Thoughts On Vista

My thus-far experience with settling on a final install of Windows Vista to examine has been a rocky one. I installed Vista Business (the version provided by BGSU and the MSDNAA program) in a Virtual Machine on my main Windows XP box (dubbed the 'Dragonfly'). I had to run Vista virtually over XP with just 512MB of RAM available to the VM, while sharing an XP workload on an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz CPU. To be fair, this was a painfully slow experience, but it was nonetheless my first Vista experience.

Next up was my laptop. After partitioning 20 GB of the 60 GB hard drive (shared with XP), I installed Vista via the 5 CD routine, which came from the ISO files obtained via the Internet from BGSU. It took nearly 3 hours to get to a Vista desktop, mainly because my CD-ROM drive was having trouble reading the discs and presenting me with “Read Error” messages during the copying of setup files. I'm assuming this is not typical of multi-disc Vista installs.

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5150. Yes, that one. The desktop-class Pentium 4 3.06 Ghz CPU was certainly up to the task of crunching Vista, although my scarce 512 MB of system memory and weak GeForce Go 5200 32 MB video card would cripple the setup. I was quite surprised then, to learn that Vista was able to install drivers for most of my laptop's hardware, including the wireless miniPCI card (a Broadcom-based board). Even more surprising was the fairly zippy feel the OS had even with 512 MB of RAM. I've been hearing that 512 is almost unusable with Vista, but this truly not the case. Then again, I was working on a clean install, so I'm sure over time this would prove to be a problem. The biggest surprise was that the full effect of the Aero Glass desktop UI ran on the 32 MB video card (this is barely a Direct X 9 card). Dragging effects were slow as could be, and deploying the 3D application switcher actually did push the system to overload, forcing Vista to drop down to the Vista Basic UI, which is mostly a dark-colored version of the default XP theme.

Having dug up an old 12 GB hard disk lying around, I promptly installed it into my Dragonfly computer and booted up the Vista installer. Before I go on, I should say that this computer is configured to handle Vista reasonably well, with the 1 GB of RAM being the starters-sweet-spot. All 5 CDs read just fine during installation, and within 45 minutes I was at a Vista desktop. Most impressive.

Aero Glass runs at full speed, thanks in part to the AMD Radeon X700 256 MB GPU core (and yes, ATI products are now going by the AMD moniker). With a final installation in place, I ran into my first problem: activation. Because I had installed (and activated like a dumbass) Vista on my virtual machine, Microsoft was telling me “no way” to the Dragonfly install. Luckily phone support is more than happy to provide a working activation code, so this issue was basically a non-issue after a few minutes.

The big question: is Vista worth the upgrade?

After working with it in various forms and situations over the past week, I can safely answer this question the same way that I did when the transition from Windows 98 to XP took place. Although Vista is not as big of a stability upgrade as 98-to-XP was, it really does not set itself apart from XP enough to warrant an upgrade, at least, not a manual upgrade. If you're buying a PC from a vendor with Vista pre-installed with working drivers and programs, then by all means, enjoy it. If you're perfectly happy with you XP box, Vista's broad lack of compatible programs and drivers makes it another year or so from becoming “necessary.”

What I liked most about Vista:

• Aero Glass: Originally I was worried about the fancy desktop being a system hog, but after a few official test runs with 3D Mark 2001 and 2003, I see less than a 2% drop in performance from XP. Aero Glass is disabled when the 3D subsystem is needed by another application. As a UI, the transparency effects do not get in the way of getting work done, especially since title bars are now skinnier than they were in XP, allowing for your application to have more screen space. Serious users will never use the 3D application switcher against the default ALT-TAB option (hint: one is much faster than the other), but it was a neat option to have.

• Search: If it can be configured correctly to scour your entire hard drive, or at least what you truly care about, then having a quick and effective search in the Start Menu will save you lots of time. I'm already accustomed to searching rather than hunting through menus for programs and documents. It really does work.

• Redesigned Control Panel: Although opinion is split 50/50 in the industry over this, the new start menu and Control Panel organizes tasks much like my CS 324 (Usability Engineering) class might have wanted Microsoft to. A far more user-friendly experience. And of course, for the already-experienced, the Classic View is still around.

