Cleanup vista.

My harddisk has only 100G. 15 of which is used for Linux partitioning. There is not much left to play with. Recently, it has been reduced to 20G free space. Some desperate measures has to be done.

First I tried to remove manually all orphans from un-installed programs. It looked like AVG left quite a few GB storage. Don't know what they are used for. On my other pc, it only took up 150MB even without uninstalling.

Next I go to "my computer" right click c:\ and select "properties". Clicked "Disk Cleanup". It seems that there is a way to clean up "hibernation" file from here. Also at "more options" tab, you could clear all shadows except the latest. Shadows are actually "System Restore points". It took up almost 27GB for all the hdd in the computer. 19GB is actually for c:\. I did a "clean up" for "system restore and shadow copies".

I also did a defrag using "defragger". The result is impressive. I had 49GB free now.

SQL Server Replication issues

Still having problem doing the replication.

One thing I notice is that the user had to be both OS admin user and SQL Server Admin user. Just add servername\adminuser as user and allow sysadmin right to it. Subsequently, use this user for all replication.

Another thing is that error 2812 can be caused by a number of reasons. One blogger suggest to use "SP_removedbreplication 'databasename' (not the distribution database rather the actual database to be replicated). I tried that and it actually works.

It is a bad idea to remove the "distribution" database. SQL server does not cleanup after you. The publisher and distributor somehow still retains the information.

Brioquery does not refresh table structure

When you use BrioQuery, be aware that the tables in the sections does not refresh itself. If the server database alters the table structure, it will not be updated in your section. You need to delete the table and re-insert the same table to get updates.

WEBGL

After trying to get CUDA to work, I come across this technology called WebGL. It is a Web-based Graphics Library that could be controlled by Javascript and worked on HTML5 canvas.

I started on Firefox, it displays a message that "javascript" is needed. I enabled "javascript". It then tells me that "WebGL is enabled" but a setting in the browser stops it from running. However, there is no indication of what was it that stops it from running. I gave up on Firefox.

Next, I turn to Chrome. It runs perfectly without problem. Now this is done on Vista.

Today, I tried on my XP. Chrome refused to run WebGL. Firefox does not run also. On further digging, I managed to get Firefox to run WebGL. The setting is quite simple. Go to about:config and search for webgl. Just change webgl.force-enabled to "true". Also ensure that webgl.disabled is "false".

Turning back to Chrome, I have tried various methods as advised by forums without success. Most suggest having the command line setting like '--ignore-gpu-blacklist'. '--no-sandbox', '--enable-webgl', etc...

There is a suggestion to use about:flags and change "GPU accelerated composition" and "webgl" to on. However, "webgl" setting is not found. Thus, this setting does not apply for Chrome 11.

Further reading shows that Google disabled "webgl" on xp. Finally, I give up just like the "CUDA". It is just a waste of time. Until such utilities are mature, it is pointless to keep digging.

Haredware Acceleration is good if it works generally without technical knowledge. Browsers are not for techies only. It should not get the non-technical users scratching the head as to what went wrong. Chrome has made the situation even worse by blocking it from XP. At least Firefox still enables it to run if we do the correct setting.

I had enough of playing with Graphics. For crying out loud, I don't even have Vista premium. Why am I bothered with graphics on the web? Games? I don't play games that requires GPU or 3D.

CUDA

I have installed a program called FreeMake. It is a program that converts video to various formats. My primary use is to extract audios from VCDs as MP3 format. It worked quite well except that the program is CUDA cabable but it could not detect the GPU in my labtop.

On digging further I discovered that my graphic card is nVidia GeForce 7150M/nForce 630M. Going to the nVidia web site there are downloads available for this model. It also states that it has CUDA capability.

However, on searching its CUDA site, my card is not specified. Confused, I just tried to install the graphic driver. It installed successfully. Then I tried to install various versions of CUDA tool developer driver. None can detect my GPU.

Digging further, it was discovered to my dismay that the laptop graphic driver should come from HP and not directly from nVidia. I tried to install the HP version of the graphic driver. The CUDA tools still fails to detect the GPU.

On further search on the internet, many forums specifically states that the CUDA can only work for 8 series of the nVidia cards. Mine is the 7 series thus it is not supported. The hateful thing is that the nVidia graphic driver's description (for my model) gives me false hope and wasted my whole day trying.