I finally got round to upgrading to WordPress 2.5 in anticipation of my new theme.

Been working on it on and off for a couple of weeks now. I figured it was about time I got some practice in or WP360 would never get anywhere fast.

Keep a look out for the smashing new look soon…

What will hurt Microsoft the most is the answer Intel gave when asked what they will use instead of Vista:

The official answer is ‘nothing yet’, the one where they try not to offend is ‘likely Windows 7′,

Its a case of Windows 7 strikes again. And Microsoft are to blame. THEY are the ones who have seeded the Windows 7 idea into the tech market and any users out there who are put off by Vista are bound to anchor down and wait for the next version.

It seems that every day Vista becomes more and more like Windows ME.

Today I noticed that I had this email:

Check the time, go on, it says 6:35 PM last night. Now, I wasn’t online at this time. I was neck deep in chlorine infested water trying to work out why the pool was so busy for a Tuesday night.

Anyway, my point is they failed. I wanted to be part of the Firefox 3 download day thing but they messed up by sending the notification email at a truly stupid time when clearly between 9-5 would have been the sensible choice.

What they should have done is mailed me 2 days ago with a link to the site of a UK based (fast) download and the time at which they were planning to allow downloads to start. THEN I could have scheduled my time to at least check my email before I let the day end.

Hell, they could have even opened up a torrent file on the site so I could set it going and left it to download the file when they started seeding.

Unfortunately I won’t be upgrading to FF3 today. Or tomorrow actually. Not because of this scheduling mishap but because it seems that a few key add-ons which I use daily are not yet compatible.

Not that I won’t download it. In fact, if I download it from work AND then from home, does that count as 2?

XIII is an upcoming 2009 TV Mini-series based on the XIII comic book series by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance, revolving around an amnesiac protagonist who seeks to discover his concealed past. The series is directed by Duane Clark and will star Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff, filmed in Hamilton, Ontario.

Shocked

So why am I shocked? For a start, the game bombed. It was a financial failure. This is why I have spent the past 5 years waiting for a sequel that will never come.

Appalled

And what appalled me about this news is the wishy washy way in which the film appears to have been made. First was a full blown blockbuster movie with a top cast and large budget. Now its a TV mini series that sounds like a bad episode of 24!

Also, Stephen Dorf? What was wrong with giving the lead part to David Duchovny who did an excellent job voicing the character in the game?

I think what pisses me off most of all however is the fact that they bothered at all.

Most of the XIII plot has already been done in 2 previous movies, The Borne Identity and The Manchurian Candidate.

There simply is no need for the movie to ever be made.

The game however should have had at least a couple of sequels funded. The cell shading effect could really flourish on next-gen machines.

The email started with an apology:

“one of the implications of the increased focus on security was that compatibility with Windows Vista was not where we wanted it to be at launch. Over the past eighteen months, Microsoft and our partners have made tremendous progress in compatibility, performance, and battery life.”

It then went on to list a few “key facts”:

• Windows Vista now supports more than 77,000 printers, cameras, speakers and other devices.
• More than 2,700 software programs are “Certified for” or “Works with” Windows Vista; 97 of the top 100 consumer applications are compatible.
• 62% of small businesses said Windows Vista saves them time, and 70% said it makes them more productive, according to an independent survey.
• More than 140 million copies of Windows Vista have been sold, making it the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft history. Even Macs run it.
• 71 percent of Windows Vista customers like it better than their last operating system.
• People familiar with Windows Vista are two to three times more likely to have a favorable impression of it.
• Every 10 PCs that switch to Windows Vista is the equivalent of taking an automobile off the road, in terms of greenhouse gases.

I had to laugh a little at the “Even Macs run it” fact. Like they threw that in at the last minute and some Mac user out there is going to jump ship based on this email.

Not sure about the “71 percent” thing? Almost every Vista switcher I have spoken with agree that it is ‘better’ in some ways than XP but not enough to rave about. I can imagine they asked a lot of new, maybe non-techy users that one.

Overall however I’m impressed. Not by the facts in the message but by the fact that I have received at least some sort of clue from Microsoft convinces me they DO care about Vista and aren’t already digging its grave.

The one thing where the message didn’t explain however was the key differences between the 5 different versions. Something that has surely been putting users off since launch.

In another article over at ars Peter Bright details what he saw from the W7 demo:

What was shown at D6 was rather less than hoped. The big feature—in fact, the sole feature—demonstrated was multitouch, the same technology as found in Microsoft’s multi-thousand-dollar Surface table and Apple’s iPhone. The demonstrated software was more or less the same demos we saw with Surface—photo scaling, finger painting, splashing about in water—along with a Virtual Earth/Google Earth-style mapping program. And that’s the extent of it.

So why did Microsoft bother? Its clear they want to let the world know that W7 is coming. A move which TOTALLY undermines Vista.

Sorry….

Its as if that inside Microsoft they know they messed up with Vista and they want to make it right before they loose everyone to other platforms. So by dangling the W7 worm out in the tech community they probably believe they are doing the right thing.

But they aren’t right. If the 2 Steve’s just came out and said “OK, Vista wasn’t what we hoped.” and apologized to all the techies and developers and then proceeded to open the floor to feedback and comments as to how to move forward then THAT would be the right thing to do.

