In my previous post, I promised to write more about my adventures trying to get my Lotusphere laptop to dual boot, or in this case actually triple boot.

First a short background:

• The laptop is an older one, with a 1.83 GHz Core Duo processor, 512 MB memory and 120 GB harddrive. It is not powerful enough to run VMware.
• I need Notes 7.0.3 installed (client, admin and designer), as that is the version used at work. I found that if I open Notes templates in Domino Designer 8.5, the program make some changes, like adding element (mostly related to Xpages). I don’t want to risk that my templates get messed up.
• I also want Notes 8.5.2 installed, as that is what my home setup runs. If I need to access my home server, or if I want to test something I learn at Lotusphere, I want that version.
• Since IBM in their infinite wisdom makes it very hard to run Notes 8 and any previous versions in the same installation, I decided to install XP Professional twice on the laptop, and boot between them.

Since I don’t store a large amount of data on the harddisk (and I am bringing a 500 GB external drive anyway for photos), I can as well install Ubuntu 10.10, just for fun. That way I also get GRUB installed (version 2 comes with Maverick Meerkat) automatically.

I wiped the content (and partitions) on the drive, and then happily installed Windows XP SP3 on a 40 GB partition. I installed all the drivers, as well as security updates and patches (101 patches weighing in at 250 MB in the first round, a handful more after reboot, for a total of about 300 MB of updates). Next I installed and configured all the software I wanted in both XP installations, including OpenOffice, Cam2PC (an excellent program I use to transfer and organize my digital pictures), IrfanView, Flickr uploader, Dropbox, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Writer, as well as a handful of other programs.

Next I used Clonezilla Live to clone the XP partition. I did not test anything yet, as I still did not have a way to easily switch between the operating systems. But the next step would take care of that. I popped in the CD containing Ubuntu 10.10 and installed it using the choice "parallel with existing operating system". Worked like a charm, I rebooted and had a nice menu Where I could choose between Ubuntu, Windows XP and Windows XP.

Of course, it would be nice to clean up the menu somewhat, and actually display some meaningful text for the two Windows installations, making it easier to select the right one, even after a beer or two at #ls11. :-) So I installed a piece of software in Ubuntu that let me edit the boot menu. I changed the labels and voila, it all looks great!

I selected the first Windows XP partition and installed Notes 8.5.2. I then rebooted and selected the other partition. But when Windows started, I already had the icons for Notes 8.5.2 on the desktop. I rebooted again, making sure I selected the correct (7.0.3) installation. Same result. What I eventually figured out is that I have to hide the first partition, then make the second one unhidden and set the boot flag. So, how do I do that?

After a few hours of searching the web, I found some info. I have to build a custom menu, and using parttool I can then make partitions hidden/unhidden and bootable:

menuentry "WinXP with Notes 7.0.2 (on sda1)" {
insmod ntfs
parttool (hd0,2) hidden+
parttool (hd0,1) hidden-
parttool (hd0,2) boot-
parttool (hd0,1) boot+
set root='(hd0,1)’
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}

menuentry "WinXP with Notes 8.5.2 (on sda2)" {
insmod ntfs
parttool (hd0,1) hidden+
parttool (hd0,2) hidden-
parttool (hd0,1) boot-
parttool (hd0,2) boot+
set root='(hd0,2)’
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}

Now I just had to find where to put it. Well, GRUB2 is slightly more complicated than the original GRUB bootloader. The configuartion is now stored in the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg and is not intended to be edited. It will be overwritten occasionally anyway. What one have to do is to go to the directory /etc/grub.d/ and edit the files there. I ended up editing the file 40_custom and adding the code above. Finally I had it working as I wanted. I could now boot on the second Windows XP partition and install Notes 7.0.3.

This again shows how powerful Linux can be, but that you need a lot of knowledge if you want to do something outside the limited GUI options you have. In my opinion, Windows still let you change more settings, and they are located more logical.
Linux is shooting at a moving target (it was Windows XP, then Vista and now Windows 7). And as we all know, in most cases engineers makes for bad UI/UX designers… Some applications are designed pretty badly from an interface standpoint. This is the weakest part of Linux. Linux needs a Mary Beth Raven.
The strongest part of the operating system is of course the security and it’s flexibility due to the open source code. And as Linux is written by engineers, initially for engineers (or at least very technical people), you can do things you can’t do in Windows.

Darren Adams blogged about his experience running the new OS6 on his Blackberry Bold 9700 earlier this week. I have also been running that version (a leaked version I found, 6.0.0.424 to be precise) for a while now. I will not reiterate everything Darren already told, please go and read his review as well.

