I downloaded the beta yesterday and installed it on a Dell D620 which is one of my test machines at work. There is no question that Microsoft really improved the installation process when Vista came out and they are using the same system in Windows 7. During the installation process you are only prompted for 5 things which are language settings, hard drive installation location, installation code, user/computer naming information and a password for your user. I have installed many different OSs over time including many Linux distros, Windows versions and even OSX; none of them are more easy that this is. I need to give kudos to Microsoft on this point as so many of us geeks out there overlook this because we are perfectly comfortable with 62 questions.

The second thing that impressed me right out of the gate was the fact that Windows 7 had all the drivers required for my D620 without a single download. This really glues down the fact that they are using the same driver design as Vista, but that they have included the updated drivers in the installation is awesome. In the past we might have seen driver inclusions but more often only in the final version which makes beta testing a bit more challenging. To summarize this point, complete installation from formatted disk to the desktop logged in took about an hour and less than 10 screens.

The desktop on first glance doesn’t look very different from Vista, but that is because I was not really looking that hard. The task bar has been updated for the better, starting with transparency. It looks really nice in my opinion; but that’s just eye candy really. A new feature that I really like is the hover function. I am not sure what Microsoft is really calling this but when you open software you don’t see a block on the task bar like you used to. Now you see an icon and when you hover over that icon you get a preview of the windows that are open and associated to that application. If you then hover over those preview windows the window will appear so you can see it in real time behind the preview. Take a look at this screen shot to see how this applies. Notice that I had 3 explorer windows open and that’s what you see in the preview.

Computer speed is always a question and we all talk about what hardware we have because it directly relates to the speed of our overall experience. But there is also a direct relationship between the operating system and the fluidity or speed of our experience. I definitely feel with the limited software I have installed on the machine that it is more refined. The preview and full size windows that appear when using the hover feature above come almost instantly. It almost feels like they could be instant but someone had to create a 100ms delay to make it feel more natural.

Windows 7 comes with IE 8, which for some will be confusing. The new web browser has been out in beta for a little which and is getting good press (ex. here) from what I can see so far. It definitely is not the fastest browser but I think that overall people are enjoying it.

If you have access to a Windows 7 beta and have not yet installed it then I would give it a try. For everyone who isn’t lucky enough to have access to Windows 7 beta and if you are thinking of buying a computer now but could hold off for another year, I would wait a while to see if Microsoft will solidify their release dates. I really think that after the Vista debacle and after seeing this beta it will be worth the wait.

I am new to the BlackBerry game but not new to smart phones. Before this I had an HTC Touch which I liked a lot at first but there were some issues that really got under my skin. The first issue was that the touch screen was not perfect. It did very well but on occasion it would miss a keystroke which caused me to not trust the input and made typing much slower. The other issue was that it was just too slow to run Windows Mobile well. If you don’t want to do too many things one after the other then it isn’t too bad, but on more than one occasion I would be writing an email and then try to make a call and going from the mail app to the phone app was ‘head banging’ slow.

The BlackBerry has solved both these problems for me. To be honest the only 2 real contenders for me were the Bold and the iPhone. I am really into Apple products these days for the ‘it just works’ factor and the integrated feel, but the iPhone is a touch screen. I remember having a conversation about my touch screen woes with my HTC. My buddy convinced me to check out a YouTube video about the Storm and not a minute into the video and the person made a typo because of a missed keystroke. I have seen videos on YouTube about the iPhone as well and seen similar results. For some reason I am more frustrated at the device if it misses the keystroke than if I make a typo myself.

The Bold is quite feature rich. I doesn’t have as much ‘WOW’ factor as does the iPhone but it does what it is designed to do quite well. Blackberry lists the Bold’s key features as follows:

* Camera (2.0 MP)
* Built-in GPS
* Media Player
* Video Recording
* BlackBerry® Maps
* Wireless Email
* Organizer
* Browser
* Phone
* Corporate Data Access
* SMS/MMS
* Wi-Fi® support

I have taken some pictures and I would say that they are average. They picture quality isn’t great but it is acceptable. The light helps in low light situations and is turned on automatically when needed.

The GPS doesn’t do much for me in all honesty. I have a GPS for my car where I would need it most (TomTom 720) and it would always do a better job as it is designed to work in the car.

The media player again isn’t very important to me. I have played with it a bit and it looks similar to what I had on the HTC and to what I have seen on other current phones. Most of us will use an iPod for these features.

Video recording - quality isn’t different from the still image function. The screen is pretty quick to refresh so the image is quite smooth.

Blackberry Maps ties into the GPS function. I have played with this but won’t have a use for it unless I am out of town and on foot where my TomTom wouldn’t be practical. If in that situation I would find this feature handy I am sure.

Wireless email… to me there is no question that Blackberry does this well. I am not using it with a BES server and all I needed was my email address and password (hosted my Google) and it figured out the rest. It just works -> AWESOME! The action of writing an email is all the more easy with the integrated Qwerty keyboard.

Organizer is a standard calendar. All phones have a similar problem displaying the whole week on the screen because they are too small, that’s just physics. The features are standard but it would be nice to sync with my Google calendar automatically out of the box. I ended up doing this with a 3rd part app and that made me happy

They have outdone themselves with the browser on the Bold. It is able to display an entire website (not mobile version) quite well and then allows you to zoom in before clicking on links so they are more readable. Using the small scroll button in the middle which works like a trackball makes it even better.

Phone… uuh yes. Easy to use and has great reception. I work in a office build in the basement (why do they always put IT there?) and not many phones work in the center of the building. The Bold worked on a conversation from one end to the other yesterday.

Corporate data access… still don’t use a BES

The SMS/MMS is tied into the email if you wish and that’s how I set it up. All messages come into the same single box and it makes communications seamless. The Qwerty keyboard helps here a lot as it is quick and accurate.

