Prego Baby Fail

via yahooanswerfail.com

Seriously have to love Yahoo Answers.

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A shadow copy could not be created // Insufficient storage available to create // 0×81000019

These are part of a message received when trying to run a Windows 7 backup with a system image. I myself have encountered the problem but luckily after some searching have found a solution that worked for me.

Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot of the message you may have received but I do have a text version of it:

[Window Title]
Windows Backup: Troubleshooting Options

[Main Instruction]
Check your backup

[Content]
A shadow copy could not be created. Please check "VSS" and "SPP" application event logs for more information.
Details: Insufficient storage available to create either the shadow copy storage file or other shadow copy data.

[^] Hide Details  [Try to run backup again] [Change backup settings] [Cancel]

[Expanded Information]
Backup time: 10/25/2009 3:23 PM
Backup location: Terra-Stor (M:)
Error code: 0×81000019

So the insufficient space this error is referring to isn't the space on your hard drives that you're trying to copy the backup too, it's the space on that small 100MB boot partition that was created during Windows 7 installation. You can look at the partition yourself by:

1. Start
2. Right click My Computer
3. Manage
4. Storage > Disk Management
5. Right click the 100MB
6. Properties

If you have less than 40% of Free Space then that's the insufficient storage available error. See that drive is actually used to create your system image and therefore cannot drop below 40%. According to a Microsoft employee there is a problem with Windows 7 which causes it to use up more than 60% of that 100MB boot drive.

The trick around this problem is:

If the System reserved partition cannot be extended using Disk Management because of lack of contigous space adjacent to it, creating a new system volume is the workaround. Here are the steps to move the system volume to any other volume:

1. Choose where you want to have your system volume. Few things you need to keep in mind:

1. System volume can only be created on a primary partition of MBR disk.
2. If system volume & boot volume are together, then BitLocker feature cannot be used to encrypt volumes on your machine.

Suggest creating a new volume (say F:) on the same disk that contains the boot partition of size of about 490 MB (be careful to keep it less than 500 MB)

1. My Edit: To do this you must be in the manage properties as per the steps above.
2. Right click your C:\
3. Shrink Volume
4. Enter 490MB
5. Right click the new drive
6. New Simple Volume

Assuming Windows 7 is installed on C: on your machine. From an elevated command-prompt run: bcdboot.exe C:\Windows /s F:.

From elevated command-prompt run: DISKPART

From the disk part command-prompt:

1. DISKPART> select volume F
2. DISKPART> active

Now you can reboot your machine and F: will become the system volume. You can undo this by repeating the same steps using the original system volume (you have to assign drive-letter to it) to revert to your previous configuration.

via social.technet.microsoft.com

Once this is done you can head back into Manage:

1. Right click the new 490MB drive
2. Change Drive Letter and Paths
3. Remove

Removing the letter will also remove the drive from appearing in My Computer. Now you should be done. The drive should now be 490MB which is plenty for Windows 7 backup to create a system image. Go to Backup & Restore and run through the wizard again and this time hopefully it should work.

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Google Search’s New Interface Being Tested Now

The rumours published last week may be true after all: Google is testing a new search interface on random people, as these screenshots from Gizmodo reader Matt Karolian confirm.

via gizmodo.com.au

Bring on the change. If there’s one thing all Google sites have in common is their lack of colour variety.

If these screenshots tell the truth then we may be looking at a nice new Google fairly soon (or one could hope).

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Firefox hopes to one-up IE with fast graphics

Last week, Microsoft showed off some browser technology that could help Internet Explorer leapfrog the competition. But if Mozilla succeeds in its hope, Microsoft could be playing catch-up instead.

The technology in question is hardware-accelerated graphics and text using interfaces called Direct2D and DirectWrite that provide an easy way to use graphics cards’ computing power. They’re built into Windows 7, and Microsoft is bringing them to Windows Vista but not Windows XP.

The performance boost from Direct2D and DirectWrite was the centerpiece of Microsoft’s demonstration of Internet Explorer 9 goodies shown last week. Online maps flashed on the screen quickly and tracked mouse movements responsively; text was clearer and changed sizes more gracefully.