• The “All Programs” Option: If you use the All Programs menu under the Start Menu to access applications (and who doesn't?), then get ready for a plesant surprise. Instead of having huge menus tear across the screen as you navigate to find what you need, the All Programs menu fits entirely within the default Start Menu, and takes on a more tree hierarchical structure that feels more natural than 95, 98, 2000, and XP ever did. Bravo.

• No More “My:” That's right, not a single default folder with “My” prefixed. This was always an unnecessary use of 16 bytes in XP, if you ask me.
  

What I liked the least about Vista:

• Sidebar: Windows Sidebar is about as useless as they come, and is not even in the same class as OS X's Dashboard. A scarce selection of default applications out-of-the-box, half of which barely work, should not be a major bullet point on the OS

• Windows UAC: User Account Control is supposed to be among some of the big security changes that Microsoft has implemented. In theory, allowing the user to choose what programs should or should not run with administrator privileges is a good idea – for those people who understand what the potential outcomes may be. For most users, because the dialog boxes are so easy to click through, these boxes will simply become an annoyance to the point that the average user will approve anything thrown at them. From my understanding, saying “Yes” to any of these UAC dialogs permits full, unrestricted access for a program to do what it needs to do as an administrator. This, my friends, is bad security.

• Prettier XP: Vista is a big change in many aspects from former versions of Windows. On the other hand, it still has a lot of XP flavor that is hard to get out of your mouth. By my rough estimates, 85% of system configuration dialog boxes are ripped straight from XP. This is not entirely a bad thing, as it keeps the initial learning curve down. On the other hand, some of the dialog boxes seem useless or under-developed in Vista. The Themes dialog box, for example, now stands on its own (it used to be a tab in the Display Properties dialog). Problem is, with the Aero UI series, there is no reason to change themes because the themes have no real design options (Aero Glass is slightly tweak-able). The new dialogs that are Vista-specific are anemic at best, with links opening a folder window usually with one or two options to check, compared to the compact and feature-full XP dialogs. This may have been a UI design choice to promote simplicity, but for the power user it means having to navigate a dozen windows to alter options that would have been present in just one or two dialogs in XP.

• Games: I'm a PC gamer at heart. In addition to my Half-Life 2 (and mods) obsession, I also armchair many of my old favorites, like Thief II, Roller Coaster Tycoon, SimCity 3, SWAT 3, and other late 90's games. Vista has broken all of these for me, and most of these games are well-past their shelf dates, meaning Vista-upgrade patches are not a reality. This may change as I obtain more compatible hardware drivers, but this reason alone is why I dual-boot XP alongside Vista If you play any PC games, be aware that Vista has serious compatibility issues. I recommend a dual-boot configuration.
  

With that short summary, I will conclude with this: Vista is the next version of Windows, which means within three years we'll all be running it anyway. But it won't be for another year that Vista will be worth the upgrade, while applications are rewritten to work flawlessly on it. Vista is a worthy successor to XP, at least once driver and application compatibility is brought up to near 100%. Then again, is this not the case for all new operating systems?

Thanks for reading.

Move Along LIke You Don't Belong

The last two days have turned out to be quite a journey. I've had to wrap up to major projects: one midterm essay and a CS program, which I just finished today. I'm officially on the easy road towards spring break now.

I'm also in the middle of working on a write-up with my Windows Vista experience since I've installed it on my main PC (hint: a lot more positive than my laptop experience, but still not 100%).

But the big news of the past two days is something that is almost crippling to me. My sister has moved out of our house, and although my parents have probably known about it for some time, I just found out about it today, and have been silently devastated by the news since about noon today. I knew how badly she wanted to move out of here, and I can more than side with her on many fronts, although I simply did not think it was actually ever happen, especially given such short notice. I was a fence-sitter for most of the ordeal: I knew I would not have worried if she did move, although her company around the house, no matter how annoying it could be, was certainly welcome by me. It will be a void hard to fill, and a matter that will take me weeks to get over.

Anywho, I'm spending the rest of the day to myself, although I will be in Second Life watching a couple of concerts today, so catch me there if need be.

