ISP is now peering with BitGravity. This is pretty good as TWiT Live is now no longer hiccuping due to this peering, which is amazing!

However, this does NOT solve persistent problems with streaming for (not even long) periods of time. Re-visiting my NASA TV feeds, it still disconnects after 5, 10, 20, 90 minutes. It used to be that I could stream 23 hours non-stop NASA TV, that's no longer true even with peering.

And this just takes the cake and slams it on the ground: Watching the STS-130 launch, the stream cut out in the middle of everything TWICE. Listen, NASA, move to BitGravity live streaming and I'll be much happier since my ISP peers with them. Having the stream drop out in THE MIDDLE OF A FREAKING LAUNCH is completely unacceptable. My internet's never done that till today...

I'd really like peering to sites like Ustream, Justin.tv, and many more live streaming sites. Even peering with Steam would dramatically increase speeds due to lower latency.

Off-topic: I found it so uneasy that NONE of the major news networks other than BBC world news covered the shuttle launch live, since most (if not, all) were running videotapes for the night.

Finally... 1080p for Vimeo. But...

Another Hiatus lift...

So Vimeo rolls out 1080p trials right now, but at the moment, it's for Plus members only...

This leaves people like me, with a free account, in the cold once again.

First, they scrapped original file download for non-Plus users and now 1080p is ONLY for Plus users...

Here's what I think: Roll out 1080p site-wide for all users but have a compromise...

Plus users would get the best possible encoding settings: 1080p at 6mbps with 2-pass encoding and maybe even VBR.

Basic users would get a toned down 1080p encode: 3mbps with only 1-pass CBR.

Not only that, they should get rid of the VP6 encoding for talking head videos and stick to H.264 for all videos that Basic members upload.

Listen up, not everyone has a credit card... Leaving people out like this is obviously not beneficial. The free service is now so crippled, it's 720p HD is actually worse than YT. (and even worse for talking head 720p videos)