11. January 2009 by Terry.

So…there is all this hoopla over the windows 7 beta.   I personally was let down in a big way by vista.   I loved the look and the new graphic side of the interface, but the menu layouts and just the shear amount of changes they made all at once are seriously messing things up.   I used the vista beta when it was out and it left a positive impression on me…it was freakin sweet looking.   The new transparent window scape and things like that were awesome.   And XP is such an awesome OS in a lot of ways that Vista should of been just as good.   Well….I got my hands on a copy of Vista Business through my student network and yeah…it was cool once I got everything up and running.   The issue was…I sat there having to look for different drivers to work for my wireless card…which is a really common chipset by RaLink.   After about an hour of searching I finally found an xp driver that worked.   Now…to someone that knows what there doing that wasn’t much of a problem, but someone who doesn’t…..that would piss me off.   Think about it, just bought this brand new system and you get it home and for some reason the wireless wont work…so you go to the website of the manufacturer and look for the driver, only the maker of the tower hasn’t updated their drivers for vista yet, or if they have they’re “Experimental”.

Bugs and Incompatability galore.   The other big thing that literally has me telling people to stay away from Vista entirely is the hardware requirements.   When I installed Vista Business 32-bit on my tower I was running a modest system.   An old 939 board, athlon x2 4200, 2gb of ddr ram, and a cheap geforce 6600 pci-x card.   The system was stable, but man did it LAG.   I thought about that and looked at the minimum requirements and was like WTF?   I know how to optomize a windows system, but I was sufficiently above the requirements, did a clean install, but was sitting there like why is this so clunky?

So………when I heard that MS was going to release Windows 7 Fairly quickly after the Vista Fiasco, I wasn’t all that surprised.   Here is what I’m Surprised with though…..its good………its not great…….but its good.

So the new Desktop isn’t a HUGE step like going from XP to Vista was, but its a good step in the right direction.   The main changes are obviously that the taskbar has added some additions such as quick previews and the like.

The new Preview option borrows slightly from Mac OSX and other docks that are commonly found, such as my personal favorite Object Dock.

Something else that’s fairly cool is the new “hot lists”.   For example, they’ve added in the start menu now a quick access list to the most recent files you’ve created, used, etc. for each recently accessed program.   So if you like me used paint to prtscrn some screenshots really quick, it will present you with a quick access on the start menu for the paint program.    The same with Word, Outlook, etc.   This might not seem like much, but its a welcome addition.

Something else that’s new, is a little context menu in of all programs, PAINT.    Not everyone understands the differences between image file formats.   MS smartly recognizes this and added a context menu to the save as command, offering the most common image types and there most common uses.   For example, for the jpg format, the menu says that its meant for e-mail, web use, and uploading to photo sites.   Gif says its mainly a web format, BMP for higher quality, etc.   This is just a cool menu I found that shows that MS isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel here, there going down to small details, which is something they didn’t do enough of in VISTA.

This post is a work in progress, as I test more and get more screen shots I’ll post them along with the rest of my impressions.

UPDATE: January 28, 2009

So I’ve been using the Win 7 beta for a while now, learning its advantages and shortcomings and I’ve come to a few more conclusions.   First off, it runs MUCH better on a low end system than Vista does.   For example, my test system is a ~4 year old Dell, P4 3.0ghz, 1gb of ddr3200.   I’m running it off an 80 gig 7200 rpm ide drive that’s about 3 years old.   Vista runs slow as a dog on this system when I tested it a while ago.   Win 7 however runs amazingly well.   In fact, the aero interface in Vista was darn near unusable in this setup, however the Win 7 beta runs the interface quite well.   Oh, and btw, this setup is running on an ANCIENT Nvidia geforce FX5200 AGP.

Sure, the tower may be fairly low powered compared to what I’m used to using.   But, I’m very much a techie who finds a use for  my old stuff.   For example, my very nice Nmedia HTPC case thats hooked up to my very nice Sanyo LCD 46″, is housing an old AMD board, a Sempron 2400 SOCKET A, 512mb of ddr2700, and a 40gb IDE for windows, and a 320gb SATA drive for media.   Can anyone use that system for their needs anymore?   Probably not, but just for running Media Portal it works extremely well at viewing my dvd rip collection on my lcd through a Geforce 6200 AGP with a dvi to HDMI adapter cable.   So what do I have in that system money wise?……maybe 100 bucks now days besides the case?

Just goes to show you that old hardware still has many uses to someone who can find a use.   I kept that in mind as I used Win 7 over the last couple weeks.   I can honestly say that one of its BIGGEST pro’s is that its much more lenient on  the hardware side.   Especially in a recession, its harder than many people think to get someone to upgrade there software, let alone put out another 500 or more for a new tower or laptop.