Breaking Vista News

This just in... I have installed Vista on my Inspiron 5150 and have ran through some first-run tests with it... so far, my experience with Vista? Horrible by almost any definition. I'll tell the tale tomorrow.

The Burdick Files

For those looking for a new music experience, I highly recommend Kevin Burdick. He is a pianist who mostly plays in the genres of soft rock a la Elton John, although Burdick stands out on his own quite well. Personal favorite tracks of mine include "Angel," "Release Me," "Self Destruction," and "In Your Cocoon."

All of these tracks (and a couple more) can be downloaded via his website, located at www.kevinburdick.com.

I discovered Kevin in perhaps the most Web 3.0-way possible: via Second Life. One day several months ago, while browsing around for live music shows (just for giggles when I was bored), I ran into his live solo concert, and was quite blown away. Luckily, he played a second life concert a few days later, and I officially became a fan. If I hear of any more upcoming concerts in Second Life, I'll pass the information along if anyone wishes to join me in the metaverse.

Check him out, it's worth it.

Short Updates

I'm actually updating tonight just for the sake of updating. This week will be nice and short, at least after Tuesday, when the last of my major projects for the first half of this semester is due. After that, 3 of my 6 remaining classes are canceled in the latter half of this week, so take a look at my calendar for those details.

Out.

What a Vista

Today I had my first Windows Vista experience... sort of.

Here is my tale. I downloaded Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, which is supposed to support Windows Vista at a very basic level. I installed VPC 2007 on my Windows XP SP2 machine, which consists of the following basic specs:

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8 GHz) CPU
• 1 GB (256 x 4) DDR-400 RAM
• 160 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD at 7200 rotations/minute
  

What's important to keep in mind is that Windows Vista has a fairly high spec requirement, and my computer already just barely meets those for "ideal conditions" before virtualization. I will try to keep my comments about the actual Vista experience, with notes pointing out Virtual PC problems that I feel truly hampered the Vista experience.

Once VPC was up and running, I created a 16 GB HDD image, set 610 MB of my system RAM for Vista to use (already notice the compromises?), and tinkered with a few other parameters. I installed Windows Vista Business, as provided by BGSU via the MSDN Academic Alliance program; over five CD ISO images. Because I had the native ISO images on my local hard drive, I simply pointed VPC to them, which improved read times considerably. This was a good thing, because the install took over an hour inside VPC, mostly because of the virtualization.

Once at a desktop, I quickly made myself comfortable with the Vista Basic desktop. Yes, VPC only emulates a video card with 4 MB of video memory, thus Aero Glass and its close sister Aero Standard are out of the equation. Aero Basic is by no means ugly, with clean lines, non-offensive colors, and a fairly responsive feel (at least for VPC). The new Segoe system font used throughout Vista is certainly appealing as a sans-serif font, and brings a less "rigid" feel to the UI, although readability dropped very slightly for me.

Locating familiar options and the sort was not as hard as I first thought, as the layouts for Control Panel tasks are much easier to sort through. The familiar "Properties" that one would use after a right-click on the desktop now reads a more Gnome-friendly "Personalize," from which a special panel appears to provide access to altering not just desktop wallpaper or themes, but all aspects about your desktop.

The UAC (User Account Control) seems like a joke to me. In my experience it has been an all-or nothing shot, with my account running in limited user mode until an application requests "full access" to my system for installation purposes. For me, this simply meant having to click through another dialog box every half hour. On the other hand, this will be handy when malware or another illegitimate program wants to install itself -- at least this way I'll know about it.

My main goal in using VPC to test Vista was to see if the applications that I use from day-to-day will run. So far, it's a big thumbs up.

I was unable to test many features due to limitations presented by Virtual PC, although this weekend (Saturday) I will be partitioning and installing Vista as a native OS on my PC, at which time I'll run through performance tests and will soon be back with my thoughts next week.

Sexy Bruno

I'm actually taking time away from my English 333 essay to write this post. Then again, something has been bugging me, and it's time to get it out.

First of all, you'll notice that this post is very similar to this one and it's sequel. Feel free to reread them if you wish. They are both from November of last year.

