Windows Vista Service Pack 2

I read about it, but forgot to mention it here. Last week ( October 29th)Microsoft released Windows Vista Service Pack 2 BETA to a very few lucky testers. The whole official release is still a few months away , but I'd say that most likely Q1 of 2009 will bring the service pack to everyone.

In addition to previously released updates since the launch of Windows Vista SP1, Windows Vista SP2 contains changes focused on supporting new types of hardware and adding support for several emerging standards:

• Windows Vista SP2 adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches.


• Windows Vista SP2 contains the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology.


• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista.


• Adds Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.


• Windows Vista SP2 enables the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

And of course, in adition to this there will be a number of bug and compatibility fixes. Will be waiting for it, thought I really doubt it will have the impact that SP1 had, especially because the OS doesn't desperately need it ( as was the case with the first service pack)

Cheers, Geeky

Asus TV 7135 Tuner Card

I had another PC a couple of years ago, runnning Win XP. The PC came with a tv tuner card. Now i'm not the type to watch tv ..basically everything i watch is on my pc and usually not related to this country. So I didn't use at all because of that, and also because for some unexplained reason the sound didn't work. When I gave that machine away I took out the tuner card and yesterday i came across it. Having nothing better to do and no life of my own I decided to try it out and see if i could get it working.

I hooked it up to the motherboard and turned on the PC. I was a little worried about drivers cause the original driver cd would only install on : " windows 95, 98, 98se, 2000 or later". Don't actually get how that's possible but anyway I really thought that it wouldn't run on my Windows 1.1 ( Vista Ultimate SP1 ). After loading Vista had a little surprise for me. It actually auto installed the driver from microsoft's server. So I said great ..let's try it out. Launched Win Media Center and tried to watch tv. OPS sorry no tv tuner card found. You need one! BUY ONE! FROM WINDOWS MARKETPLACE NOOOW! I thought to myself ..well the pc doesn't recognise the card..too bad. And i took a look in Device Manager under Sound, Video and Game controllers but the card DID show up there. Tried to update but it said the drivers were the latest there was. After 10 minutes of looking around i realised that Vista had only installed the driver for the FM receiver on the card, not for the video part. So after another 20 minutes of looking around the Asus website i came across the corect driver and installed it. Then I started Media Center one more time.. WOW SORRY NO TUNER CARD FOUND BUY ONE YOU CHEAP BASTARD. I was sick with media center so i got the latest version ( trial) of Power Cinema and the card works perfectly with it.

PS: Opera has reached version 9.62 but it sucks more and more. I have problems with it rendering many pages ( including this "new post" page) and there's no support for silverlight and other such add-ons.