Guacamole has just eliminated that need. This HTML5/JavaScript VNC viewer requires no software or plugin, and works with any HTML5 compatible browser.  Because you can run Guacamole an HTTPS server (Apache Tomcat), the entire session is encrypted and secured.  The setup is pretty easy, but if you don’t already have Tomcat set up with HTTPS, you’ll be spending most of your setup time configuring that.  Thanks, Guac!

I am a pirate…

Before I go into my conversion from video game piracy, let me be abundantly clear about my previous video game usage.  I pirated absolutely ridiculous amounts of software.  Yeah, the whole world uses bittorrent, and everyone downloads stuff, but please understand that I am in an entirely different category than your average pirate.  I downloaded gobs and gobs of data.  Anyone who’s seen my file server will tell you that.  Operating systems, games, movies, music, TV shows.  It became an obsessive compulsive desire to obtain “complete sets” or “HD versions…” of everything to the extent that I wasn’t even consuming 10% of my amassed library.  It became more about the download than the content.  To put this in perspective, I specifically avoided Comcast in favor of Verizon FIOS because of the 250GB/month data cap.  Envisioning that, imagine a complete 180% switch for video games.  I still have and continue to download a massive amount of movies, TV shows, and music, but I’ve made the switch for video games.  Let’s explore.

Why do I download…?

I’m not a morally barren individual.  I actually consider myself to be a pretty rational and logical dude.  I admire and strive for good.  Downloading digital content is just so damn easy!  Not only that, but the repercussions of my actions are so disconnected from the action itself, that I don’t have an emotional connection with the crime.  That means there’s no guilt.  I don’t see the movie studio adding another 0.0001 onto their balance sheet’s column, and I don’t see the set designer’s decreased income.  Frankly, the idea of piracy equaling loss is still very much debatable, so I automatically write that whole scenario off.  Video games will keep being released, I’ll keep downloading them, and the world goes round.

Regardless, I’m very aware that I’m obtaining something for free that should be paid for.  This mentality doesn’t map to any other facet of my life.  I don’t have the urge to grab stuff in the store and run, and I can’t imagine myself being tempted to do so if no one was looking.  Perhaps this is because of the reasons I list above, or perhaps there’s a completely different reason.  Regardless, I don’t consider this who I am.

Ironically the many attempts to foil piracy have managed to encourage my deviant behavior.  DRM for example only served to annoy legitimate consumers, since pirated versions have it stripped.  This reinforced my ambivalence towards stealing video games.  Why should I pay for a game that’s going to be more annoying than a free pirated version?  I don’t believe I’ve ever purchased a video game for myself.  Why start now?

Why did I stop pirating video games…?

After much thought and introspection I have come to the conclusion that Steam has finally won me over.  Granted, I’ve been using Steam for a long time, while still actively pirating games.  I believe the catalyst appeared three months ago when I wanted to play GTA IV.  I’ve loved GTA3 – San Andreas, and I was excited to finally give IV a try.  (The last time I tried it, I wasn’t in a GTA mood, and I forgot about it for over a year.  Ironically I pirated it on this occasion.)  I couldn’t find my downloaded copy of GTA IV anywhere, and I just so happened to have some extra cash in my bank account.  I noticed that Steam was selling GTA IV for $20 (yes, I realize that it was only $7 this past weekend; I almost cried).   “What the hell?” I thought.  ”I can be a constructive member of society.”  So I purchased the first game I could remember.

Aside from the hellish experience of playing a game powered by Windows Live Games (honestly, why the hell would you put that shit in your software?  It’s god-awful.  I realize the intention, but not only is it implemented poorly, it’s buggy and useless since I’m using Steam!!!), I gained an appreciation for some things that I had always known but never felt.

• Cracks - When I pirate a game, there’s always the game involved of finding the right crack, without viruses, for the right version,  and installing it correctly.  Then when updates and DLC for the game come out, the game starts all over again.  I’ve gotten really good at this over the years, but knowing that I don’t need to worry about this with Steam (and I’ll never need to worry about this) is very comforting.
• Support – I actually qualify for tech support!  It’s been so many years since I actually played a purchased game, that I had completely written off manufacturer support.  I’m always at the mercy of the gaming community, which frequently shuns pirates, so it’s the pirate community at the least…which isn’t the most palatable of options.
• Installation Media – I’ll admit, I get a bit of a hard-on for terabyte drives and an archive of ISOs.  The geek in me loved the technical and organizational aspect of maintaining a disk image library.  That’s why the realization that all of my games can be downloaded to any computer, any number of times, without any installation process or need to manage updates, my media library became irrelevant.  I had always understood and appreciated this with my Valve games, but something about offloading all of my other titles to this system triggered a realization of the potential.
• Steam Perks – this factor could get rolled into any of the others, but it’s always nice to mention to helpful features Steam provides such as Steam Cloud, overlay, and Friends.

I didn’t consciously identify all of these things as soon as I purchased GTA IV.  As I started using it, however, I started to understand how nice it is to actually own the game (as much one can own a Steam game, although that’s an entirely different argument.)  I started picking up some other games that were on sale, such as my favorites from the past: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Mirror’s Edge, Assassin’s Creed, Bio-Shock, etc.  I had all of these games pirated and installed, but somehow the experience was better through Steam.  I didn’t have to play the game through a filter in my mind to compensate for any of the hoops I needed to jump through to get the game to work.  I simply let Steam worry about all that, and focused on the games.