Because of recent events of late (the past two weeks or so) and events that could soon take place, I have had to ask myself something:

What is my stance on sex?

This isn't meant to be my opinion or a commentary on the state of sexual affairs in society. That's what my previous posts were for. Now I have to ask myself the question: what do I want out of sex and why do I want to engage in such activity?

My honest answer to that question seems a bit convoluted, and in contrast to my definition of who I want to be, it certainly seems like I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

I've typically considered myself the proper gentleman in many regards, especially when it comes to the pursuit of physical pleasure. Take things slow, never push a woman, and build a reasonable and honest relationship prior to engaging in any major activity. It turns out over the years that what I consider "major" has changed.

Only one of my three past sex partners occurred while in a relationship. The other two were by no means random and pointless, but simply occurred after the fact that a relationship took place, so there was at least some experience and attachment already involved.

Enough history... to the point...

I've been through a very good, long lasting relationship, as well as a short and sweet one. Both involved sex. Given all my responsibilities with school, personal projects, and other miscellaneous tidbits here and there in my life, I've finally decided that much of what I said last November is indeed who I am: I could have sex within a loving relationship or randomly with a close friend all the same, by virtue of the fact that I've warn out one and have yet to experience the other.

Am I saying that I must make love to a friend just for the sake of having a new experience? Certainly not... and I do still firmly believe that exclusivity should still apply; that is, I may be close several friends at once, but I'm certainly not going to engage in physical activity with more than one. Sex does require a strong degree of care, attention, and attachment. I still stand by these virtues, even if the sex does not come from a perfectly loving relationship.

Yet, in addition to all that's been said thus far, there's still a part of my that simply wants to have sex. Yes, I'm a dude, and you could argue that I'm just a horn-ball, but sometimes good fun can be had from sex, if done in a proper manner.

Well that's all I have to share for now. I'll update this post in the near future as more thoughts/concerns/ideas come to mind, but for now I need to shift into full-on essay mode for school. Out.

New Stuff

In order to update more frequently, I'm going to TRY to start a new mini-series in my blog. A few times a week, I will answer a "favorite" and "most hated/least favorite" of something. If you wish, leave a comment on what you would like to see me rate for my next post.

Today's feature, for example:

Of the websites that I visit regularly;

My Favorite Is: Facebook.com
Facebook features a clean layout, unobtrusive ads, responsive servers, and that "must check every hour" addictiveness. I love it.

My Least Favorite Is: MySpace.com
Interestingly, both extremes on my list today are social networking sites. MySpace loses big, however, for a sloppy layout, major HTML coding flaws (mostly from user-designed pages), slow and very unreliable servers, and my biggest pet peeve: "New Friend" spam from modeling and porn agencies. Jesus H, grow up people.

Full Throttle

The upcoming hit-list:

• Event Horizon is now in full-on "finish" mode. With my Feb 28th deadline coming up fast, I'm now cranking out one-half of a chapter a day to finish the remaining SIX chapters.
• In addition to EH, I have two major essays to crank out this coming weekend (and into next week, a bit).
• A CS 425 program is due a week and a half out, and I have to devote a good chunk of my weekend to getting the initial development of this done.

Gah... and all this is in between three shifts at Meijer between now and my next class on Monday, when my first essay is due.

I'm Back!

Obviously I haven't updated in a while -- crazy busy week.

I am officially in the thicket of the busy semester -- my work load is heavy from all sides, with two essays due within two weeks of each other, two tests coming up, and a major story (Event Horizon) that needs to be completed by the 28th so I can do major revisions and a rewrite by March 21st. Yikes.

I had a seriously-awesome post I wanted to write mid-week about S-E-X... but all my sweet-ass ideas left me before I could reasonable get them written down -- I swear, I need to keep more paper and pencil handy when I'm out of the house.

But anywho, tomorrow will be a busy day, with school + work + Prout Chapel + B-Dubs... but then again, I get to see some old, awesome friends, so I can't wait, really.

Then, it's back to the reality of school, work, and Event Horizon.

The Truth Is Telling

My weekend of self-reflection and semi-meditation is over. What has come of it?

