Apple has just released a new version of iTunes 8 intended to fix the horrific problems I reported earlier this week, including STOP errors (AKA the Blue Screen of Death) for some Windows Vista users.

This doesn’t appear to be a permanent fix, however. As I note at ZDNet, the new version replaces Apple’s problematic USB driver with an older version.

If you experienced problems with iTunes 8, you should uninstall the current version and replace it with this one. If you’re not experiencing any problems, I recommend leaving well enough alone.

I’m interested in hearing from any iPod/iPhone owners who have experienced this problem firsthand.

Via e-mail, Dwight Silverman asks some questions about my coverage of the iTunes 8 mess. My answers appear in his follow-up post, but I thought they were worth sharing here as well, especially because the same questions have appeared a few times in the Talkback section over at ZDNet.

Dwight asks:

You take Apple to task for installing more than just iTunes without disclosing what it’s doing, including the installation of additional drivers. But I am not aware of any Windows program that installs drivers as part of an overall package that says, “OK, we’re installing these drivers.” I wish they would, but they typically don’t.

My response:

These days, many software companies include some sort of changelog or readme file as part of a new release. If Apple did that, they could note that they updated the two drivers in their changelog. They might even make a note of what those drivers do and why they’ve been updated. Had they done that, the troubleshooting would have been easier.

Dwight’s second question:

In addition, there are a lot of Windows programs that install other software modules and don’t mention them — and not necessarily spyware. This is fairly common. Is what Apple’s doing with Quicktime really all that unusual?

My response:

Really? I install a lot of Windows software. In most cases that I have encountered involving complex software, there is a Custom install option that allows you to choose or exclude various modules. I use the Custom install option for everything. If the installer offers third-party software, such as the Google toolbar, you are always given notice and allowed to choose not to install it. Google, in fact, insists on that. Most of those other companies also include at least a pro forma mention in their license agreement about other software they’re installing.

Apple doesn’t do either of those things. At some time in the past, iTunes was just that. Then it became iTunes+QuickTime. Then it became iTunes+QuickTime+a bunch of other stuff. But they don’t tell you about the other stuff in their license agreement, in the notice they offer as part of the update text, or in their installation. You click the button, and it all gets installed. Your only option is to install it all, then go to Control Panel later and uninstall it. Until the next update, when you have to go through the same dance again.

Maybe some examples would help. I’ve included them in the extended edition of this post.

Here’s the screen you see early in the installation process for Adobe Acrobat 8.1. You can see I’ve selected a custom installation:

The very next screen gives me the option to deselect any of the modules included with the program:

I especially like the fact that selecting an item allows me to see a description of what that feature does and how much space it will require on my hard drive.

And then there’s Siber Systems’ RoboForm. It does automatic and manual update checking as well.

When I go to the update page, one of the options available is called Release News. Here’s a snippet of what’s on that web page:

 

There’s plenty of precedent in the software industry for disclosing changes to your users and asking their consent before installing modules that aren’t essential.

Oh my. Were you wondering how iTunes turned into an 80MB download? Looks like Apple’s installing a bunch of kernel-mode drivers and services and some unwanted applications with its iTunes 8 upgrade. Without any disclosure or consent.

And one of those drivers is one that’s been causing BSODs with Windows for as long as I can remember. Nice marketing strategy: Tweak Microsoft for an operating system that  crashes, then ship code that crashes Windows. Thank goodness I’m not a cynic or I’d think this was a deliberate marketing strategy.

Details over at ZDNet. (And don’t miss the screenshot gallery.)

Update: A commenter over at ZDNet came up with the best one-liner I’ve heard yet:

iTunes ain’t done till Windows won’t run!

Damn, wish I’d thought of that.

Over at the Microsoft-sponsored Small Business Success Center, Harry McCracken has a great confession of the tech mistakes he’s made over the past 17 years (most of them spent as editor of PC World, and more recently as founder and proprietor of Technologizer.

It’s great list, well worth reading. I found myself nodding in painful recognition of the times I’ve done the same. I especially liked the caution against working in haste:

Just about every time I’ve ever had a computer upgrade go awry, for instance, it’s because I tried to rush it. My success rate is vastly higher when I take time to read instructions and double-check my work, and when I allow time for any troubleshooting that proves necessary.