Listen up, media corporations…!

What Steam has done is made video games worth it.  They stripped out the bullshit and provided a service that’s worth paying for.  I haven’t had a change of heart; I’m still a terrible person in your eyes.  At this point I’m not even considering the games worth buying, but rather the delivery mechanism.  This is probably the same reason why I’m so excited about OnLive.  Am I going to continue downloading movies and TV shows?  Yes, until something comes along and does to the movie and TV industry what Steam did for games.  Developers will still be able to get their products out there and satisfy their artistic needs, and both they and the corporations will get reimbursed for it.  We don’t live in a world of morally just people.  If I can just as easily get it for free somewhere else, with no reasonable threat of legal ramifications, then your product has no worth to me.  If the system makes it too easy to take advantage, that’s exactly what people will do.  You corporations do the same thing, because it’s inherently human nature.  The burden is on you to innovate your offering to make your product WORTH something.

me: You know how you mentioned that song you liked, and when you looked up who the girl was, you found out it was a Guy?

Was it that “whattaya want from me?” Song?

Mike: I don’t.. think so..

I have the tune in my head

but I know none of the lyrics

which makes it hard to google

me: Haha

“Hey, Google, you know that song that goes ‘dun dun Dun dun-dun…?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

Michael: wtb that

I spent about 20 minutes at the Verizon store playing with the phone and hoping an over-ambitious Verizon employee would ask me if I needed help (why don’t they show up the one time I need them).  The screen on the Droid is gorgeous, and I was surprised at how snappy the interface was.  I knew pretty quickly that I wanted this phone.  After no employees bothered me I actually signed into the front computer under Sales and waited an additional 15 minutes to have my name called (more time with the Droid!)

The nice saleswoman behind the counter informed me that no, I could not have my New Every Two bumped up (I guess I need to find a way to be cute enough to have that “offered” to me) but being a Verizon Wireless customer I still received a $50 credit towards the phone, as opposed to the $100 New Every Two credit.  This was definitely appealing, but I was still on the fence.  Since I’m on a Family Plan with my sister until January (when I get my own plan because I’m a big boy now) I asked her if I would need to change my plan at all and affect her.  The nice saleswoman smiled and informed me that no, we could still share the Family Plan, and I could just add the Data Plan onto my line without affecting her.  Wait…what?

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, to use a Droid with Verizon Wireless you require a Data Plan.  The cheapest Data Plan is $30 on top of my current voice/messaging line, and that only comes with Email!  I don’t even want Email or Internet access on my phone.  I have a difficult enough time refraining from texting while driving; Email on my phone will literally kill me.  I’m around WiFi 95% of my awake life (and 100% while asleep) so I have no need to pay heinous fees for worse Internet speeds.

Now we get to the meat of my problem…the garbage, if you will.  Hearing this wasn’t a major surprise, as I have heard of Blackberries requiring Data Plans, but this being the first time I had been subjected to these rules it didn’t sting any less.  I politely declined and left the store immediately.

This is why I have an issue with cell phones in America.  It has become the standard to charge for each little type of content or usage on the network, so most people don’t think twice about accepting a $15 per month charge to be able to send text messages, or a $30 per month charge for email.  Can you imagine, however, if the Internet worked this way?  If customers were required to pay $40 per month for a basic internet package (allowing you to browse news websites) and spend extra for things like email or downloading music through iTunes, they’d throw fits.  Granted, with all of the talk about net neutrality and bandwidth capping, some ISPs are actually considering these types of services.  Thankfully the Internet market has already set the standard as “you pay for the pipe, now do what you want with it”, so it would be nigh impossible for an ISP to survive on a usage-based pricing model.

Having had broadband for 7 years, the most recent service provided by the wonderful Verizon FIOS, and also knowing what I do about Japan’s and China’s cell networks, it literally pains me to think about paying $40 for cell service and then an additional $30 (or more) for Internet access that’s at best the equivalent of a shoddy DSL connection.

Well, all of that being said, where can I go from here?  How can I use any of the great phones out there to do the one thing I actually want them for: making calls!?!  The short-run short answer is that I can’t.  American Cell Providers have already set the standard, and they have no reason to move to a system that benefits consumers since we’re all locked in anyway.  Long-run however, let’s me hope that 4G brings me the cell phone service I’m dreaming of: cell phones like Internet.  It’s a simple dream, but a powerful one.  I’m waiting for the nationwide wireless broadband service that you treat just like your home Internet connection.  I want to pay a monthly fee, get a wireless “pipe” at a certain speed that allows me to do whatever I want with it.  No more paying extra for the different ways I want to use it.  Verizon’s fabled LTE service may finally be the service I’m looking for.  After winning the bid for the 700Mhz wireless spectrum several years ago, Verizon has been building up the infrastructure needed to support a network like this.  I, for one, have high hopes that Verizon will bring the one severely lacking technology in America up to speed with the modern world.

