Technology

So this error message has been doing the rounds lately. This application has failed to start because d3dx9_32.dll was not found. Or other error messages around d3dx9.dll, dxdx9d.dll, d3dx10.dll, xinput.dll, xact.dll, d3dx10_33.dll, d3dx9_40.dll and other variations being missing, not being found or installed. These are all optional components to DirectX that may not be installed with the version of DirectX you already have on your system. Typically these will be installed when the game installs DirectX, however for historical reasons a lot of gamers, knowing they had the latest version of DirectX didn't bother (I never do either)....

My one off MVP of the week award has just gone to Richard Urban, I was just about to go to bed but just thought I'd check the Microsoft newsgroups for a few minutes. Richard Urban was replying to this post: I have a brand new notebook with a dual core 2.2GHz processor, 2G of memory and a 160G hard drive. It's an HP Pavillion. I turn it on. It takes 45 seconds to display the login prompt....

This guy just doesn't know when to quit. I saw his claims resurface on PC World: Vista Prevents Users Playing High-Def Content Vista's complicated, overzealous copy protection system is degrading even premium content's that's not copy protected, such as high-definition home movies, says researcher Peter Gutmann. Nice to see PC World have heard of a thing called balanced reporting. How about the counter views being published too, huh? Like the fact is Gutmann is factually wrong on many of his claims....

As a few of you know, I've been getting increasingly annoyed with having to move my Outlook .PST file around between computers when I was on the move. The last straw was a couple of weeks ago when I lost a few days worth of e-mail because I had thought the changes had synced back to my desktop, when in fact they hadn't. So I decided I was going to look at running Exchange....

Well we're starting to get some good gadgets for the Windows Vista Sidebar, which may force my hand and get me to actually use the Sidebar. I just found this gadget which hooks into Windows Live Messenger, and lets you see your contact list, without the wasted screen real estate of having the full client open. You can download it from the gadget website. It's still pretty early, needs a bit more polish but other than that its a very functional gadget with a wide range of customizable options....

So I've been tackling some issues with one of my machines over the last couple of weeks. It hasn't been going to sleep after ten minutes of inactivity, like it's told too. I hate troubleshooting these sorts of issues as there are so many things that can cause it and it is difficult to track down what's making the machine think it's still in use. A few months ago it was some junkware that Amelia wanted installed that added extra silly faces and the like to Windows Live Messenger, this thing started a process under every user regardless of if Messenger was even running, or setup on their account....

I made a voyage over to Apple's support forums. One post stuck out for me, out of the endless iTunes problem threads where Apple's advice is "we suggest a wipe and reload of your system": will Apple ever make it so us canadians can get movies and tv on our ipod's Perfectly valid question, when will Apple release TV and movies in the iTunes store in Canada? This is how the zealots respond to it:...

As I've been working on the forums lately, and the new logo is a transparent PNG, it would look terrible as a GIF, so its a PNG instead. Yes, now you know where I'm coming from. It's been over six months now since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7, yet Internet Explorer 6 is still common. On the forums its about level with IE7. According to Net Applications, IE6 is still the market leader, with a 12% lead over IE7....

It's nice to see Microsoft leading the field in support for 64-bit operating systems. Windows Home Server Connector, which is the little application installed on the clients which handles backups and opens the Home Server Console, doesn't install on x64. Officially the team says they don't have the resources to support x64 and so there will be no support at this time. What I want to know is why Microsoft isn't putting the money into the team to support x64....

Has anybody else noticed that the Mac zealots seem to be getting dumber lately? I spotted this (via Channel 9) on MacDailyNews: MacDailyNews Take: The IT guys are in for a rude awakening and the iPhone is only the beginning. They will have to accommodate the iPhone. Too many important employees will demand it and IT won't be able to stem the tide. The fact is that business people will decide which device they want to carry and their businesses will adapt to it....