Right now I've got 4,234 pictures taking up 8.53 GB of space on my desktop computer.  As a matter of fact, I've got a boat-load of video files too since I recently bought an HD Video camera.  And 33 GB of music too.  So soon I'll be exploring ways to back up all of this information.  But for now, let's talk about tagging! 

The other night I wanted to organize all of the pictures on my PC.  Sure, I'm a Vista user but I still haven't figured out all of the features included with it.  I fired up Windows Photo Gallery to see what it can do.  It's a pretty intuitive application so before long I had all of my files organized and tagged.  Tagging is a cool concept.  If you aren't familiar with it, when you tag a photo (or another file), you assign it a category.  But unlike the folders that we store photos in, I can put many different tags on a picture.  So if I have a photo of my wife and I, I can tag it "Andy" and also "Rebecca".  Plus, if we are on vacation, I can tag it with "vacation" or "skiing" or whatever. 

Although Windows Photo Gallery is part of Vista, I also have Windows Live Photo Gallery, which is a free download.  It seems to have a few more features then the version included with Vista and, as far as I know, it works on Windows XP too.

Why tag photos?  Now that my collection is organized with tags, I can easily search my collection with Windows Photo Gallery for specific pictures.  If I want to see all pictures of my wife and I on vacation, I just enter "Andy Rebecca vacation" in the search box and BAM, I get what I was looking for.  Or I can search for "Rebecca Hiking" or "Friends Skiing" or "Family Beach".  Plus, I can sort the results by date, tag, folder, etc.  Pretty cool, huh?

It's really easy to do.  I started off tagging photos in bulk.  My files are already organized in nested folders with meaningful titles such as "Skiing-> Big Sky" or "Vacation -> Italy".  Andy I've (already) got tons of pictures of little Ben in folders like "Ben -> Week 1".  So to start, I selected every picture in the the folder called "Ben" (including 6 sub folders) and tagged every picture "Ben".  I did the same for the vacation photos.  I found folders named after various holidays with my family so I tagged all the photos "Family".  You get the idea.  Within a few minutes I put some simple tags on most of my pictures.  Since the thumbnail viewer is pretty good and I have a wide screen monitor, it was easy for me to then open folders, select lots of pictures at one time and apply more specific tags such as "Andy", "Rebecca", "Grandma", etc.  Plus, I removed the tags that didn't seem appropriate from my earlier "bulk tagging".  For instance, there were pictures in the folder Ben that were just of other family members.

The project only took about an hour and I was pretty well tagged up, but I am sure I'll keep on tagging my existing files to get more accurate.  From now on, I'll be tagging all of my pictures as I import them from my camera.  My tagging strategy is pretty simple.  I have tags for people such as:  Andy, Rebecca, Mom, Grandma, Grandmom, Grandpop.  Plus I use last names for siblings and their children.  So "Doe" would be used for my brother John Doe, his wife and all of their children.  And one for Friends too.

I also have activity/event tags such as Weddings, Vacation, Skiing, Sightseeing, Beach, Outdoors (hiking, etc).  You get the idea.

With 4,234 pictures and still growing, I've got a lot of great photos, and some that aren't so great.  But I hate to delete photos, (even though I should start doing so).  But with Photo Gallery, I can also Rate pictures!  So I can put 5 stars on all of my favorites.  By doing that, I'll be able to filter my pictures even more!

I've gotta start by saying I love Vista.  A lot of people I talk to are still scared of Vista but I have really enjoyed using it.  I'm no expert on the features but I did blog about a few that I liked right out of the gate.  Lately,  one thing that makes me crazy is the TrustedInstaller.exe.  First, you should understand that I built my own machine and I guess either my CPU fan or the box itself (or both) must suck.  Because when my CPU is cranking, the fan revs up and rattles the entire box.  It is really annoying!  And because of this, it is obvious to me every time TrustedInstaller.exe is running.  This thing typically runs at 48% of my CPU and lasts for 15 minutes or so.  I don't know why it isn't throttled back a bit, it doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, when I first figured out that TrustedInstaller was the culprit, I did some web searching and found a blog post by Scott Hanselman.  I was really glad that I wasn't the only one suffering, especially someone that I respect like Scott (sorry Scott).  But it validated me, that I wasn't doing something wrong myself. 