Introduction

First of all, I want to thank everyone who provided feedback on my guide, Install Vista on Dell Mini 9 (USB).  It has been a pleasure to give back to the community.  As a thanks, I have added title pictures to the Vista guide as well as this one.  (I know; I’m cheap.)  That also means that I’ll be writing the same sort of guide for Windows 7!  I finally convinced my girlfriend to let me at her Mini 9.  I have been playing with the Windows 7 builds since build 7000 leaked (that’s all that’s been on my new gaming machine, actually) and I am very pleased with the new OS.  As everyone knows, Windows 7 is what Vista was supposed to be, but Microsoft released way too early.   But this is another topic; installing Windows 7 on the Dell Mini 9 is very similar to the Vista installation, but I have decided to rewrite an entirely new guide just to eliminate any confusion over small differences.  I will do my best to make the guide as similar to the Vista instructions, and I’ll even be pulling sections word for word.  As always, feedback is always appreciated.

Required

• Dell Mini 9 (duh)
• Another computer with a Windows operating system (preferably Vista or Windows 7)
• USB Flash drive (at least 2GB, although that’s assuming you are stripping the install with vLite…if not you’ll need a 4GB drive)  If enough people express interest in an alternative method I will write a guide for installing Windows 7 over the network.  Flash drive prices are plummeting with the growing popularity flash chips (due mostly to solid state drives) so a 4GB drive isn’t all that expensive anymore.  Still, network installs can be easier if set up correctly and are a damn fun accomplishment to have under your belt.
• Windows 7 CD/DVD/ISO (I used the 32-bit RC build 7100 ISO)
• vLite (optional)

Step 1 – Prepare USB Flash Drive

These instructions I pulled from http://dellmini9.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-dvd-rom-no-worries.html but cleaned up for easier reading.

1. Insert the flash drive into your Windows machine and back up anything from the flash drive that you wanted to keep.  We’re going to reformat it.
2. Open up a command prompt.
3. Type diskpart and press Enter.  After a second you should have the prompt DISKPART>
4. Type list disk.  A list of your connected hard drives will appear.  Make sure you see your flash drive on the list.  In the example below my 4GB flash drive is Disk 2.


Command - DISKPART

5. Type select disk 2 but change the disk number to whatever your drive is.  Make sure you get this right.  If you continue with these steps on the wrong disk you’ll end up erasing all of that drive’s contents.  Be careful.
6. Type clean.  It should only take a few seconds to clean.
7. Now type create partition primary.  This command should complete almost immediately.
8. Type select partition 1
9. Type active
10. Type format fs=fat32 to format the flash drive.  This took about 6 minutes on my drive.
11. Lastly, type assign and then exit
12. Format complete! You can close the command prompt

Step 2 – Reduce Windows 7 Installation (Optional)

The Dell Mini 9 comes with a solid state harddrive which is a blessing and a curse.  On the plus side you get better read/write/seek speeds, improved battery life, and better shock protection than rotating platter hard drives.  Unfortunately it’s still an expensive technology, and the price-per-gig of solid state drives is much higher.  The Mini 9s come with a 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and now even a 32GB drive.  I have the 16GB drive and you definitely want as much space as you can get with this smaller drives.  The software vLite will take Windows 7 Install media and provide tons of customization and stripping options.  You can skip this step and go straight to loading Windows 7 on the flash drive, but I would highly recommend it, especially for smaller drives.

These instructions cover the process I followed.  I would definitely like to develop this process to obtain the smallest install size possible, though, so please post any tips you come across and I’ll keep checking the dellmini9 blog for more useful tidbits.

1. Download and install vLite v1.2 Final
2. vLite requires the WAIK to run, but after installing it and restarting vLite still said that I needed it.  The fix for me was to download the Windows Imaging Driver and extract the three files into the vLite Program Files directory.  For more vLite installation help please visit their forum and post your situation in the comments here.  If there is a common problem I’ll add the solution to the guide.
3. Insert your Windows 7 DVD/CD or mount your Windows 7 ISO.  I used an ISO but the steps will be the same.  (Make sure you have at least 4-5GB of space on your computer.)
4. Load up vLite and browse to your disk drive with the Windows 7 installation media
5. vLite will ask you where to copy the files to your hard drive to modify them.  Create a directory wherever is easiest for you.  I chose C:\vlite_temp


Selecting Destination Location

6. After you click OK vLite will procedd to copy all of the files from the Windows 7 installation media to your hard drive.  This will take a few minutes.  After copying the files vLite will analyze your install quickly and display the available versions of the Windows 7 you can choose to strip.  I chose Windows 7 ULTIMATE.


