Fast, Free Virtualization Software...

I guess, like me, many developers in an MS shop with a casual need for running software in a Virtual Machine use MS Virtual PC 2004. I've been using it and have been satisfied with the fact that I don't have to use different physical machines. After VMWare's announcement that they are going to give away there server version for free I finally got to install it. It's been a while since the announcement and I'm sorry I didn't try it before because it rocks! I'm not going to try to write up a comparison. Mostly because I seriously don't think Virtual PC deserves to be included in the equation. In addition there are many comparisons out there. I'm only going to point out one feature that just blew me away. Performance! VMWare is really fast.

What did confuse me was two closely related packages of VMWare's virtualization software. One is the VMWare Workstation edition (189$) and the other is the free server edition. I found this comparison matrix which gave some good insight, and this blog post also adds some additional arguments for either.

Oh, just one last thing. VMWare Server imported my .vmc files so I didn't need to spend hours setting things up.

Happy virtualization!

Streamline how you run applications - Launchy

I came across this utility on Scott Hanselman's blog. After trying out Launchy for a week I'm sold on it. Just brilliant! Launchy is a small utility that has only one purpose in life: Launch other applications. More specifically, those in your start menu (You can optionally index additional folders as well). Press a shortcut (Alt+Space) to get a skinable small window to type in and start to type the name of your application. If it can't figure out what to run it will present you with list of close matches. As you use it more, it will prioritize your choice from what you picked before. So when I press "wr" it runs word, "ie" runs IE, "on" runs OnTime, "ex" runs Excell etc. Nifty little thing. Definitely deserves a place in my RAM.

No more searching through the start menu for an application...

Replacing my Thinkpad - Part III

This is the last part of this 3 part post on purchasing a new notebook. In Part I and Part II I layed out some of the background work in order to know what to look for while shopping for the new computer. And finally it's shopping time...

I spent a few hours at NotebookReview, CNet, NotebookForums.com and a few other sites. I rather quickly came up with a list of models that I would like.

• Alienware Area-51
• DELL XPS M1710
• Apple Macbook Pro
• IBM Thinkpad T60p

Some brands are missing from this list because I don't like them. I've had two Toshiba notebooks and that was one too much. HP has had a reputation of bad customer service here in Israel and despite the fact that YNet published an article some time ago that it has improved a lot, I'm staying away from HP for now. I don't like Sony's look and feel, but that's just me.

I contacted Alienware. On the question on local support they said they don't have any local distributor. Too bad, this one was really on top of my list. I contacted DELL Israel and was told that the XPS line is not imported or supported in Israel. I ruled out the Macbook because I felt Apple hasn't been in the Intel based notebook field long enough. There were many issues with their first attempt. Anyhow I decided to drop Apple in this round. The Thinkpad T60p was a hard one. I am familiar with their previous model the T43p and despite the fact that I've been relatively happy with it I want to try something else. Back to the drawing board...

I came across a thread on one of the forums where they mentioned the DELL Precision M90. It is a high end work station model. I decided to take a closer look. The M90 has a case which is similar to the XPS M1710, just without the lights and colors. The more I looked around the more certain I became that this is what I want.

I searched for local resellers on the US DELL site and found a long list of official DELL resellers. On the list there was one with an online store, but it only had low end models and they didn't have time to talk on the phone. There are many online stores that sell DELL machines in Israel, but many of them do private imports. I didn't even consider buying from one of these. In one of these stores, the price on the M90 that I wanted was close to 40KNIS. Yes, 40K. That's a car, not a pc! So what do you do then? I called three large resellers and by all of them I was requested to leave a message and someone would get back to me. I left a message that I'm interested in talking to a sales person regarding a Precision M90. Only one returned my call.

A sales person from Omnitech contacted me and a few emails went back and forth before I decided exactly what I wanted and got a quote. Here's what I got:

DELL Precision M90

A few surprises:

• The price was lower than that on the US Dell site. I don't know if most americans buy at list price, but this was certainly good news.
• I was promised that it would be delivered withing 21 working days. That's a long time to wait. Every day my old computer seemed to be running just a little slower. After two weeks I was informed that the computer had arrived and that it just has to go through customs. A couple of days later I got it.
• I am used to sales people being very nice until a deal is made, but after that you are air. Not this time. Excellent follow-up by the sales representative.

Conclusion:

I have now been using the new computer for almost two weeks and I'm very satisfied with the performance. Actually I'm very satisfied with everything. Even Visual Studio works like a charm. Only CodeRush is still a little too slow loading tons of stuff, but that seems to be because of excessive disk access which hasn't improved since my previous computer. My experience with Omnitech was also great and I'll return when a new purchase is on the horizon.

What do I miss? When you buy a notebook you don't buy only hardware, you buy proprietary software as well. In this regard DELL doesn't even come close to IBM (Lenovo). The Thinkpad software suite is many times better than that of DELL's.

Here's a pic from NTRONICS post on the M90

And another one from Engadget

Reviews:
Recent review from xbit labs
InforWorld review
NotebookForums
NotebookReviews

Replacing my Thinkpad - Part II

Part I can be found here

Local support

When something goes wrong with a notebook you can't just open it and replace a bad graphics card, motherboard etc. I'm not taking the risk of being left with an unusable plastic box with a hypothetical value of 3-4K$.

Performance

The components I considered here were the CPU, RAM speed and Hard disk speed.

