The LambCutlet Disorganisation

Having been using an Asus A7Jc since the last quarter of 2006 (having got rid of the old Samsung) and running Windows Vista since day one (pre-RC1 (build 5536), RC1 (build 5600), RC2 (build 5744) and now the released retail version (build 6000)), even the foresight of maxing out the “laptop” (as a 17″ widescreen tipping 4kg on the scales, it’s a desktop replacement really) to a generous 2 GiB of RAM, still isn’t quite enough considering how I abuse hardware via the dark art of multitasking. :P

As fully solid state drives are still extortionately expensive and/or don’t have the capacity of traditional magnetic platter harddrives, Vista allows the usage of compatible flash memory (like those used in USB thumbdrives or digital camera storage cards) to work alongside SuperFetch to improve system performance by using the flash memory to cache data that are typically small in size and would be randomly read from the harddisk.

Why is this? Whilst even the slow harddisk like those found in laptops would beat even the fastest commercial flash memory in sustained read and write speeds, flash memory access latency is typically 10 to 100 times faster by virtue of not having to wait from the data to come full circle on rotating platters, so when data is access is tonnes of random read/writes… flash memory has the upper hand.

For the average person using Vista, ReadyBoost is most obvious when enabled on systems with tiny physical RAM of under 1 GiB (Vista’s minimum requirement is 512 MiB) where the performance improvement approaches 50% faster! Systems with larger physical memories will see a sharper drop off in improvements less you happen to be one of those evil bastards (like me) that hammer a system close to or beyond available physical RAM.

So what about my experiences with ReadyBoost? Well, whilst I do have a thumbdrive and USB flash card reader… I really didn’t like the idea of having a system enhancement that dangled off a laptop (though by design, ReadyBoost will gracefully deactivate itself should the flash device fail and/or removed accidentally) so took advantage of the integrated SD/MMC/MS-PRO flash card reader where I could stick any one of the acceptable cards flush into the slot. ;)

Whilst the price differential between a 2 GiB and 4 GiB SD flash card was minimal, the recommended ratio between flash and real memory is 1:1. As I “only” have 2 GiB of physical RAM, I chose the former and in anycase, ReadyBoost actually compresses the cached data to a ratio of 2:1, so a 2 GiB will store roughly 4 GiB of data! Oh and the cache is encrypted with 128bit AES, which is as strong as the default encryption available with Vista’s EFS (per file/directory encryption) or BitLocker (full drive encryption), so wouldn’t have to worry about people snooping into one’s data should they get hold of said flash-cache.

After poking about on various online shops, I opted for a 2 GiB Transcend TS2GSD150 with superficially fit all the requirements for ReadyBoost. On receiving the goods and plugging it into the slot, Vista’s autoplay dialogue popped up and plumbed for the “Speed up my computer using Windows ReadyBoost” option.

Disappointingly, the tests came back saying the device was not up too the job, even with a few clicks in the properties tab to get Vista to retest the device. Figuring that the integrated card reader might be the bottle neck, I decided to full format the card using FAT32 and on checking the property pages, see that the card was now suitable for ReadyBoost! Wooh!

I can only guess that the default FAT16 formatted card was something that didn’t agree with ReadyBoost (formatting as just FAT will be FAT12 or FAT16. In any case, FAT32 is a more robust filesytem of the 3 and is the only way to make use of cards that are larger than 2 GiB, so this should always be the first choice for ReadyBoost.

Why not NTFS you ask? Whilst ReadyBoost does support Microsoft’s (as of Vista) transactional filesystem, it has too much overhead for such usage and is ill suited to the architecture of NAND flash anyway. In an ideal world, Microsoft would have added NAND specific filesystem support (akin the Opensourced JFFS2 or YAFFS) for ReadyBoost, eliminating the square-peg-round-hole situation as current.

Is the difference noticeable? So far, things look good… having let things cache for a while, one thing that annoyed me in Firefox when switching to Flash and/or AJAX laden pages if a 30-something second lag where the browser does jack-shit plus a lot of disk thrashing (not helped by the fact I have around 250 tabs open across 6 windows… parallel web-browsing at its finest!) are reduced to a mere couple of seconds and minimal disk thrashing! Wooh!

Even better though is for those of you guys and gals that are buying a cutting edge laptop this latter half of 2007 as ReadyBoost’s sister feature, ReadyDrive can be made use of by laptop featuring hybrid harddrives (traditional platter harddrive but with integrated NAND cache) or system platforms like Intel’s Santa Rosa with Robson technology without the need to attach dangly bits to one’s laptop and/or use up an integrated flash reader slot! :D

It was way back in the beginning of December 2003 with what was then phpBB 2.1 Milestone1, over the course of 4 and a bit years with the announcement on the 14th of January, 2005 by Paul “psoTFX” Owen (ex-Lead Developer) that phpBB 2.2 had evolved to become phpBB 3.0, and now… phpBB have reached yet another milestone, phpBB 3.0 Release Candidate 1, the very first version marking the end of the Beta phase and a sufficiently hardy release suitable for live installation!

phpBB’s Development Team Leader, Meik “Acyd Burn” Sievertsen, announced the release like so:

We are very pleased to announce the availability of the phpBB3 RC1 package. This is the first release candidate which is meant to become the Gold release if no more bugs or problems arise. Of course there may be more than one release candidate.