But the day of Microsoft’s demo, Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard had this to tweet: “Interesting that we’re doing Direct2D support in Firefox as well–I’ll bet we’ll ship it first.”

There’s work to back up his rhetoric. On Sunday, Bas Schouten, the programmer who’s been leading the work for Mozilla, posted a prototype of Firefox using the Direct2D and DirectWrite.

via news.cnet.com

Amazing read and fantastic news for us all. While Google tries to speed up webpage load times with a new HTTP protocol layer Microsoft and Mozilla try to speed up the browsers by utilising the computers GPU for graphics rendering.

It makes perfect sense. Why use a CPU to render graphics when the computers graphics card can do a much better job? Thanks to Windows 7 and soon Vista browsers will be able to utilise Direct2D and DirectWrite to render webpages.

It looks like a very promising upcoming technology that will speed up most webpages by around two-fold. Let’s just hope Mozilla can release this technology by Firefox 4.0.

Check out Bas Schouten’s website benchmarks of Direct2D vs GDI (last link in the quoted section above).

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Android Now Makes Up 11 Percent Of World Wide Smartphone Web Traffic

On a global basis, the iPhone OS now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic, up from 43 percent the month before. Android has an 11 percent global share, which makes it third globally after Nokia/Symbian’s 25 percent share. The U.S. makes up 49 percent of all the mobile Web traffic, according to AdMob’s stats. Thus strength in the U.S. translates to strength in the worldwide numbers.

As major new carriers come onboard, the numbers can shift dramatically. Since Verizon launched the Droid two weeks ago, that single device now makes up 24 percent of all Android mobile Web traffic. The HTC Dream, which is the oldest Android device, is the only one with more, at 36 percent of Android traffic. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Droid passes that within the next two weeks.

via techcrunch.com

It’s great to see some competition to the iPhone. The iPhone clearly dominates the world as far as smartphones go with a massive 50% of the market.

But with the release of Android 2.0 and the rise of Android based handsets I think this number could start changing. Interesting figures nonetheless. Maybe with this increased pressure, Apple might actually start releasing worthy upgrades to their phone.

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How Twilight Works

A few weeks ago I had the miserable experience of reading Twilight. A friend bought it for me and I took it with me to read on a long flight from Seattle to Houston. I knew it was going to be crappy, but I thought it would be a guilty pleasure kind of crappy – where you know it’s bad but you still get enjoyment out of it. I actually managed to power through around 400 pages until I gave up and started reading Sky Mall. I’ve been seeing Twilight everywhere lately, especially with Vampire Teens II New Moon’s release, so I thought I’d break down why chicks go apeshit for it.

via theoatmeal.com

Continue reading this great little Twilight bagging session this time done by The Oatmeal.

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The Mother With the Most Births

Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782), was a peasant from Shuya, Russia. Though not noteworthy himself, his first wife, Valentina Vassilyeva, set the record for most children birthed by a single woman. She gave birth to total of 69 children; however, few other details are known of her life, such as her date of birth or death. She gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 births. 67 of the 69 children born survived infancy.

The modern world record for giving birth is held by Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile. Now in her mid-sixties, she claims to be the mother of 64 children. Of these, 55 are documented.

The mother with the greatest number of kids that are not tiwns is Livia Ionce. This Romanian woman, 44, gave birth to her 18th child in Canada in 2008. (Link)

via oddee.com

What the… 69 kids? Why would she keep going after oh I don’t know lets say 10 kids… or even 20 or 30 kids?

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Weekend

via explosm.net

Search your YouTube Favourites

Yesterday I was a little bored so I decided to finally make a script to obtain a feature I had wanted on YouTube for some time now. So I made my own Greasemonkey script that allows users to search their YouTube Favourites.

I've been looking around for something like this and haven't found anything, but I know this feature is one that people are looking for. If you use favourite videos on YouTube then you'd appreciate this script.

Enjoy: YouTube Favourites Search

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One-in-a-Million Events

via techeblog.com

Wow… one of the best compilations I’ve seen. If only the videos were better quality.

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