Me vs. Vista: Introduction

Ok, time to take a break from sports and dive into my computer nerd mind.

Computers have always been a passion of mine (as well as my major at ND), and even more so, building/tweaking/configuring them as well. I’ve built several different systems for my family as well as myself. They vary all the way from purely for gaming to editing. For me though, I definitely have a gaming rig in mind when I build/upgrade my personal desktop — meaning top technology and major boosts to performance to make it function as the systems used at gamer’s paradise in australia.

To be honest, I never really realized how much I barely scratched the surface. During my time in college, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to devote to learning new technology and the hardware upgrades that were going on (I had enough to cram into my head). So after I got out, I realized just how much more I had to learn.

To compound that, once I got my job, I ended up getting slated as the “Microsoft Guy”, which as of now means I spend a lot of time studying for Microsoft certification exams for things like Server 2003 and Office Communications Server 2007. My first pass on a Microsoft exam came from one on Windows XP, and I couldn’t believe just how much I didn’t know in that exam as well as studying for some of the previously mentioned ones.

So this has led me to evaluate the situation with my current rig that I built. I really didn’t do anything too special to it. My last round of upgrades, I really didn’t do anything more than give it new parts: new processor, hard drives, RAM, Video Card and case. Around this time last year, I also took the big dive into everyone’s favorite Microsoft headache: Vista. I’ve noticed many of the same issues several people have had with performance, networking, and other wonderful Vista headaches. I have found work-arounds for some of these issues, but really haven’t invested much time into it.

Also, I have learned a lot more about security and fault tolerance for Microsoft systems and really haven’t applied to much of it to my current rig. Both of my hard drives are each 1 big partition and I only really have just a firewall/anti-virus setup for security outside of Firefox add-ons.

So armed with this new knowledge and several different resources on the internet, I am going to tackle my rig and completely redo and re-evaluate the whole thing. I’m going to post the whole process for two reasons. First, will be for personal documentation for myself. Second, I want to provide a online resource for anyone that is attempting to do any of the same things I did or have questions about some of these processes in general.

Right now, my current plan of attack will follow these phases and each will have an associated post (Please note, the following topics may end up being merged or appear in different order than listed):

  • Current System Overview: Hardware, Software, and Configuration
  • Do I Need Another Hardware Upgrade?
  • Windows Vista Re-Install (including backing up and restoring old files)
  • Partitioning Hard Drives with a Fault Tolerance Plan
  • Securing the System (without Vista’s horrible performance-sucking “enhancements”)
  • Tweaking and Enhancing Vista’s Performance
  • Overclocking the Processor and Video Card
  • Networking, Printing and File Sharing
  • Backup Plans and Maintenance
  • Final System Overview (Alternate Title: Did I Do It Right?)

I am looking forward to tackling these issues (some of which, will be for the very first time personally) and hopefully I can come out of it with a guide that can actually make sense.

I know most people ask “Why bother with Vista?” Well, the fact of the matter is, not only is Microsoft having new games pretty much running Vista only for the PC now (due to them needing DirectX 10, which is Vista only), you also can’t find a new PC without Vista being installed currently. So unless you have your own (legal or not) copy of Windows XP, you are pretty much stuck with Vista until the release of Windows 7 (or whatever they will call it in the future). One way or the other, most people will likely have to learn to deal with Vista and get around its nuances for the time being.

Well… all of that and I have an obession with being able to get new technology to work the way I would like it to. The challenege can be fun, even if it makes me pull my hair out at times.

Here’s hoping that I don’t turn my computer into a scrap of junk in the coming weeks.

ND Gets Lei’d

I know I’m slightly late on the news, but regardless it seems the reward for a 6-6 season will be a trip to paradise:

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – For just the second time in school history, Notre Dame will be playing a bowl game in Hawai’i.

The Fighting Irish (6-6) will face Hawai’i (7-6) in the seventh annual Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl on Dec. 24, the NCAA announced Sunday evening.

“We’re very excited about heading out west to play in the Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl,” head coach Charlie Weis said. “This is a great opportunity for our team to face a quality opponent in their backyard and we’ll need to be ready.

“I know the extra practices this month will really benefit our team and we look forward to ending this season on a good note.”

