Jordan Hall » Windows

Nokia N97 – Fixing the Out of Space on ‘C:’ Issues

Jordan Hall — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:51 +0000

It always annoyed me that Nokia adopted the strange Windows alphabetical lettering of its storage devices. Regardless, the only issue I’ve ever had with my Nokia N97 is the primary C: storage device running low on memory.

The ‘C:’ device represents the very small, primary internal flash memory present on the phone. The secondary storage device, usually ‘D:’ or ‘E:’ is much larger (in my case 32GB), but unfortunately not everything can be installed to the mass storage. For those applications that truly need to be installed on the primary drive, they can use a great deal of the limited space.

Here are a few tips I discovered on how to help clear out the primary drive’s space. You’ll know if you need to do this if you are receiving constant reminders that your phone is out of space on drive ‘C:’.

Any applications previously installed on C: that could be installed on E: should be uninstalled and reinstalled on the larger storage device.
Install third party web browser, such as Opera Mobile, to the mass storage and then delete the ‘C:\System\Cache\’ folder belonging to the default Nokia web browser.
Change the default ‘Messaging’ storage to mass storage. To do this, open the messaging application and then go to Options > Settings > Other > ‘Memory In Use’.
Uninstall any of the uninstallable default applications and widgets that you do not use. I removed the ‘Facebook’ home screen widget and now just use the mobile web version of Facebook.
Make sure the Ovi Store is set to install to mass storage by default. To do this open the Ovi Store settings at Options > Account > Settings > Installation Preferences, within the Ovi Store application itself.
If you are using Nokia Messaging or Nokia Messaging for Exchange, delete and reconfigure your accounts and this will clear out a significant cache. Alternatively, if you do not mind, remove the Nokia Messaging application entirely and use a web-mail alternative (if possible).

In my case, removing Nokia Messaging was the most helpful. Anyone else had this problem, if so, how did you clear your N97′s main memory?

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Google Chrome OS Raising Awareness of Open Source Software

Jordan Hall — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:25:01 +0000

I’m quite highly anticipating the release of Google Chrome OS – Google’s net book and appliance cloud operating system. There are a few main reasons behind this.

Simplicity and Openness

Note that I combine the two here. It is very important that both software user friendliness is combined with the nature of free and open source software to prevent device and software simplification becoming a model for restricted development.

Apple do one of these well – simplicity. Apple products are almost always considered to be highly user-friendly and easy to use for all consumers, taking the iPhone and iPad as the latest examples within the consumer electronics market.

However, Apple has a very closed nature to their software models, especially with the iPhone and iPad, where all application acquisition is restricted to a specific Apple controlled ‘App. Store’ and all application developement is restricted to a Apple controlled SDK (software development kit) which is platforme restricted and incompatible with all platforms other than Apple’s own Mac OS X platform.

Promotion of Open Source Software

Since Google Chrome OS is to based upon a Linux kernel, and use many existing Linux systems, not only will this bring improvements to Linux operating systems as a whole due to Google’s code contributions, but additionally it will bring Linux and, more generally, open source software into the light.

The concepts of Linux and open source software are by no means yet the household names of Microsoft, Windows and Apple. Dependant on how Google Chrome OS is marketed by Google, this release could be a great boom for the promotion of Linux as a whole.

Zero Price Operating System

Since Google intends to release the operating system for free (zero price), it will likely also reduce the apparent worth of paid operating systems, such as the paid offerings by Microsoft (Windows) or Apple (Mac OS X). The increased use of web applications and the Internet to do many daily tasks makes Google Chrome OS perfect for the most common uses of computers today. For these tasks, alternative operating systems hold no significant advantages, whilst the advantages for Microsoft and Apple operating systems now lie specifically in the domain of platform restricted software packages, either in the desktop realm, such as Microsoft Office / Apple iWork or the server realm, such as Microsoft Exchange / Mac OS X server software packages.

Even then, with the growth of multi-platform, online productivity and collaboration tools, such as Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Mail, these platform restricted ‘offline’ software packages may become redundant as more and more businesses and enterprises rely upon the Internet and cloud based applications and storage.

What do you think? Will Google Chrome OS be a boom for Linux, and will its competitors’ offerings be hurt significantly by its release?

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Wine – Wine is not an emulator – it is a Windows compatibility layer

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

Wine is essentially a Windows compatibility layer for Linux, allowing Linux users to run Windows applications in a much more direct manner than full operating system virtualisation. More information about Wine is to come shortly.

If you wish, you can visit the official Wine website to get more details about this excellent free piece of software and download instructions.

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Uptime – How to find out how long your computer has been on – the uptime

Jordan Hall — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:15:33 +0000

In Windows, you can find your uptime via one of the following two methods commands. To enter these commands open a command prompt from the Start Menu or just execute cmd.exe

systeminfo | find “Up Time”
net statistics server (Note that this command displays actually shows the last boot time from which the uptime can be calculated)
Uptime (This command is not included in the operating system, but is an uptime utility provided by Microsoft)

Also, it is worth noting that Windows Server 2003 systems and above record their uptime in the System event log at midnight every night, as Event ID 6013. See the screenshot below from a Windows Server 2003 uptime event.

In Mac OS X, Linux, Unix and other Unix-like operating systems, simply enter the following command into any terminal and the current system load values and uptime will be displayed.

uptime

In OpenVMS systems, the following command provides the system uptime.

show system /noprocess

Hope this helps you find the uptime of your system regardless of the running operating system, be it Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix or any other system.

If you know uptime commands specific to any other operating systems not listed, please use the comments system and I will update this article accordingly. Of course, feel free to post your uptime(s) as well – a good bit of competition is always healthy!

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