Windows 7 Versions

7. vLite will now give you some information about the operating system which you can read at your leisure and press Next to continue.  vLite will give you a list of Tasks that it can run on your Windows 7 installation files.
8. Since this guide is meant for decreasing the install size I will only focus on Components, Tweaks, and Unattended setup, since these Tasks will let you strip the install to the bare minimum.  Check those three Tasks.  Integration is always something interesting to look into as you can slipstream service packs and updates into your install, but since it means a bigger initial install we’ll ignore it for now.  We don’t need to create a Bootable ISO since we will just be copying these files to the flash drive instead of burning a CD/DVD, so we’ll ignore that too.  The installation actually never gave me the choice to “tweak” anything, so the available tweaks probably aren’t compatible with Windows 7 like they were with Vista.  If your process prompts you about it please post your experience in the comments section.  Go ahead and click next.
9. The next screen will have a pop up asking what features or applications that you plan to use.  This will be up to you but this is the configuration I used:


vLite Compatibility Options

I didn’t check anything in the Applications tab so I didn’t bother posting a screenshot.  As far as I know this tab merely checks the programs on your current machine that rely on Windows system files so that you don’t remove something that those programs really need.  Since this install isn’t even meant for this computer anyway I found no use for this tab.
I intentionally left System Restore off because it uses so much space.  With a 16GB hard drive (or less) I’m not too worried about losing anything.  It’s not meant to be a main machine.  I don’t need it wasting precious space just duplicating my data in a backup.

10. Click OK and you will now be able to further customize the install by choosing components to remove.  This is also up to your preferred configuration, but I will post mine:


Removing Accessories

I removed Speech Support because never once have I felt the urge to “talk” my computer through anything.  That’s just 450MB of wasted space to me.



Removing Drivers

I removed the Ethernet and modem drivers since Windows Update will download and install just the ones it needs.  The other drivers are wasted space since the Mini 9 doesn’t even have any of this hardware anyway.  If you hook up a scanner or printer in the future Windows Update will just download the appropriate driver anyway.  You can save about 800MB of space by doing this (printer drivers alone take up 700MB).



Removing Hardware Support

Again, the things I checked were for hardware I knew I wouldn’t need or use.  I kept the networking hardware features since the Mini 9 will stress a lot of network usage since it’s so small and low capacity.

I checked the entire Languages section.  You save an entire 1.1GB by doing this.  I never need other languages but if worst comes to worst they are very easy to install from Windows Update later.



Removing Multimedia

I removed all codecs since I’ll be installing the K-lite Mega Codec Pack which has all of them.  I have always hated the sample movies, pictures, and music so I removed those, and I don’t plan on editing movies on the Mini 9 so goodbye Movie Maker.  I much prefer XBMC to Media Center so that’s gone too.
All I removed in the Network section was Windows Mail.  Like I mentioned above, I’ll be needing as many network features as possible, so I was pretty lenient with this.  Plus, the file size for this entire section is only 151MB.  I left the Services section completely alone.  I didn’t want to disable something that I would end up needing later, and this section is only 155MB.  Feel free to remove service at your leisure but your mileage may vary.



Removing System

I’ve never found Windows Help useful, so goodbye.  Since I already disabled Speech, the 550MB of Natural Language support is useless.  The rest is personal preference to remove small features.



Removing System (part 2)

Tablet PC is useless to me since the Mini 9 has no touch screen so that’s 391MB saved.  System Restore isn’t a big install in itself, but the feature uses a lot of space as I’ve said before.  I use WinRAR so I don’t need Zip Folder.

With these changes I have saved 3.7 GB by removing features I wouldn’t use anyway!  I’m not even losing performance or functionality!  Go vLite!  Windows 7 uses a smaller footprint in installation size and while running, so this process is making an already optimized OS even better.

11. Click Apply, and vLite will ask you which method to use.  You can select the first option, Rebuild one (Ultimate), and hit OK.  vLite will begin the removal process.  Since I didn’t integrate any hotfixes and only really stripped data out of the install, the process only took about 25 minutes for me.
12. Once it finishes you can hit Finish, and the program will close.  Check out how big the Windows 7 installation folder is on your hard drive.  I bet it’s a lot smaller than the original files!

Step 3 – Transfer Windows 7 Install Files to USB Flash Drive

This is a pretty short step, and probably doesn’t even require an entire step anyway.  But, if you didn’t do step 2, you need a nice home to land, so here you are:

• If you did follow step 2, copy the contents of your Windows 7 installation folder to your freshly formatted flash drive
• If you didn’t follow step 2, copy the contents of your Windows 7 installation media (DVD/CD/ISO) to your freshly formatted flash drive

When your copy completes you can close all windows looking at the flash drive and use the Safely Remove Hardware feature to remove the drive.te

Step 4 – Install Windows 7 from USB Flash Drive

1. With the Mini 9 powered off insert the flash drive into any of the available USB ports and turn the Mini 9 on
2. When the Dell symbol pops up hit the number ’0′ to load the Boot Menu
3. Choose USB Storage and press Enter; the Windows 7 installation should begin!
4. Depending on what you selected in vLite’s Unattended Install section (if anything) you’ll get various prompts during the install process.  Proceed according to a normal Windows 7 installation.  The only prompt that may be confusing is the drive/partition configuration stage.  Because of the small size of the hard drives in these netbooks I doubt anyone will be wanting to dual-boot.  Here are the steps for wiping the drive and installing just Windows 7:
   1. Select the only Disk/Partition that should be listed (if you have more than one, say from previous Windows 7 or Linux installations you can perform 2-4 below on all of them)
   2. Click the Advanced options link
   3. Select Delete
   4. Click OK to confirm the pop up
   5. You should only have Disk 0 Unallocated Space listed, so click Next (don’t bother creating a new partition, the install will now do it automatically)
5. So begins the install.  Copying the files will take about 30 seconds, expanding the files will take about 15 minutes, and the rest (including two restarts) can take up to 30 more minutes.  It will sit at Completing installation… for quite some time.
6. Windows 7 will perform some performance tests on the first startup after installation, and then you’ll be asked to create a user and set the computer name.  Continue through the next few prompts (serial, password, wireless network, etc) as per a usual install.  It was nice to see that Windows 7 supported the Mini 9′s wireless card “out of the box”.
7. Welcome to your new Windows 7 desktop!  Here is a screenshot of my girlfriend’s 16GB SSD usage.  Does this convince anyone that stripping Windows 7 down is useful?

