Daily Archive for September 3rd, 2007

8 Months with Vista

Published on September 3, 2007 in Microsoft, Review, Software and Technology. Closed

I’ve been using Windows Vista for about 8 months now on my HP nc8430 laptop. It started out a bit rocky, but now I wish I had Vista at home.

When I first installed it, I performed an upgrade to my XP installation. It went as smooth as can be, though it took an awfully long time. I found out later that it was actually moving files around to new directories (Documents and Settings became Users, for example). I decided I wanted to add an additional GB of RAM. Someone gave me a stick that was leftover from some other laptops that got upgrades. It seemed to work out fine when I installed it for a while, but then things got a bit wacky. My computer became basically unusable. I tried pulling it out, but the damage was done. I guess Vista didn’t like it because I decided I wasn’t going to leave it in and performed a full format and install from scratch. This install was the fastest Windows install I had every seen. In half an hour, I had a fully functional installation and none of the issues that I had from that memory remained.

I began installing drivers and applications that I used regularly. The only one that gave me any issue was Dreamweaver MX. It always set off the UAC (which I’ll go into more later) and it always required me to reset the path to my saved site because it is on a network drive. This was fixed when I installed the latest version of Dreamweaver (CS2 or CS3 I believe).

UAC, or User Account Control, isn’t as bad as people say. If you’re a power user, administrator, or just like to play with settings, you’ll run into it regularly. If you’re just an average user, you probably won’t see it much. I see it all the time because Active Directory controls set it off and I’m always resetting passwords for people. Other than that, it’s not a big deal and I really don’t mind. I left it on to see how annoying it would get, and it’s nowhere near annoying as the Apple ads would lead you to believe.

Now, the only issue I saw with running Vista was that my RAM was always sitting at about 50-60% usage. This is because of the indexing of files. It gives it up when other programs need it, so I don’t really mind. The thing that annoyed me, though, was that my computer took forever to startup. I found out later that this was due to the driver for the fingerprint reader and HP’s ProtectTools Security Manager (it ended up losing my identity for my domain account and I had to login to my other account to uninstall those drivers and the ProtectTools). After getting rid of that HP stuff, it started up a whole lot faster. I imagine HP has some work to do on the Vista tools and drivers.

Some features of Vista that I really like include the desktop search, the crash protection (when an application crashes, it won’t take the OS with it), the new networking center, Aero (it’s sexy, I like eye candy, what can I say?), and the new Start Menu setup. I don’t like that it uses so many resources and think MS could have worked on that a bit. I am also not a huge fan of Media Player 11, though it does its job and nicely organizes music.

Of all the different versions of Windows I’ve used (starting around 3.1 for Workgroups and using every one of them through Vista, including NT 4.0, and 2000), this is my favorite. It seems to work the best, even though my laptop only has 1 GB of RAM, and it seems pretty stable (though I have heard the networking stack is not so stable). If you’re getting a new computer and it comes with Windows, don’t question whether or not you should make the switch. Just do it, but don’t get a computer with less than 1 GB of RAM (though at this point, I’d probably recommend 2 GB for longevity).

Now I just need to upgrade Susan’s computer so I can put Vista on that and Ubuntu on my own (she won’t switch to Linux, and I have some Windows apps that I can’t live without… like Quicken, because GnuCash just doesn’t seem like it’d make a good replacement for me).

Next I’ll write about my experience switching to Office 2007 and fun with ribbons!

More on FiOS, this time I tackle DSL

Published on September 3, 2007 in Internet and Technology. Closed

So in my continuing theme of writing about Verizon’s FiOS fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) internet service, I’m going to tackle DSL. According to this Consumerist article, they replace their copper with fiber, eliminating the possibility of keeping (if you already have it) or purchasing (if you don’t already have it) Verizon DSL internet service. I don’t know if that’s the case everywhere. I had a hard time finding information about that other than what I just posted. Of course, that article only tackles one issue I have with most broadband providers and their restrictive port blocking and TOS practices, but it does not go into depth on the issue of whether or not Verizon is keeping their DSL service as an option for those areas that received the FiOS upgrade. So, while this guy got a free DSL upgrade, he lost functionality (even if it was breaking the TOS) and maybe he didn’t want FiOS and preferred the copper.

If what I fear is true and Verizon is slowly eliminating DSL, then we end up with no middle-of-the-road type of service. It’s all super high speed and all expensive (more expensive than most other countries in fact, and they still want to limit us by giving higher priority to content providers that pay a fee, meaning my blog would be slower than say Google, because I can’t afford to pay fees to the ISP’s, but net neutrality should have it’s own post). By eliminating the middle-of-the-road options for people, the ISP’s will suffer exactly what cable companies go through with people sharing their service by splitting it. There’s just one difference. It’s a whole lot easier to share an internet connection through wireless, which isn’t quite as easy with cable, especially now with digital cable and the need for a box. Verizon will only be shooting themselves in the foot if their cheapest internet package is $39.99 per month (while their DSL package, at least around here, can be had for $15/month). Now, I know Cox has some cheaper packages, going down to about $20 per month, but it’s slower than what Verizon’s DSL is.

Regardless of whether or not Verizon is getting rid of DSL or not, I think it would be pretty bad practice to completely rid themselves of all the copper wiring. After all, fiber optic cables need power as they don’t conduct electricity. I think a lot of people will begin to get upset if their phones stop working in power outages. I hope Verizon is thinking long and hard about this decision.

At some point I’m sure I’ll consider switching to FiOS, but again, not until after my contract with Cox has run its course. By then, I hope they both start using competition for what competition should mean… competitive pricing without restrictive contracts (much like my current Cox contract and my Verizon Wireless contract).

Here’s some other Consumerist articles regarding FiOS and Verizon (I have nothing against Verizon, just trying to figure out if FiOS really is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that some people make it out to be):

Verizon Takes 6 Months to Install FiOS

115 Calls to Verizon, and FiOS Still Doesn’t Work