There are things I like, and things I don´t like as much. There were also things that were annoying at first, but that I quickly got used to.

I like the now home screen, with the expandable trays. Scrolling sideways is sometimes not as snappy as I would like, but I attribute that to the fact that the Bold 9700 only got 256MB of memory, not 512MB as the new model that is delivered with OS6 installed from factory.

I like the new notification bar at the top, and that I can click on it to see all new notifications and go to them directly. Clever. I miss the functionality I had in the theme I had installed earlier. When I selected the mail icon, the latest five unread messages were displayed on the screen. When I moved over the SMS/MMS icon, the last five text messages were displayed, etc. But I am starting to like this new functionality.

Talking about themes. OS6 only comes with one theme, using slightly spiffed versions of the icons in OS5. I was used to a nice custom theme, and I miss that. Hopefully there will be some themes created for OS6 and the Bold 9700. Blackberry Theme Studio does not support this phone yet, not even in the latest beta version. To be honest, I don´t like the default icons, they should been modernized. Or there should be a way to select another set of icons. And for custom folders, could we not get a few more choices?

Another thing I really like is the new camera application. Not only does it take the pictures slightly faster, it feels like, most of the settings are accessible directly from the camera screen, instead of having to open the menu, go into options, etc. One really nice feature is the geocoding of images. It is much easier to turn on and off, and after your location have been identified, the location is included in the file name. Very clever! The icon with the A is where you can select different presets, with A of course being "auto". There are settings for portrait, landscape, night, beach, snow, party and even text, when you want to take picture of text on a white background.

On the media tray, there is now an icon for podcasts, which have made me start subscribing to This Week In Lotus and Idonotes podcasts.

The sounds have changed. The old notifications are gone, and replaced with new ones. It is possible to get the old ones back, however. The first I would do is to change the alarm sound, or you may not wake up from it! Or at least test it to see if it works for you”…”

One thing I noticed is that either my battery have deteriorated very quickly (the phone is almost exactly one year old), or that OS6 is using more power. The battery is dying in the early afternoon, while it previously lasted all day. It may be the podcast downloads, or some other features that drain the battery by transmitting data. My usage is not different from a week ago when I used OS5. This does not bode well for Lotusphere, where I tend to use the phone much more for twittering, Facebook communications, etc.

I have not experience the dreaded "text message" bug since upgrading. That bug is when you get a text message but is unable to open it, while other messages can be opened. So it seems like they got that fixed. There are a number of other small fixes that makes OS6 very nice to work with. I would recommend an update, but be aware that your carrier may not support OS6 yet, and that things can go horrible wrong. make a backup of all your data first.

Bob Muglia, president of the servers and tools business  at Microsoft, have been forced to step down after 23 years at the company. According to Computerworld and IDG News Service, Steve Ballmer wanted to accelerate the move into the cloud, and felt that Muglia was not the right person.

According to DailyTech, the division run by Muglia have been successful, with $5.5 billion in profits for 2010.

So obviously Steve Ballmer want to push Azure even harder, and Bob Muglia have been more cautious. Time will only tell what the right choice was.

I want to point out this recent post here on my blog related to Microsoft and clouds…

My big Christmas gift was a new printer, a Canon Pixma MG6120 inkjet printer. It replaced my HP Photosmart C3180, which I have had for 3-4 years and who now refuse to feed paper. I have now had time to use the Canon printer for a few days, and below are my first impressions.

The printer was extremely easy to setup. Drivers installed faster than HP, and WiFi support mean that I did not even have to worry about the USB cable. To get the printer connected to my wireless network was easy, it was all done directly from the printer, using the 3" LCD display on the printer. It almost took longer to remove all protective plastic and tape from the printer. Since the printer is black (hence a magnet for fingerprints), Canon had put protective plastic sheets on all exposed (and some un-exposed!) surfaces.

One of the things I like with the Canon, and which was a requirement for a new printer, was separate ink tanks. This printer actually have six (6) different tanks:

The bigger cartridge (marked 225) contains black pigment based ink, used for regular text. The other five ink cartridges (marked 226) are dye-based. In addition to the traditional cyan, magenta and yellow, there is also black and gray. Each cartridge have a small red light indicating that they are correctly positioned.

