Tag: Vista

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Yet another vote against “upgrading” to Vista

*heh*

Installed Turbo-Tax on the Vista machine. The execrable Vista will not recognize any of my DVD drives as CD drives, and thus would not install; so I shared an XP drive, mapped to it on the Vista machine, and installed using a networked CD. Vista is not really ready for prime time, and nothing I can do will get it to believe that either a read only drive, or a perfectly good Plextor R/W drive, is also a CD drive. DO NOT “UPGRADE” your XP machine to Vista!!!!

Oh, yes. Every time I have to work on a client’s Vista machine I have to watch my BP. I’m glad (I think–I have annual B&Ms about TurboTax) Pournelle did get TT installed finally, but I understand his frustrations. ANd there are multiple reports that Vista SP-1 “breaks” apps that once worked with Vista pre-SP-1, along with driver issues continuing (and in some cases worse) from pre-SP-1.

But mind you (from Pournelle again) Apple’s iPhone has some issues. Here’s one:

If there is no service — when there really is service — this is potentially serious, is it not? I have no idea of what to do about it, except that if you get no service, try restarting the phone. Note that reboot is the usual remedy for many Windows problems. Is Apple learning from Microsoft? Stay tuned.

*heh* “Is Apple learning from Microsoft?” Very funny.

In other OS news, Kubuntu 7.10 has a few more wrinkles to iron out and hoops to jump through than plain vanilla Ubuntu 7.10, but I like the interface better, so I put up with it. Still, installing WINE is a snap in either, and using my Windows version of Portable Opera (on a Memorex TravelDrive) is transparent. Oh, a minor puzzle for the Portable Opera under WINE: for some reason all web pages display in a non-proportional, seriffed font that is NOT the way it dosplays in Windows–nor does the Linux version of Opera on the same machine display that way. I’ll puzzle that one out later.

(Duh. The fonts specified under Windows aren’t available. Simply had to specify fonts that were installed on this box. Shoulda remembered that. Oh, I can make the Windows fonts available to WINE, but it’s just easier for now to use the fonts already installed.)

For the proverbial Aunt Tilly, I believe plain vanilla Ubuntu 7.10 is really about ready for prime time, but Kubuntu 7.10 is for folks who are just a little more ready to dig into the thing and do some of the scut work of getting it set up juuuust so. “Out of the box”–so to speak–plain vanilla Ybuntu 7.10 is a easier for a non-techie to tweak–the Synaptic installer is easier to use than the Adept Package Manager (and much easier for non-command line folks than apt-get *heh*).

I like either.

But for ease of setup and just using the computer, PCBSD 1.5 is just about as good as it gets, IMO. From bare drive on an old 1.3 Ghz compute to installed and up and running in about 20 minutes? Yes. Installing apps is easy-peasy, too. Easily passes the “Aunt Tilly” test. And yes, you can give it all the eye candy of Windows Vista or OSX, if you really want to. With less hardware overhead.

Interesting times.

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Vista-like Drive Icons in Win32

Trackposted to Leaning Straight Up, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, and Right Truth, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Making computers more friendly, one post at a time… *heh*

Interesting lil app posted at TechRepublic

Vista Drive Icon is a free utility that will transform the drive icons in Windows XP’s My Computer into drive icons that resemble those in Vista’s Computer. Once installed, Vista Drive Icon will display a blue, glass-like bar underneath the drive icon. If the drive is close to getting full, the color changes to red.

Now, that lil piece of eye candy might not seem like a big deal, but most of the follow-on comments from people who are IT Pros (read, “techie snobs” for the most part) sound like your common, garden variety Mac users: “Do it MY way and you don’t need this” kind of comments.

Silly.

Continue reading “Vista-like Drive Icons in Win32”

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Still Avoiding Current Events…

…mostly.

Here’s another diversion.

