Windows 7 – A Layman’s Review

Is there something as a happy Windows Vista user? Well I am one – may not be a happy one, but a satisfied one for sure.  I know Vista was badly criticized when it made its debut. However with the service pack, most of the glitches were removed, if not all.  In fact ever since I bought my latest laptop in march 2009 (with service pack), it never crashed and ran like a charm.

So I was looking forward to Win7 with much anticipation. MS did an extensive crowd-sourced testing of this OS. And it had received rave reviews.  When Amazon announced pre-orders for Win 7 at mouth watering price (68 quids), I grabbed on the offer with little hesitation.

The package was shipped on Oct 20^th from UK and arrived at my place (Warsaw) before the estimated date. Kudos to Amazon.

My ordered version was Home Premium. Microsoft ships both the 32 bit and 64 bit software in the package – that’s an intelligent thing given they have already so many versions they have out there.  For home users, Home premium is the right version, unless you want extensive data backup, encryption etc.

I was running 32 bit version of Vista Home premium running on a 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo processes with 3GB RAM. So I had option of in-place upgrade to Win7. It means I did not have to format the hard drive and all my settings, documents and most importantly drivers will automatically work in Win7.  I did fair bit of research on whether to do in-place upgrade or clean install. If I did a clean install I had an option of moving to 64 bit. However after much though and deliberation, I chose the easy way out. I decided to do an in-place upgrade. My computer is just 6 months old, and well taken care of with Norton 360, cc cleaner etc. So there isn’t much of clutter anyway. Moreover Sony did not have 64 bit drivers for the laptop – may be 32 bit would have worked, but it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Installation

The entire process took less than two hours with computer restarting a couple of times, before it became usable again. It automatically started downloading updates for my video card and other generic updates. So it’s pretty pain free process and threw up no surprises

Do note since it was an upgrade, it took slightly longer. Clean install is supposed to take around 40 minutes.

A word of advice – don’t yet activate the windows. You have 30 days to try it out – you may want to move to 64 bit or want to do a clean install if things don’t work.

What’s new – The Taskbar

The most visible change is the new Taskbar. And this is a change for good. Now you don’t have multiple windows with text showing on your taskbar, instead you see icons of the programs which are running. Just hover your mouse over it and you can see what all programs are running. Not only that, if you right click on a program, you get what is called a ‘Jump List”. This is immensely useful. The jumplist of IE now has frequently open pages. So you can go to your favourite website in just two clicks.

Another superb feature is Aero Peak. Imagine you are working on a document and also running live streaming of cricket. How do you quickly switch between windows just to see what’s the noise is about? Just hover your mouse on the taskbar icon and you will get a quick peek of what’s happening without going to that window.

What’s even more commendable is the way it is tied to Internet explorer.  In the taskbar, you can now see all the open tabs and not just one window. If you are downloading something, you can see the icon getting progressively greener as downloads happen.

In short, the task bar is the most welcome change in the Win7.

Search

The search functionality is fantastic. You don’t need to go through the long list of programs to launch one, just start typing it and you get to it straight away. It also searches for your outlook contacts, pictures, docs, music etc. It was there in vista as well – but it seems faster in win7.

New WMP 12

Now there is famous saying, why fix something one it’s not broke. To me, the WMP 11 was the best WMP ever. The new version has slightly different interface. Where it misses out is the intuitiveness of the previous version. I added new songs to my computer, but I could not find the easy way to add them to WMP library. In the earlier version you just had to rescan the library, but in this it probably works differently. Another design flaw is the control buttons are now smaller and they sit just below the track advance line. So sometimes if you trying to move forward while watching a movie, you end up clicking on the Next track button instead.

Again, it’s beautifully integrated with Task bar. So you can change your songs right from the task bar and see the album art or visuals.

New Action Center

This is basically an area which looks for any kind of problems in the computer – be it updates, drivers, non-compatible programs, security etc and provides solution for that. It got me the latest drivers for my graphics card, which is even not listed on Sony’s website.

Themes

In win7 you can download themes to create your own personal experience. Basically you get a set of wall papers which change automatically, matching taskbar colours and matching sound. I downloaded the India theme pack and any pop up alert now sounds like a note of Sitar.

Overall

I believe MS has done extensive work beneath the visual layers to make this more stable and robust. I don’t know what changes have been done under the hood, but the new OS is no doubt highly polished and trouble free. It’s quite…smooth. It runs with an assuredness which was probably lacking in Vista. The apps don’t hang, the animations are smoother, windows change without lag, and programs open faster. In comparison to Vista, it may not be faster in benchmark tests, but it sure is much smoother and assured. Add to that, its fully compatible with Vista which makes moving to this is quite pain free.

Well Done Microsoft.

Amazing Amazon

The last semester in our MBA course had some interesting courses. Most notably was the one on IT Strategy and Leadership, taken by our enthusiastic Dean. Give him any IT topic and he can keep talking for hours and makes tremendous sense.

Well coming back to the incident today. I would not have given it a second thought if our thought process hadn’t been provoked by the Dean. I was looking to buy a book on interview skills, as the placements are near. I found the book on Amazon, but resisted from ordering at the last moment (Well stats say that over 70% of people cancel their shopping at the last moment when they are online, its true I tell you). So I backed out and went to the local book store to get my hands on the book for real before I buy. This shop is intuitively called Page One and has a catchy slogan – Every book begins with Page One. (Prof Ram Kumar would be impressed !). So I was searching for this book in the huge store, and almost gave up when I couldn’t find it, beforeI thought to ask the guy behind the information desk. He asked me the name of the book. He entered the name in what I thought must be his database. He then turned the monitor towards me, and to my utter disbelief, he had the Amazon site opened in front of him. When I confirmed it was the same book, he calmly picked the ISBN number of the book and searched for it in his database.  He found a copy and handed it over to me a minute later.

Lots of things went in my mind after this. We all talk about the all pervasiveness of the internet. I actually asked the guy there if they actually use this method of searching as a company standard. He wasn’t sure on that, but he did say that it’s an extremely simple method to search for a book using Amazon. Most of the times customers do not remember the name of the book correctly and their system is not good enough to search for the book on fragmented inputs whereas Amazon always gives the results.This speaks volumes about the invasion of Amazon in the literary world. Even the physical bookstores around the world are now using the Amazon’s huge database at no cost of their own. The intangible benefits are many. The customers gets a super fast service, The shop owner only have to worry about stocking and maintaining a basic database, as it will not be overloaded with search queries. In fact all it is being searched on is the ISBN number. Can there be a business model emerging for Amazon out of this?…Comments welcome.

Apple Iphones

Umm, Delicious is what I could say when I saw these concept pics of the supposedly upcoming Ipod Phones.

Hello world!

Ipod, PSP, Archos, Garmin, O2 etc. all have one thing in common – Battery. The source of power of most of the gadgets today are batteries, yet they are a major constraint for the real portability.

Recently I saw something which had me fascinated. These are the USB charged batteries with the same form -factor as those of a normal AA battery – Here have a look.

Joining the MBA bandwagon

Well its been a long time since I have updated this blog. Almost forgot about it.

Joined SPJCM Dubai – Singapore. its fun to be back in college again, its hard to be back to books though.

Its been a roller coaster ride since we arrived in Dubai. Water problems, bed problems, bulb problems, hostel problems,transport problems etc haunted us for the first few days. Its started to settle down now.

Academics is the prime strength at SPJCM. The professors are of very high quality and thats what keeps us motivated in this frypan of a city.

Also played TT tournament . Its been so many years since I left the game, but still have something left in me. Reached finals of the Men’s doubles. Not bad, especially after piling on this extra kilos.

More later