Well, what about the print quality? That is the important thing on a printer. Well, at first the printout were a disappointment. They were washed out, gray and not nearly as vibrant as the old HP printer. I tried different settings in Photoshop and the printer driver, and eventually got a better result, but still not near what the HP produced. That is, until I tested the sample of Canon inkjet paper included with the printer. What a difference! I had used inexpensive paper purchased at Fry´s Electronics, and it simply did not work well with this ink. So after purchasing some more Canon paper (both the "Plus Glossy II" and the "Pro Platinum") I found that the quality was fully on par with the HP. I would not say it was better, as the HP generated beautiful prints, but it was not worse.. I tested some Kodak photo paper, and they turned out pretty good as well.

I have not been scanning much, just one test this far. It looks good, though, The optical resolution is 4800×4800 compared with 1200×2400 on the HP. The scan driver is not as intuitive as the one that comes with the HP. The highest setting it accepts (when scanning from within Photoshop) is 1200 DPI, and it is listed under "output". It seems like you at the time you scan you pretty much need to know what you want to do later with the scan. You select "screen display" or "printer" as target. Could be a dumbed down version of selecting RGB or CMYK”…” But I prefer to change the settings myself.

After a couple of days, I can already tell that the separate ink tanks are a good idea. They are all on separate levels, with the gray much lover than the cyan, magenta and yellow. Both black ones are still showing full.

What also is cool is that all buttons are hidden on the lid. Depending on what you want to do, different buttons light up, but only the ones you can use for the task. The other buttons are hidden and disabled. Clever.

There is plenty of additional built-in functionality. Not only can you print the photos directly from your memory card (or from a mobile phone using an optional Bluetooth adapter), you can print calendars, contact sheets, graph paper, lined paper and more. Put a PDF on a memory card (USB is not supported) and you can print it from there.

The printer driver lets you print booklets, and since the printer support duplex (double sided printing), a 16 page story by H.P. Lovecraft was printed as a neat booklet, only using 4 sheets of paper.

Talking about paper, there are two separate paper feeds. Up to 150 sheet of letter (or A4 for anyone in Europe) can be loaded in the front drawer, and feeder in the rear is used for all other formats, from 4×6 inch up to 11×8.5 inch.

Summary:

The print quality is very good, but it requires Canon paper, or at least high quality photo paper. My old printer performed as well using inexpensive paper. The scanner driver is probably good for a regular consumer, but need improvements for the more demanding/knowledgeable user. Setting it up was very easy, and it´s easy to use it. The printer driver is good, but the scanner driver need some work.

Duplex printing and separate ink tanks are big benefits. Separate tray for regular letter paper is also very good. Printing directly from a memory card yields good results, even without processing in Photoshop.

Even if the print quality is pretty much identical to my old printer, the benefits of separate ink cartridges makes this printer my choice. Wifi and duplex printing are just bonuses. The listed MSRP is $199, but I seen it on sale for as low as $129 (at Best Buy before Christmas).

Disclaimer: Product was a Christmas gift.

As Andy "Macian" Donaldson reported on Facebook, this years Wednesday party will take place at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

The park is brand new, it opened last June, but already during Lotusphere 2010 I blogged about the park as a potential venue for the 2011 party.

John Head just visited the park in late December, and gave a good review on Twitter. He especially recommended the butter beer, which just the other day sold it´s one millionth serving.

From The New York Times:

The problem is that Wi-Fi was never intended for large halls and thousands of people, many of them bristling with an arsenal of laptops, iPhones and iPads.

Wi-Fi is meant for homes and other small spaces with more modest Internet demands, says Ernie Mariette, founder of Mariette Systems, which installs conference Wi-Fi. "You´re asking a technology to operate beyond its capability."

Conference organizers and the Wi-Fi specialists they hire often fail to provide enough bandwidth. Many depend on the infrastructure that the hotels or convention centers hosting their events already have in place.

Companies that install Wi-Fi networks sometimes have only a day to set up their equipment in a hall and then test it. They must plan not only for the number of attendees, but also the size and shape of the room, along with how Wi-Fi signals reflect from walls and are absorbed by the audience. 

 

Let’s see how it works at Lotusphere in January. Perhaps there need to be some areas during the OGS with network cables to plug in to, to complement the Wi-Fi network?.

What might be the first major cloud data breach happened Wednesday. Microsoft announced that data contained within its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) has been downloaded by non-authorized users.

You’d better get used to this kind of thing because we’ll be seeing a lot more of it in the future. All any of us can do is pray we’re not a victim.

[T]he whole affair will feel like a stomach punch for anybody considering cloud adoption in the coming year–especially those considering Office 365, Microsoft’s major cloud offering that ties into its Office suite.

 

More here and here.

Interesting explanation. I have only seen this solution in a couple of places, mainly Best Buy and Fry´s (both electronics stores).

(Via Anders Lotsson)