With this release we will give full support, allow uploading language packs as well as modifications and styles. Please note that during the first few weeks support questions may not be answered as fast as with the 2.0.x line. We also only give support to those having a clean RC1 installation, previous conversions or updates will not be supported. We encourage only those running the release candidate wanting to test out the new version, it is still recommended to wait for the full release; after all this is a release candidate.

Personally, I’m most excited about the fact this is the first public release which bundles the über-secret and outright über-sexy prosilver style for the user facing forums and the back-end ACP, which has had a tantelising “Development of” page over at phpBB.com since the site re-launch, where the only way to show how awesome it is short of printing screenshots out and wrapping ones naked body with them, is by the way of a good old fashioned Photogasm™!:

Those of you now bursting for some relief of sexual tension, can head over to the download page and test drive (or indeed start a brand new community!) using the phpBB 3.0 Release Candidate 1 package! ;)

For statistics spunky-monkeys, some more goodies for you to peruse:

• Bug statistics for the timeframe between Beta5 and Release Candidate 1
• Bug statistics since the opening of the bug tracker for phpBB 3.0.x

Summit of Olympus Mons is in sight… onwards phpBB 3.0.0! :D

Sometimes a single image says it best:

Most users ever online was 8680 on 19 Mar 2007 01:28:47

Perhaps there was some wisdom in Bertie feeding the server some honey in trying to make it go faster? ;) Sometime we just have to think on our feet. :D

As much as I like Microsoft’s recently released Windows Vista as an improvement over Windows XP (though ironically, “vista” means “chicken” in Latvian :P) and using it right now (the pre-release Release Candidate 2 version, having registered for the Community Preview Program back in 2006), it has chronically pissed me off that even though the current exchange rate between the mighty Pound Sterling and worthless American Dollar is 1-to-1.95, the historic “1-to-1” rate for electronics and software compared to the States is still alive and well… thus sparking the following petition by Paul Milne to pressure the Right Honourable Tony Blair, to pressure Microsoft:

There is a huge difference in the price that people in the US and the UK are paying for Windows Vista the new Microsoft Operating System. As an example of this, in the UK a full copy of Vista Ultimate would cost you £350, in the US it would cost you £195. The US version of Vista is exactly the same as the UK version. There is no difference. Therefore I can see no reason for there to be such a huge difference in prices between the UK and the US other than Microsofts belief that the UK customers will pay more than their US counterparts. I ask people to sign this petition in the hope that the Prime Minister will bring pressure to bear on Microsoft over their pricing as it is my belief they are simply overcharging the people of the UK and therefore are ripping us off.

Indeed, this over charging isn’t just endemic within Blighty, as it has also infected our EuroDisneyLand counterparts on the mainland European Union with France and Germany paying an even more rip-off-tastic €550 (£370)! Curiously, in Japan, a full retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate is an apparently eye-watering ¥47,500… till you realise that translates to £200 (€300), more or less exactly the same price as those in America. So what the fucking fuck is going on? Europe (and apparently Oceania) have to subsidise the cost of Windows for America and Japan? Kill two birds with one stone and give both Mr. Blair and Mr. Gates a good kick up the backside by signing the petition (assuming you are a citizen of her Majesty Lizzy Windsor, naturally).

Let’s do the Bertie dance! :D It’s been a long 2 months since the last beta, though today we’re proud to announce the availability of phpBB 3.0Beta5! This fifth beta release marks the last leg of the beta testing phase as the next milestone shall (hopefully) be Release Candidate 1, which will result in the first version of the long awaited phpBB 3.0 that will be suitable for production environments. Patience is Virtue!

New for Beta5 is the UCF, which will be used for converting non-phpBB 3.0.x to the 3.0.x format. Right now, we’ve only got the phpBB 2.0.x module bundled for testing though modules for other forums systems will follow once we hit phpBB 3.0RC1… so fear not, you will be able to migrate from Simple Machines Forum (1.0.x), Invision Power Board (1.0.x & 2.0.x), UBB.threads (6.0.x) and others to the awesomeness incarnate that is phpBB 3.0.x! ;)

Next up is the re-worked permissions interface within the ACP which is cleaner with less clutter and yet provide more visual feedback when the various settings are changed. Also, the i18n/L10n community will want to familiarise themselves with the language system so that they can provide translations via the new language packaging system with the roll-out of phpBB 3.0 on phpBB.com.

Advanced users are encouraged to download the beta, give it a good thrashing and getting those bug reports down. I’m particularly interested in bugs related to right-to-left scripts such as عربي (Arabic), עִבְרִית (Hebrew) or اردو (Urdu) since I’ve checked in changes which should hopefully resolve all layout issues on the user-facing forums and back-end ACP.

Happy beta testing and onwards to Release Candidate 1! ;)

It’s amazing what difference a fortnight makes as today marks yet another next milestone, phpBB 3.0Beta4’s release! New with this release is the Update System which shall serve in updating installs of phpBB 3.0.x line.

