Speculation about the Apple tablet has reached near fever pitch as every one and their mothers wax lyrical about what this magical device will do and look like.
Now what sort of fanboy would I be if I didn’t throw in my two cents?
The question that comes to mind about the tablet’s form factor is how it would fit into the iPhone/MacBook ecosystem. What will it do that you can’t already do on your MacBook or iPhone? How will it justify your hard earned cash? This is what I think:
If there is one area where Apple has had percieved failure, it is with the AppleTV (I personally think the device is great!)
The AppleTV has been left un-updated for an unprecedented length of time – its almost as if Apple were planning to discontinue it altogether. I believe that the AppleTV will be discontinued – but only in it’s current form factor. The next AppleTV will take the form of a tablet device! It will have a medium sized screen (between 7 and 10 inches) and more importantly will ship with a docking station that will provide connectivity to HD TV sets (HDMI etc). Once docked, the device will behave just like the ZuneHD and provide a custom UI for browsing user content and the iTunes store right from your HDTV.
When undocked, the device will provide some form of general computing usage including web browsing, email and media access. I also believe that the device, when undocked, will use a new UI atop an OS X core (perhaps even have compatibility with iPhone apps).
So, tell me folks, what would you think of such a device? I know I would get one in an instant. But then again, I am just a loyal fanboy.
I guess we will see end of January! UPDATE: January 27th to be exact!!
Apple Tablet Rumors – My 2t
gdgt gadget list widget
Signed .NET Service Fails to Start on Windows Vista or Above
Today, I walked into work and one of our support guys was trouble-shooting an issue where our CRD services would fail to start on boot up but subsequent attempts would work without any problems. There were no errors in the Windows Event Viewer whatsoever.
To try and resolve the problem, I started out with removing all code from the OnStart procedure to see if this would make a difference. Nope, the services would still not start on boot. I even double-checked the service properties to make sure that it was indeed set to “Automatic” start.
I then uploaded an UNSIGNED service assembly to the client machine and it started on boot. This didn’t make sense. The signed assembly had failed to start up automatically.
After a quick Google search, I found the cause; all signed assemblies are verified using the “Cryptographic Services” service. In Windows Vista and above, Microsoft decided to move this service out of the Kernel so it starts up with all the other services in alphabetical order. Guess what happens when your signed service assembly falls ahead of the Cryptographic Services in the alphabet? Yep, it will fail to start as the digital signature cannot be verified!
I have found two work-arounds to this bone-headed problem in Windows:
1. Modify your service properties so that its start up is set to “Automatic (Delayed Start)”
or
2. Modify your service installer code and add the “Cryptographic Services” as a dependency of your service.
I have gone with the second option and will update this article if I run into any issues.
Thanks Microsoft!
