ReadyBoost or ReadyDrag

There has been a lot of mixed feedback on Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. Some say they have noticed significant performance boosts, some no seeing any real difference and others finding a drop in performance.

The problem appeared to be with (1) Their system setup (2) The tasks they were performing and (3) the quality of the memory stick/card being used.

Out of these I’ve found the most significant factor to be the memory stick. I tested 6 different memory sticks/cards on my laptop and the difference in how effective ReadyBoost is huge.

Starting with the bottom of the scale I had an old 2GB SD memory card. I inserted this into the built-in memory card reader and found a major reduction in system performance. Opening Apps or even switching between Apps would often cause lock-ups and pauses. At the time I had no idea what was causing the problem and began to think my system was under performing. I remove the memory card and things return to normal. The speed of the memory card was far too slow for ReadyBoost causing delays while data was read/writing.

I next used a 512mb SD card with “x66″ boldly displayed across the front. This didn’t have the major performance dips caused by the first memory card but I also couldn’t say I noticed a performance boost. After doing a little research I found that memory cards are designed for sequential writes like storing photos as they are taken on a digital camera. Hard disk drives sequential read and write speed is significantly faster than anything you will get on a memory card and so using a memory card provides no real benefit.

ReadyBoost relies on memory sticks faster random access speed. The hard disk has to physically move parts to access data across different parts of the harddrive. The Solid State memory on a memory stick has a faster response time, doesn’t have to spin up from idle and accesses random data significantly faster. So would the memory sticks fair better.

This time I got 2 ReadyBoost logo’d memory sticks for about £17-20 each. The first was a 2GB one from Argos from a brand I hadn’t heard of or remember. The performance increase was noticeable especially in memory hogging programs like Photoshop and games. The 2nd stick was a 4GB Sandisk cruzer u3. There was no notable performance improvement. What was the difference?

I looked up what was the requirements for a device to be classed as ReadyBoost capable. It was a read speed of 5mb/s and a write speed of just 3mb/s. The sandisk must have been pretty close to the bottom end as every now and then when I’d insert it I wouldn’t get the option to use it “to speed up my system” (not you have to diable ReadyBoost or delete the ReadyBoost file and reinsert the stick for the option to show up otherwise it will automatically use the stick for ReadyBoost). When you compare this to some of the better memory sticks like Corsair’s GT range that read at 34mb/s and write at 28mb/s you can begin to see why there is such a difference in how effective ReadyBoost is. I lost the former 2 memory sticks and so I’m now on to a Corsair Flash Voyager. Not the super-fast GT version but still a lot faster than the average memory stick. It isn’t even ReadyBoost logo’d but according to the specs it should be a lot better than the sandisk cruzer I was using. If you live in the US Kingston do a memory stick called HyperX that is exclusive to Amazon.com and is super-fast and good value.

The good news is that the speeds and capacities of these memory sticks is improving all the time so ReadyBoost will continue to be more and more effective.

The bad news is that 1) the ReadyBoost logo is given out too easy and consumers could end up with inferior memory sticks that don’t help them 2) with Solid State Hard drives getting closer to usable capacities will we even need ReadyBoost?

For now check out some of the fastest USB flash drives here:
everythingusb.com

Vista Service Pack 1 Beta Install (RC1 Refresh) on Dell XPS m1530 Notebook

With many holding out on buying Vista until the first Service Pack it’s really important to Microsoft to get it right with this release. I can’t wait for the final buid so I’ve taken the gamble of installing the Service Pack 1 RC1 update although it is about 3 months from being finished. Flying in the face of the forum posts about BSOD when browsing the web since installing SP1 and other complaints I ventured out and installed it on my shiny new Dell XPS m1530.

The Install.

Downloading the “Windows update experience” file for SP1 was quick enough - only a few KB. It contained a registry tweak and instructions in 2 Microsoft Propriety formats - Word doc and XPS (viewable using IE7).

After the registry tweak running windows update reveals all the hotfixes and updates required before you can install SP1. Depending on how up to date you keep your system this maybe 1 install or several. After the installs and inevitable restarts you can download the SP1 installer. This also requires a restart and then a 10-15min wait while it finishes setting up. After this you will be able to use windows update to download SP1. The file size quoted is between 67 and 640mb I guess this depends on the version of vista and your hardware. In my case it was an 80.1mb download (Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit). This took quite long not sure if this was due to the internet connection I was using or the volume of people downloading the update.

Once downloaded and I agreed to the terms SP1 installed itself. And then restarted to configure updates in 3 stages. Stage 1 and 2 complete before a restart for stage 3. During this time you cannot use your computer and are warned against turning it off. This took my system about 20-30mins to complete.

