Book Review: 12 Reasons Why Not To Love Windows 7

May 1, 2010

Windows 7 is more of the same, but don't expect Windows Magazine to say so!

It was just too difficult.

This Saturday morning, I received a review copy of the book Windows 7: The best of the Official Magazine, published by Microsoft Press and distributed (I guess) by O’Reilly Media.

This nicely done Windows 7 book was written by the only official Microsoft Windows magazine, so don't expect an unbias point of view!

First, just to set the stage, despite being a Mac user for over 20-years, I extensively used (against my will I might add :) Windows since I joined PC World magazine’s french edition, 17-years ago!

Believe it or not, but I’m sure you will, Vista was the first Windows version I haven’t spent much time with; despite having it installed on my Mac!

Now that Windows 7 has been out for over 6-months, I decided to have another look at Microsoft’s latest operating system. And to start, I took on O’Reilly Media’s offer to review their Windows 7 book, a way to get myself a bit more acquainted with the software.

Windows 7: more of the same

But I just couldn’t force myself to read beyond Chapter 1: Introducing… “Wow: 12 reasons why you’ll love Windows 7″

Why? Because most of these 12 “amazing” reasons look so much like the ones touted in past releases of Windows or that are already in my Mac, for that matter!

Amazing user interface, foolproof set up, speed, remote access, Windows Media Center (since XP!), parental controls, gaming, desktop gadgets, search, networking, power saving (Windows Mobility Center!) and, the only real new new thing, Windows 7 Touch. Which is actually only available if you have one of those still rare touchscreen PCs.

So I decided to close the book on Windows 7 and enjoy the rest of the torrid Silicon Valley weekend!

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Why Buy A Netbook When Full-Size Notebooks Cost $300

July 1, 2009
Frys bargain du jour was this eMachines full size notebook for $299

Fry's bargain du jour was this eMachines full size notebook for $299

Although, it’s common now to find most electronics retail stores stocked with Intel Atom-based netbooks selling below $300 and sometimes below $200, it’s definitely unusual to see a full size notebook like the eMachines eMD625 for a mere $300.

So when Fry’s Electronics advertised it yesterday for $299 (plus tax and CA recycling fee) – a $70 off from its regular price – I rushed to its Sunnyvale, CA store location to pick up the bargain “du jour” to try it out!

The laptop – built by Taiwanese-maker Acer - specifications look quite good for the price:

  1. 15.6″ WXGA LCD screen, Wi-Fi, USB, 5-in-1 memory card reader but no webcam
  2. AMD Athlon 64 TF-20 1.6GHz (single core), 2GB Ram Memory, ATI Radeon Xpress 1200 Graphics
  3. 250GB SATA hard disk
  4. DVD player
  5. a full-size keyboard plus numerical pad
  6. and Windows Vista Home Basic
After taxes and the CA recycling fee, I end up paying $343 for the $299 laptop

After taxes and the CA recycling fee, I end up paying $343 for the $299 laptop

Yet more powerful, larger (and heavier!) than the HP mini-note or Acer Aspire One that were placed next to it on Fry’s shelves, the eMachines eMD625 laptop is certainly not a powerhouse despite ATI’s integrated graphics chip: 2 videos running simultaneously (YouTube, ESPN360, Hulu, DVD) are un-watchable. Of course, you could question the need for that too. Although I haven’t tried watching an HD movie on it but my guess is that it won’t work well either.

But some of the overall slow performance could be caused by Windows Vista, which should be a thing of the past as soon as I install Xandros’ Presto on it and Windows 7 (keep fingers crossed).

All in all, the eMachines eMD625 is a decent full-size laptop for the price, good for office, Web and light multimedia (video, imaging, music/iTunes).

Of course, not everybody looking for a thin and light netbook will be happy with this 6 pounds notebook. But I’m sure my Mom wouldn’t mind swapping her old PC with this laptop :-)

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[Analysis] Microsoft Windows 7 Is Essentially Vista; But Smaller, Faster

April 30, 2009
Roger Kay, President, Endpoint Technologies

Roger Kay, President at Endpoint Technologies is optimistic about Windows 7. I'm not!

A little less than 2-years after the launch of the much hated Windows Vista, Microsoft is getting ready to launch its successor.

Windows 7 is expected to be pre-installed in consumers PCs as early as the end of summer, just in time for the back-to-school season.

