I got my new dev box last night, just around quitting time. So I've spent the better part of today getting it up and running just the way I like it. So here's a litany of information you probably could care less about.
The first thing I did was do a full backup on my old dev box. I've got an external 240 GB firewire drive that I put my backups on, so I dumped everything onto that. The whole backup process takes a while because I do the full ones by hand. And let me tell you, transferring a few GB of stuff over firewire sure beats the hell out of burning it to CDs, which is how I used to perform backups.
Then I unpacked my brand new Dell Dimension 5150. Sleek-ish looking machine, with easy access on it and plenty of room to blow hot air. :-P
Once I was backed up, it was time to yank the old dev box out of it's "slot" near the desk, and prep the new dev box. I pulled the firewire card out of the old box, and opened up the new box. Man is it sparse in there! There are two PCI slots, one PCI Express slot, and then some little mini-slot that I can't even identify. So I went to my parts storage area and threw out every ISA card I owned. It's about damn time! ;-) I moved the firewire card into the new box, as well as installed another stick of RAM. Cleaned the dust out of the old dev box, and closed both machines up.
Then I went to move the new dev box into the old one's slot next to the desk. As I was hooking cables up, I ran into my first problem. The new box only has USB slots -- no PS/2. Needless to say, my KVM switch only has PS/2 connectors, not USB. Doh! So I yanked the USB->PS/2 adapter off the Mac, and am using that on the PC for now. I figured that I don't need to actually be able to type on the Mac anyhow. Janet is getting me a new adapter, which I'm sure will arrive sometime soon. Ta da, the new machine is all hooked up and ready to go!
So the first thing I do is grab my clean copy of XP Pro, and reformat + reinstall everything. I don't even bother booting into the original OS anymore since I already know what a worthless sack of a machine it'll be. After reformatting and reinstalling the OS, it's finally time to boot into my new box for the very first time. Exciting!
Almost none of the devices had drivers by default, so I had to fire up my trusty laptop and grab the ethernet drivers for the box. Why do that via the web, you may ask? Because Dell sucks wank and doesn't have a drivers or restore CD. They have a slip of paper that tells me I can find drivers by running Dell PC Restore, by clicking it on my desktop, or running system restore from the control panel. Uh... right. Morons.
Got the drivers, got them installed and proceeded to do the driver/patch update dance. Now I have all the drivers installed, and the system is entirely patched. w00t! Time to get my toolkit installed. So here's a list of all the software I keep on my dev box, as well as a blurb about what it is and why I need it.
- FireFox -- the best web browser out there. Tabbed browsing is a must, and it actually follows UI guidelines!
- Thunderbird -- again, the best email client out there.
- TextPad -- I use this text editor because it does everything I could ever ask it to do. It's fast, quick-launching, does syntax highlighting on the files I care about, has a good hex viewer, etc. Easily worth the 40$ or so.
- Nero 7 -- I use this to burn CDs, DVDs, etc. The thing rocks and does every possible feature under the sun. I mostly use this when I want to burn new Vista drops, or SLED betas since it burns DVDs so well.
- Keyspan USB adapter drivers -- I need this to drive my KeySpan 19-HS adapter. This is even more important on the new machine since there's no built-in DB9 serial port on the mobo. :: sighs ::
- MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I use Word for doing RBLibrary stuff, Excel pretty rarely and PowerPoint for my REAL World talks.
- WinRAR -- works so much faster and bettter than the built-in decompression stuff on Windows. It also handles just about every format under the sun.
- Tortoise SVN -- this is for subversion support that's built into the desktop shell. It works nice, and I need it for keeping our resources and frameworks stuff up to date on my PC. Otherwise I'd be stuck with the command line on the Mac, and using Samba to bring stuff over. No thanks.
- Visual Studio stuff -- I install VC++ 6, VB 6 and VS.NET (2005). I use VC++ 6 because I'm in charge of making sure the plugins SDK works with it. I use VB 6 for comparing compatibility issues. And I keep .NET around for an eye towards what the "others" in the dev tools market are up to.
