Practical Technology

for practical people.

March 11, 2011
by sjvn01
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Installing 32-bit IE 9 on 64-bit Windows

Since I’ve written about how much faster 32-bit Internet Explorer (IE) 9 is than 64-bit IE 9, and all other browsers, on Windows 7, I’ve been buried by people running 64-bit Windows, and one poor soul who was still running 64-bit Vista, wanting to know how to install 32-bit IE 9 on their 64-bit Windows 7 systems. It’s actually both quite easy and a bit confusing, so here’s how to do it and a little of the back story.

First, as many of you have discovered, if you try to download and install 32-bit IE 9 on a 64-bit Windows PC, you’ll get the error message: “This version of setup doesn’t support your Windows system type (32-bit/64-bit).” It’s right. You can’t.

Instead what you need to do is to download the 64-bit version of IE 9. Yes, I know, it’s the version you don’t want if you want great Web browser performance, just stick with me. After you’ve done this, if you look at your All Programs menu, you’ll see, right under Internet Explorer (64-bit), “Internet Explorer,” that’s the 32-bit version.

That’s right, when you install the 64-bit version, just like a Cracker-Jack prize, you get the real prize–32-bit IE 9–at the bottom of the box.

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March 10, 2011
by sjvn01
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OpenSUSE 11.4: SUSE Linux Revitalized

It may not be as cool as Ubuntu or as cutting-edge as Fedora, but I’ve always had a soft spot for openSUSE Linux. Like MEPIS, another old favorite of mine, openSUSE just works and works well. The last couple of versions didn’t really get me excited though. They seemed more incremental than real advances. Now, though, now, I’m excited by the brand new openSUSE 11.4 release.

Why? Well, a bunch of things really. First, 11.4 uses the 2.6.37 Linux kernel. This kernel does a much better job of scaling virtual memory. That doesn’t matter much to me on my desktop, but it has mattered a lot from time to time over the years on my servers.

On the desktop side, I like that this kernel includes the open-source Broadcom Wi-Fi drivers. It also includes the latest X.org and Mesa graphic driver for noticeably better 2D and 3D acceleration.

On top of this, openSUSE uses the KDE Plasma Desktop 4.6 desktop by default, Over the years, I’ve had my ups and down with the KDE 4.x desktop, but I’ve gotten to like KDE 4.6 If you prefer the GNOME desktop, you can also opt to use the GNOME 2.32 interface. This distro also includes the GNOME Shell, which is part of the forthcoming GNOME3 desktop, available for testing.

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March 10, 2011
by sjvn01
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Chrome 10 vs. Internet Explorer 9 Reconsidered

When I recently took a look at the brand new Chrome 10 Web browser, the results for the latest release candidate of Internet Explorer (IE) 9 puzzled me because they were so bad. Some of my readers were more than puzzled. Some were outraged and accused me of deliberating trying to set up IE to fail. Please. I call them like I see them and, in my tests, the IE 9 RC was just dreadfully slow compared to the others.

Still, as I said, I wasn’t happy with my results. When I started hearing from people that I respected, like my ZDNet bud Ed Bott, that he was also seeing results that put IE 9 RC just ahead of Chrome, I decided to re-run my benchmarks and take a closer look at my results.

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March 9, 2011
by sjvn01
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HP: The Linux Desktop Company

Well, I didn’t see this coming. HP CEO Leo Apotheker, according to Bloomberg/Newsweek said that “every one of the PCs shipped by HP will include the ability to run WebOS in addition to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows.” I knew HP was serious about webOS, its Linux-based tablet/smartphone operating system. I didn’t know that HP was this serious.

For years, with the exception of Dell, most major PC vendors have been very reluctant to offer desktop Linux. This has been because they were afraid of upsetting the 800-pound gorilla of desktop operating systems: Microsoft.

The sales were there. I’ve been told by sources both at Dell and Canonical that pre-installed Ubuntu Linux PC sales alone have been in the millions. That may not be a lot compared to Windows, but given how hard most PC companies have made it to even shop for Linux-powered PCs, I think it’s darn impressive.

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March 8, 2011
by sjvn01
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Chrome 10: Close to a perfect Web Browser 10

I’ve liked the Google Chrome Web browser since it first showed up in 2008. Today, with the slipstream release of Chrome 10, I may finally be ready to retire all my other Web browsers.

The reason I’m considering doing this is quite simple. Chrome 10 is screamingly fast. It’s more than ten-times faster than its first version was in dealing with JavaScript. It also leads all other of today’s Web-browsers when it comes to raw JavaScript processing speed with its new “Crankshaft” V8 JavaScript engine.

How much faster? Well on the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark 0.91 test, Chrome left most, but not all of the other Web browsers eating its dust. I tested Chrome 10 on my Mint Linux 10 PC and was impressed. For benchmarking it though I decided to run it on my Windows 7 SP 1 system so that the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 could get its innings in.

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