Under the hood, Windows 7 is essentially Vista, according to Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay.

But for Kay, Windows 7 is better than Vista in important ways:

  1. Smaller footprint — The new OS takes up less disk space and runs with less main memory; part of the release surprise is the actual hardware specifications, which are similar to those for Windows XP, Vista’s less-resource-hungry predecessor.
  2. Faster — Everything is faster: boot time, application loading, overall performance.
  3. Quiescent — A lot of the old “chattiness” of Vista, particularly of user account control, is gone; the user interface stays out of your face and does what you tell it to do.
  4. More elegant — There are many fun and intuitive features that work well, stay in the background otherwise, and look good; the interface can be personalized more easily and to a greater degree.

Sounds like a MacOS me-too, right?

I’ll be testing the final release of Windows 7 soon on a Mac virtualized environment – just to fasten the comparison! – and will report back!

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[Demo 09] Xandros Presto Boots Windows Laptops In 10 Seconds Or Less

March 2, 2009
With Presto, users can access the Internet faster than with Windows

With Presto, users have a quicker access to the Internet and their Windows files

At the Demo conference today, Xandros announced Presto, a downloadable software for Windows Vista and XP that enables new and existing laptops and PCs to boot up in 10 seconds or less.

Presto is a variant of Linux that boots quicker and which comes pre-installed with the Firefox browser, Skype, RealPlayer and even allows users to access data stored in the laptop’s Windows folders.

More applications will be available through Xandros’ Application Store like Google’s Picasa or Adobe’s Acrobat.

From always-on to instant-on

To build Presto, Xandros leveraged its technical expertise gained in creating the platform for the ASUS Eee PC and its experience with Windows to provide seamless access to Windows folders and files.

And unlike rivals like DeviceVM’s Splashtop, Dell’s Latitude ON, Phoenix Technologies’ HyperSpace, IntervalZero, or Corel’s InstantON, Presto doesn’t require a special BIOS or chipset, or any additional hardware upgrade to work.

Moreover, Presto connects to networks over WiFi, 3G, xDSL, LAN and cable.

A beta version will be available from Xandros’ web site on March 16. The full version will be on sale for $19.95 on April 13.

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Microsoft Revamps Mobile Windows; Plans App Store, Free Wireless Sync Service

February 9, 2009

Microsoft prepares a revamp of its mobile strategy that looks like an Apple copycat.

In a keynote at next week’s Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Microsoft’s chief plans to unveil Windows Mobile 6.5, the latest version of the company’s smartphone operating system, as well as an application store a-la iTunes and the free My Phone wireless “over the air” (OTA) synchronisation service.

However, just like for Windows Vista vs Mac OS X, Microsoft is years behind Apple in its smartphone strategy, despite its 10+ years head start, and this interim 6.5 version still pales compare to the iPhone or even the Palm Pre.

Users will have to wait next year, with the release of Windows Mobile 7 to catch up with Apple’s current generation of iPhones. By then, you can expect lots of improvements coming from the Cupertino, Calif.-company.

No wonder that Windows Mobile slid from its position as the world’s second-most popular mobile operating system a year ago to now be number four, behind Nokia’s Symbian, Apple’s OS X Mobile, and RIM’s BlackBerry. And by next year, Windows phones might slid even one more notch behind Palm’s Pre!

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Windows Vista Finally Getting Some Respect

January 30, 2009

Corporate technology decision makers are finally warming up to Windows Vista.

Nearly a third of IT managers are deploying Vista

Nearly a third of IT managers are deploying Vista

Vista is running on fewer than 10 percent of business computers, but almost of a third of information-technology managers now say they have begun to migrate to the Windows XP successor, according to Forrester Research.

What’s more, there is considerable interest among these North American and European managers for Windows 7, Vista’s successor scheduled for release in early 2010.

All this could be good news for Microsoft, which is feeling the brunt of the global slowdown. “Vista is finally shaping up to be the operating system that dethrones Windows XP,” says Forrester analyst Benjamin Gray.

Still, IT execs say they worry about the challenge of administering an environment with two operating systems – Vista and Windows XP. That fear will only intensify as Windows 7, OS X from Apple and desktop Linux enter the picture.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Early Copies Of Windows 7 Leaked On BitTorrent

December 30, 2008
Anticipation of Microsoft pitch at CES show

Anticipation of Microsoft pitch at CES show

Microsoft’s Windows 7 is expected in beta at the Consumer Electronics Show next week. But early copies are already making the rounds on BitTorrent.