Interestingly, when I looked up his blog post today to include it here, I read something that stood out to me:

"When I see things like this, I think "If I worked for Microsoft, fixing this problem could be a HUGE opportunity.""

Posted 5/28/2007 on Scott's Blog

Wow, that is awesome because I remembered another post on Scott's blog from which I quote:

"I'm going to work for Microsoft. There, I said it. I'm going to work for ScottGu's team in the Developer Division."

Posted 7/21/2007 on Scott's Blog

OK, I am pretty sure ScottGu's team isn't responsible for the TrustedInstaller.  But Scott (Hanselman), can you PLEASE walk down the hall and talk to someone!

I'm still in the process of getting my computer all set up since the move to Vista.  Like most developers, I have a lot of software and tools to install.

The other day I installed SQL Server but I had a little trouble getting Reporting Services installed because I didn't meet the requirements. 

I've installed Reporting Services a few times in the past on XP.  So before I even started I installed IIS.  To do so, go to Control Panel > Programs.  From there you can click "Turn Windows features on or off".  You'll get a little pop-up with a list of features.  I later learned that just choosing Internet Information Services (and the sub topic World Wide Web Services) is not enough.  I know this because that is all I did and Reporting Services would not install!  Luckily I found this article at support.microsoft.com.  I had to go back and choose some extra features of IIS that did not get installed by default.  The article explains the whole thing, but this picture should make it easy to see which features need to be enabled. 

Yes, it is a small picture but click it so see it full size!

 After making these changes, Reporting Services installed in a snap.  Good luck.

Here are a few Vista features and my thoughts after a few days of use.

Instant Search (Thumbs Up)

The first thing I noticed with Vista is that stuff wasn't where I expected it to be.  This is not Windows XP, that is for sure.  Immediately after I set up Vista I needed to see the Device Manager and I had no idea where to look.  I have since found it by the way.  But what I learned early on is that you can easily search for installed programs as well as files.  You can see in the screen shot that I typed "Device" and as I typed the search started.  The top item was "Device Manager" and it was highlighted so I could hit enter and it opened.  That was easy.  I have been using this to start most programs so far.  I just finished installing IIS.  I couldn't find the admin tool so I just typed IIS in the search bar.

Lots of Windows Security Warnings and Prompts (unsure)

I heard about this but didn't realize what it was.  Every time you do certain things you get a security warning.  So, for example, if I open the IIS Manager Vista prompts me with "Windows needs your permission to continue.  If you started this action, continue."  I am sure there is a way to disable these messages but I have to admit, I feel more secure.  We'll see how long it takes before I get frustrated.

Lack of Control over Defragmenter (Thumbs Down)

My friend Gary from work has been showing me the ways of a sys admin.  He taught me to use partitions for various files.  He also likes to defragment the drives after making big changes.  I've been following his ideas lately but found a snag with Vista.  The Disk Defragmenter is pretty lame!  You options seem to be (after you get past the security warning): a) Run defragmenter on a schedule or b) Deframent now.  That is pretty much it.  I don't know what happens when you choose b.  There are no options and no status update.  Is it defragmenting all of my drives or just one?  I assume it is doing all of them.  I tried running it on a schedule but I don't know if it worked.  It was scheduled for 1 AM but my PC was asleep at the time so I think it skipped it.  This morning I tried to run it manually.  So I kicked it off and went to work.  I came home to find out that the PC went to sleep and never finished defraging.  This is pretty lame.  I have heard that Vista manages the defragmenting for us now so I shouldn't have to worry about it.  I am not so confident in this.

No More "My Documents" (Thumbs Up)

Windows XP had a folder for each user within the folder Documents and  Settings.  Inside each user is a folder for My Documents and inside that My Music, My Pictures, etc.  I like to re-direct my "My Documents" to a different drive and that was easy to do.  But you didn't have a lot of control over the other "My" folders.  It was all or nothing.   Vista introduces a Users folder.  Inside that, each user has a folder, in my case it is called "Andy".  Inside that folder you will find folders named Contacts, Downloads, Documents, Music, etc.  No more "My"...I like that already!  Then I found out that you can easily re-direct any of these folders to a different location.  So I put Documents, Downloads, etc on my D drive and I put Music, Pictures, and Video on my M (media) drive.  And I can still use the shortcut on the start menu.  I click "Andy" and I see all of my folders, even though they are located in different locations.  This is very cool.  To learn how to re-direct the files, read this post I found on Ed Bott's blog (I don't know him, found it with Google).