To which I would add, the same applies when installing a new piece of software. No matter how appealing some shiny new bit of code might be, I’ve learned from painful experience to RTFM (and read the release notes too) and to scan message boards to see if any early adopters have been burned. And to make sure I have a backup and recovery plan.

Go, read, and say hi to Harry for me.

I grit my teeth every time Apple pushes another piece of software my way. I’m especially leery of iTunes 8, based on this comment from Dwight Silverman:

Windows Vista users may want to uninstall older versions of iTunes before installing version 8. There have been some reports of Blue Screens of Death with iTunes 8, and a clean install may prevent it.

Lovely. Maybe they can make an ad about it.

Update: I was able to reproduce the crash, and I think I’ve found the cause. The story’s even uglier than I thought. See An inside look at Apple’s sneaky iTunes 8 upgrade.

I wrote about this last month, when I picked up a CableCARD-tuner-equipped quad-core HP Pavilion m9300t PC for under $850. (See Best Media Center deal ever? for the details and this follow-up on the trials and tribulations of installing a CableCARD tuner.)

Today, I notice that the same deal has returned, with a different coupon number and (currently at least) an instant rebate of $100. Details of the current deal are at Ben’s Bargains. If you spec it with a 750GB hard drive the price is slightly higher than I paid, but only just a little. I would go with the 320GB drive, use it as the system drive, and add either a 750GB or 1TB second drive for media storage.

My capsule review so far of my m9300t: Excellent build quality. Easy (but annoying) to remove the crapware. Very, very quiet. Adding a second hard drive was way more difficult than it should be, thanks to a clunky drive cage and some very tight cabling.

I’m in the process of setting up a second CableCARD-equipped system here. Sounds insane, I know, but there’s a good reason. One system is for our household’s everyday TV/music/picture/video activities. It does not get beta software installed on it, period. I manage it like an appliance and do the absolute minimum of tinkering or tweaking with it. That second system is the one I’ll be using when Windows 7 betas begin appearing, and I’ll be able to tinker with it and even break it without blacking out the TV in the living room.

I set up that first system about a year ago, and it’s been running smoothly after we got past the rough spots. I figured that this one would be easier, but sadly, that’s not turning out to be the case. Yes, the hardware has improved, and the software support is much better, but the system is still complex, and there’s no way around that.

So, yesterday afternoon I spent just over an hour on the phone with my friendly local Comcast rep (and there is not a word of irony in that statement – she really is awesome). When we finally finished, the CableCARD tuner and its card were registered in Comcast’s database but I still wasn’t getting a signal. I actually tracked down part of the problem this morning (I needed one particular software update) and the tuner is now accepting analog cable signals and should be able to tune in premium channels when it gets another “hit” from the Comcast head end. (Update: Yep, that’s all it took. CableCARD tuner now working perfectly. The installer will be out on Thursday to set up a second tuner, and hopefully it will go more quickly.)

This is research for me, and my expectations for success were low going in, so I didn’t find it overly frustrating. But I would not wish the experience of CableCARD setup on the average TV viewer. Not yet.

The biggest problem in troubleshooting is that it’s impossible to locate where the system is breaking down. Consider all the pieces involved:

• Windows Vista has to be installed, and digital cable support has to be enabled.
• Drivers and firmware for the cable tuner have to be up-to-date (my new HP system, delivered in late August 2008, included two-year-old drivers for the ATI tuner, and the tuner’s firmware was also woefully out of date).
• The digital tuner has to be set up in Media Center, a process that might require additional software downloads and can be thwarted by third-party firewalls.
• The cable company has to physically deliver a CableCARD.
• After inserting the CableCARD, the user or an installer has to read back the card serial number and the Host ID and Data ID from the tuner to a technician at the remote office, who then enables access.
• The remote technician sends a series of three “hits” to the system.

And then you wait. Could be 5 minutes, could be 45. If the system doesn’t work, how do you know what’s gone wrong? Is it a bad CableCARD? Is the tuner itself defective? Is there a missing DRM component? Did the hits not arrive? Is a firewall getting in the way?

