The Vista ReadyBoost compatibility list received its 200th submission today.  The list now tracks the ReadyBoost ‘readiness’ of devices from over 45 manufacturers. 

Some fun facts based on the data gathered so far:

• A little over half all tested devices (55%) were confirmed compatible with ReadyBoost.
   
• The highest number of compatible device reports have come from SanDisk users – nearly 20% of all positive reports received.  In total, over 78% of the SanDisk devices were ReadyBoost compatible.
   
• PNY users reported the greatest number of incompatible devices – 12% of all the incompatible devices reported. Most PNY users (55%) found their devices to be incompatible.  Funny then that PNY should choose to mention ReadyBoost as a reason to buy PNY.

If there’s one thing the list does show, it’s that no one manufacturer has ReadyBoost compatibility nailed across their range.  If you’re thinking about buying a new Flash device for ReadyBoost, check the list first.

Finally, many thanks to everyone who have submitted their results so far.  And special thanks to Maverick, Jim Byram and the others who have returned several times with compatibility reports for new Flash devices.  The list wouldn’t exist without all your help.

I’ve been getting into Netvibes recently.  I’ll probably write more about it later, but for now just wanted to announce my first Netvibes module – MySudoku.

After looking at the other Sudoku modules available on Netvibes, I thought my own Sudoku engine improved on all of those in several key areas.  It took about three hours to convert my Flash app into Netvibes compatible code.

Just checked and there has been 34 downloads so far today.  Looks like Om Malik’s Widgetization of the Web might be the way forward.  It certainly gives exposure to small developers like myself, and will hopefully generate some useful feedback.

Take a look – my sudoku module page is here.

If you have a Netvibes account, add my module:

 

I recently ordered a Kingston DataTraveler Elite USB Flash drive to try out Vista’s ReadyBoost feature (previously blogged about here).  It arrived in the post from eBuyer today and I decided to run a few semi-scientific tests to see what difference, if any, it made.

Boot Times

I timed Windows startup from cold before and after adding the ReadyBoost device.  I started the timer from the second I pressed the power button, as I wanted to include any time lost through BIOS recognition of the USB device.  The timer was stopped when Vista reached the ‘select user’ screen. 

Before: 49.5 secs
After: 51.0 secs (yep, slower)

This slowdown seemed to be 100% down to device recognition time – it spent a bit longer on the initial BIOS screens, and there wasn’t any noticeable improvement in the rest of the boot process.

Adobe Photoshop startup times

Photoshop is always slow to start, especially if you have lots of filters, fonts and extensions installed.  However, even with regular Windows disk caching it’s much faster to start the second time around.  So for this test I’m timing both start and re-start times for Photoshop.  

Before ReadyBoost, first start: 26.5 secs.  Second start: 14.6 secs.
After ReadyBoost, first start: 16.0 secs.  Second start: 11.7 secs.

That’s much more like it!  The promise of ReadyBoost – that it will significantly speed up access for small files – seems to be proven here.  Photoshop requires access to hundreds, perhaps thousands of small files when starting up.   From listening to the HDD it certainly seems to be doing less work, and the application start times have reduced by 40%…. result!

iTunes startup times

I knew Photoshop was going to be an extreme case (like most Adobe apps) so to balance things out I thought I’d try iTunes too.  With a massive music library, iTunes takes several seconds to start up, so it’s a reasonable one to test (unlike, for example, Word which starts so fast that startup times are difficult to judge).

Before ReadyBoost, first start: 8.2 secs.  Second start: 6.8 secs.
After ReadyBoost, first start: 9.0 secs.  Second start: 6.3 secs.

It’s likely that iTunes startup times were influenced by external factors here, rather than ReadyBoost making things slower.  However, I don’t think ReadyBoost will improve startup times for an app like iTunes either.

Conclusion

As Tom Archer blogged previously on MSDN, ReadyBoost is all about speeding access to small, random file requests.  When you’re doing that (e.g. starting an app that requires lots of tiny files) then ReadyBoost makes a significant improvement – at least 40% faster in my tests.  For that alone, it makes it worth the investment in a fast USB Flash drive. 

The only difficulty is finding the right drive!  My Kingston DataTraveler Elite 1GB seems fine, but previous devices I’ve tried (e.g. Maxell 512MB, Kaser, etc) weren’t fast enough to register for ReadyBoost.  If you’re in any doubt, please check out my ReadyBoost compatibility chart.

When I launched my Flash-based Sudoku game, I had plans to update it at least once a week with new puzzles.  That was over a year ago – and in that time I only managed to update it a couple of times.  Also missing from the app was a bunch of features you’d expect to find in any decent Sudoku game – the ability to check your solution for one! 

A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to take a fresh look at the app.  I’ve added a solution checker, keyboard navigation and a few other features to make it more friendly.  But most imporantly of all, I’ve added an automatic puzzle generator which will generate new puzzles for you every day. 

Take a look here: http://www.grantgibson.co.uk/sudoku/

Hopefully the app is now feature-complete and fairly bug free, but if you have any suggestions, questions or comments they’re always welcome.