Another Pro is the adjustment of the UAC that i HATED in Vista, into something thats just bearable.   To me it works like an intelligent software firewall.   For example, it asks if you want to change the time and date when attempting to.   Now in Vista, it would ask……every…..time……Granted how often does someone change the time on there system but still, its the point.   You could remedy this by turning the UAC off…..completely off.   There was no middle ground.   At least in 7 they’ve set up the permissions so that the UAC only asks once for common tasks.

Now I do have some cons.

While I consider myself a power user, why did it take me more than 5 minutes to find the device manager?   I applauded MS for trying to make the control panel more user friendly in Vista, but you can’t go from one way of doing things for almost 10 years, change it for one release, and then completely change it again.    Menu driven interfaces are great for everyday users, however I still do believe that there should be an option to return the control panel back to an xp-era style.   To me at least it would make for an easier transission.   And i STILL couldn’t get my very common rt2500 chipset wireless card to work.   Swapped out for a marvell chipset and BAM, works like a charm.   Odd, as my rt2500 after a little finageling with the drivers worked fine in VISTA.

Now this really isn’t a con, as much as it is a suggestion; A request if you will.

As a power user, I’m used to using the administrative tools options to stop and start services on startup.   However, more times than not, I find myself using the same tried and true method of hitting up run, and msconfig.   I use this menu after building systems to stop certain software from starting, such as MSN Messenger, Lexmark one touch printer utilities, Java Update Scheduler, etc.   Anything that generally takes up system memory and doesn’t really do ….anything until you interact with it.    It really is amazing how many bs programs are running in the background on every system I work on.   It would be nice if there was some sort of a program or menu that an everyday user can use to do the same thing a more advanced user has done for god knows how long in msconfig.   A simple menu with the program name, and what it does would be fine.   Hell if you want you can even throw in a level of requirements, say 3 levels, needed at startup, not needed, or unsure.   Not saying that any system services should be included, but do I really need Google Earth to update everytime I start my damn system.

Okay, that is all for now.

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1. January 2009 by Terry.

So its a couple hours before the end of 2008.   I had a lot of good moments this year and a lot of pretty bad ones.   For any of you that know me should know about most of the things I’m talking about, But here comes the reflection anyways.

January 2008:   January wasn’t that bad.   I started out the year in bed with a really incredible girlfriend in Shelby.   We had just gotten back from Raymond’s new years shindig.   I couldn’t help but feel really optimistic at that point.

February - May 2008:   Okay…..this was kind of a train wreck.   Shelby had moved out of her dad and stepmoms, lived with her roomate……fought with her roomate…….and fought………..and fought………and fought….lol….eventually we realized it just wasn’t working out so she moved in with me, made j’s old room kaylee’s room.   Now….to be completely honest, Shelby was still having a little trouble adjusting to the whole being on her own thing.   I figured that living with someone like me who’s self sufficient would be a good thing, and it was to an extent.   I absolutely fell in love with kaylee while she was here…and I’m not gonna lie and say that I didn’t think about what it would be like if she were to be my daughter someday.   Long story short…Shelby freaked out because I was more committed to making future plans than she was…..and we broke up.   Me not being a complete asshole and her not having anywhere else to go, I told her she could stay with me until she could get on her feet.   That worked for ……………….maybe a month, and then it just went to shit.

June 2008:   This is when I had probably the most shocking thing in my life happen to me.   I was working at the east store…nothing really new that day.   I get a call from my sister……fro died.   My grandmother was and still is my best friend in a way.   She was always there to help me……….and to listen to me when I all I needed to do was vent and talk.   I just remember getting home and calling Shelby to take me to the hospital………….and I remember breaking down and just………bawling my eyes out………..and i got it together……..and that was it…….through the viewing…..funeral…………….I didn’t cry again………….some people may say that thats a bad thing…..that I didn’t get it out………….to all those people I say that people deal with greif in their own way………let me deal with it in mine.

July 2008:   One big ass argument with Shelby and I found myself with her and kaylee  moving out and back to arkansas at the end of the month.   Well……..I’m not the type to bash people so I’ll just say that it was for the best.   However…………I still really miss Kaylee.

August 2008:   I Finally took the plunge and went part time at the store and went out on my own with my own business.

September 2008:   I realized that I went out on my own at the WRONG time with the economy and the meltdown.

October - December 2008:   Went to working at the east store and south store 6 days a week to make ends meet, eventually getting lucky and taking a job at the south store with an awesome schedule and better pay than I had before I left.

So………all in all……….I’m in a better job than I was last year……..I learned some valuable life lessons with my business…….especially how much money I’d Have to invest directly to make it work.   And I learned just how much I want a family of my own……..Not nessecarily today….but sometime soon.   I just wish I knew what the new year was gonna bring.   It’s hard to believe that after all the stuff that happened to me this year that I’d be optimistic………..but I am.   I mean yeah, I don’t have a girlfriend, and I don’t know what my next step is in my career if I’m gonna stay with Oreilly or go out on my own again……….but it doesn’t matter to me right now…….because its a new year………and I’m gonna try to make the best of it.

Resolution?

To explore more of what makes me…………me.

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