- Latest MSDN docs -- I've curretly got July 2005 (I think that's the most current one). As much as I love the web, I like having the MSDN docs locally. My internet goes down often enough due to local new construction that I'd rather not be entirely hampered.
- Easy Thumbnails -- I keep this on the dev box because I also do personal stuff on here too, such as transfer pics from my digital camera to my website, which I want thumbnails for.
- WinDbg -- the best kernel-level debugger on Windows (next to SoftICE), and it's free. I also grab all the symbols for the OS as well. This is a must-have if you need to crawl thru assembly and has pulled out some very interesting x86 code generator bugs for RB.
- PEBrowse Professional -- I use this when I need to disect PE32 files. Comes in very handy and does everything I need it to do. What's more -- it's free.
- For my IM'ing needs, I use Trillian. Not because I like it (I actually despise the UI for it). But because I hate gaim for Windows even more, and I don't want to run four different apps to handle the various IM protocols I've used over the years.
- BitTorrent is how I usually get new Linux distro ISOs. Tends to be faster than the FTP sites nowadays, especially around new launch time.
- REALbasic (duh). I install the internal dev versions, as well as the last three releases (so 2005r4, 2006r1 and 2006r2 right now).
- Metrowerks CodeWarrior's remote debugger stub -- needed for when I remote debug from the Mac to my PC.
And that's what a new dev box's software looks like to me.
Last, but not least, the specs for this beast. :-) It's a 3 ghz P4 (with new-fangled HyperThreading! oooh), 2 GB of RAM, 80 GB hard drive (split in half -- half is for XP, half is for Vista), a firewire card, on-board network, graphics (going to be buying my own graphics card for this box), and sound. DVD burner.
Features I feel the dev box is lacking:
- PS/2 ports, by far! This adapter I have can't even keep up with my typing. It seems to miss letters that I type sometimes. This used to happen on the Mac, but I blamed the OS. Now that I see it on Windows as well, I'm more than slightly annoyed.
- DB9 serial support. I'm sorry, I know it's old-fashioned, but I use that feature all the time on every other dev box I've owned.
- A floppy drive, which I may pull out from another box and install. I don't use it often, but it's the best way to repair a corrupt OS. Not having boot floppies is like going mountain climbing without rope.
Overall, I'm very happy about the machine -- it's blazingly fast compared to my old one, so this ROCKS! I just wish I could come up with a solution for the keyboard and mouse issue. I've got a KVM setup that works reallllly nice, but it requires PS/2. I think I'm just stuck using an adapter that misses the occasional keypress.
If you've got questions, I've got answers. Fire away!
Isn't PS/2 a BTO option? I know when I ordered my Dell machine, I had to specify I wanted PS/2 and a floppy drive, since both aren't included by default.
::start being a sarky bastartd:: Floppies? Oh man, do you even have the internet yet where you are in the DARK AGES!?! ::stop being a sarky bastartd:: You're computer is defective if you need a floppy.
The solution, of course, is Parallels (http://parallels.com). Then you can get down to one machine on your desk :)
@Charlie -- when you do enough low-level coding, you'll understand exactly why a floppy disk is very helpful. The recovery console that comes on the install CD is handy, but not powerful enough. But if I can boot off a boot floppy, I can do anything.
@Will -- I have no interest in virtualization software. It doesn't suit my personal dev needs very well because nothing replicates an actual machine in terms of user experience. The user won't be running the software I write in a VM, so why would I only test it in one? Plus, with all the network code that I write, I need a home network for testing anyways. :-P
Just FYI, we have a bunch of those legacy-free Dell 5150s here and I've had to install a floppy in one. (Ugh, I know, I tried to talk them out of it, believe me.) Anyway, not all drives fit. I had to go through 3-4 different drives before I found one the ribbon cable and power cable would reach.
Oh, and USB KVMs are coming down in price and they work a LOT better than PS/2 ones, due to the hot-swappability of USB. And you only need one cable for all your devices.
You're going to have to modernize sooner or later. Dell selling legacy-free boxes by default is a Good Thing (tm) for all you Windows users who still cry every time they have to throw out a 8" floppy.