Wi-Fi Support is another great feature. At home and at work I set up my Wi-Fi connection so my data usage is kept to a minimum over 3G. 3G is nice to have when you need it but Wi-Fi is great due to it’s cost savings and speed. Another thing to note is the little effect is has on the battery. I noticed with my HTC that the battery would die quickly with Wi-Fi turned on. Doesn’t seem to affect the Bold all that much.

So in the end I am very happy with this new purchase. It feels more like a phone that can do a hundred other things than a unit that does 100 things one of which is make phone calls. And to top it off I think it’s a good looking unit

Come visit my main blog at www.thesleepygeek.com!

Take a look at some of the video they put together from 2007 below.

Hope you all have Merry Christmas and for those of you who don’t celebrate Christamas - have a Happy Holiday.

Come and check my blog out at www.thesleepygeek.com!

The image above is loaded with the Ozh Admin Menu plugin installed which I love. But the menu is still good if you don’t use it (shown below).

As you can see the menu on the left side is quite nice. The only reason I use the Ozh plugin is to maximize the area which I write in when posting. That helps with layout and design.

The upgrade went pretty much as normal. Their process is quite manual which is annoying and most likely why I don’t upgrade with every sub version. Their guides are excellent in explaining the manual process and I have never had a problem upgrading my version, it’s more a matter of reward vs. effort. This version is definitely worth it. I use a theme from Chris Pirillo so my front end layout is already pretty customized and this version didn’t break that, which is nice. It also means that it didn’t change much on the front page.

I recommend that you stick with the ‘complex’ instructions. The simple ones leave out a couple of details about how to backup that I would have probably done wrong, don’t take the chance!

Happy blogging

Come and visit my main blog, The Sleepy Geek!

In the world that we live in with twitter and other such micro-blogging services, I am really curious to see Google’s take on it. In my experience Google likes to keep things simple by offering a clean/clutter free space. This seems to be no different so far.

Once I am past the touchy feely part of the site I am curious how it will stand up to the main service, Twitter. They seem to have all the people on their site and Google isn’t helping matters much by keeping Jaiku closed for a long time, and now invite only.

But as mentioned above, you guys don’t have to worry about that because I found http://jaikuinvites.com/. Have fun and tell your friends about it. I am curious to know what everyone things. Send me a note, post a reply here and add me to your twitter and now Jaiku (both TheSleepyGeek).

I am a huge fan of clean looking interfaces. I supposed that is why I like OS X and some of the simpler applications out there. They have taken away some of the colouring that they had on the left side and replaced it with white backgrounds. The sections are separated with lines rather than a background colour difference which looks much nicer. My biggest pet peeve of the old version was the green background under the ‘add subscription’ button and now it’s gone.

Before:
<a href=”http://www.thesleepygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/old_google_reader.jpg”><img class=”aligncenter size-medium wp-image-272″ title=”Old Google Reader” src=”http://www.thesleepygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/old_google_reader-300×241.jpg” alt=”Old Google Reader” width=”300″ height=”241″ /></a>

After:
<a href=”http://www.thesleepygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/new_google_reader.jpg”><img class=”aligncenter size-medium wp-image-273″ title=”New Google Reader” src=”http://www.thesleepygeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/new_google_reader-300×188.jpg” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”188″ /></a>

I have been using Google Reader for quite some time as my RSS reader. It’s a great way to read RSS feeds and I like the fact I can log in from anywhere with internets access to take a peak if I have time. It’s nice to know that Google is keeping an eye on their existing products and trying to find ways at making them better.

Some of the other cool features include the ability to collapse sections on the left side, the ability to turn off unread counts, updated friend sharing tools and they have added more bundles to their list.

I must say that I am happy with the graphical update and look forward to making use of the new features. If you don’t use Google Reader and are looking for a good web based RSS reader, give it a chance. You won’t be disappointed.

Come take a look at my main blog, TheSleepyGeek!

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).

The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live.

There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.

I hope that they are successful at finding a better solution. Until then I actually will have to get on my computer to look at twitter. DOH!

Have fun, and Happy Tweeting!

Come visit my blog at http://www.thesleepygeek.com

Snowy Pine

This and many more of my wallpapers come from a website called InterfaceLIFT. A great site that not only has good quality images but also has them in different formats. There are other sites out there that have nice images but I have not really found one that organizes them as well as InterfaceLIFT. You will find wallpaper in standard 4:3 format, wide screen format, and dual monitor format.

I also want to give an honorable mention to Digital Blasphemy. They have some great wallpapers that have been created rather than photographed. Not all of them are completely up my ally but I can appreciate their quality.

So get out there and change your wallpaper. It’s nice sometimes to look at something a little different.

From what I can see the application set is quite the same as with previous Kubuntu releases. New versions of a lot of them mind you but I didn’t see anything that popped out as a flashy change, except for KDE itself. I am sure there are some meaningful updates in the application suite but I was really looking for something that caught my eye right away. So the people making KDE have made some really nice changes to the menu and desktop. The integration of widgets is nice on the desktop. It actually makes your desktop space for icons another widget so you can arrange it and other widgets around the way you like. Then they are all active if you look at the desktop.

The overall look is nice as well. I mentioned that the programs (or start for all the MS people) menu has been changed. The navigation takes a little getting used to but it’s still quite intuitive. It is actually much better than the Vista menu in my opinion.

I recommend everyone take a look at a Linux distro with KDE4 integrated. You will most likely be surprised at how it looks and how easy it is to navigate. The easiest way to do that for free is by using VirtualBox and creating a virtual computer under Windows so you don’t have to change your current Windows config.

Have fun and happy Kubuntu.