Windows 7 "Stripped" Disk Usage

Step 5 – Initial Setup

Unlike with the Vista installation, Windows 7 detects and has drivers for the video and wireless devices, so that is one annoying step eliminated.  Still, there are a few devices that are not recognized by default.  First we will need to run Windows Update.  My Windows Update kept failing with error code 80072F8F until I realized that the date was set to May of 2008.  After correcting the date and time Windows Update threw an error 80072EE2.  I just hit the Try Again button and eventually got the Windows is up to date message.  If you have any available updates now would be a good time to apply them.

After applying any available updates navigate to the “Start Orb”, right-click on Computer, and select Manage.  Select the Device Manager from the tree to the left, and you should see three devices on the right with yellow exclamation mark icons indicating that Windows has trouble locating drivers for these devices.  To future-proof this guide you can try to right-click on each of these devices and select Update Driver Software… In the window that pops up select Search automatically for updated driver software to see if these devices has drivers in the Microsoft database.  At the time of writing this guide I had no luck, so if this is still the case for you continue on to install these drivers manually.

First, we’ll want to install Dell’s battery meter software.  You don’t actually need the software, so you can uninstall it immediately afterwards.  All we need is the driver is installs and leaves on your machine.  Go ahead and download it here.  After installing restart the computer and uninstall the Battery Meter software if you wish.

After this you should only have two unknown devices in Device Manager, both called Base System Device.  This is due to the Dell JMicron device which Microsoft is not able to provide the driver for, for some reason.  Windows 7 still makes this an easy fix as the new Action Center will provide the solution.  If you don’t have an Action Center pop-up in the Notification Area (bottom right-hand of the screen next to the time/date) then you can just open up the “Start Orb” and start typing “Action Center” to get a link to it.  You should see an alert about the JMicron device, and clicking on the alert will provide you with a direct Dell, Inc. link to the driver download.  Click on it, select Run, and follow the instructions to install the last driver.

Conclusion

You are now ready to enjoy the goodness that is Windows 7!  Your Device Manager should be free of Unknown Devices.  I hope this guide is as useful as the Vista installation guide.  It has certainly been a pleasure to contribute to the community that I have learned so much from.   As always, please post any concerns or suggestions.

I’ve always wanted to see a kind of hybrid between the mouse and game controller.  I’m talking about a Wii-mote analog stick in one hand and a mouse in the other.  To me that’s a combination of the two most accurate analog human interface devices in computer history.

Well, friends, mLani has listened to my suggestion.  Engadget has posted an article about the mLani “Mobi” which is exactly that.  I mean look at the picture:

Could you get any closer to what I was talking about?  I think not.  I hope to see that these work on the computer (I mean, USB?  Come on now) or that there will be a PC version soon.  I’ll be expecting my check in the mail, mLani.  </toot>

Specs

• Asus Crosshair II Formula Motherboard
• AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition
• 4 x 1GB PC1066 RAM
• XFX Geforce GTX260 Black Edition
• WD RaptorX 150GB 10k rpm HD
• WD 1TB Green SATA HD

I played all of my new coveted games that my old machine couldn’t even run, like Dead Space and Assasin’s Creed, the games that my old machine could barely run, such as Left4Dead and Unreal Tournament III, and the older games I wanted to see graphics improvements on like Counter-Strike Source, the Half-Life 2 games, Guitar Hero III, etc.  Fuzzdump absolutely crushed them, and I can’t say how happy I’ve been.

To test out my quad-core processor I tried using FRAPS to record the 1920×1200 gameplay into the same resolution file and my system handled it without a hitch.  I compressed the 8.4GB of raw video down to 300MB at the same resolution using the h.264 codec (props btw, you literally cannot notice a difference in the quality of the file, and the resultant file was 3.5% of the original data; that’s incredible) of some Left4Dead gameplay and uploaded it to WeGame (warning: this file is huge…only click play if you are comfortable with a 300MB streaming video):

My last monster machine had the best hardware at the time (2003) but everything was maxed out, leaving almost no room to upgrade.  I got a nice AMD A7N8X-E Deluxe board at the time, but decided not to go 64-bit.  What a mistake.  I got AMD’s final 32-bit chip, the Athlon-XP 3200+.  I was obsolete in months.  The same was true with the graphics card with my Geforce 6800 AGP card.  One of the last AGP cards made.  This was around the time Half-Life 2 came out, and since my monitor could only do 1280×1024 at the time I was able to turn up the graphics a moderate amount, but as newer and newer games came out the novelty quickly faded.

