My first impressions on Windows 7

I decided to build a virtual machine inside of VM fusion 2.0 to give Windows 7 a shot to see how it performed. My tests are not scientific or complete, but after struggling with Vista and all of its shortcomings I felt like I had a good feel for any improvements.

The ISO image was around 2.5 gig and the install was quick and simple. I did not try an upgrade yet from Vista or XP but just did a fresh install. It was all GUI based with very simple prompts and little user interaction. The whole process took about 20 minutes to install which is pretty good considering what it took to do an upgrade to Vista before.

Once inside the OS, you can quickly tell just how fast the boot process and responsiveness have been improved over Vista. The interface is quick and responsive, even with 1 gig of RAM assigned to the VM. There are still elements of Vista that are there, including the User Access Control and some of the menu's will look familiar. I do enjoy the Mac-like task bar that is all icon based. Networking was quick and easy, with Mac-like prompts and easy to understand verbage. Internet Explorer 8 was snappy as well for a beta release. Installation of software (I installed AVG 8 free) was easy and quick with no issues.

Overall, I am pleased to see that Microsoft has taken the problems of Vista and really listened to what people want. Sure, they have stolen quite a few things from Mac OSX but it is obvious that the war for the desktop is still on. Windows 7 is a huge improvement over Vista and I will personally recommend to clients that this is something they will want to move on when it is finally released. As new beta's are released, I will be giving them a shot as well to see what might have changed.

Windows 7

Last night I was laying in bed and reading Engadget when I remembered that Microsoft and Steve Ballmer was giving the keynote speech at CES in Vegas. After seeing the leaked copy of the original beta of Windows 7 and reading about how it blew away Vista and XP, I was interested to see if Microsoft would actually talk and push the OS since they are notoriously late about getting new software out the door. Amazingly, it was the highlight of the talk. The beta is being released world-wide today and it actually looks pretty good. Not that I would consider switching back, but it at least appears they are copying the good from Mac OS X in terms of networking and interface design. This can only be a good thing because competition forces innovation which benefits everyone. I am going to download the beta and give it a shot inside of VMWare which supposedly will support Windows 7 inside of a virtual machine.

In other Microsoft news, it is apparent just how bad XBox has been killing the Playstation 3 in the market. Sony has refused to lower prices when the Wii and XBox is so much cheaper, and not too many people care about Blu-Ray at this point. I think the Playstation 3 has a graphical advantage, but in terms of game play, integration, network capability the XBox really shines. I hooked up Netflix streaming to my 360 and while the lack of title availability is a turn off, the technology is there and it worked great.

Outsourcing is not always safe

In this economy, companies are looking to save money in any way that they can. One of the most common ideas is outsourcing certain business processes to other companies overseas, such as IT, payroll, etc. Fortune 500 companies such as GE have turned to companies in India to cut costs in these business processes. In turn, these companies have become quite hated by IT professionals as well as disgruntled users who struggle to understand customer service reps who don't speak English clearly.

Karma was definitely in play as one of India's largest IT sourcing firms was rocked by scandal in that it admitted to falsifying over 1 Billion dollars in cash reserves during the last several years. Their whole business was like an Enron in that it was built on funny accounting. GE and other companies here in the USA happen to be clients of this company, which has to a bit funny to any IT worker who has been displaced by companies such as this. Right now, their stock is down about 90% as the analysis of what is real and what is fake starts to begin.

Just because you can save a few dollars doesn't mean that there are not notable risks in giving parts of your business to companies overseas.

For more information, read the article on the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7815031.stm.

Picasa is finally here for the Mac

One of the biggest complaints I had so far about making the switch from a PC to a Mac is that I really don't like iPhoto. I was used to working with a lot of pictures inside of Picasa which was easy to use and really slick, especially when you want to batch edit a ton of photos. Rumors swirled for a long time that Picasa would eventually make it to the Mac since there was a Linux version available, but I had to stick with iPhoto. Finally at Macworld yesterday, Google released a version for the Mac which I am very happy about. I immediately downloaded the beta (isn't everything Google releases in beta?) and installed it. It is about 20 megs for the download, and it only works on Intel-based Mac's. There is no installer, it is just a single application file. If you have used Picasa on Windows, the interface is basically the same. One neat thing is that it works with your existing iPhoto libray so that you don't have to duplicate your entire library on your hard drive. I haven't used it much so far, but it definitely will complete my workflow for pictures on my Mac.

Craving the new Macbook pro

One of the problems I have with my current Macbook Pro 15" model is the lack of support for greater than 4 gigs of RAM. It is unofficially supported but I have had limited success with anything over 6 gigs. I need this much RAM in order to support the virtual machines that I run inside of VM Ware fusion - basically, the more RAM I have, the better off I will be. I have heard rumors of support for more RAM in software with the upcoming release of Snow Leopard, but for now, Vista and XP 64 bit can support more RAM than good old Leopard which as you can imagine is fairly annoying.

During the keynote today at MacWorld, Engadget mentioned that the new Macbook Pro 17" unibody model will support up to 8 gig of RAM, however the base model comes with 4 gig. I haven't been able to find any updates or confirmation of this, but it makes me wonder if there is a patch or something coming soon to Leopard that will officially support this. The motherboard and chipset in my current Macbook Pro will support 8 gig of RAM, and basically that is the reason I would upgrade. Of course, having 8 gig of RAM, a 256 gig SSD hard drive and 8 hours of battery would definitely make me want to open up my wallet and lay down some plastic, so hopefully I can resist the urge until I get confirmation on this set up.