I now have enough experience with these touchy devices to make the troubleshooting go smoother, and the Vista Media Center forums at The Green Button help a lot, too (like this thread, which offers a great snapshot of the frustration and success involved in setting up one of these systems). But still…

My Comcast contact says she hasn’t worked with any other Media Center owners but has had plenty of experience with TiVo HDs. Because those are closed boxes, some of the problems I listed above aren’t applicable. But still, she tells me, they have plenty of CableCARD issues with TiVo devices, and they’ve learned to send installers out with a sack full of CableCARDs each time, because they don’t always work. (And I didn’t mention the difference between S-Cards and M-Cards in the list above, or multi-stream cards, or SDV, or any of the other issues that can get in the way.)

In the long run, this issue will resolve itself as IP-based services become more popular and the need for content delivered directly over cable or satellite diminishes. But that will take years and years to reach critical mass. In the short term, I think the best way to solve this issue is for someone, maybe even Microsoft, to create a Windows-powered device that’s designed and built from the ground up to be a digital media device: headless, quiet, packed with storage, with all drivers and firmware installed from the start, and not intended for use as a general-purpose PC. Hmmm. Maybe I need to start a company.

Today is (was) Virtualization Launch day. Although the keynote presentations were streamed live (in fact I'm just watching Bob Muglia finish up as I'm typing this), they will be available later this afternoon for on-demand viewing here.

Some of the highlights:

• Microsoft Hyper-V Server is coming within the next 30 days and will be free
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM) is coming within the next 30 days.
• Live migration will be in the next release of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 codename "R2"

Microsoft Hyper-V Server
There's more information on Microsoft Hyper-V Server here as first announced back at TechEd last year. It will be available for free. Microsoft Hyper-V Server contains the same fundamental technology present in the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008, but Hyper-V is the only capability of Microsoft Hyper-V Server. It must be managed remotely. You may have noticed if you've watched the streaming media, the screenshot showed a command-line configuration utility - this is a simple way of configuring the server for things such as IP configuration, computer name, enabling remote desktop etc. More on that to follow soon.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
There's more information on SCVMM here. The main announcement today was that SCVMM 2008 will be available within 30 days. The demonstration showed SCVMM managing Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1; Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V; Microsoft Hyper-V Server and VMWare ESX 3.5.

Live Migration
This was the first time we've made any announcements about the feature set in Windows Server 2008 codename "R2". Live migration is the ability to move a running virtual machine from one physical server to another with little or no perceptible downtime from an end user perspective - today's keynote showed a video being played while the virtual machine on which Windows Media Player was running was "live-migrated". Although there are many more improvements in the next release that we've been working on for many months now, there will be a fuller disclosure at the PDC conference at the end of October this year, and also at WinHEC in November.

Cheers,
John.

Todd Headrick of Microsoft’s Windows Home Server team (hi, Todd!) has an interesting post on the official WHS blog, asking for thoughts on whether the next version should be split into Basic and Advanced versions:

we are back in the product planning phase and culling through all of these suggestions. What if we had 2 versions of Windows Home Server - one for the "basic" household and one for the more "advanced" household. What should we think about using as limits for the number of users and computers for a "basic" version and for an "advanced" version?

For me, the answer is easy. Please, please, please do not release a separate SKU. The basic product allows you to connect up to 10 computers and have 10 user accounts. The product is built on Windows Server 2003, which already has the capability to accommodate additional users by adding licenses. So find a way to let me buy an addition 5-pack or 10-pack of licenses for that server for a reasonable price ($10 per seat sounds about right).

The trouble with splitting into different versions is that the temptation to start segmenting features becomes irresistible. Oh, you want the Frammis service? You’ll have to upgrade to the advanced version. Arrrggghhh!

The original design philosophy of Windows Home Server was (and still is) to be a device that is simple to set up and use and whose functionality can be extended with add-ins and services. For a refresher in that design philosophy, go back and read this post from Charlie Kindel of the WHS team. Although it applies to the storage subsystem, the concepts apply equally to the rest of the product. Here are the first two bullet points from that list:

Must be extremely simple to use. Must not add any new concepts or terminology average consumers would not understand. Simple operations should be simple and there should not be any complex operations.

