Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on November 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

Oliver Rist, an editor at PC Magazine, decided to take a new perspective on the who Vista sucks theme going around. Normally I just pass right by these articles, but his really caught my attention by saying that Leopard is the New Vista. The article, to say the least, is hilarious. Checkout my favorite parts of the article:

What makes it worse is this convoluted argument that my Apple friends give me: They’re more upset at Microsoft on account of it being in perpetual service pack limbo because Vista was supposed to be a ground-up redesign, whereas Leopard is really just a juicy point release. That makes zero sense to me. As far as I’m concerned, they both suck.
[…]
For Leopard, the sad bundled app-as-feature is Time Machine. To hear Mac moonies tell it, this is the best thing to happen to backup since the letter b. In reality, however, it sucketh and it sucketh huge. Okay, the screen looks like Star Wars. That’s cool in an I-want-to-stay-a-virgin kind of way.
[…]
Okay, I probably had a little too much coffee this morning, but Leopard really is just one big popped balloon of disappointment. Let’s get it straight, however: I’m not any more against Leopard than I am against Vista. Both of them got too much wrong. I’ll close with a little tidbit for that pudgy PC guy in the Apple commercials who’s so sad because his users are “downgrading” to XP. Well, maybe they are—I know I did. But I’m writing this on an XP workstation right now because my Mac is busy reinstalling Tiger. Leopard can keep its glitzy crash-prone spots. I’ll stick with the OS that really “just works”—for now.

Having not tried Leopard myself I can’t criticize many of the aspects that Oliver does in his article, but it was entertaining to read nonetheless. I guess what we can take out of the article is that all operating systems suck when they first come out?

Leopard is the New Vista [PC Magazine]

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This article was written on March 11, 2007 by CyberNet.

This past week I spent some time at a local bookstore reading through some books. When I went there I realized that I had not yet seen what kind of Windows Vista books had been made available to get people acquainted with the new operating system. Of course, there were shelves of books available to teach beginners the ropes…but some of them were quite disappointing.

First off, I like checking out these books because from time to time I’ll have people ask what’s a good way to learn how to use an operating system. While many of us can just jump right in and start learning as we go, there are many people who still need to be walked through how to do things. So in those cases I want to point them to a good book.

One book by a publisher called Visual (quite ironicly as you’ll see) was called Microsoft Windows Vista Simplified. There were indeed a lot of pictures, but I noticed something wrong with nearly 90% of the screenshots. To show you some of what I was looking at I went to Amazon who happens to offer the Search Inside feature on this particular book so that I can see random pages. Take a look at one of the images from the book:

Anything catch your attention there? The image might be a little small so you may not have noticed it right away, but the theme being used is the old one (called Scrap Metal) that was only available in early pre-release versions of Vista. It was then replaced with the blue-colored one back in July 2006:

I continued to flip through many other books by the same publisher, Visual, just to find that most of them had used the Scrap Metal theme in their screenshots. However, one book called Maran Illustrated Windows Vista not only had Aero Glass enabled in their screenshots, but their tutorials are laid out a lot better. I noticed that the book also had a bonus chapter available online as a PDF that you can download here. That little bonus edition should give you a great preview with what to expect from the book itself.

I’m in no way getting paid to promote any of the books mentioned in this article (not even any referral links), and it is purely my opinion on which book is better. I looked through several different books while at the bookstore and the Maran one came out on top by a mile…for both content and appearance. Most people I know who are buying a new PC will receive it with Vista and Aero enabled, and that is what I would want them to see in a book. So Maran will be the book I’ll recommend to everyone.

For more information on Windows Vista please read our review or checkout our tips.

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This article was written on June 26, 2007 by CyberNet.

Back in May we did a comparison of DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 to show graphically what the differences are. The reason why it is important is because Microsoft didn’t make a DirectX 10 that works with Windows XP, so you would have to upgrade to Vista to benefit from it. Microsoft claimed that it is impossible to implement DirectX 10 in XP because it uses many Vista-specific features to bring more realistic graphics to your computer.

Also in that article we discussed a project called Alky that started in hopes of developing their own version of DirectX 10 that does work with Windows XP. The project merged with another project to form Falling Leaf Systems, and now expects to have a working application towards the end of July. Here’s what Falling Leaf says about their move:

Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista. First they claim that it was impossible to implement DirectX 10 compatibility atop Windows XP, and now they also want us to believe that they couldn’t successfully launch two DirectX 9 based titles on XP either. We plan to expose both theories as patently false.

When they do launch their program it will let users play Halo 2 and Shadowrun, two "Vista-only" titles, on Windows XP. I’m still a bit skeptical on this whole project, because the site says that anyone who purchases a preorder of either game through their site, which actually goes through Amazon, will get a free copy of their software when it is released. This is a little weird because they aren’t very upfront about how this works. From what it looks like they are just trying to earn money through a referral program on Amazon by pointing people to the site and having them preorder the games. Amazon is the one shipping them, which means that Falling Leaf actually has no idea who purchased the preorder. This leads me to believe that the compatibility update will be offered to everyone at no cost when if it is released. They are apparently just trying to earn some extra cash on the side, and there is nothing wrong with that if they were upfront about it.

