Month: December 2006

Welcome to the ribbon, a context sensitive ‘device’ that places all of the functions for a variety of tasks all in one neat line. It is certainly different, a major step away from previous versions of Office. Is it better? Absolutely it is. For those new to MS Office, it has the same learning curve as any very able office application. For the well versed, a few minutes spent exploring will reveal that the ribbon is actually very good. The four major Office elements, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access all benefit from it. Highlighting text and selecting a new font … Continue reading Four words for you.. I love Office 2007..

Internet Explorer 7 and Windows MediaPlayer 11 are twins in as much as both have lost some functionality present in earlier versions. At the same time, both have features not present in earlier versions. First on the block – IE7.. I will say here and now that it works well for me. I had no problems installing it or running it in XP. The ‘tab’ feature has replaced the ‘stacking’ of open browser windows on the OS task bar, and gives more meaningful names to each. The layout is fine for me, and I have no problem looking at or … Continue reading The Terrible Twins..

Vista has been running on this computer almost flawlessly. The interface is slick, looks good, and performance in ‘max’ mode is every bit as good as Xp was in Classic mode. Some driver issues still remain, but manufacturers are promising a better future on or after release to the general public come Jan 30, 2007. Moving and copying files appears to be slow, as much down to watching the green bar crawl along its track. However, I am not fully convinced that XP was much quicker. Initial XP performance in this area appeared swift, but was invariably followed by the … Continue reading A little over a month..

I have come across two more gadgets that are useful. The first is very much a ‘personal taste’ gadget. I find it very relaxing while working on my computer to have classical music running in the background. On page 2 of ‘Add more Gadgets’, you will find the iClassical Radio Player. It takes up very little space on the bar and is incredibly easy to operate. Of course, high speed unlimited broadband is a must to get the most out of it. The second gadget is Presto’s Hard Drive monitor on page 7. I do not keep this running all … Continue reading A Sidebar update..

Microsoft have released 32bit Vista drivers for their range of input devices. They are available from..  http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/Download.mspx Finally, we get to see the on screen volume slider function as it should, and our $100 desktops sets now have full functionality as befits $100 instead of no name $5 input devices. Unfortunately, screen savers are still disabled by the Microsoft wireless desktop set receiver.

.. that is the question. Whether t’is nobler to suffer the annoyingly constant ‘are you sure’ popups, or ………. hark, do I hear shouts of ‘get off’ emanating from the cheap seats? …. or just turn the damn thing off ……….. OK, OK, I’ll quit if UAC quits. I have no doubt that in a commercial setting, UAC will be a boon to system admins. I have no doubt that UAC will be boon to some families. To me, a single user, a dedicated machine, and a firm believer in the practice of ‘safe hex’, UAC is a PITA, and … Continue reading UAC or not UAC..

Aero Glass works better on light surfaces. Dark fonts on the title bars do not show well on dark desktop backgrounds. I have a darkish desktop background. I run Aero Glass purely because I can. The sidebar is more interesting. The clock has less functions than Win 3.1 clock had. The contacts book doesn’t auto update when an entry is put into it. The calendar is ok for me as I can rarely remember what day it is. RSS feeds I look at from time to time. The yellow notes are well worth keeping the sidebar running. Other gadgets have … Continue reading Aero Glass and the Vista Sidebar..

It became more apparent in the next few hours that I would probably have to keep my parallel installation of XP for a while. The list of programs that reported compatibility problems or simply wouldn’t install started to grow. First casualties were the support programs for my DVD/CD writer. PowerDVD 6 and Nero 6 do not play ball. Vista supports the playing of DVDs, so losing PowerDVD didn’t matter. Alex Feinman has an ISO utility that works extremely well, so part of Nero wasn’t missed. However, I do like Nero, and will have to consider buying a new version or … Continue reading And as the sun rose..

Vista has been installed on my computer now since the morning of November 18th, along with Office Professional 2007, and all is surprisingly good. Some of the drivers available for devices are not quite what they could be, but everything works. My Canon Lide 30 scanner was tried on RC1 during testing, and worked no problem. The original Canon CD was used to install drivers, and a visit to the Canon website gotten me the latest driver and Tool box version that was ever released. The HP 5150 printer is not connected directly to Vista, but it does work via … Continue reading Vista in the dawn..