Needless to say I don’t recommend starting this process on battery power of if pressed for time. You’ll need a good couple of hours and a constant power supply and internet connection.

Overall the install went smoothly and exactly as described in the instructions - with one exception. Somehow Windows Live Onecare didn’t start right away and so I was warned about my lack of firewall but after a few minutes Onecare came back to life.

What’s new?

This update rather than adding new features is designed to address performance issues rather than anything else. Vista has been slammed by business users and gamers alike for bringing their systems to their knees or at least noticeably reducing speed with some apps and games compared to XP.

I was not expecting incredible performance leaps with SP1 - or even to match XP with SP2. What I was hoping for was improved file transfer speed, a slight increase in graphical performance and faster wifi/network connections. Having used Vista since release day and using this particular laptop for the last couple of weeks fairly intensively I’ve a fairly good idea of what sort of speed various tasks take so couldn’t wait to see if SP1 made any difference.

I also wanted to see if stability was improved. I rarely saw vista crash completely but it wasn’t uncommon for a particular app to lock up and have to be closed down. Again I’ve never had problems with Vista uptime either but will test if this is an issue under normal use after SP1.

Most of the complaints I’ve read about on the SP1 forums are from users that were having issues with Vista before SP1 anyway so as my Vista was running flawlessly prior to the update I am expecting nothing less.

One thing you will notice is that it now says Windows Vista “Evaluation copy” Build 6001 in the bottom right hadn corner of the screen. This is not to say your version of windows is not genuine but the SP1 is not final so you have the evaluation stamp until you uninstall it.

Test 1: File Transfer speed

I had grumbled at the slow speed in which my laptop would transfer files from one system to another - typically between 1 and 6mb/s even with a cabled connection via my gigaport. There had even been reported problems transfering large files from one folder to another taking a unusually long amount of time.

I didn’t do a test case to compare an exact match to, but I do have a good idea of how long it usually took. In comparison SP1 did make a difference. Previously there was a delay of several seconds before a transfer would begin while windows calculated transfer time and speed etc. Now transfer begins immediately. Transfering to USB stick was about 5mb/s which was about the same as before - this is likely due to the limitations of the memory stick. Transfering from folder to folder on the same hard drive showed significant improvement - Transfers again started immediately and were between 22 and 32mb/s compared to 10-15mb/s previously. Obviously on different hard drives the speed will vary greatly (tested on 250gb 5400rpm SATA). Emptying the recyle bin was most dramatically effected. At times it would take a while to delete a large amount from there. Now the transfer/deleting was instant. Several gigabytes disappeared in seconds with no pausing (I managed to just about see 430mb/s) in the transfer window before it closed). Transfering from a sever on the network to the laptop was 11-12mb/s this was about the same probably due to the speed of the network but again the transfer initiated faster. Final test was transfer from one computer to another via ethernet cable.

File Transfer Improvement: Significant as long as it was Vista that was the bottle neck and not the device/network you were transferring over.

Test 2: Networking/connectivity

I found it incredibly annoying at how long it took to connect to wifi once I started up - especially if coming back from standby. Nothing I could do would would speed it up. Searching for networks and then manually picking and connecting rarely worked out any faster than waiting for the connection to be found by itself. Also my office network would never be identified. It would say identifying indefinitely - although it would work fine for network and web access I couldn’t change it from a public network to work network because the network was unknown - since installing SP1 it now correctly identifies the network. Wifi also connects much faster - within seconds of me turning on the wifi switch I was connected and ready to browse the web.

Connectivity/Networking Improvement:

Improved hotspot detection and connections speeds, resolves some lan detection issues.

Test 3: 3DMark06

Although mainly for testing 3D Gaming graphics the 3DMark also tests CPU and general system performance under extreme conditions. Prior to SP1 I scored 4278, 4180 and 4187.

Firstly I was pleased to see it ran without hiccu
p - some had reported lockups when playing games or using 3D Apps - I guess this was due support for the graphics card or driver they were using not being what it should be. As my system had a mid-range Nvidia graphics card I would expect that support for this would be good.

Results: 4201, 4180

3D Graphic/gaming Improvement: No noteable difference in 3DMark results so Windows XP is still the fastet platform for playing the latest games.

Overall

It felt like there were other performance tweaks to as menu responses and switching windows etc. all seemed zippier. Where formerly there was a few seconds delay between you clicking or performing a keyboard command and it taking place it now seemed instant. This is especially noticeable when opening folders containing many photos. Before it took a while for all the thumbnails to be generated - now it seems almost instant - even on an external device like a camera/iPhone. All my hardware still worked as before or better - even obscure devices like the finger print reader and blu-ray drive seemed to respond quicker due to the OS not being as sluggish. Don’t get me wrong my system ran Vista well before but there is a noticeable improvement to the overall responsiveness and speed of my laptop now.

