Posts Tagged ‘ Vista ’

Windows Mojave - Best idea ever! 29 July 2008 at 6:35 am by Jason 297 views

Meet Windows Mojave:

The “Mojave Experiment”

It’s fast, it’s sleek, it’s cool, it’s hip, it’s… really Windows Vista?

This is the best marketing idea Microsoft has come up with in a long time.  Dealing, as I do, with many novice computer users, getting them to switch to Vista has been an uphill fight.  Most of them haven’t tried the OS or even seen it.  They’re getting all their info from word of mouth and aren’t sitting down to try it.  In this “experiment,” Microsoft has taken many different users and after listening to them bash Windows Vista, ask them to try the newest OS, Windows Mojave.  Upon trying it, everyone is loving it and wanting it, and then comes the reveal… it’s actually Windows Vista.

It’s a great watch… I love the responses some of the people give (for real hilarity, click the link that says “You can’t please everyone.”) and how honest they are.

Seriously people, give Vista a try.  Yes, it had issues… but so did XP… and 2000… and ME… and 98… and 95… ad infinitum.  It’s not like Microsoft is the only company to have issues with new products (let us not forget the MobileMe mess) and if you never try anything new, you’ll be left behind.

Some information about the experiment via the Windows Vista Blog:

  • The focus group took place over three days in San Francisco and was conducted earlier this month.
  • All participants were either Mac, Linux, or users of versions of Windows that came before Windows Vista. Respondents were chosen from the focus group organizer’s database, called at random, but then selected based on having a low perception of Vista (<5 rating on a scale of 1-10).
  • The participants were given a demo by a trained retail salesperson - geared towards the experiences they seemed most interested in following a series of interviews. While the retail salesperson drove the demo, it was geared by the interests and direction of the participant.
  • We did not use some geeked out or custom built PC. We used an HP Pavilion DV2500. It had 2GB of RAM and was running an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz. The OS was a 32 bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
  • Of the 120 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5.

There you have it.  If you’re using an older version of Windows… go give Vista a chance!



+ HARC 1 - Vista Tips for the Average User By Jason 01 May 2008 at 4:35 pm 300 views No Comments

Welcome to the first edition of my Helpful Article Corner (HARC)! I think once a week I’ll post some articles that you can read that will all fit a common theme of some sort. This will be different than my daily links, as those are just random interesting links that I’ve come across each day or so, and these will be articles I’ve chosen over the week that all fit a common theme! So sit back, enjoy, and let’s see how this goes!

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Today’s topic will be “Vista Tips for the Average User.”

As you may know, Windows Vista is the brand new Operating System for your home PC that was released by Microsoft as the long awaited successor to Windows XP. A lot of people have expressed concern over Windows Vista and it has caused a lot of grief, as it is very different from XP and most of the support is quite technical in nature. Here to help you along are some great articles, written for non-technical people, that should help with some of the questions surrounding the new OS.

Tips for installing Windows Vista on your computer

You’ve had your eye on Windows Vista since it debuted and now that you know you can make your desktop look pink, shiny and have bubbles floating around as your screen saver you have every intention of spending your next bonus to ensure you get your very own copy of Vista as soon as you can. Your only concern now is if your three year old computer can handle a Vista installation and if you will be able to install it on your own. [Click to Read More]

Tips for starting your computer faster with Vista

We’ve all been there…sitting at our computer desk, waiting, tapping impatiently for our computer to finish restarting so we can continue playing our favorite game. It’s terribly frustrating to watch your computer begin to start up only to have to wait another ten minutes for it to be usable, but thankfully for all of us impatient people in the world, there are ways to decrease the amount of time it takes for your Windows Vista computer to start up. [Click to Read More]

Using parental controls in Windows Vista

As parents, we now have to worry about not only strangers approaching our children at school or on the playground, but we also have to be concerned about strangers approaching our children online. With social networking sites, emails, and role playing games abundant on the internet it can be incredibly difficult to track our child’s movements and protect them. With the parental control feature found in Windows Vista, we can use our operating system to help monitor our children online, keep them from sites that as parents we feel are unsafe, and even keep them offline when they have too much school work to do! [Click to Read More]

Using Windows Vista System Restore

At one time or another we’ve all installed a program or opened an email with a virus that caused our computer to blue screen with random errors or simply operate at a snail’s pace. It can happen to the novice computer user or even the skilled technical support guru and thankfully Microsoft knows this and plans for it. [Click to Read More]

How to downgrade from Vista to XP

If you are one of the many computer users who have been using Windows Vista only to find yourself unhappy with it’s features and your computer’s performance, you still have the ability to downgrade to Windows XP. As long as you own your own Windows XP version on a CD, the process is simple. [Click to Read More]

There you have it! Five articles for the maiden voyage of our new Weekly segment! I hope you all enjoy this, and if you have any suggestions, please let me know!