Must be infinitely & transparently extendible. Users should be able to just plug in more hard drives and the amount of storage available should just grow accordingly. There should be no arbitrary limits to the kinds of hard drives used. Users should be able to plug in any number of drives.  Different brands, sizes, and technologies should be able to be mixed without the user having to worry about details.

Those are really good ideas. Please keep it simple, folks.

One of my all-time favorite Windows programs, RoboForm, came out with an update recently. That’s not unusual. But I was surprised to see this dialog box pop up:

 

I’ve written about security problems with Skype before, and I’ve also noted one case where I discovered that a Skype add-on to Internet Explorer was causing delays of up to 90 seconds in page loading. But I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen one software developer specifically call out another as part of its installation routine.

For the record, I was able to confirm that the RoboForm dialog box is absolutely correct. With the Skype add-in installed, I had activation problems. When it was disabled, everything worked perfectly.

I was a very early adopter of TiVo, buying my first Philips TiVo box with a lifetime membership way back in 2000, less than a year after the company shipped its first box. I loved it then, and the Spousal Acceptance Factor (SAF) was high. High enough, in fact, that I bought an HD TiVo and signed up with DirecTV a little over three years ago when we moved into the home we live in now.

But DirecTV and TiVo had a falling out shortly after I made that purchase, and DirecTV introduced one of the suckiest DVRs ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public. So bad, in fact, that I willingly paid an early termination fee to get rid of it.

For the past year, our home entertainment system has been a Dell Media Center PC equipped with two external CableCARD tuners and two ATSC (over-the-air HD) tuners attached to an external antenna. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve had various Media Center extenders in other rooms of the house. The system has been an absolute joy to use, with an extremely high SAF.

Every so often I get an e-mail from TiVo offering me some sort of deal to come back. Today, just for grins, I decided to see what I’d have to pay to rejoin the TiVo fold.

For starters, I would need at least two HD TiVos (ours is an HD-only household), at $300 each, plus a My DVR Expander drive at $200. The best deal on service charges is a three-year prepaid plan at $299 per box (the multi-service deal is $99 [per year for the second box, so no discount there). For an extra $99 I could get lifetime service on both boxes, but let’s assume a thee-year life.

We’re now up to $1400 for TV access in two rooms, with the ability to record up to two programs at once, including ATSC digital from the antenna. The storage on the second box can be expanded with another $200 external hard drive, which would drive the cost up even higher. After that, I’d have to start hacking the hardware to get any additional storage. That’s an awful lot of money to pay for a two-room DVR.

By contrast, the HP m9300t Media Center PC I just purchased cost $930 delivered. It includes a quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 750GB hard drive, which matches the storage of the TiVo with its drive expander. It includes a single digital cable tuner and a dual analog cable/ATSC tuner. As I noted earlier today, I can pick up a pair of Media Center extenders for roughly $130 each. That gives me three rooms of full HD coverage for $1190, which is $210 less than I would have to pay TiVo for two rooms of coverage. (I could also choose to spend the difference on more powerful extenders, including an Xbox 360.) As a bonus, the extenders are completely noiseless, unlike the fan-equipped TiVos, and I don’t have to do any shuffling to share programs between boxes. The extenders just log in remotely to the main system and access everything from a single location.

In addition, I can expand the storage capacity of the Media Center system by adding another internal hard drive or any number of external drives. I can extend the system’s capabilities with add-ins. I can back up recorded shows and easily transfer non-copy-protected content (anything recorded from the digital antenna) to another PC or a portable device.

But the killer feature for me is the digital music interface, which is the best 10-foot interface I’ve ever used. The TiVo music interface is unusable for a large collection like ours(we have more than 20,000 songs and something like 1800 albums). By contrast, the Media Center music playback experience is ridiculously easy to use. It’s also wicked fast, even on an extender. It takes 20 seconds or so to read in the index when the extender starts up, but after that I can jump to any artist, album, or genre just about instantly.

Costs less than TiVo, easier to use across the board, more expandable. Hmmm. What’s not to like?

