rob was here.

Well.. A few days ago microsoft released the first beta of windows vista (previously known as windows codename longhorn).. I've finally got a chance to install it and try it out. The installation went very smoothly, a tonne more simple than windows xp or 2000, not that these were complex installations in the first place. The first thing you notice upon bootup is the sleek new gui effects. Windows sort of blip in and out of view when you open or close them, and buttons tend to lightup in neat ways when you mouse over them. It's much more eye candy than windows xp offered, with much less of the plasticy-feel that the windows xp themes delivered.

I like the vista gui.

The only other thing i've played with at this point is windows explorer.. It has been changed from the familar explorer which existed in the last 3-4 versions of windows. The folder naviagion tree has been modified into whats being called a bread-crumb bar . This bar lets you easily go back several directories or even into another sub-tree with a single click. It's very intuitive and easy to use.

There are a few more features i've looked at but haven't really used in detail yet, such as virtual folders and some of the file meta-data things.. I'm not sure if these things really appeal to me anyways, as i can't think of any way that I will use them at this point.

Overall, vista is looking neat. I wish this first beta had more features, but they say this beta is more of a test platform for developers and thus it is pretty much just a test for stability and security. The fancy new programs and features that most users would notice will apparently be present in beta 2, next spring.

Another note is that speed-wise, vista is a faster OS than xp. It boots faster and seems to open up applications quicker. Pretty impressive, as my computer is a getting few generations old (barton 2500, gig of ram).. I imagine the computers of the future will be more than enough to run vista when the final version hits shelves in late 2006.


vista desktop.

I just got back from a 48 hour trip on a 160foot fishing trawler which departed from marystown and swung around to drop me off at st. john's.. Then the boat left to go upto greenland somewhere to do some shrimp fishing. On my short leg of the trip, i was doing some equipment testing for my work. It was a pretty interesting trip, which had it's up's and down's (a lot of up's and down's actually, if you know what i mean).. the most negative aspects was my queezyness which came on after the first day or so, as well as not having anywhere to bunk down on board. The best aspects was I got to see hands on the setup of our companies product in the field, and it was great in terms of field experience. The weather on the 2nd day was quite nice as well. Heres a snap i took during the final hour of my trip:


hey, I recognize that thing there!

well, i've been calling the neon "my" car for some time now, when in reality it wasn't so much "my" car as my "mom's" car. I changed all that. Today the paper work finally got clued up and the registration officially changed over to my paws. I am now among the ever-so-popular club of people who own automobiles.

other than that. Life progresses goodly. Yes, goodly.

This evening i took a few hours to organize data on my machine into some seemingly intelligent folder scheme, and do something that everyone should do more often: make backups.

I usually keep up-to-date backups of my valuable data (photos, music, projects, etc) on my handy portable harddrive which sits atop of my computer tower. Having a replica of your data on another harddrive is a fine idea, but is no means a reliable way to secure your data forever. It's a good idea to store your valuables on more than one medium and keep at least some of them stored remotely.

Thats why it's a good idea to burn off your goods onto some sort of optical media like cd's or dvd's. I'm burning my 3rd and final dvd as i type, and I will bring them to be stored somewhere out of the way at my girlfriends house.

I should try to do regular backups like this more frequently than I do, but it is sort of a hassle, but a neccessary one if you ask me!

Other than that, I've been working away with my new job (almost a month now!).. and in the evenings i've been pretty much relaxing.. Going to some movies, out to dinner with friends, playing gamecube, that sort of thing :)

I've also started moving all of my families photos out of the old style photo-albums that have the sticky cardboard pages with the clear plastic that stick on over them, into newer photo-albums that have clever individual sleves for each photo. It makes it easy to organize and remove photos if need be. Our old photo albums were getting in pretty bad shape anyways, so it's good to rejuvinate them!