Unnecessary confession: I use Windoze. Because I have to. (I also use PCBSD and Ubuntu, but that’s for pleasure… and some work/productivity.) So far, I have managed to avoid installing Vista on any twc central computers. *whew!* (Wipes forehead gratefully. *heh*) I have seen enough Vista computers “in the wild” to become convinced that, apart from the eye candy, it’s just not worth the hassle for most folks to switch from XP to Vista, if they must use Windows. And even buying a new computer with Vista installed can be problematic; I’ve already seen enough software incompatibilities in the workplace and problems with drivers for peripherals to know it just is not for most of the folks I know, including me. And this is quite apart from the fact that Vista–even installed new on “Vista-ready” computers is generally–from what I’ve actually seen “in the wild”–*heh*–a resource hog and slower than a properly-configured XP computer.

And, despite the monthly or more bug fixes and patches, Vista’s SP-1 is not really available for general installation–not that it is a definite improvement.

Still, there are a few things about Vista that are nice. The eye candy. 😉 But… all I had to do to get the “AeroGlass” look in PCBSD was simply download a skin. And for various versions of Windows, skinning and other Vista-like functionality is available for free via various downloads(free registration required for download), some of which also offer the 3D “flipping” of cascaded apps, etc.

The screencap above is on a Win2K machine with some of the functionality of PCMag’s “VistaMagicPack” (the first link above) enabled. Not half bad, and no discernable performance hit on a middlin’ old 1.3Ghz machine with only 512MB RAM and a tiny lil 16MB vidcard. Try running Vista with all the eye candy on that machine. Not.

Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, , The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog’s Weblog, Dumb Ox Daily News, Adeline and Hazel, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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OTOH… Mac OSX gets much-needed update

Earlier, I wanred y’all to watch out for the Vista SP1 from Microsoft. Now, word is well and truly out (and Apple’s servers being well, urm, serviced): news of much-needed “updates” (*cough* fixes) to OSX:

Sundry changes improve the performance of, or fix bugs in Dashboard, iCal, iChat, Mail, Parental Controls, Preview, Safari and Time Machine, while iSync gains support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones. The Finder has also been updated, with fixes for eight issues, including a couple that could cause unexpected quits.

Yeh, yeh, I know: MacCultists insist only pure, pristine and perfect code issues from Apple and all the crap code is limited to Me$$y$oft. Move along. Nothing to see here about “fix[ing] bugs in” various things in OSX folks depend on daily or things in Finder (Finder, fer heaven’s sake! You’d think they could fix the dumb name for the thing, too… *heh*) that “could cause unexpected quits.” (Yeh, “Crash Different” indeed.)

I will hand it to Apple for having created an atmosphere where its bug fix releases are viewed as something other than… bug fix releases, patches, fixes for their own “shrink-wrap betaware”.

Once again,

Crash Different

(On the gripping hand, Apple does fix its broken products, eventually. Mostly. Well, they are computers, aren’t they? ;-))

Well, at least I’m not counseling you to avoid this round of fixes, as I did with the Vista SP1. 😉

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Vista SP1 Available *yawn*

Vista’s not exactly Micro$oft Bob, but it’s vying for position to edge Windows Muppet Edition and DOS 4 out of top spots for Micro$oft’s worst OS offerings.

Oh, yeh, it’s got some nice eye candy and some neat features, but it’s measurably slower than XP and has been plagued by driver issues that have “bricked” more than a few computers. (Which is why many have “upgraded” their Vista machines to XP… even though that is not, IMO, the best of Micro$oft’s operating system offerings. YYMV, of course.)

And here comes Vista SP1 (lately the credo of savvy computer users has evolved from “Microsoft early buyers: shrink-wrap beta testers” to “NEVER buy a Me$$y$oft product before the first service pack!” *heh*)… which some tests show is slower in file copy operartions than pre-SP1 Vista and which “fixes” the driver issues by… making them worse?

*heh*

Still, if you’re a glutton for punishment, Windows Vista SP1 can be officially downloaded NOW – but don’t do it! outlines how to download the 1.13GB update (only available at this time as a pack including both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, along with some “fixes” for the installation process–read for “fixes,” “new processes that may well break something else” *heh*)… if you dare.

Oh, what the heck. Here’s the direct download link, but let me repeat, “Don’t Do It!” 😉

You have been warned.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, A Newt One, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.