Update: In the comments, Ryan Walters notes a link I saw this morning but didn’t include: DirecTV and TiVo kiss and make up, again, with HD agreement. Apparently the joint announcement says that “in late 2009” TiVo will have a new HD DVR for DirecTV. I’m not holding my breath (DirecTV has a way of making announcements about products that take longer than expected). And as I note in the comments below, it would take a lot for me to go back to DirecTV, who managed to alienate me for life with their less-than-stellar customer service.

If you’ve been looking for a Vista-compatible Media Center Extender, Dell Home has both Linksys models on sale for the lowest prices I’ve seen. The bare-bones (but very capable) DMA 2100 is $127.49, and the DMA 2200, which has a built-in DVD player, is $170.

I’m using both models here. In fact, I’ve been busily testing all five currently available Media Center Extenders and will have a full review later this week. Stay tuned.

Excellent, wide-ranging interview with Mark Russinovich over at TechNet Edge. It was posted lasted week, but I just got around to noticing it. I’ll probably transcribe a few portions of it shortly, as they’re worth reading…

If you’re even slightly a Windows geek, it’s worth a listen.

Thought I'd put together some samples of PowerShell commands for Operations Manager 2007.  It is assumed you are running these from the Operations Manager 2007 Command Shell (or all OpsMgr shap-ins are loaded).  Watch out for word wrap.  Any text in red needs to be modified to your criteria.  Check back now and then, as I will be adding to this list periodically.

FYI:  I don't claim to be a PowerShell guru.  Some of these could be reworked to run more efficiently, particularly when using in large-scale deployments.

 

Overrides

 

Get all overrides in Management Group:

Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.sealed -match "False"} | get-override | select-object name,parameter,module,rule,enforced,value,timeadded,lastmodified

 

Get all overrides in specific Management Pack:

Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.DisplayName -match "MP_Name"} | get-override | select-object Name,Rule,Monitor

 

Get all overrides that were created in a specific date/time range:

Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.sealed -match "False"} | get-override | where {$_.TimeAdded -ge "01/01/2008 00:00:00" -and $_.TimeAdded -lt "09/01/2008 23:59:59"} | select-object name,TimeAdded

 

Get all overrides that have been modified:

Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.sealed -match "False"} | get-override | where {$_.LastModified -gt $_.TimeAdded} | select-object name,TimeAdded,LastModified

 

Get all overrides that have been modified in a specific date/time range:

Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.sealed -match "False"} | get-override | where {$_.LastModified -gt $_.TimeAdded -and $_.LastModified -ge "01/01/2008 00:00:00" -and $_.LastModified -lt "09/01/2008 23:59:59"}  | select-object name,TimeAdded,LastModified

 

Get all rules overridden from specific Management Pack:

$overrides = Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.DisplayName -match "Override_MP_Name"} | get-override

$rules = $overrides | where {$_.rule}

foreach ($rule in $rules) {get-rule | where {$_.Id -eq $rule.rule.id} | select-object DisplayName}

 

Get all monitors overridden from specific Management Pack:

$overrides = Get-ManagementPack | where {$_.DisplayName -match "Override_MP_Name"} | get-override

$Monitors = $overrides | where {$_.monitor}

foreach ($monitor in $monitors) {get-monitor | where {$_.Id -eq $monitor.monitor.id} | select-object DisplayName}

 

Agent

 

Get all agents currently reporting to specific Management Server
(this needs to be run on target management sever, as it queries local IP properties)

$ip = [Net.NetworkInformation.IPGlobalProperties]::GetIPGlobalProperties()

$active = $ip.GetActiveTcpConnections()

$connectedAgents = $active | where {$_.LocalEndPoint -match "5723"}

$agents = get-agent

foreach ($RemoteEndPoint in $connectedAgents)
{$agents | where {$_.ipaddress -eq $RemoteEndPoint.RemoteEndPoint.Address.IPAddressToString} | select-object DisplayName}
write-host "`n`nAgents connected to this Management Server:" $connectedAgents.count

 

Approve or Reject specific agent for manual install:

$action = Get-AgentPendingAction | where {$_.AgentName –match “netbios_name” -and $_.AgentPendingActionType –match "ManualApproval”}

$action | [approve or reject]-AgentPendingAction

I don’t claim to be an expert on web standards. In fact, very few people truly deserve the label of “expert” in this esoteric field. One is Jeffrey Zeldman, founder and majordomo of A List Apart, which I’ve been reading for years. Looking at my FeedDemon list, in fact, he’s the only web designer I consistently follow.

