some thoughts on windows 7

this week i made the update from windows vista to windows 7 on the work laptop and overall it does seem pretty good. who'd have thought windows vista could have been improved upon! i should note that i did the update option as opposed to a complete reformat, 'cause i'm lazy like that. the update process took about 4-5 hours but overall there seems to be a pretty good speed increase in booting up and shutting down (which kinda is expected as vista is pretty much the slowest operating system there is).

i've been using it now for a few days and it does seem a definite improvement (again not difficult coming from vista). since buying a macbook (for home) i'm pretty converted to mac os x and given the choice i'd much rather be running that, but from what i've seen it looked pretty complicated to get it installed on most normal pc's and i'm just not that bored enough to get into it that much. so for the time being windows 7 will have todo.

so being a mac user i do like the new windows 7 taskbar 'cause microsoft being microsoft has attempted to copy the mac os x dock. the new windows taskbar takes up much less space and just looks alot nicer. one feature that seems to have been left out is stacks (a mac os x feature) that allows folders placed in the dock to be opened so you can access more from one icon on your dock. there seem to be a few apps out there to get around this and the one i'm trying out is called standalonestack2 (catchy name i know). it's compatible with windows xp, vista and 7 so may be something you wanna check out anyway. for more info and to see it in action check this out.

another cool thing i noticed about the new taskbar is when your copying files it shows the progress bar in the background of the icon. so you can see when your files are done copying without having to minimise everything else.

another slightly changed feature is the "gadgets". basically they are little things you can add to your desktop to get in the way (like a clock, calendar, local weather, news headlines, etc). in windows vista these were limited to the left or right side of your screen but now you can just throw these anywhere on your desktop. it's a useful feature to have if you actually use them but still doesn't compare to the infinitely better mac os x dashboard.

another "big" feature added to windows 7 is the resizing of windows. if you want to compare two websites side-by-side you can just drag the window to the far left or right of the screen and it'll resize it to fit half the screen. once your done you just drag them back and they return to their previous size. kinda cool i guess.

given the few days i've been using windows 7 these seem to be the most noticeable and stand out features - so far anyway. i'm sure/hope there's more under the hood but it definitely seems a worthy update from vista (but then so was windows xp...). it really should be a free upgrade from vista but any way microsoft can make more money they will, and if they can confuse people with all their stupid different versions at the same time all the better. seriously, is anyone gunna make sense of this:

but i guess for the time being this is a free and worthy update from vista so i'd recommend doing it (especially if your already on vista, but maybe if your on xp too and fancy a change). obviously backup your shit first - just incase.

now here's a quick video on microsoft's innovation in windows vista :)

e3 round up

so e3's over for another year but overall it was a pretty good show. if you haven't checked out the major presentations from the show they are probably worth a look if you've got the time. here's the links - microsoft, sony and nintendo.

microsoft seemed to have the strongest show in my opinion. sony did a good job showing off new ps3 stuff coming out and the new psp go does look pretty good. nintendo while doing better than last year (which wasn't difficult) were still a little disappointing. they are obviously set on pleasing the casual gamer so their presentation was quite bizarre considering the only people watching are the hardcore. that said super mario galaxy 2 and the new metroid game look alright. new super mario bros wii seems a bit weird. it's cool they are bringing a classic 2d mario game to the wii with 4 player coop gameplay but i can't help but think they could and should have done this years ago on the n64 or gamecube. watching the gameplay it just looks like they've been beaten to the punch and outdone already by little big planet.

the new motion control stuff from microsoft and sony look pretty interesting. i'm still not really conviced it's the way to go for anyone other than the casual gamers (kids, parents, grandparents, etc) but nintendo seems to be printing money with the wii and ds's success so obviously microsoft and sony want in. out of the two sony's does seem the strongest and most likely to succeed even if the controllers do look like weird glow sticks.

i thought the beatles rock band animated intro was awesome and really well made. can't say i'm a beatles fan (just never really listened much to them) but i liked the songs used and i've never properly tried a rock band game but after seeing this and the game demoed i kinda wanna give both a try.

but all this is all just background noise from e3. the major stuff i am looking forward to (also mentioned in my upcoming gaming awesomeness post) is:

call of duty modern warfare 2 - this just looks awesome. i'm a pretty big fan of all of the call of duty games but the video of the new demo shown at e3 looks pretty amazing. this could be goldeneye amazing :)

aliens vs predator - like i said before i've been a fan of the games series for a long time (less said about the movies the better) but the new videos of the predator gameplay demo look really fun. i especially like the new way the predator can jump from tree to tree just like in the movies.

left 4 dead 2 - wasn't expecting this game to be shown off or released so soon after left 4 dead which only came out in october. first thing i noticed was the improved graphics and some new weapons, which isn't really hard - left 4 dead's graphics looked pretty dated even when it came out but the new trailer looks cool so check it out.

perfect dark xbox live arcade - one of my favorite n64 games coming to xbox 360 is just awesome. hopefully they'll include online play to make a great game even better. cannot wait!

well that about covers e3 2009 the only stuff that i missed was half life 2 episode 3 and a new zelda on wii to look forward to. nevermind, hopefully next year.

until then ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar shoe looks like?

microsoft fail...