+ Daily del.icio.us Bookmarks for 04/08/08 By Jason 08 April 2008 at 5:02 pm 137 views No Comments

These are my daily “Good to Know” links for 04/08/08 … please enjoy:

Moo-Less Chocolate Pie | Food Network

Not that I'm one to give away all my secrets, I figured I'd share with you what has become my favorite "healthy" desert. The amazing thing? There is no milk anywhere in the recipe, so your lactose intolerant friends can enjoy!

Religulous with Bill Maher | Meet In the Lobby

?This movie will make you laugh so hard you?ll pray for it to stop.? That?s the quote from Bill Maher, who?s teamed with director Larry Charles (Borat, ?Curb Your Enthusiasm?) to skewer religion with the documentary Religulous.

Loopy Vista pre-SP1 update fixed with pre-pre-SP1 update | The Register

Microsoft has today finally begun pumping out a Windows Vista service pack one (SP1) prerequisite update that had been put on ice, following complaints that it threw some computers into endless reboot cycles.

Frame a Pluto portrait | The Planetary Society

The New Horizons team is deep into the planning of the Pluto flyby, and again they don't have the time to devote to an exhaustive search for "Kodak Moments." Again John Spencer has invited public contribu

'Ruthlessness gene' discovered | Nature News

Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak ? from nat

Come back for more links tomorrow!!



+ Windows Vista SP1 is out! By Jason 18 March 2008 at 11:38 am 120 views No Comments

I mentioned before that Windows Vista SP1 went RTM, well Microsoft has now released it for download:

Windows Vista SP1

From the site (good info):

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is an update to Windows Vista that addresses feedback from our customers. In addition to previously released updates, SP1 will contain changes focused on addressing specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues; supporting new types of hardware; and adding support for several emerging standards. SP1 also will continue to make it easier for IT administrators to deploy and manage Windows Vista. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone version can be installed on systems with any of the following language versions: English (US), French, German, Japanese, or Spanish (Traditional).

Read the overview of Windows Vista SP1, including what’s new, technical details, guidelines and notable changes.

Read the Deployment Guide for Windows Vista SP1. This guide includes technical information, procedures, and recommendations for installing Windows Vista SP1 in a business or corporate environment.

Before installing SP1, please visit the Windows Vista TechCenter and read the page “Things to Know Before you Download Windows Vista SP1“

Enjoy!! :)



+ Internet Explorer 8 Beta, pt II By Jason 05 March 2008 at 7:38 pm 111 views No Comments

Update1 - Okay, so it seems to have some troubles with certain buttons on my site, as well as with Gmail chat. From what I can tell, Gmail is set to the “Older Version” mode, with no way to change back. Also, no javascript buttons/rollovers seem to work for me. Interesting.

Update 2 - It appears to have to do with Javascript, although I don’t know what yet (I’ll have a post when I do). I’m currently on the latest version (JRE 1.6.0_05-b13) and it says it’s enabled. Oddly when using the “Emulate IE7″ mode, it causes everything rendered in IE8 to work again, although Gmail looks a bit funky now (see image below). Very odd…

Oddness with IE8

Update 3 - Installed on my Vista system and the problem remains. I’ve now decided that it’s not a problem with Javascript, but perhaps just an issue in how Internet Explorer 8 renders certain code (other sites with issues don’t use Javascript). Now, the weird thing… my new updated design passes both the “Valid CSS” check and the “Valid XHTML 1.1 Strict” test… and it is completely broken in IE8. I’m going to hope that there is just a problem with the program, and not something perhaps worse (web designers having to re-design sites for IE6 and IE7 know what I mean). Screenshots below. Let’s hope my next IE post is good news!

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Broken Site

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