This will be the fourth trip to Hawai’i in the football program’s history. The Irish lost to SMU in the 1984 Aloha Bowl, 27-20, and played at Hawai’i in the regular season finales in 1991 and 1997. Notre Dame won both previous meetings with the Warriors, 48-42 in 1991 and 23-22 in 1997.

Site of the game is 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawai’i. ESPN will nationally televise the game at 8:00 p.m. EST (3:00 p.m. HST in Honolulu).

Notre Dame will be making its 29th bowl appearance overall and its fourth in the past five seasons. The Irish played in the 2007 Allstate Sugar Bowl, the 2006 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl and the 2004 Insight Bowl. Notre Dame is 13-15 in postseason play.

Hawai’i will be making its ninth bowl appearance since becoming a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I) member in 1974. The Warriors are 5-3 all-time in bowl games and have received seven bowl berths in the last 10 years. Hawai’i played in last year’s Sugar Bowl and has also played in the Aloha Bowl (1989), Holiday Bowl (1992), O’ahu Bowl (1999) and the Hawai’i Bowl (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006). The Warriors are 3-1 in previous Hawai’i Bowls, losing in 2002 (36-28 to Tulane) but winning the last three (54-48 in three overtimes vs. Houston in 2003, 59-40 vs. UAB in 2004, and 41-24 vs. Arizona State in 2006).

I must say that I am insanely jealous of all the current managers that will get to work this game (and even to those that just get the free ticket). For me (and I have a feeling a lot of Irish fans) will be making plans to watch this in front of a TV and hoping Santa brings me the end of the Irish bowl losing streak.

Go Irish. Beat Warriors. End the streak.

Sun Sets on Irish; More on Tuberville “Resignation”

Words I’d never thought I’d say this football season: “Well there goes the Sun Bowl.”

Rutgers curb-stomped Louisville as expected so now the Irish will for sure not be traveling to El Paso for their bowl game. As discussed yesterday, the Irish have been predicted to be in a few different bowls including the Texas Bowl vs Rice (one I’ve seen most reported), Hawaii Bowl vs Hawaii, Poinsettia Bowl vs BYU, and today I have seen a report that the Irish could end up in the Motor City Bowl vs Ball State.

Also in that linked article is another interesting fact: Weis will address the media tonight before the football banquet. It’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say about everything that has gone on and if he’ll announce any of the “changes to the program” that Swarbrick referred to.

Moving to Auburn football, the Tommy Tuberville drama writes its next chapter:

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville’s job was not in jeopardy when he decided to step down and he declined several requests from his bosses to reconsider, athletic director Jay Jacobs said Thursday.

Jacobs said Tuberville’s departure after 10 mostly successful seasons was “completely his decision” and that the coach would be leading the Tigers next season if he had not chosen to leave.

“To say the least, I was a little shocked,” the AD said. “But after three times of asking him would he change his mind, he convinced me that the best thing for him and his family and for this football program was for him to possibly take a year off and take a step back.

“I asked him three times [to reconsider], and so did the president,” he said.

A person familiar with the situation told ESPN’s Joe Schad that Tuberville believed he did not have the support of certain members of the Auburn board of trustees — and therefore the full support of the Auburn administration.

Jacobs said he and the president agreed to pay Tuberville the buyout price of $5.1 million — even though it was not required since he wasn’t fired — because they felt it was “the right thing to do.”

Just when I thought the whole situation couldn’t get any more laughable, Auburn just took a direct turn into stupid with this spin. Look, lying about Tuberville resigning is one thing, but trying to convince us Auburn is going to pay Tuberville $5.1 million out of the kindness of their hearts is just laughable. Furthermore, if Tuberville really stepped down because it would be best for the program, in turn he should have refused the buyout so the University could save their money for the next coach.

Also, let’s not forget this is the same guy that no more than a week ago was completely confident he was the guy for Auburn:

Tuberville then hit the road for recruiting and said he didn’t know when he would meet with University President Jay Gogue and athletic director Jay Jacobs on his job status.

“I’ve got a contract here. I’m working,” Tuberville said. “There’s no doubt that we can get this thing turned back around. I didn’t turn into a bad coach overnight. I know this program better than anybody.