CPU – Despite the somewhat disappointing performance delta between Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo series, I ruled out the Core Duo mostly because the price difference was close to insignificant. It was a little harder to select which CPU in the Core2 series to go with. The CPUs are numbered as following:

I ruled out the 5x series because of their lower L2 Cache. It wasn't (and isn't) clear to me how much of a difference there is in actual usage scenarios between the T7200 and the T7600, but I knew I would regret picking something less than the fastest CPU. (This was irrational decision #1) An expensive one, but one I felt I could live with. If someone would ask me what I recommend, I would probably say T7200 which is the lowest CPU with 4MB L2 cache and spend that extra money on something else.

Just a note on the irrational decision, I know myself. After two months any computer seems that it could benefit from better performance. I know that if I had bought any other than the T7600, I would upgrade it within a few months and that would probably cost me more in total. Enough on that.

RAM speed – Here there's a choice between 400MHz, 533MHz and 667MHz. Just to get some feeling for these numbers, here is a memory bandwidth chart.

I don't think there are any high end notebooks today shipping with 400MHz RAM modules. There doesn't seem to be any real price difference between 533MHz and 667MHz modules, so I chose the latter.

Hard disk speed – This one is easy, 7200 rpm (Rotations per Minute). The price difference for an 80GB HDD is about 80$ between a 5400rpm and a 7200rpm. Spend that money and don't look back.

Disk space

I actually left this for the end. I already decided on 7200 rpm and would take as much as I could afford when getting a final quote. My lower limit was 80GB. (I'm currently working with a 60GB 7200 rpm HDD and it is great, but too often I have to move stuff off to my portable hard disk)

RAM

I am currently working with 1.5GB and that is not enough. Vista is around the corner and can efficiently benefit from 2GB. I peeked at 4GB, but those additional 2GB is about 2K$ which is not an option. I'm going with 2GB 667MHz.

Form Factor and screen

I will be moving this computer back and forth between my home and the office a lot. The case must be sturdy and high quality. The Thinkpad has a 14.1" screen which is too small to efficiently work on without an external display. The lower limit is 15.4", but I would like a 17". I'll rely on online reviews when making a choice later.

Portability

Since I would like a 17" screen it's a given that this will not be a small computer. I don't go by bus or train and I don't fly enough to make working during a flight an issue. The computer is a desktop replacement and will probably be both big and heavy. Fine with me! I have a gorgeous black OGIO bag for my Thinkpad and I really don't want to put that in the closet, but I'll replace it with a backpack if it is too heavy.

With this part done it's time to go shopping…

Replacing my Thinkpad - Part I

In late June I wrote a post on optimizing the performance of my Thinkpad T43p. While the suggestions in that post are still relevant for optimizing the performance of any PC, time has come to move on and replace the Thinkpad.

To buy a serious (read fast/expensive) notebook is a tough task and I spent more quality time than anticipated in selecting a new notebook. But then, I probably will have to spend more time with this fellow over the next two years than with anyone else, so it seems worth the hassle.

Since I already spent the time and made some decisions I thought I'll share them with you. So here we go.

Usually when someone wants to buy a computer and asks me questions on what to buy, most of the issues are related to what the user wants to do and how much he wants to spend. Does he have to go with a notebook, or would it suffice with a desktop and a portable hard drive. After this exploration, the only thing left is to find a computer with the correct balance between usage pattern and cost.

This has been my equation for purchasing computers for a long time as well, but not this time. The main problem is that it is close to impossible to upgrade the "significant" hardware components of a notebook. So it is basically not an option to buy current mainstream components and upgrade later. If you take the notebook lane, you're mostly stuck with what you got. Sure some components can be upgraded, but then they are often prohibitively expensive.

I guess my usage pattern is pretty demanding, but I don't think it's unusual for a developer.

@Work: The following software must all be open at the same time without causing Disk or CPU bottlenecks.

• Multiple instances of SQL server
• Visual Studio 2005 (with CodeRush loaded)
• Office (Outlook, Word, Excel)
• OnTime (AxoSofts bug/feature tracking software)
• A couple of instances of IE 7

@Home: Don't think that my computer is at rest when I get home from work. In our after hours we make home videos of the kids etc. so video editing and casual photo editing at decent speeds is a must as well. The only "problem" with this requirement, is that video editing is very different from my mundane tasks where graphics performance is a non issue.

I'm not into gaming, though I could easily kill a few hours with Half-Life2. (If I only could find those hours).

No, I didn't ignore the upcoming Windows Vista, which will have requirements much like video editing. But I made a conscious decision that I'm not waiting for DirectX 10 to become widely available. By the time DirectX 9 become obsolete I've taken farewell with this notebook anyhow.

I'm running Diskeeper 2007 and a few other utilities and maintenance apps as well, but I have them scheduled to run in the background during nights.

My first problem with this usage pattern was that I didn't know of any notebook that would allow me to run all of this without making the system look like a fish on shore. (No offense to IBM of course, but my Thinkpad with this load behaved like WinXP on a PII.)

Looking at all of the above, I tried to convert it into a set of criteria that I could use to determine the hardware spec of the computer. After that I would look for a specific notebook matching that configuration using online reviews, benchmarks, blogs and newsgroups.

The main factors (In order of importance)

1. Local support
2. Performance (For my usage patterns, see above)
3. Disk space
4. RAM
5. Form factor
6. Portability

Price is obviously a factor, but I left that to the end of the process. If I'll have to make compromises later so be it.

Continued in Part II