After a restart I did get a Runtime error with my Blu-Ray/DVD/CD burning software. Also the firewall issue pops up until Onecare eventually starts. Restarting again and these issues cleared - Onecare started first and there were no runtime errors. I guess it takes a few restarts before everything settles down.

IMO if you are having problems with Vista SP1 may not be the quick fix to resolving them. If you are running Vista ok but want to squeeze more performance out of it then this service pack may be what you are looking for. As to improving stability I will report back after more testing but as I had no significant stability issues before I am not expecting to notice any difference. There are a few niggles with starting up windows initially as mentioned but they cleared themselves up and were not a major concern.

Technorati Tags: Vista, Service Pack 1, SP1, RC1, Refresh, performance

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Have Apple got it wrong with the iPhone?

At this year’s dconstruct conference Peter Merholz explained how just packing more features is not a good way of evolving a design and how the iPod and Wii are examples of that. Not the most technically advanced or feature packed compared to rivals but got the user experience part right and is a success as a result. ( here his lecture in the dconstruct podcast here)

The idea of not feature stuffing a phone seemed to be a great idea then. Especially when you consider 80% of people only use 20% of the features of their phones. However, at the price point Apple have launched with you would have to say the that it likely only the 20% elite/pro users that would pony up the record-breakingly expensive fee and contract combination.(see prices here)

Surely early figures will show great sales but hype and a shiny interface will only get you so far. Users that had basic handsets before will love the iPhone as it does the basics incredibly well. But if you have a top-end pocket-PC or symbian phone you’ll be hugely under-whelmed and may see you’re upgrade as a bit of a downgrade.

I’ve been using the iPhone since it launch in the UK a few days ago and the novelty has already begun to where off and I sorely miss my
XDA exec. It’s not just the big features like video calling, 3G Internet, and picture messaging - it’s even little things like being able to select text/numbers on a webpage and paste them into a word doc/email or being able to delete music/video/app without a computer. Also the camera seems to be such an after thought. The quality is so low - not just resolution but sharpness too. There are also no settings to adjust, or support for recording video.

These issues may cause iPhone sales in europe to reach critical mass sooner than Apple may have planned for. Once the mac fans that would buy a brick with the apple logo on and then those that are caught up in the hype/fashion statement of owning one have all purchased the price will have to drop to sub £50 for the real target audience - the 80% that like to use the basics - will start to lap it up. By then I am sure the novelty will have worn off for the serious phone users that like their features and so many will be looking to get out and buy a more feature rich phone. Perhaps by then the Apple iPhone 2 will be out - but will it be too late. Will the pro users be once bitten twice shy? Will Google Andriod be a serious rival by then? Will the next generation of windows mobile have surpassed the iPhone interface?

With all these questions hanging over the iPhone I wouldn’t put money on the long term success of Apple in the mobile market as readily as some who seem to think they will take it by storm like the iPod has with the portable music industry.

The current kings of mobiles remain symbian and windows mobile based smartphones - watch out for the new 8GB Nokia N95 (black) and the XDA Exec if O2 still let you buy them now that they do the iPhone.

Mafia Spammers (the cheekiest spammer ever?)

I received the cheekiest spam comment on my blog today.
hello , my name is Richard and I know you get a lot of spammy comments ,
I can help you with this problem . I know a lot of spammers and I will ask them not to post on your site. It will reduce the volume of spam by 30-50% .In return Id like to ask you to put a link to my site on the index page of your site. The link will be small and your visitors will hardly notice it , its just done for higher rankings in search engines. Contact me icq 454528835 or write me tedirectory(at)yahoo.com , i will give you my site url and you will give me yours if you are interested. thank you

This is equivalent to <strong>Mafia asking for protection money</strong> when they are likely the ones you need protecting from.

My blog gets a lot of traffic and so I get about 1000 spam comments a week. My spam filter catches about 80% of them and as I don’t allow comments to be visible until I’ve read them personally the other 20% don’t make it either. So I see a lot of spam but that has to be the cheekiest.
1) He has no power over the spam comments on my site so has nothing to offer
2) He is a spammer himself
3) He is trying to con google into boosting his site’s ranking at the same time as trying to con blog owners

I hope no one falls for this and uses a free spam filter such as Akismet.

I am very tempted to use <a href=”http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39289916,00.htm”>the YouTube loophole</a> to spam his email address.