That means I haven’t been keeping up on the debate over how the community feels pover Microsoft’s decision to more fully support Web standards in IE8. Now, one thing they’re not going to do, apparently, is code IE so it passes the so-called Acid tests from the Web Standards Project.

I thought about this today as I was reading one persistent and annoying ZDNet commenter who seems fixated on ranting about the poor performance of IE8 Beta 2 on the Acid 3 test. I know that Microsoft could, if it chose to do so, build its browser to ace the Acid 3 test. Opera managed to do so. But Firefox has chosen not to. According to a chart Adrian Kingsley-Hughes published based on his testing, Their most recent builds come in at 71 out of 100 on the Acid 3 scorecard, and IE8 Beta 2 hits the low 20s.

I found this early 2008 article from Zeldman, in which he does a pretty good job of summarizing Microsoft’s “We can’t break the web” mentality, which has resulted in a feature called “version targeting.” I found this explanation especially compelling:

Non-standardistas have been writing JScript for years. While the CSS changes in IE7 may have “broken” a site’s layout, IE8’s JavaScript improvements could easily render a site useless. Real DOM support is a game changer. Enabled by default, it would bring many sites to their knees. That would break the web, and not in quotes. Providing IE8’s greater compliance on an opt-in basis is the only way to get everyone over the scripting hump.

Which brings us back to the question: Should a new browser pass some test, or should it move forward incrementally and continue to work as well as possible with the web as it exists today?

Frankly, I don’t care all that much about synthetic benchmarks. Getting a 100 on the Acid3 Test means that you will perfectly render a page that uses every known trick in the web standards guidebook, as written in that test. It does not mean that said browser will properly render the pages you visit every day or that your corporation uses on its intranet. Arguably, meeting that level of performance is more important. I would not want to have to explain to my CEO that no new sales came in this week because our new browser, which aced the Acid 3 test, barfs when it hits the order input page.

But I might be wrong. What I’d really like is some pointers to the experts out there who have already studied this subject and published well-considered opinions with lots of factual backup.

Anyone able to point me in the right direction? If you know your stuff, please help me out. I’ll assume that posting your comments here means you give me permission to use them (with attribution) in a follow-up post. And if it’ll help, I’ve got a couple of signed copies of Windows Vista Inside Out, Deluxe Edition for the most helpful, information-rich comments I get here.

I’ve received a bunch of questions about IE8 Beta 2, so I put together a FAQ page over at ZDNet. It includes answers to a bunch of questions, plus links to installation instructions and downloads for all supported 32- and 64-bit Windows versions. It’s here:

An IE8 Beta 2 Q&A

Also, you might want to check in on my first look at the features in this release:

Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover

and the accompanying screenshot gallery has some good stuff with 14 fully captioned images, each illustrating a key feature or capability:
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

From my ZDNet colleague Mary Jo Foley:

“Even Apple — with a fanbase so loyal that many would throw their iPods and iPhones off a bridge if CEO Steve Jobs told them to — is coming to realize that it’s inappropriate to answer legitimate questions and complaints with silence.”

And just to keep a little balance… The topic of Mary Jo’s post is Microsoft’s marketing effort for Windows Vista, about which she notes,:

Whether you think — from a technology standpoint — Windows Vista finally is the product it should have been when Microsoft released it to manufacturing in November 2006, it’s plain, even to the most loyal Softie, that the marketing side of the Windows unit has been lagging. (I’d like to use a stronger word or two here, but ZDNet is a family blog network.)

I’m working on a big project that will be posted this afternoon at ZDNet. Stay tuned.

OK, all done: Go read my first look at IE8 Beta 2:

Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover

I’ve also put together a gallery of screenshots to give you a sense of what’s new.

All in all, it’s much more than I expected.

One of my fellow bloggers in the Federated Media network, Anita Campbell, has just launched a new site called the Small Business Success Center. It’s a spin-off of her regular blog, Small Business Trends, and it’s sponsored by Microsoft. (Full disclosure: Through the FM network, Microsoft is also running ads for Small Business Trends on this site.)