Several realizations:

• I do indeed not wish for a girlfriend now by practical means, and for the first time in several years, I also do not want one due to personal reasons, namely a newfound lack of interests in becoming involved in the (sometimes) deep emotional attachment that follows. I am not saying that I do not care nor wish for such an attachment, but at this point in my life, taking a break from such potential is more relieving that not.

• Four years ago I made a choice. The choice was to stay home and attend BGSU as my college of choice, but namely so I could stay near Lacey, who at the time I was growing closer with. Now, six years later, with our relationship having gone full-circle, I've debated the question: did I make a mistake? The answer is yes and no. Yes, in that grander things could have been waiting for me elsewhere, along with new experiences away from home. No, because I've learned many important lessons (... etc.) that either way make my four years of college at BGSU feel complete. Oh, and I do have lots of new friends, of course...

Anywho, I have a busy week ahead of me, so as usual check the calendar and whatnot, and I'll catch you peeps later...

Out!

Friday Craziness

So here's my Friday:

• I wake up an hour early (8:00am), think that I have to rush off to school. So I get ready, get around, and then realize that I have spare time... so I catch up on homework. Around 10:30, right as I would have been leaving, I suddenly see bright spots on my eyes. My mom says a migraine might be pending, so I take a bunch of ibuprofen and lay down, missing all my classes. I was SO READY for today too :-(

• Next up, I spend all afternoon being lazy in bed (my head still hurt well into the day), and got some work on Event Horizon. I went for pizza in BG with my parents around 6, and retired back here for the night.

This weekend represents something special for me. Reference my post from this week titled "Brandon 3.0" -- and this weekend represents the time that I'm taking to shelter myself from the world, rethink who I am, what I want, and more important, get shit done with school and Event Horizon. The story is done in my head, and just now needs to be scribed to paper.

I won't be online much this weekend, and if I am on AIM, I'll have an away message up. I'll probably still answer the occasional text message, but otherwise this is the weekend that I reinvent myself... so stayed tuned, and see you on the flip side.

Out!

The End Is Near

Today at 8:45am (or thereabouts), while writing away for my Eng 206 "Craft of Fiction" class, I had the best thing in recent memory happen to me: I finally devised the ending to Event Horizon. Finally, after another hour of taking notes, the story arc is complete, and I am spending this weekend secluded away (I have Sunday off work... hellz yeah) to getting as much of the final story on paper as I can, with revisions and redrafts to start next week.

You have no idea how happy I am...

Out.

Brandon 3.0

I'm not sure if it is people in my life, the lack of people in my life, my complete lack of ambition for anything right now, my out of control hormones that speak louder than my heart, my short temper, or all of the above blended into a thick, creamy soup, but...

... I am so not happy with how my life is going right now.

Which means it's probably time for another big change.

What that is yet, I simply do not know, but I do know that I will need lots of time to be seclusive and quiet while I set things right.

1337

Tonight I did somethign that I have not done in a long, long, long time:

I download an MP3 file from a peer-to-peer network.

And it felt good. Real good.

You see, I'm such an opponent of DRM that I go black or white: I want to listen to my music however I damn well please, especially if I paid for it. I've generally been getting music a few ways: CD rips (the most popular), from friends, or from iTunes-ripped-MP3s.

But tonight, with my favorite source of quasi-legal music almost down-and-out (AllofMP3), I decided to dive back into the shitty-world of P2P. Yes, many files flying around these networks are fakes or of bad quality, but it was worth the download: a clean, DRM-free track from an artist that I already fully supported with three previous albums, and I'm sure I'll eventually be there for the forth.

Damn that 2.0

As you might have noticed, I've upgraded Critically Correct to the Blogger 2.0 interface, which means all of the cool custom-coded stuff on my page is now gone (including my awesome web-traffic monitoring).

Anyway, give me the rest of this week to get everything back to normal!

Out.

EV Is Here

Some quick updates:

My Event Horizon blog is online. See it here, and be sure to check back often as I'll be writing in it daily, given all the thoughts that I continually conjure for it.

Also, I'm moving my blog to the Blogger 2.0 backbone this Saturday, so expect my blog to be offline for a couple of hours while I repair whatever damage the conversion does to my custom HTML.

Anywho, it's time for Friday!