News of the leaked copies of Microsoft’s Vista replacement surfaced on Wired and other sites. Some suggest there is little change in the software from pre-beta packages delivered to developers in October.

Microsoft’s official release may be revealing. Windows 7 is clearly evolutionary, not revolutionary, say another account, fixing Vista rather than advancing it

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Nvidia To Disrupt Notebook Market With Powerful Atom-based Platform; Could Hurt Intel Centrino 2 Sales

December 22, 2008

Nvidia brings Apple MacBook audio/video capabilities like digital display and HD support to Intel Atom netbooks

Nvidia brings Apple MacBook audio/video capabilities like digital display and HD support to Intel Atom netbooks


With Nvidia’s ION platform, Atom netbooks are closing the performance gap with Centrino 2 notebooks.

Intel now runs the risk that low cost and low marging Atom processors could now potentially cannibalize its sales of high margin Centrino 2 platforms.

So far, netbooks are infamous for their sluggish performance, equipped with an outdated Intel graphics chip and limited to 1GB memory imposed by Microsoft Windows XP.

Nvidia's Atom platform outperforms Intel's and can run Windows Vista or Windows 7

Nvidia's Atom platform outperforms Intel's and can run Windows Vista or Windows 7


But that could change quickly, as Nvidia demonstrated in the video below, when it combined the low power and “capable” Intel Atom processor with the same high-performing graphics chips found in the latest Apple Macbooks.

These new generation netbooks end up being a very decent laptop, finally able to run properly Windows Vista – as the video shows – but for the price of a netbook; most often under $500 and sometimes under $300!

Nvidia could disrupt sales of Intel’s Centrino 2 and Core 2 Duo with its Atom-based ION platform

“If you take the GeForce graphics processor paired with Intel’s Atom chip, you will still get 5 times the graphics performance of an Intel Centrino 2 platform,” said David Ragones, product line manager at Nvidia. “We think it’s disruptive because you can now have a laptop based on Atom and GeForce and don’t have to pay the premium for Centrino 2.”

The Nvidia GeForce chip will add $50 to the overall price of a laptop. Which is significant for a low cost netbook but not for a notebook equipped with a large screen and capable of running Windows Vista or Windows 7, video games and playing HD movies.

The Santa Clara, Calif. company expects the first ION-based laptops to appear in the first half of next year. The Nvidia platform could also play a role inside TVs and consumer devices like media players.

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Best Buy Fire-Sale: A $330 eMachines Laptop; Was $300 Mid-November!

December 1, 2008
Best Buy is discounting this AMD-based eMachine laptop

Best Buy is discounting this AMD-based eMachines laptop

Ok. Relax, I’m not going to write a post about every single bargain I hear about, but this one is worth it… I think.

On Cyber Monday, the best deals are not online!

Interestingly enough, Best Buy’s best laptop deal of the day, a $330 eMachines “single-core” Athlon Windows Vista-based laptop, is not available online… on Cyber Monday!

Patrick Moorhead, AMD’s VP of Advanced Marketing, alerted us of this deal found at a Best Buy store in Austin, TX.

eMachines laptop price change: from $500 to $299 to $330

But what’s mind boggling is that Moorhead bought the same machine for $299 on November 15th! If you can’t believe it, click here for a copy of his receipt. The original price for the eMachines laptop was $500 on November 2nd.

I thought such price fluctuations were more typical of an erratic stock market than of the PC business. But obviously I was wrong!

And yes, Moorhead is the AMD exec who told us he doesn’t believe in Netbooks in a recent interview (see below).

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[Ballmer @ Churchill] Microsoft CEO Admits To Windows Vista Flaws (video)

September 26, 2008
Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

This is perhaps one of the very first time that the Microsoft CEO has publicly admitted to Windows Vista incompatibilities and flaws. That was after a question from a disgruntled Windows users who asked Ballmer to “fix” the flawed operating system.

“Richard I encourage you to grab me right afterward and I’ll come fix your PC myself”, joked Ballmer.

The Microsoft executive went on to say that “statistically” every version of Windows is better than the version before. Which for most Windows users doesn’t say much really on the quality of the current and future versions of Windows as the past ones were equally poor inspite the 5,000 or so Microsofties that everyday are working on improving the reliability of Windows.

Read the rest of this entry »

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