This time around I have been careful to order parts that are still top-of-the-line, but will allow me to upgrade in the future.  The AM2 socket type should not be going away for a while, but since my board is upwards compatible with AM3 socket type processors, I’ll still be ok on that front if AMD decides to switch entirely to the new socket earlier than expected.  My RAM can easily be upgraded to 8GB, and while that’s probably the biggest limitation of this system, 8GB of RAM should do me just fine for years.  PCI-E shouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon either, so as nVidia develops their new 3-digit line of graphics cards I’ll be able to stay on top of it.

Everything is installed in my old SunBeamTech black Transformer case, which is nice and loud, but keeps my components cool.  I am planning on purchasing the NZXT Khaos very soon.  I have read many reviews on this case, and while a lot of people have found issues with the case (nameably the price) I don’t have any issues with the cons they point out.  I am over the “ricer” cases that look like transformers, and prefer a sleeker professional looking case, like trading in your Nissan 350z for the Infiniti G37 sport coupe.  I find the Khaos to be be elegant and simple, while still keeping that hint of “badassness” that attracted my eye the first time.

After upgrading the case I’ll be investing in my first custom water-cooling system.  I have used kits in the past, but I really want to go custom this time.  I’ll be using eK water blocks for my graphics cards (that’s right, I’ll be getting another GTX260) and have yet to decide on a CPU block.  I’m waiting to get the case before planning the reservoirs and radiators so I can see where the best places to put them will be.  I am planning on using the second PSU bay of the Khaos to store a reservoir/radiator and would like to convert the top fans into a radiator mount for the roof of the case.

I’ll definitely post updates as my system progresses.  I want to draw out the fun for as long as possible.

Introduction

I recently bought one of Dell’s new Mini 9 netbooks as my girlfriend’s Christmas present.  To save some cash I got it with Ubuntu pre-installed.  If this were my machine I’d just keep Ubuntu on there, but she will almost certainly hate it.  So, this guide is intended for people who don’t have Windows XP installed from the factory, so we don’t have that nice folder with all the drivers to port over to Vista.  Of course a lot of this process applies to anyone who wants Vista on the Mini 9, so I’m happy for anyone to get some help.

The guy over at http://dellmini9.blogspot.com has already documented his Mini 9 experience.  He’s gotten Vista (and now even a beta of Windows 7) running on his machine, and his site has a lot of great tips.  I will do my best to combine the tips I found useful from that site with this particular process.  His install was from XP so he was able to skip a few steps.  Please add any comments for any mistakes I will certainly make.  I’ll do my best to update the guide to accommodate for as many situations as possible.  Read on for the guide…

Update: My girlfriend loves the Mini 9 (although I’m pretty sure she was expecting it after all my hints.)  Go Dell!

Required

• Dell Mini 9 (duh)
• Another computer with a Windows operating system (preferably Vista)
• USB Flash drive (at least 2GB, although that’s assuming you are stripping the install with vLite…if not you’ll need a 4GB drive)  If enough people express interest in an alternative method I will write a guide for installing Vista over the network.  Flash drive prices are plummeting with the growing popularity flash chips (due mostly to solid state drives) so a 4GB drive isn’t all that expensive anymore.  Still, network installs can be easier if set up correctly and are a damn fun accomplishment to have under your belt.
• Windows Vista CD/DVD/ISO
• vLite (optional)

Step 1 – Prepare USB Flash Drive

These instructions I pulled from http://dellmini9.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-dvd-rom-no-worries.html but cleaned up for easier reading.

1. Insert the flash drive into your Windows machine and back up anything from the flash drive that you wanted to keep.  We’re going to reformat it.
2. Open up a command prompt.
3. Type diskpart and press Enter.  After a second you should have the prompt DISKPART>
4. Type list disk.  A list of your connected hard drives will appear.  Make sure you see your flash drive on the list.  In the example below my 4GB flash drive is Disk 2.


Command - DISKPART

5. Type select disk 2 but change the disk number to whatever your drive is.  Make sure you get this right.  If you continue with these steps on the wrong disk you’ll end up erasing all of that drive’s contents.  Be careful.
6. Type clean.  It should only take a few seconds to clean.
7. Now type create partition primary.  This command should complete almost immediately.
8. Type select partition 1
9. Type active
10. Type format fs=fat32 to format the flash drive.  This took about 6 minutes on my drive.
11. Lastly, type assign and then exit
12. Format complete! You can close the command prompt

Step 2 – Reduce Vista Installation (Optional)

The Dell Mini 9 comes with a solid state harddrive which is a blessing and a curse.  On the plus side you get better read/write/seek speeds, improved battery life, and better shock protection than rotating platter hard drives.  Unfortunately it’s still an expensive technology, and the price-per-gig of solid state drives is much higher.  The Mini 9s come with a 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and now even a 32GB drive.  I have the 16GB drive and you definitely want as much space as you can get with this smaller drives.  The software vLite will take Vista Install media and provide tons of customization and stripping options.  You can skip this step and go straight to loading Vista on the flash drive, but I would highly recommend it.

These instructions cover the process I followed.  I would definitely like to develop this process to obtain the smallest install size possible, though, so please post any tips you come across and I’ll keep checking the dellmini9 blog for more useful tidbits.