Technorati Tags: spam, spammers, mafia, google juice

Microsoft make a desperate push for IE7

With uptake of the latest Internet Explorer browser being slow compared to that of main rival Firefox, Microsoft have started a big push to encourage more users to make the change.

The first big advantage Microsoft had was having it pre-installed on it’s latest OS - Vista and not allowing the obsolete Internet Explorer 6 to be installed (which would undermine vista security anyway). However, with Vista uptake being slow and with the tech savvy already using firefox, opera or other browsers IE7 is struggling to make much ground.

Latest figures I have from various sites I run/developed show that on sites for web developers or tech savvy users Firefox now has the majority over both all other browsers combined.

On consumer sites it is about 30% IE7, 28% IE6, 40% Firefox and the remaining 2% using other browsers. So although overall Internet explorer has the majority users still, IE7 alone has not caught up with firefox.

On business sites the weighting is slightly more in favour for Internet explorer but then the figure is increased for IE6 rather than IE7.

In a bid to convert more users to IE7 this week we’ve seen them <a href=”http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39289859,00.htm”>remove the validation requirement</a> to download it.

Now they have sent out a newsletter promoting Internet Explorer 7. It seems to be targetted at IE6 users as it focuses on the improved security in IE7 and the fact that it doesn’t render correctly in Firefox:

<em>”The Internet is a vast place–and not every site is friendly. How do you help protect yourself online? With Windows Internet Explorer 7. Already, the Internet Explorer 7 Phishing Filter prevents nearly one million visits per week to known dangerous websites. In just a few clicks, see how the latest version of the world’s most popular web browser can help you be safer online.”</em>

The latest version of <strong>the world’s most popular web browser</strong> may not be a statement the internet explorer team can use for much longer…

As a developer I am happy with this push to IE7 - the sooner we get rid of IE6 the sooner I will stop having to support it. It is currently holding designers/developers back in what can be done as we have to ensure whatever we do is supported it. Binning IE6 will mean - less hacks, more advancement, less development time - resulting in savings for everyone.

Even Microsoft can’t develop HTML emails for Outlook 2007

HTML Newsletter Developers have been complaining about Outlook 2007 since it’s release as it uses word to render emails rather than a web browser. Some have described it as taking email design back 5 years. Microsoft defended their decision for various reasons - mainly for more consistent results for users of Outlook looking to forward/create html emails of their own.

Now it appears even Microsoft are struggling to develop HTML emails that will render correctly in Outlook 2007. The first line of the latest xbox live newsletter reads “Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007“. If even Microsoft can’t develop a newsletter that shows up consistently on it’s webmail (Live mail/hotmail) and Outlook 2007 client how are us as designers/developers supposed to manage. Clearly this should show it’s time to correct the mistake of using word rendering in Outlook 2007 or for designers to follow Microsoft’s example and simply ignore the latest Outlook and simply offer the users links to a page they can view in a web browser.

I don’t know how my employer would feel about me choosing to ignore Outlook 2007 when building the next newsletter but it will certainly be my recommendation. Our overseas offices seem to have ignored the client as I cannot read the emails that I get from them for the services I subscribe to if I use Outlook 07. If enough companies do this maybe this will prompt some action from Microsoft when there users complain.

Upcoming articles on From the Front-End

It’s been a while since my last post but I haven’t been idle. I’ve got plenty of articles coming up so watch this space for:

The low down on d.Construct 2007
Enhancing Web Standards sites with flash
Case Study: Experiments in SEO
Working on the move: Extreme Research

Holiday Gadgets

To Dongle or not? Wireless mice for laptops

I recently got a laptop and have fallen completely in love with it. The power of my PC on the move. That said most laptop users will agree however ingeniously the manufacturer has incorporated the mousepad/nub on the laptop it is never as confortable or accurate as a proper mouse. That being the case the 2nd most popular accessory for laptop owners to buy (after the laptop case) is a mouse.

The whole joy of a portable device is being free to move around so wifi is now a must and this extends to the mice - cables are out. There are hundreds of wireless mice to choose from but how to decide. For reliability and performance the top brands have to be Logitech, Apple and Microsoft (probably in that order). This cuts down the list of offerings somewhat but even with just 3 brands to consider there are still many variations to consider.

To Dongle or not to dongle
If your laptop doesn’t have bluetooth than this is a no brainer - your are going to need a rf/bluetooth dongle to link up with your mouse. In my case my Dell XPS m1210 has builtin bluetooth and so I have a choice. I can go for a bluetooth mouse and connect to the built-in bluetooth feature on my laptop (even if it comes with a dongle) or go for a mouse with a rf/proprietary transmitter dongle.

