Windows OS

This is excellent news and good news for anyone running Windows XP on an ASUS P4 motherboard that has onboard SoundMax AC97 codecs. Uninstall/disable the XP drivers before you attempt an upgrade or else you will be met with a very unpleasant instant blue screen upon loading of the kernel drivers.

Also, if you attempt an upgrade of XP to Vista and it fails, expect WGA to complain that your copy of XP is not legit, even though it really is. I also had trouble with it thinking that the hardware changed drastically and wanted me to reactivate. After many failed Vista updates, it turned into a WGA nightmare.

Don't waste the half hour I just did looking for this hotfix.

This hotfix is required for using the Virtual Disk Service with HP's MSA 1500 (KB 912944), but all the links on Microsoft's site are missing. The revision of Storport.sys mentioned in 912944 is 5.2.3790.2630 whereas the revision of Storport.sys mentioned in KB 916048 is 5.2.3790.2723.

912944's revision is from January 2006 and 916048's revision is from June 2006.

So, in other words, if you are going to cluster Windows boxes with SANs, install KB 916048.

Only install the wireless driver and use the XP wireless support for the features you need. I know the Intel driver programs add some functionality overall, but I'd rather not have them eat up 512MB per day.

Also of note, it looks like they don't have the best security record for buffer overflows and exploits:
http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/CS-023068.htm

That being said, the actual wireless hardware is still excellent and has decent Linux support without jumping thru hoops with NDISwrapper or anything.

I'm doing a lot of clustering of Windows 2003 lately and VMWare, with some clusters within VMs and outside, so this list of hotfixes comes in handy quite a bit. I really like VMWare ESX 3.0 so far.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=895092

If you are thinking about getting a new LCD monitor, you might want to wait a little bit. It looks like pretty much anything related to HD content is going to require a monitor that supports HDCP. If you are looking for a new video card, you might want to wait until HDMI becomes more common.

HDMI replaced about 5 cables to and from my TV and Dish PVR due to HDMI having the video and audio all in one cable. I like the DVI interface overall but unfortunately it doesn't carry any audio on it.

I'm still on the fence about DRM overall. I can understand both sides of the fence. I just don't like things that make life more of a hassle and takes away any type of 'fair use' of content. I don't like the thought of buying a movie DVD and then buying a PSP version of the same movie, and also having no reliable way of backing up the content I've recorded on my PVR.

At least I can load MP3s onto my cell phone with Bluetooth and not bother about paying for cellphone ringtones. Anything under 11 seconds, according to some rap lawsuits years back dealing with samples, can be used. I'd hate to have a CD that I can't get the sound sample off to load onto the phone. We're nickeled and dimed enough as it is with cell phone services.
$15 to swap ESNs on phones? $30 to activate? All of these are money makers, and in the past, used to be free.