Hello Seattle, I’m Listening

Given time I think this is what will happen. I still have an optimistic view that the next version of Windows will be what Vista should have been and that Microsoft will hear the backlash loud and clear.

There is one thing I like about the whole Windows 7 thing and that’s the name.

I was never a huge fan of ‘Vista’ as a name. Or of giving a real name to a Windows OS at all. I was always happy with numbers or years such as ‘3.11′ or ‘95′ and ‘2000′.

XP wasn’t so bad (Windows 2001 would have been really lame) but Vista should have been labelled ‘Windows 2007′ or something.

‘Windows 7′ is a cool name. Its short and sweet. Its simple and elegant. It doesn’t try and say anything about the OS like ‘Vista’ does and its not a weird acronym/pseudonym like NT or XP (New Technology and eXPerience).

I just hope that Windows 7 IS the final name of their next OS and it doesn’t end up getting a ridiculous monitor 6 months before release.

Titled: From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X it comes off as a quite misleading almost fanboy-esq bitch fest at times but has some excellent history lessons and is a wonderful insight into a disillusioned Windows developers life.

XP was released in 2001. And that was basically it from Microsoft for the next five and a half years. Until Vista, Microsoft didn’t bother putting out a single new client OS. Meanwhile, Apple released Mac OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4. It continued to tidy up legacy features (deprecating QuickDraw, for example). It added new APIs like Core Audio and Core Image. It made sure that these APIs were of high quality—Core Audio offers extremely low latency, for example, and Core Image provides high performance accelerated image processing—and it consistently ate its own dog food. This produced high-quality, best-of-breed applications such as Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and even Aperture (after an admittedly lackluster initial release) that leveraged these new technologies.

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

I have only been using Vista for a year and already Microsoft have given up on it. This is evident though the lack of any serious marketing.

Is Steve Ballmer really ready to turn a $10 billion investment into a replay of Windows ME? I can’t believe he is but all the evidence points to this. I just hope he can fix the Vista mess before Microsoft start building a new OS.

Year One

After a year using Vista I can say that it IS a better OS than XP. But, only very marginally.

So small is the difference in fact I have quite happily left Windows XP on my work PC and have absolutely no need to upgrade. I require NONE of the new features in my work environment and if Vista was taken away from me tomorrow I would happily go back to using XP.

Vista isn’t any more stable or any leaner than XP. 2 things I hoped it would be. Its just as bloated and controlling as XP ever was.

In fact Vista, in terms of usability, is probably LESS usable than XP for new computer users. I managed to get to grips with the new annoyances (mostly security hand-holding) early on and customise Vista to work just how I wanted it to but I have over 10 years computer experience. I guarantee new computer users would be perplexed and even scared by some of the crap Vista churns out.

Not that I’m having a terrible time or anything. Quite the opposite. My new Vista-Ultimate-powered (self built) PC works great. It has only crashed out on me maybe 4-6 times over the year and runs smoothly during any task I have thrown at it.

So I’m, not bitching. I like Vista. I just don’t think Microsoft do.

7 Stone

The idea Windows 7 has been floating around ever since Vista was launched. Everyone sort of knew that Vista wouldn’t be the BIG upgrade Microsoft had promised so hoped the next version would be such a beast.

But, it turns out Windows 7 will be more of the same. Its code base is still in the same old Microsoft style. It doesn’t look like they are being revolutionary, it just looks like they want to get a new version out ASAP.

Take this quote from Mr Ballmer as evidence of this:

About the five-year gap between XP and Vista, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told a group of Microsoft MVP’s (Most Valuable Professionals), “We can’t ever let that happen again.” But whether the Incredible Hulk can successfully morph into the Silver Surfer is an open question.

I can see why they are looking at it this way. 5 years is a long time. And Microsoft didn’t evolve their new OS, they just made it work.

Right now, if it took another 5 years for Windows 7 to materialise Microsoft would suffer.

What NeXT

So my advise to Microsoft is this. Learn a lesson from Vista but don’t forget about it. Give it some support, some advertising. Quit PUSHING it onto OEM providers and businesses, let them see the benefits and decide for themselves.

This will probably buy Vista another 2-3 years as the main Microsoft OS, slowly replacing XP as it goes.

And, while this is happening, start over.

Do it! Drop the NT/XP/Vista/Longcrap/Whatever code base and start again.

Take a CHUNK of advice from Apple. Develop a new, spanky, light, modern and sexy OS from the ground up.

Erase the mistakes of the past. Bundle Virtual application support into the OS so old XP/Vista software can run in the new environment and slowly convert the Windows development world to a new, modern and clean standard.

Then, make it cheap. Like £50 ($100) and only have a SINGLE version! No Ultimate, Business, Premium, or Neanderthal version! Just plain old ‘Windows 7′.

I think this is the only way Windows 7 can succeeded. SURE have the touch screen, net-mesh and mobile features thrown in as well but don’t overload it. Give the OS back to the users.

As for me. Any more Vista bashing from Microsoft top-flight and I will seriously consider moving over to Mac. And I never thought I would say THAT 5 years ago when XP was released.

I love the guy singing the cheezy rock lines.