In my opinion this sounds too good to be true, and you should hold out on purchasing any of the games until you read some reviews on how well this actually works when it is released. After all, you wouldn’t want to preorder the game now and have it sit on the shelf for several months while Falling Leaf is working on their software…especially if it turns out to be vaporware.

Source: Next Generation [via Slashdot]

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This article was written on March 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

One of the features that many people overlook in Windows is the “Send To” menu that is presented when you right-click on a file or folder. This menu offers you an array of things you can do with that particular file or folder including compressing it to a ZIP file, emailing it to a friend, and much more.

I have never used the “Send To” menu because it doesn’t offer any features that make it useful, despite it being manually customizable (XP instructions and Vista instructions). I started looking around for something that would really knock my socks off, and I found just the tool…Send To Toys (Download Mirror for version 2.5).

Send To Toys is essentially an application that makes customizing the Send To menu even easier than it already is. It also offers some functionalities that you won’t be able to do without the help of this handy little program:

• Send To Toys Control Panel Applet allows you to manage the Send To system menu content, and configure the various Send To Toys settings:
   
• “Add to Send To menu” and “Remove from Send To menu” allows you to personalize the Send To system menu for drives, folders, and programs.
• Send To “Clipboard (as name)” copies the name of the file or files to the clipboard. Hold down the CTRL key to change the settings for this extension.
• Send To “Clipboard” command line utility copies the output of a command to the clipboard.
• Send To “Command Prompt” opens a DOS console window, setting the current directory to the selected file/folder.
• Send To “Default Mail Recipient” creates a new e-mail with attachments and predefined defaults for the recipients, subject, and message.
• Send To “Favorites” adds a shortcut to your Favorites list.
• Send To “Folder…” sends a file or files to another folder, you will be shown a dialog box that lets you choose where the files should be copied, moved, or have a shortcut created.
  
• Send To “Quick Launch” adds a shortcut to the Quick Launch toolbar.
• Send To “Recycle Bin” sends a file or files to the Recycle Bin. Hold down the CTRL key to perform a file shredding.
• Send To “Run…” sends a file or files to the Run command dialog.

The main reason that I wanted to get this utility was for the “Send to Folder…” option. I’m constantly moving files around on my PC and with this tool I can easily copy or move files from one location to another. Since my desktop is the most common place that I move files to, I decided to designate that as my default location, which means I can just select the Folder option from the Send To menu and press enter to move a file or folder to my desktop.

This is a freeware application and after you get it installed there will be both a shortcut in your Start Menu as well as in the Control Panel. It is compatible with Windows 2000, 2003, XP, and Vista so it will work for almost everyone! Give it a try because you might as well try to make the Send To menu actually useful.

Send To Toys Homepage (Download Mirror for version 2.5)

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This article was written on April 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

Any time that Vista Ultimate Extras were brought up last year (here, here and here), it was usually to talk about how disappointing that they were. Even though Vista launched in January, it took too long and too much silence from the Ultimate Extras team before they got anything pushed out the door. The most anticipated extra, DreamScene took forever to be launched into it’s final form, and language packs were promised by the end of the Summer but didn’t come until mid-Fall. The team is known for going quite some time without saying a word which has left many Vista Ultimate users wondering if the “extras” have been abandoned all-together.

At one point they said they weren’t going to make any promises or release any details of what would come next but they did say, “Please rest assured that our team is working hard to deliver on our promise to Ultimate Customers.” If they’re working hard and trying to impress, you might expect something a little more than what they just launched. Once again, it’s rather disappointing to say that the only two Ultimate Extras Microsoft could come up with are a pack of 2 Windows sound schemes and a Windows DreamScene Content Pack #3 (photo is of new DreamScene image).

We’re sure that the sound schemes probably are cool, and we hate to discount the work that the team did put into these extras as insignificant, but it’s hard not to when Ultimate Extras in general have been so disappointing and far and few in-between. When it’s been so long since they’ve delivered something, you’d just expect more than sounds and an update to DreamScene for Ultimate users who did pay extra to receive the extras.

When it’s time for Windows 7 to come out, we’re thinking that Microsoft isn’t going to try and sell an “Ultimate” version at a premium price with a promise that extras will be delivered in the future. We’ve seen that they haven’t been able to deliver (heck, it took them a whole month after SP1 launched before they could update the Language packs!) like everybody thought they would which is ultimately disappointing and doesn’t help their reputation any. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Vista Ultimate is not living up to its name.

If you’re running Vista Ultimate and the sound schemes and an update to DreamScene interest you, look for the extras on Windows Update…

Source: Windows Vista Blog

Thanks to all who sent this in as a tip!

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