Jungle disk online storage by Amazon S3

Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API

My Toshiba M400 laptop is forever running out of battery or seemingly turning itself on again in its bag after suspending due to this error - Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API.

Thanks to Bart at RedGate for finding an obscure MS KB article about it. MS patch for Win XP SP2

A copy of the MS hot fix is available here

Vista performance boost for laptops

(link to full MS article)
Windows ReadyBoost
Adding system memory (RAM) is often the best way to improve your PC's performance. More memory means applications can run without needing to access the hard drive.
Windows Vista introduces a new concept in adding memory to a system. Windows ReadyBoost lets users use a removable flash memory device, such as a USB thumb drive, to improve system performance without opening the box. Windows ReadyBoost can improve system performance because it can retrieve data kept on the flash memory more quickly than it can retrieve data kept on the hard disk, decreasing the time you need to wait for your PC to respond. Combined with SuperFetch technology, this can help drive impressive improvements in system responsiveness.

You can remove the memory device at any time without any loss of data or negative impact to the system; however, if you remove the device, your performance returns to the level you experienced without the device. Additionally, data on the removable memory device is encrypted to help prevent inappropriate access to data when the device is removed.

Windows ReadyDrive
Windows ReadyDrive enables Windows Vista PCs equipped with a hybrid hard disk to boot up faster, resume from hibernate in less time, preserve battery power, and improve hard disk reliability. Hybrid hard disks are a new type of hard disk, with integrated non-volatile flash memory.
The hybrid disk is intended for mobile PCs running Windows Vista. Your data is written to the flash memory, which saves work for the mechanical hard disk—saving the battery power. The hybrid disk helps Windows Vista resume faster from Sleep because data can be restored from flash memory faster than from the mechanical hard disk. And since more data is written to the integrated flash memory than to the traditional hard disk, you have less risk of hardware problems with the hard disk when you're on the move. Windows Vista takes advantage of hybrid hard disk to save battery life, resume use faster from hibernation, and improve reliability.

Outlook 2007 is slow and unpredictable

Despite the great interface changes to Outlook 2007 - its slowness and [Not responding]messages are major obsticles to the application that is always open and in use.

There have been a number of articles (such as Outlook 2007 is slow) pointing to size of mailbox or indexing services as being problematical but there is nothing definative. Operating in cached mode with large inboxes seems to cause instability. (This is hightlighted by the MS article Planning for Cached Exchange Mode deployment in Outlook 2007 - this is a very complete article however seemingly self contradictory. Whilst it states that "the Unicode OST files can store up to 20 gigabytes (GB) of data", and it recommends thier use, further down the document it says "One factor that can contribute to reduced performance is a large OST file. If the user's OST file grows too large (for example, larger than 1 GB), Outlook with Cached Exchange Mode performance degrades."

So yes you can have a huge OST file but it will be completly unusable in cached mode....!

Additionally opening a new message in the reading pane can be painfull, even without embedded graphics which slow it down even more. Im running on an XP Centrino Duo with 2Gb of RAM so it should cope well but it just doesnt.

If anyone has performance pointers to make this otherwise impressive program perform Im sure Id not be the only one to be greatful?

Processing InfoPath Data in SharePoint Libraries

Remote Desktop Connection (Terminal Services Client 6.0) for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 released

Microsoft has released the new version of the Remote Desktop Client corresponding to Vista for supported down-level platforms.

Here are few of the new features:

· Network Level Authentication
· Server Authentication
· Plug and Play redirection
· TS Gateway support
· Monitor Spanning
· 32-bit color and font smoothing

Asus GeForce EN8800GTX first for Vista and Dx10

Vista Media Center first impressions

I have been interested in Windows Media centre for some time but have been dissapointed by it being nearly there, not quite as intuative as it should be and restrictions on releases to the UK.

Hopefully Vista Media Centre will address some of these and this link is a good first impression

VS2005 tools for Office 2007 and SPS 3.0

Tools from Microsoft for Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office 2007 SE and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Using the CLR message object to assist with parsing XML Dom

Running Microsoft Money 2005 UK under Windows Vista

Microsoft Money UK doesnt work out of the box with Windows Vista - here is a useful article basically saying that Money doesnt work with Vista's User Account Control

Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0 Technical Guidance

Vista is changing the way it work for volume licensing using a new KMS license service.

Scott Forsyth's Mastering IIS FTP

An essentual and invaluable resource for the minefield of using FTP with IIS

Serv-U Windows FTP Server

After fighting with IIS6 and FTP publishing I found a link to this alternative which certainly is a lot less complex that IIS FTP publishing

Serv-U now has support for Windows User NT-SAM/Active Directory that makes administering large servers easier and more efficient. Take a look at the Serv-U highlights below and the rest of the features found in Serv-U.

Debug XML Web services in VS.NET - Program - Windows - Builder AU

Re: UK Datetime parameter problem SQL 2005 RS - MSDN Forums
Whilst this seems to answer the question - the suggestion for the language change doesnt work.
The issue seems to be a bug resolved in SQL2005 SP1

Interesting and recommended fast track learning for Exchange 2003

LAB 18 - How To Design, Install & Manage Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 in a Windows Server 2003 Environment!

Reading and Writing XML Documents: "stream, TextReader or XmlReader. LoadXml method loads XML document from a specified string. Another useful method of this class is Save. Using Save method you can write XML data to a string, stream, TextWriter or XmlWriter."