So I finally got my copy of Vista.  It took a while, but that is another story.  I've got Vista Ultimate and my PC is pretty new, I built it myself.  Here are the specs that I think are important regarding the Vista install:

• Motherboard:  ASUS P5ND2-SLI Socket 775
• Processor:  Intel Pentium D 840 3.2 GHz (Dual Core)
• RAM:  1 Gig
• Video:  EVGA GeForce 6200LE 128MB (OR SO I THOUGHT)  You can probably guess where this is going.

Before I continue I should be clear.  I am a programmer, not a systems guy.  I can usually find my way with this stuff but I'm no expert with hardware, that is for sure.

The Install

I ran a Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and I passed so I figured everything would be all cool (did I miss a warning or fine print somewhere?  In hindsight, I wonder).  I popped in the Vista DVD and proceeded.  By the way, I was warned to stay away from the upgrade and just do a full install.  So I did.  Vista installed really quickly so I was excited.  In 15 minutes or so I was up and running Vista...sort of. 

Windows Experience Index

I played around for a few minutes, everything looked different then XP so I was pretty curious.  And then I thought to myself, "Where is all that cool Windows Aero stuff?"   Hmmm, I am not getting the good stuff here.  After some research on the web I found out how to check my Windows Experience Index (Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System.  Then click the link for Windows Experience Index).  I figured this test would inform me about my problem. Instead I got this error "Cannot complete assessment.  The assessment or other operation did not complete successfully.  This is due to an error being reported from the operating system, driver, or other component."

Nice.  You'd think they could have narrowed it down and told me why it didn't work.

Device Problems

After checking my device manager, I found that there were 2 devices that Vista did not like.  One was the SM Bus Controller.  The second was "unknown device".  I called Asus.  I was able to get some information from them and was told to check out the NVIDIA site to download the driver for the SM  Bus (System Management Bus).   After the install, I was down to the one unknown device.  I found some information by viewing the details page of the the driver properties window.  The hardware ID was ACPI\PNPB006.  Thanks to the magic of google, I determined that this was probably a GamePort or MidiPort that is not supported anymore with Vista.  So I disabled it via the BIOS.  Now I have no bad devices.  I was feeling proud of myself for getting this far so I re-ran the Windows Experience assessment and... get the same error.  Nice.  My ego was really not doing well at this point. 

Since the error was rather vague, I spent some time upgrading various other drivers.  I figured one would save the day.  Upgrade a driver, run the assessment tool, upgrade a driver, run the tool.  Yada yada yada, still no aero glass.

Video Card

I called EVGA.  Turns out, my card does not have 128MB ram.  The box said "Supports 128MB".  While I was on the phone with them I opened my PC to get the part number and found a tag that says 16MB on it.  Uh oh, what is this?  The guy on the phone could not explain to me why the box says "Supporting 128MB" or even what that means (pretty sad, huh).  I later learned that it shares the some memory from the system but it doesn't really have 128MB.  The bottom line is that it does not have enough video memory for the advanced features of Vista. 

Luckily, it is pretty easy to get hardware quickly.  I hit Tiger Direct and ordered the card:  XFX GeForce 7600 GS with 512MB DDR2.  My biggest worry was that I'd get the card and find out I had some other problem.  Two days later the card was delivered and installed.

My New Experience Index: 4.4

 

(click to enlarge)

I wasn't sure if I should be excited or not.  I had it in my head that my rating would higher.  But, this is enough to run all of the cool Aero Glass features of vista.  Oddly enough, my cool new video card is the lowest scoring item.  Do I need to increase my ranking?  Supposedly a rating of 4 or higher is all I but now I admit I have rating envy.

My Complaints/Lessons Learned 

In the end the fault was mine because my video card was lousy.  But here is what bothers me: the error "Cannot complete assessment".  Why not?  Why couldn't Vista tell me what the problem is?  Maybe not specifically, but why not tell me there is a problem with my video card or driver or something more specific.  At least I learned enough to ask the right questions before buying a graphics card.

Did I mess with those device for nothing?  Would it all have worked if I didn't disable the GamePort?  I guess it doesn't matter and I learned a bit about devices from the experience.

I am planning to install Vista on my home PC. While I am really excited about it, I keep hearing about "little problems" that people are having and it is making me nervous.