A sample Beta3-to-Beta4 update has been provided for bug testing purposes though should not (read: must not) be relied upon as there’ll no doubt be bugs that’ll need fixing before it can be trusted for usage as the primary method of applying updates. In other words, during this final stretch of the beta phase, those wishing to test may still have to wipe the files and database then install from scratch.

For the statistic monkeys, these are the numbers of what bugs were what since 12th November and a full list of what the annoying little critters were! Anyhow… happy beta testing! ;)

You know it’s no coincidence that the Cassini space craft spotted a hurricane-like storm measuring 8000km (5000 miles) across with wind-speeds of 550kph (350 mph) at Saturn’s south pole on the eve of phpBB 3.0Beta3’s release, because though that storm is monstrous (it’s two-thirds the diameter of Earth!), once the next generation of phpBB is ready and version 3.0.0 lands, it’s going to cause a storm that’ll make the one raging on Saturn look tiny! ;)

Meik “Acyd Burn” Sievertsen, phpBB’s Development Team Leader, had the following to say regarding changes since 3.0Beta2:

Thanks to our community 299 bugs were spotted and fixed since the 12th August. We not only received reports about bugs but also opinions about existing features as well as reports for “strange environments”. We also replaced the provided visual confirmation image and added full UTF-8 functionality.

• Bug statistics from 12th August 2006 to now
• List of fixed bugs since the 12th August 2006

Indeed, the reason why the time between the current and previous beta was so great was due to the pulling forward of UTF-8 support from the planned 3.2.x series to the 3.0.x series. phpBB 2.0.x already supports over 60 translations into the world’s major and minor languages and it’s obvious (with help from the translation community) that phpBB 3.x will support at least as many and possibly many more!

So despite the limitations of the current versions of PHP non-Unicode awareness; after many-many internal discussions, it was decided that it will prove far better for phpBB 3.x to support one single “Universal character set” now, rather than converting between a dozen or so “local” character sets, which was what happened in phpBB versions 3.0Beta1 & 3.0Beta2.

Advanced users are encouraged to download the beta and give it a good pummelling then report bugs to quash remaining outstanding issues and possible regressions that were missed in the UTF-8 transition. Newbie users and/or those requiring to set up a production forum now should stick with the tried and tested 2.0.x line. ;)

With a bit of luck, the next release shall be 3.0RC1 rather than 3.0Beta4 (though there may well be a 3.0Beta4 if deemed appropriate!), marking the end of the beta-testing period and into the time-to-run-live period complete with upgrade and conversion scripts. It’ll also be the time for translators to get down and dirty in pulling the multi-lingual rabbit out of the hat.

It’s been a road of nearly 4 and a half years though the end if almost in sight, so happy beta testing and bug reporting and see you lot at the top of Olympus! ;)

I shall briefly unlurk to announce the availability of the 2nd release milestone in the form of phpBB 3.0Beta2! It’s been a very long road of 4 years and 105 days (if I’ve done my Maths correctly) to get this far on the phpBB Teams’ collective baby.

Since Beta1’s release on the 17th of June 2006, the community have spotted ~267 bugs which have been fixed by the Development Team for this new release plus increasing compatibility with more esoteric server configurations out there in the wild.

For those advanced users that want to play with beta code are welcome to head over the to the Development page and grab Beta2 though be aware there is neither an upgrade from the previous Beta1 or the current stable line by the way of phpBB 2.0.21, where the latter is the only option for those requiring to create a new community now.

Aside from beta testing phpBB’s Next Big Thing™, you can support us (and a whole host of other Opensource projects) by participating in “Rackathon 2006” over at OSUOSL. ;)

Curiosity killed the cat… and set fire to the firefox. ;) Having read the extensive documentation on how to get Mozilla’s browser source from CVS, grab the various tools and applications then generally a lot of RTFMing plus a bit of trial an error, I finally compiled a working build for Windows from the “Reflow Refactoring” branch which passed WaSP’s Acid2 test:

If it wasn’t enough to see Mr. Smiley in perfect form, I was also curious to see how Mozilla bug #18333 which requests that the XML content sink be fixed and made incremental, just like the HTML so that most XML document types, such as XHTML served as application/xhtml+xml can benefit from being able to render incrementally.

Grabbing the latest source, applying the patch and spinning off a build (not without a minor hiccup), the improvement in apparent performance (as the browser no longer locks as it builds the content) on larger documents are clear to see (using anime.svg):

All this cool stuff is currently being hammered out under Gecko 1.9 and will form the basis of Firefox3 under the codename of “Gran Paradiso” with a pretty aggressive release schedule which should keep other browser vendors honest. According to Gran Paradiso Developement Schedule, Alpha 1 (Developer Preview 1) could land as early as October 2006 and Beta 1 (General Preview 1) just a few months later in February 2007, all culminating in a final release of Firefox3 in May 2007! ;)

Of course “Minefield”, which now appears to be the perpetual codename for Mozilla’s CVS HEAD code, will have by then moved on to the Next-Next-Next Big Thing™. :D