“I know what it takes. I know the type of people that you can get to come in. I know our strengths and weaknesses. And I’m fully committed to doing it. I’m going out and selling that.”

Going from that and then saying “I quit” in less than a week makes zero sense. The fact that Tuberville hasn’t said a word about his resignation himself doesn’t make this whole situation anymore believable.

This seems all way to fimilar as to what ND did to Lou when he “resigned”.

Holy Crap I Agree with Forde

Hell must be getting the same cold front that is in Texas right now.

I don’t hate Forde at all. In fact, I read his “Forde Yard Dash” rather regularly for some laughs. However, when he talks ND football I just tend to want to smack him in the mouth and I’m sure most ND fans are on board with that.

However, a true gem came to light when he gave out his Dashie Awards:

Nastiest Fans — USC’s, last Saturday for the Notre Dame game. There were churlish drivers by the dozens en route to the stadium. There was the surly elevator operator who tried to tell a woman (Irish fan) escorting her son in a wheelchair that she had to leave her two young daughters behind to wait for the next elevator. And there were the fans spewing penitentiary-worthy profanity at the Notre Dame players and coaches as they exited the field. That “SC” stands for Stay Classy, Trojans fans.

I’m sure the “Stay Classy” theme should also extend to LenDale White’s wonderful cameo on the sidelines last week, looking into the camera saying “Notre Dame sucks! Yeah, I said it!” …just a shame we don’t have a comeback right now on the field.

Anyways, enjoy your Doucebags of the Year Award, USC. Fight on. You’ve earned it.

**Back to the Channel 4 News Room, Teleprompter Rolls**

Veronica Corningstone: Thanks for the report. For the entire Channel 4 News team, I’m Veronica Corningstone.


Ron Burgandy: And I’m Ron Burgandy. Go fuck yourself, Southern Cal.

Auburn Fires Up the BS Machine

So, it seems that Tuberville “resigned” and wasn’t fired. Right…

At least I’m not the only one that thinks this makes zero sense:

Sure, Tuberville doomed this season to mediocrity the minute he hired that offensive coordinator, the high school guru who promised to install the spread offense. Turns out that knowledge-wise, the guy had outkicked his coverage. Tuberville fired him a month into the season, admitted his mistake, and tried to minimize the damage. He didn’t pawn off the responsibility on anyone else. He took the blame and promised to fix the problem.

Yeah, those boosters, the ones who embarrassed you over Petrino, are still unhappy, but you’re Auburn. You’re bigger than that. No coach is going to win in the SEC every season. Tuberville has delivered for you for 10 years. Surely that engenders some loyalty from you to him.

Besides, you signed a contract that promised him $6 million if you let him go after the 2008 season. In these economic times, with people everywhere trying to hold on to their jobs and their mortgages, you surely aren’t stupid enough to spend $6 million paying a guy not to coach. No one could be that insensitive to the message that would send. Talk about misplaced priorities.

What’s that?

You let him go?

You’re going to pay him $6 million not to coach?

And start over from scratch? Against Nick Saban?

You’re kidding, right? Is there something about Tommy Tuberville that causes you to make agonizingly stupid decisions?

Forget I ever brought it up. Good luck finding a coach better than the one you just forced out.

And people say ND fans have unrealistic expectations…

I can’t even see how anyone even tries to justify this move. Although I’ve seen some “knowledgeable” Auburn fans try.

“His recruiting is slipping.” Really? Ok, so maybe he doesn’t have a blue chip QB in the program right now, but Auburn did have the #5 class for next season before they let Tuberville go, and today it has dropped to #12. Have fun watching that continue to drop as I’m sure this move loses more recruits. Oh and by the way, previous recruiting rankings (Scouts.com only goes back to the class of 2002, which would be the 2001 season’s recruiting):

2002: 11
2003: 16
2004: 31
2005: 22
2006: T-9
2007: 6
2008: 18

People are seriously going to bitch about recruiting? There is only one class in there outside the top 25 (oh and that was for the year Auburn was trying to give Tuberville the boot for the first time — SHOCKING the recruiting suffered then) and two in the top ten. Just wow.