1. Download and install vLite v1.2 Final
2. vLite requires the WAIK to run, but after installing it and restarting vLite still said that I needed it.  The fix for me was to download the Windows Imaging Driver and extract the three files into the vLite Program Files directory.  For more vLite installation help please visit their forum and post your situation in the comments here.  If there is a common problem I’ll add the solution to the guide.
3. Insert your Vista DVD/CD or mount your Vista ISO.  I used an ISO but the steps should be the same.  (Make sure you have at least 4-5GB of space on your computer.)
4. Load up vLite and browse to your disk drive with the Vista installation media
5. vLite will ask you where to put the files on your hard drive to modify them.  Create a directory wherever is easiest for you.  I chose C:\vista


Vista Destination Folder

6. After you click OK vLite will proceed to copy all of the files from the Vista installation media to your hard drive.  This will take a few minutes.  After copying the files vLite will analyze your install quickly and show you it’s information.  Go ahead and read that if you want and then press Next
7. vLite will give you a list of Tasks that it can run on your Vista install files.  Since this guide is meant for decreasing the install size I will only focus on Components, Tweaks, and Unattended setup, since these Tasks will let you strip the install to the bare minimum.  Check those three Tasks.  Integration is always something interesting to look into as you can slipstream service packs and updates into your install, but since it means a bigger initial install we’ll ignore it for now.  We don’t need to create a Bootable ISO since we will just be copying these files to the flash drive instead of burning a CD/DVD, so we’ll ignore that too.  Go ahead and click next.
8. The next screen will have a pop up asking what features or applications that you plan to use.  This will be up to you but this is the configuration I used:


vLite Compatibility

I didn’t check anything in the Applications tab so I didn’t bother posting a screenshot.  As far as I know this tab merely checks the programs on your current machine that rely on Vista system files so that you don’t remove something that those programs really need.  Since this install isn’t even meant for this computer anyway I found no use for this tab.

I intentionally left System Restore off because it uses so much space.  With a 16GB hard drive (or less) I’m not too worried about losing anything.  It’s not meant to be a main machine.  I don’t need it wasting precious space just duplicating my data in a backup.

9. Click OK and you will now be able to further customize the install by choosing components to remove.  This is also up to your preferred configuration, but I will post mine:


Removing Accessories

I removed Speech Support because never once have I felt the urge to “talk” my computer through anything.  That’s just 450MB of wasted space to me.



Removing Drivers

I removed all display adapters except for Intel’s since I know the Mini 9 has an Intel chip.  I have done the install without scrubbing with vLite, however, and the disk didn’t have the drivers.  I had to download them through Windows Update anyway so you can probably even remove those as well, but just to be safe I included them.

I removed the Ethernet and modem drivers since I know that my Vista disk doesn’t have them anyway.  Rather than installing all of those space-hogging drivers I’d rather just have Windows Update download and install just the ones it needs.

The other drivers are wasted space since the Mini 9 doesn’t even have any of this hardware anyway.  If you hook up a scanner or printer in the future Windows Update will just download the appropriate driver anyway.  You can save about 800MB of space by doing this (printer drivers alone take up 700MB).



Removing Hardware Support

Again, the things I checked were for hardware I knew I wouldn’t need or use.  I kept the networking hardware features since the Mini 9 will stress a lot of network usage since it’s so small and low capacity.

I checked the entire Languages section.  You save an entire 1.1GB by doing this.  I never need other languages but if worst comes to worst they are very easy to install from Windows Update later.



Removing Multimedia

I removed all codecs since I’ll be installing the K-lite Mega Codec Pack which has all of them.  I have always hated the sample movies, pictures, and music so I removed those, and I don’t plan on editing movies on the Mini 9 so goodbye Movie Maker.  I much prefer XBMC to Media Center so that’s gone too.

All I removed in the Network section was Windows Mail.  Like I mentioned above, I’ll be needing as many network features as possible, so I was pretty lenient with this.  Plus, the file size for this entire section is only 151MB.  I left the Services section completely alone.  I didn’t want to disable something that I would end up needing later, and this section is only 155MB.  Feel free to remove service at your leisure but your mileage may vary.



Removing System

I’ve never found Windows Help useful, so goodbye.  Since I already disabled Speech, the 550MB of Natural Language support is useless.  The rest is personal preference to remove small features.



Removing System (part 2)

Tablet PC is useless to me since the Mini 9 has no touch screen so that’s 391MB saved.  System Restore isn’t a big install in itself, but the feature uses a lot of space as I’ve said before.  I use WinRAR so I don’t need Zip Folder.

As you can see, I saved 5GB by removing the features I really wouldn’t use anyway.  I’m not even losing performance or features!  Go vLite!