Pros of no dongle
a) Battery life - the built-in bluetooth adapter is designed to work with your laptop and is optimised for efficient use of power. A usb dongle will require the laptop to power the usb port and will always be less efficient than a built-in option
b) Dongles sticks out. This means you probably can’t keep it plugged in when in the case and increases chances of it getting knocked potentially damaging it or your usb port.
c) Can’t lose the dongle. It is easier than you think to lose the thumb size dongles. They can fall out of the bag or get knocked out by passers by
d) Range. RF signals generally give you a range of 2 meters. Adaquate for most purposes but when you use your laptop with a big screen like I do at home having a 10-30m range really helps as I can sit on my sofa watch the big screen and my laptop quietly hums on my desk.
e) Price. You can save money by buying bluetooth mice without a dongle. Logitech and Microsoft both make these. However, this is not a real bonus as bluetooth mice are generally more expensive than RF versions anyway.

Cons
a) Bluetooth was designed to be versatile, a “jack of all trades” - from file transfer, wireless headphones, wireless mice etc. Most will agree it is a “master of none”. Using my Logitech mx5000 bluetooth keyboard and mouse at home I am repeatedly frustrated as it lags behind keystrokes, loses connection or just gets sluggish. It doesn’t happen all the time - in fact mostly it runs beautifully, but when it does happen in the middle of a game or while drawing a lasso shape in photoshop it can be aggravating. Logitech’s solution is to use bluetooth technology to keep the benefits or added range but to not comply to the Bluetooth 1.1 or 2.0 standard. This means the signal is optimised for the mouse and you get better performance, however, it will not work with my built-in bluetooth so I still need a dongle.
b) with a dongle you can hook your fancy mouse up to any computer not just your bluetooth enabled laptop. This is handy if you are going to an area with no wifi and you are forced to use an internet cafe with horrible mouseball mice that just make you want to scream. Or if you want to use it for both desktop and laptop. As most bluetooth mice ship with a dongle too you can probably do this anyway

If you decide to go the dongle route the ultimate laptop mouse would be the Logitech vx Revolution. It’s fast, reliable, has great range, lots of handy extra buttons and scrolling for quick navigation. If you want to avoid the dongle or want more features the Microsoft Wireless Bluetooth Notebook Presenter Laser Mouse 8000 is fantastic. It combines mouse and presenter features and it conforms to bluetooth standards so does not require a dongle (although it comes with one).

I opted for the Microsoft mouse in the end and got it for only £39 (from ebuyer - includes £10 discount for using google checkout). It still hasn’t arrived so I can’t tell you what performance is like but the features are truly impressive. As a mouse it has the usual buttons left, right button, a 4way scroll wheel which also acts as the middle button. It has two additional buttons on the sides (likely for back and forward navigation) an additional 2 buttons on the top which I guess one triggers flip 3D in windows vista. Nothing too special so far but then you pick it up and it becomes a remote control - it can be used to flip through presentations, control music/movies etc. As it is done by bluetooth direct line of sight is not needed and with 2.4Ghz technology it has a range of over 30ft. It doesn’t stop there, there is a laser pointer built-in so if you are hooked up to a projector in a meeting you can point with your mouse. The laser pointer is a great touch as I hate getting up in meetings and trying to point at something on the wall and then casting a shadow so it’s hard to see what I’m pointing at anyway.

Check out the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 review at testfreaks.co.uk

I’ll try and add a list of links to the top 10 wireless mice here once I get to the airport (flying to Poland in a few hours). I’ll try and use atlarge.com to find me some wifi.

YouTube killer tries again (vume/eefoof)

When eefoof originally launched it was tipped to be a YouTube killer. It offered most of the YouTube features (user-generated video content) with a twist. Rather than just having the benefit of free hosting and an audience for your work they actually pay you for your submissions. They divide up the income they get (from the ads on the site) to all the contributers. The amount you get will depend on the popularity of the video(s)  you post. So if your videos are very popular and 2% of videos viewed that month belong to you then you get 2% of the advertising revenue - in theory.

The concept seemed great but the unusual name that was not only difficult to pronounce it was tough to remember or spell and so unless you bookmarked it or someone sent you a link you’d likely forget it soon after you visited. Also  during it’s early days there wasn’t that much to look at when you compare the huge database of video on YouTube and Google Video.

Now eefoof is relaunching as VuMe and have built up a more significant collection of content a comeback maybe on the cards. So stop ‘giving away’ your content to Google and make yourself some dosh on the VuMe.

http://www.vume.com

No I’m not on commission. No I have not submitted any video yet, but watch this space.