Tech Ramblings from a Rainier Day

System CPU Usage

I was troubleshooting an issue on an SBS 2003 Premium server today when I noticed that the CPU usage seemed to be higher than normal on a consistent basis.  While it was only hovering about 20-30% (2 Dual-Core processors), it was consistent and did not dip below that level. 

I found a helpful blog post (http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/04/07/3031251.aspx) that pointed me in the direction of KernRate, which turned out to be exactly what I needed to track the problem down.

After running KernRate for about a minute, it showed intelppm at 57%, ntkrnlpa at 25%, and vsapint at 10%.  From looking around on the Internet it looked like intelppm is an internal power management feature of the cpu, ntkrnlpa is the kernel, and vsapint was a trend micro system process (Trend Micro Worry Free Advanced is installed).  The first two items were probably not the culprit so I killed the Realtime scan in services and the System process went back down to a normal level.  After starting the realtime scan process again, after a minute or two the cpu usage spiked again. 

The server is not set to scan during the day.  The trend micro systray icon shows that it is not currently scanning.  However it is obviously doing something.

We’ll be contacting Trend Micro support tomorrow to follow up on this problem.  Unfortunately, it seems par for the course with the kernel memory usage problems, startup items that need to be stopped, and ip stack corruption that I am really losing trust in this product. 

Google BETA

Google’s new browser, Chrome, has a number of vulnerabilities that have been found in the first week (http://www.crn.com/security/210500382;jsessionid=5MHY03QKS4R1EQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN).  While it is listed as Beta, to me Google’s Beta term doesn’t mean as much as any other company that uses it. 

Google has software that is in Beta perpetually.  How many people use Gmail?  How long has it been available for use?  Gmail has been out since 2004, and available to the general public for over 18 months.  Google Docs has been available for 2 years.  Google Video was launched in 2005.

What other software company does this?  I’ve never taken Google seriously.  They come off with an ego the size of Steve Jobs, but lack any kind of focus to finish their products well.

Other than their search, I find their lack of graphic design capabilities to be laughable.  Yes, minimalist design can work for search, but it does not work for chat, browsers, RSS readers, document editors, email programs, etc.  Google is working off of its name for now, but like Microsoft it needs to create better products in a much shorter cycle.  If I can use a program with the same or better functionality, and it is pleasing to the eye, of course I’m going to use it over the Google version.