REALbasic (duh)
What is this REALbasic duh edition? Will it introduce stupid bugs into my programs? Is it meant to be used by people who appear on blind Date? :)
As for a "floppy replacement", I use a USB memory key (512MB) and I can boot off it no problem (just had to tell the BIOS it's in the boot order). I've got a Dell (about 3 years old now), and it works great. I used to have my disk imaging software on the memory key. I'd image my drive about every month or so (plus having the factory image as well).
As for restore disks, Dell is following IBM and HP/Compaq's lead. IBM hasn't included restore disks with their notebooks for at least 3 years now. HP/Compaq stopped with restore disks early last year. Dell started that around the beginning of this year. However, with Dell, you can still get restore CDs, but you have to specify that when you make the order.
Oh... and another option is a USB floppy if you're a stickler for floppies
@James -- thanks for the info
@Dr Scott -- the duh edition is the one which contains only obvious language features and framework features. Anything you go "duh, of course it does Foo" is in there. :-P
@Scott P -- just because it's changing doesn't mean I have to like it. ;-) The thing that I wonder about is: what would I do if I didn't have a machine that could connect to the internet and get the files to my other box? I'd be SOL until I sat thru one of the worst customer service experiences ever (trust me, Dell customer service is a lot like beating your head on the wall). I'm glad that I only reformat my machines when I know I'll have at least one machine able to get to the net no matter what.
In your list I missed the first program I allways install on every pc: TotalCommander (http://www.ghisler.com/). This is a replacement for the windows explorer, which I never use anymore. Built in in TotalCommander are viewers for files (hex and text), possibility for loading plugins for pictureviewers AND for other filesystems, e.g. direct access to files on pocket-pc and Linux. Built-in also zip/unzip, other packers installable, file compare by contents, directory-compare, ftp, file-rename-tool, file-splitter and -combine and more.
This realy is the first tool that I start when I powerup my pc.
Last saterday I upgraded my pc with a second-hand mobo/cpu and graphicscard: result: AMD64-socket 939-2,200 Mhz (equivalent for 3,500 Mhz P4) with ATi Radeon X800 Pro, booting in only a few seconds and starting RB2006r2(with 15 plugins) in about 8 seconds. Who said RB is slow...? You just need the right hardware.
And it's a good system to play Oblivion :-D
If you wanna compare tech support war stories.... :P
I'm sure the experience I've had with HP will top your's with Dell. To be honest, I've never had any problems with their support (not even those people I know IRL who have Dells). Ah well.... Must be cuz I'm Canadian :P LOL
Anyways... What?! No pics of the new baby? :)
Dude. I haven't even *seen* a floppy disk in... um.... six years, since I got rid of all my old Linux hardware in the Great Millenial Gadget Purge. Get with the new century, man!
Dell's great given one condition: Talk to the *business* support, not the home support. Presumably, you bought this from the business Dell store, so that should be easy to manage.
I use PowerDesk Pro as my Windows Explorer replacement. Most of my other "must have" software is also utilities: Fix-It Utilities, FreeMem, and Diskeeper. Other than that, I have FoxPro and ProMatrix (both used at work), and VisualAssist for Visual Studio (though it's been a while since I've used VS).
Don't you use anti-virus and firewall?
About the floppy, you can use instead a CD and change the boot order.
Check the Acronis TrueImage product - it's really great for image backups/restore and rescue.
@Carlos: I use Acronis as well. It's an amazing product. I used to be a Norton Ghost groupie, until I tried Acronis. I'll never go back to Norton Ghost now :P
@Carlos -- nope, I don't use either. The reason for no AV software is because I'm the only person who uses the machine, I don't muck with downloads hardly ever, and my machine is entirely wipeable at any point in time. In the last 10 years, I've gotten all of two viruses, and never run a scanner. As for the firewall, I'm behind two routers and a VPN blackbox. I'm not terribly worried. ;-)
Thanks for the tip about the backup software! I'm using Nero currently when I need to do a backup, but I'm always willing to check out new stuff.
In case you were interested, Tucows has an article on Acronis True Image for your reading pleasure: http://www.tucows.com/article/951
dell sells the os cd for 10 dollars... at time of purchase...