PC ProSchools – TechTalk

For those of you who are dying to get your hands on a new Core i7 system running there is some good news. When the i7 first came out it used the LGA 775 and then the LGA 1366 socket type. This was all well and good if you had the money for not only the CPU but the main board to support it, and the triple channel memory. More recently Intel redid the core architecture of the i7 CPUs to improve power consumption and make the CPU a more main stream viable CPU solution. The newer i7 CPUs use the new LGA 1156 socket and are more power efficient to the tune of using only 95W versus the previous versions using 130W. Also the new configuration goes back to the older dual channel memory architecture to lower the overall cost of the system. In the end if you still feel you really need all the power of the Core i7 CPU and the triple channel memory the LGA 1366 and LGA 775 sockets are still available.

The Troubleshooting Never Ends…

A strange occurrence happened upon me the other day in the Recording Room.  I was looking to create a shared folder on the recorder system so I could easily transfer files between it and the PC in the editing room.  I went to share a folder and saw that the Sharing tab was not visible.

Now you guys can start brainstorming a few ideas as to why this was the case, as did I at the time.  I initially thought that I don’t have administrative rights.  That does hide the sharing tab, as only members of the local Administrators or Power Users groups can share folders out on XP Professional.  I checked, and I was an admin.  Hmmmmm…

Next, I decided to investigate deeper into the OS.  I looked to see if the Server service was started, as it allows you to host shared folders and printers.  To my surprise, it wasn’t even listed in the Services console!  Wow, now there’s an issue.  What’s even more wild is that the Server service should be installed and running by default.  Ok, why the heck does this embedded version of XP on this recorder system not have it…

A little research on Google paid off, as I found that the reason the service did not exist was because the File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks service component was not installed.  This is something that many people have trouble finding, as it is almost always installed an enabled by default.  I, luckily, knew where to go: properties of the Local Area Connection.  Just like TCP/IP, File and Print Sharing is a networking component.  Once I installed that, and rebooted, then I had the ability to attempt to start the Server service.  However, I received an error 126.  Now it was back to Google…

To make a long story short, after some research, I concluded that the srvsvc.dll file was missing, so I copied it off another system and dropped into the System32 folder.  After that, I restarted and then attempted to register the dll after the reboot using the Regsvr32 command.  It stated that the file could not be registered.  I tried starting the Server service in the Services console one last time anyway, and it errored out with error code 2: could not find the file specified!  I looked into the System log in Event Viewer and read a warning stating the Server service driver failed to load.  So now what?

At this point, I decided to give up.  I hate to do this, but it appears that the embedded version of XP that is installed in the recorder system just seems to leave out a lot more than I thought.  This isn’t over; the troubleshooting never ends…

Virgin Galactic is a company within Sir Richard Branson‘s Virgin Group which plans to provide sub-orbital spaceflights to the paying public, along with suborbital space science missions and orbital launches of small satellites. Further in the future Virgin Galactic hopes to offer orbital human spaceflights as well

It is planned that the spacecraft are to be robust and affordable enough to take paying passengers ($200,000 per person with a $20,000 deposit). The craft is projected to be an eight passenger, two pilot craft. Its planned trajectory will overlap the Earth’s atmosphere at 70,000 feet (21,000 m), which will make it a sub orbital journey with a short period of weightlessness. At around 16 kilometers or 52,000 ft (16,000 m), the rocket will separate when the plane reaches its maximum height. The time from liftoff of the White Knight II booster carrying Spaceship Two until the touchdown of Spaceship Two after the suborbital flight will be about 2.5 hours. The suborbital flight itself will only be a small fraction of that time. The weightlessness will last approximately 6 minutes. Passengers will be able to release themselves from their seats during these 6 minutes and float around the cabin. In addition to the suborbital passenger business, Virgin Galactic will market Spaceship Two for suborbital space science missions and market WhiteKnight Two for “small satellite” launch services. They plan to initiate request for proposals for the satellite business in early 2010.

Spaceship Two will fly higher than Spaceship One, to a height of 110 km in order to go beyond the defined boundary of space (100 km) and lengthen the experience of weightlessness. The spacecraft will reach around Mach 3 (1000 m/s), which is faster than current fighter jets are capable of reaching. The spacecraft will not be able to sustain that speed for long periods of time. It has doubled the crew (2) and can carry triple the passengers (6) of its predecessor. In honor of the science fiction series “Star Trek”, the first two ships are named in honor of the fictional starships “Enterprise” and “Voyager”. To re-enter the atmosphere Spaceship Two folds its wings up, and then returns them to their original position for a smooth and gentle glide back onto the runway. The craft has a very limited cross-range capability and until other planned spaceports are built worldwide, it has to land in the area where it started. Further “Spaceports” are planned in Dubai and elsewhere, with the intention that the space line will have a world-wide availability and commodity in the future.