10. Click next, and you may get warnings about certain disabled features being required by other enabled features.  In my case it was about Windows Media Player and a few other utilities requiring the Windows Media Codecs.  I’m installing a codec pack so I just said No.
11. The next section provides some tweaks to customize your Vista experience.  I set UAC to Disabled since that’s the first thing I do when I install Vista anyway.  In the System tab I disabled Hibernation since the solid state drive is fast enough to not require that kind of performance.  The system is so low power anyway that Standby will last quite a while.  Hibernation just takes up extra disk space.  The rest of the options are personal preference and shouldn’t affect install size.  Hit Next when you are done.
12. This last stage is for performing Unattended installs, or using the features that automatically select the options that the install would otherwise prompt you for.  Fill this out at your discretion.
13. You can now hit Apply to start the “scrubbing”.  You may get the same prompt from step 10 about dependent features and you can give the same response here as you did then.
14. A pop up will ask which version of Vista you would like to rebuild.  To save on install size just choose the one you plan on using.  I am using Vista Ultimate 32-bit, so I chose Rebuild one (Ultimate)
15. Press OK, and away vLite goes!  Since I didn’t integrate any hotfixes and only really stripped data out of the install, the process only took about 25 minutes.
16. Once it finishes you can hit Finish, and the program will close.  Check out how big the Vista installation folder is on your hard drive.  I bet it’s a lot smaller than the original files!

Step 3 – Transfer Vista Install Files to USB Flash Drive

This is a pretty short step, and probably doesn’t even require an entire step anyway.  But, if you didn’t do step 2, you need a nice home to land, so here you are:

• If you did follow step 2, copy the contents of your Vista installation folder to your freshly formatted flash drive
• If you didn’t follow step 2, copy the contents of your Vista installation media (DVD/CD/ISO) to your freshly formatted flash drive

When your copy completes you can close all windows looking at the flash drive and use the Safely Remove Hardware feature to remove the drive.

Step 4 – Install Windows Vista from USB Flash Drive

1. With the Mini 9 powered off insert the flash drive into any of the available USB ports and turn the Mini 9 on
2. When the Dell symbol pops up hit the number ’0′ to load the Boot Menu
3. Choose USB Storage and press Enter; the Vista installation should begin!
4. Depending on what you selected in vLite’s Unattended Install section (if anything) you’ll get various prompts during the install process.  Proceed according to a normal Vista installation.  The only prompt that may be confusing is the drive/partition configuration stage.  Because of the small size of the hard drives in these netbooks I doubt anyone will be wanting to dual-boot.  Here are the steps for wiping the drive and installing just Vista:
   1. Select the only Disk/Partition that should be listed
   2. Click the Advanced options link
   3. Select Delete
   4. Click OK to confirm the pop up
   5. You should only have Disk 0 Unallocated Space listed, so click Next (don’t bother creating a new partition, the install will now do it automatically
5. So begins the actual install.  Copying files will take about 2 minutes, expanding files will take about 15 minutes, and the rest (including a few restarts) can take up to an hour.  Mine sat at Completing Installation for a long time when I ran the vLite stripped version, but I don’t think that’s normal.

Here is a screenshot of my 16GB drive’s space usage.  Does this convince anyone that stripping Vista down is useful?

Mini 9 16GB Drive Space

Step 5 – Initial Setup

When you first create your account and log into Vista it may immediately restart, but this is just Vista installing some final features, so don’t worry about it.  The first thing you’ll notice is that your screen resolution probably looks wrong; this is because your graphics drivers probably aren’t installed.  No matter, what we really need to do is install one of the Mini 9′s network connection drivers, and most of the rest will fall into place via Windows Update.  I have found the drivers for both the ethernet and the wireless cards (at least on my machine, I don’t know if they have different models) so you can use your flash card to transfer them from another computer.  Please use the manufacturer’s links if you can help it.

• Ethernet – Realtek

Realtek Links – Site 1, Site 2, Site 3
Local Mirror - Install_Vista_6213_1119.zip

• Wireless – Arcadyne Wireless LAN

Dell Link - R197390.EXE
Local Mirror – R197390.EXE

I would recommend starting with the Realtek drivers.  The install I have listed above will detect your card and install the drivers for it automatically.  It makes life very simple.  (I did have a problem during one of my installs where the Realtek installer complained of an XCopy problem.  To solve this, I downloaded just the driver without the installer from Site 1, Site 2, or Site 3.  You can then go into device manager, right-click the Ethernet Controller, and select Update Drivers.  Choose to Browse on your local hard drive and find the folder you extracted the drivers to.)

Once you have your network controllers set up you can go ahead and run Windows Update.  You may need to install a Windows Update update (sheesh, don’t ever use that phrase in normal conversation), and Windows Update kepy on closing itself for me.  I suspect it was the update installing, but eventually Windows Update will actually find a list of updates.  Make sure you click View Available Updates and check the different hardware drivers in addition to the regular updates.  Drivers that mine found were:

• Intel Display
• Creative Webcam

After all of these updates are installed (and you restart your machine if necessary) we will need to install the last few drivers that Windows Update didn’t find.

Mini 9 Device Manager

First, we’ll want to install Dell’s battery meter software.  You don’t actually need the software, so you can uninstall it immediately afterwards.  All we need is the driver is installs and leaves on your machine.  Go ahead and download it here.  After installing restart the computer and uninstall the Battery Meter software if you wish.

I had an issue with getting an error about Windows Media Player crashing all the time.  This is probably due to the vLite strip, and the fix I found was to copy this dll into C:\Windows\System32 and then running C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe.

After this you should only have two unknown devices in Device Manager, both called Base System Device.  Dell’s JMicron driver will take care of these.

Conclusion

And that’s it, folks!  Your Device Manager should be free of unknown devices, and your Dell Mini 9 is ready for the Vista Life!  Please post any concerns or suggestions.  I hope this guide helps people.