Along with a few other FM bloggers, I’ve agreed to contribute some posts to help get the conversation started. It’s fun to look beyond the nitty-gritty of Windows dialog boxes for a change and think about some of the broader concerns of small businesses, like the one I run.

Anita’s site is a great resource. My contribution, Is your business prepared for a data disaster? is up now. If you run a small business or are thinking of starting one, go take a look, and feel free to leave a comment.

In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service publishes depreciation schedules for hard business assets like manufacturing equipment and office furniture. On the IRS list, a personal computer used exclusively for business in a “regular business establishment” is considered to have a five-year lifespan and can be written off accordingly.

Back when a computer cost $2000 or more, I used to squeeze at least three, and sometimes four or five years of life out of each purchase. Today, with whole system prices typically under $1000, I’m comfortable letting  a PC go after two years, sometimes even less.

Of course, other peripherals follow different rules completely. I’ve had printers that have lasted 10 years, and monitors usually last for 7-10 years here.

So, how about you? How often do you turn over systems and peripherals?

Update 9-Sep-2008: This deal is expired, but HP has replaced it a similar one, which you can read about in this follow-up post.

HP is running a special right now that allows you to get a fully loaded Media Center PC, complete with CableCARD-ready digital tuner, for the best price I’ve ever seen.

The HP Pavilion Elite m9300t is the top of the Entertainment Powerhouse line at HP. Until August 31, you can use an online coupon to get 30% off any system you order in this line, which starts out with some pretty aggressive pricing to begin with.

Using this coupon, you could get a quad-core system with an internal TV tuner and an external ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuner for under $850, including tax and shipping. Here are the specs for that system:

HP Pavilion Elite m9300t
customizable Desktop PC

• Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 for digital cable tuner (32-bit)
• Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q6600 (2.4GHz)
• 2GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM (2 modules)
• 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9500GS, DVI-I, VGA, HDMI
• 750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
• Ethernet LAN port on system board (10/100/1000Mbps)
• LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
• 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, video, audio
• ATI TV Wonder external digital cable tuner + internal TV tuner
• Integrated 7.1 channel sound w/ front audio ports)
• HP keyboard and optical mouse

I wasn’t particularly excited to see Microsoft Works 9.0 and Norton Internet Security 2008 (a one-year subscription) on the list of configuration items that couldn’t be changed. There are probably a few other bits of crapware hanging around as well. And because you need to use this custom edition of Windows Vista to get digital cable support, you can’t wipe it away and do a clean install.

You could actually cut the price by roughly $50 if you accept the default 320GB hard drive. For a Media Center PC that is going to be used to record HD content, I think the $50 upgrade charge to bump this drive to 750GB is well worth it. The most interesting upgrade option I see on the list is for the CPU, where you can spend an extra $120 or $200 (less a 30% discount, of course) to go up to a Penryn quad-core processor (Q9300 at 2.5 GHz or Q9450 at 2.66 GHz, both with a faster bus than the Q6600, plus support for SSE 4.1). You can also throw in a Blu-ray drive for $150, which is a pretty decent price if you plan to use this PC in a living room or den attached directly to a TV and you want to be able to play Blu-ray disks.

It’s worth noting that you can’t get a second digital cable tuner as part of this order (I asked). Nor can you get Vista Ultimate or any 64-bit Vista edition with digital cable support as part of this system. If you plan to use a CableCARD tuner, you must choose the “32-bit Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 for digital cable tuner” option. (Before anyone asks: I seriously doubt whether the Media Center TV Feature Pack is included in this build.)

To get this configuration, start at the Pavilion Elite m9300t series home page at hpshopping.com. After building the configuration you want, add it to your cart and use the coupon code DT9021 during checkout to take 30% off the total. (My understanding is that this coupon expires on August 31.) Choose 5-7 day shipping to get no-charge delivery.

I’ve never seen a price this low for a fully equipped system that actually includes a digital cable tuner. Currently, the best price I can get for a similarly equipped Dell XPS 420 is about $400 more. If you’ve been thinking about getting one of these systems and you can live with a single digital tuner, this is a good bet.