Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Vista drivers for the Toshiba M200 Tablet

  Finally! Corey found m200 drivers for Vista that were released on 3/20/2007 on the Swiss support site. The page is not English, but as Corey said it's pretty easy to figure out. (The drivers themselves have english versions). That said, here are the direct links: Bluetooth Monitor Config Free Display Driver Management Console SD Utilities Sound Driver Tablet Access Code Logon Utility Tablet PC Extension Package Touch Pad Driver Value Added Package I installed the other day and so far everything is great (i.e., as it was on Windows XP). Full 32-bit at 1400x1050 with (automatic) screen rotation, sleep/hibernate work properly, and the Tablet PC buttons work again. I have to admit, I was worried we really would never get these - after all, Toshiba doesn't always have the best track record for supporting products it doesn't care about anymore . Still, it would anger me more that they had them and chose to withhold them than not spending the resources to port them in the first place. Posted Mar 28 2007, 02:38 PM by Tim with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Tablet PC, Vista, Microsoft

• Disabling UrgeMS.exe

  I noticed my machine running slower lately, and UrgeMS.exe (URGE Media Scanner) was thrashing the disk and running up to 50% CPU. Obviously, this is part of MTV's URGE music store, the default store for Windows Media Player 11. It appears that the process is related to the "Auto-Mix" feature, which I don't use enough to justify the serious performance impact. I have a fairly large music collection, but it doesn't seem to ever let up. One forum post suggests disabling this via Local Security Policy. Great idea! My system definitely runs better now. Hopefully this is something they address in the future... Update As John mentioned in the comments, you can also prevent this from running by setting "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MTV Networks\Urge\Scanner\Enabled" to 0. If you don't want to mess around with the registry, simply download the attached registry key and double-click on it. Update #2 This fix no longer works. You can replace the UrgeMS.exe with an "empty" executable though. Posted Feb 05 2007, 07:46 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Music, Vista, Microsoft, Audio

• Installing self-signed Certificates in Vista

  This post tells you how to install the key. According to Eric Lawrence, the program manager for IE Networking, " unlike on XP, you must click the 'Place all certificates in the following store' radio button, and choose the “Trusted Root Certification Authorities” store. If you don’t do this, the certificate goes in your personal store, and it isn’t trusted by IE." This is cumbersome, he goes on to explain, but is there for a good reason: "Self-signed certificates are quite dangerous, because unless you manually compare the thumbprint/hash via secure or out-of-band communication, you have no assurance that your connection isn't being man-in-the-middle attacked." In my case, I'm less concerned about a man-in-the-middle attack than connecting to my Exchange server. What's most frustrating for me right now is that Vista seems to randomly "lose" the certificate. That is, after some time, I stop connecting again as if the certificate was never installed, and sure enough when I check the certificate... Posted Jan 18 2007, 04:40 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Things that bother me, Vista, Microsoft

• Windows SideShow in a bag

  This is very, very cool, and I want one now . Imagine, as Kevin puts it, seeing e-mails, contact info or RSS feeds without removing your device from the bag. Simply awesome. The only thing that concerns me is that the Eleksen Wearable Display Module will apparently "offer a gigabyte of memory". Personally, I would rather something that communicated over WiFi and/or Bluetooth with Vista's Away Mode . Posted Jan 17 2007, 09:18 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Productivity, Tablet PC, Vista, Microsoft

• Why is Microsoft charging for Office 2007 Beta downloads?

  A lot of people are up in arms about Microsoft's decision to charge for new Office 2007 beta downloads . Existing beta testers can download the upcoming refresh for free; this is simply for new users. Since the end of May, Beta 2 has been downloaded more than 3 million times...That's 500 percent more than what was expected," the representative said. "The fee helps offset the cost of downloading from the servers." Marc suggests (ever so slightly) that maybe it's just a ruse to get more people to download it . Others have questioned why, if bandwidth cost was the real driver behind this decision, Microsoft didn't turn to BitTorrent or other P2P solutions. (RedSwoosh, who I wrote about last month, did in fact swoosh the link - but the C&D is inevitable). Personally, I agree with Leo's assessment in the latest TWiT podcast : this isn't about bandwidth, this is about controlling the beta. That is, they don't want to make the beta private or otherwise... Posted Aug 02 2006, 11:18 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Rants, Vista, Microsoft

• Is Vista ready? Maybe, but I still have 2 big issues

  Scoble agrees that Vista isn't ready yet . I'm still undecided. I'm not running the absolute latest (hopefully this weekend) on my tablet, though I definitely agree with Alex that recent builds are a vast improvement , even from Beta 2. His big complaint is driver support, and I'm not sure that means the operating system is not ready. Sean demonstrates just one example of what people might actually get excited about. The Tablet experience, especially when combined with Office 2007, is drastically improved. I've finally found software to mount ISOs within Vista . The performance is acceptable on my M200 (1.8ghz Centrino, 1.5GB RAM). There are two minor but very annoying bugs I'm dealing with now: I can't connect to my EVDO connection after coming out of hibernation. Vista occasionally "loses" my self-signed certificate on my home server, which prevents Outlook RPC over HTTPS from working until I go back and reinstall the certificate (which requires administrative... Posted Aug 02 2006, 09:09 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Gadgets, Tablet PC, Vista, Microsoft