Windows 7

I just put Windows 7 Ultimate RTM on a pretty modest test machine (P4HT, 512MB RAM, Intel Graphics).

Despite the fact that it's a low-end machine, I'm very impressed.

Many of the things that were quirky about the UI (user interface) on Vista are much better. Overall, the interface seems smarter, and more user-friendly. A frequent complaint about Vista is the UAC (User Account Control) pop-ups. With Vista, even when a user is simply changing their desktop background, they're asked to authenticate/approve the change. Many UAC pop-ups require two separate approval clicks. Windows 7 gets a big plus in the user-friendliness department - UAC pop-ups are very infrequent. In fact, I haven't seen any since installing it.

One thing I hate about Vista is the Sidebar. Without exception, I turn it off immediately when setting up a client machine. When clients have it already enabled, I often simply ask them if they care about the "clock, calendar, and sample photos" that the default "sidebar" includes. 98 times out of 100 they don't, and I kill the whole thing. One less thing running can't hurt performance. I like the idea of Gadgets, but hate the fact that Vista sticks them in a window that interferes with other things. In Windows 7, the gadgets are independent - little "windows" on their own, without actual windows of course.

There are some things I'm "on the fence" about, however. A feature of Vista that I think is great is the Windows Photo Gallery. I think it gave Windows users a near equivalent to the Mac iPhoto application. Unfortunately, it's gone by default in Windows 7, but Microsoft offers "Windows Live Photo Gallery" as a replacement. It requires you to have a Windows Live (or MSN/Hotmail) account, and also requires that you login to the service to use it. I don't see the customer benefit of this change, since the program seems to work very similarly to the Vista program. If Microsoft wants to integrate Windows Live features into it, I wish they had made it an optional setting so that the user could simply use it on their local machine.

Despite my minor misgivings, seeing how well it's running on this old-ish POS, I'm likely going to put the retail Windows 7 upgrade package on at least one of my own machines.

Wonder if Pelosi will acknowledge this?

You know how the liberals in Congress have been dismissing the protests at recent Healthcare "Town Hall" meetings, calling them "astroturf"? She (and others) figured that by de-legitimizing them as "professionally organized" she'd be able to get people to ignore them.

The reality is that ACORN and other organizations that have the President in their pocket are doing this themselves. Watch this:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations Sells Off Most of its Healthcare Holdings

I wonder why? Would it be because of what ObamaCare will bring?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125029373754433433.html

Idiot Sighting

This dummy knew she pulled up with the gas door on the wrong side. She got out, opened the filler door, then entered her card, and only then figured out that the hose wouldn't reach.


-- Post From My iPhone

Ford's SYNC website doesn't support IE8??

Although the Ford SYNC system is made by Microsoft, apparently the syncmyride.com website doesn't like IE8...

Despite the warning, the site appeared to work fine.