“7-9 in the SEC the last two seasons.” Numbers are fun. Yeah let’s lump in the bad season with this year from the 2nd place finish Auburn had in the SEC West last season. No seriously, it makes perfect sense and I’m not being sarcastic. No not at all.

What a joke. So Auburn, 5-3 in the SEC last year was inexcusable right? Losses that year by the way were to Mississippi State, @ then #4 LSU (oh look the champs for that season), and @ then #10 Georiga. The only “bad” loss there is Mississippi State, but then Auburn bounced back and upset a then #4 Florida team in the Swamp.

“14-11 overall last two seasons.” Yay more fun with numbers. See there is this thing in statistics, in which if you see a major deviation from the mean you tend to toss out the result. This last season was Tommy’s worst since his first season in 1999. Completely forget that from 2000-2007 he went 75-27 (48-18 SEC). Yep those eight seasons shouldn’t buy him any loyalty at all. Hang him after the first bad one right?

“36-0 loss to Alabama this year.” I absolutely cannot believe this is a reason. Auburn had the #1 team in the nation kick you while you were down this year. Like no one saw that coming. Welcome to reality (and one that ND fans have been living for a while). I also love how quickly everyone at Auburn seem to forget Tuberville went 7-3 against Alabama and you just ended an amazing 6 year winning streak on the Tide. In case anyone is having trouble reading in between the lines, that means you just forced one of the most successful Iron Bowl coaches in your school’s history.

If anyone at Auburn seriously believes that starting from scratch is going to magically make Auburn beat a now fine-tuned Nick Saban machine in Alabama, I need to know what you are smoking. Good luck with that mess.

I have no idea who Auburn will hire. There seems to be this thought that Mike Leech will be coming and I don’t know why. I have a feeling that if Texas Tech will actually finish a contract negotiation, he will stay in Lubbock. Even if he goes to Auburn, where is your QB to run his offense? Hell, I’ll be surprised if that offense even works against the tougher SEC defenses. Not to mention, Leech isn’t exactly a defensive guru. Auburn fans did watch the OU/Tech game right?

This just blows my mind. Can I move that Auburn’s boosters, administration and AD are now more insane than ND could ever dream of being?

Tommy Tuberville Fired

So why am I posting about Auburn football? Well, my sister attends Auburn, so I have indeed become a fan of the team (as long as they don’t play the Irish).

Anyways, it seems that Tommy Tuberville’s 10 year tenure at Auburn is done.

I must say I am SHOCKED.

In his 10 years he led the Tigers to a 85-40 (52-30 in the SEC) record, won the SEC West 5 times, won the SEC Conference once, got hosed out of a national title in 2004 (Tigers went 13-0 winning the Sugar Bowl), a 7-3 record against rival Alabama (with a 6 game winning streak in there), had Auburn ranked in the top 25 6 seasons, was in the top 10 twice, and has a bowl record of 5-3 with a BCS win.

His sin? This last season going 5-7 (2-6) and snapping his 6 game win streak against Alabama, losing 38-0, which was his worst season since his first in 1999 going 5-6 (2-6). He attempted to start the season by moving to a spread option offense with a first year starting QB, Kodi Burns whom was quickly replaced by ex-Texas Tech Raider (and another first year starter) Chris Todd (sound familiar ND fans?), and abandoned that offensive plan firing his OC early in the season. Todd was later replaced by Kodi yet again and Auburn continued to see their offense struggle and their defense soon followed.

This is why I am against knee-jerk reactions to coach firings. In my opinion, Auburn has just highly hosed themselves and like I said about ND, I have no idea who in the hell they will replace him with. Auburn has one big problem and that is the lack of a solid QB. You don’t fire the coach because of that. Especially one that consistantly beats your biggest rival year in and year out, plus has you at the top of your conference pretty much every year.

Just unreal…

Had ND not given Weis the vote of confidence, I’d be all for giving Tuberville a good look. As I said earlier, I hope Swarbrick does indeed talk to possible candidates as a contingency plan and if Tuberville is still jobless in 2009, as an Irish fan, I definitely want him to be getting a call to gauge his interest if the ND job happened to open up.

Random Addendum: Holy crap today was a busy day for college football news…three posts in one day by me…yeesh. Don’t expect this kind of activity too often.