What on earth Microsoft, what on earth.

Windows XP is the best operating system ever made. In my opinion that is and a fair few other peoples. I love it and will use it untill I am no longer able to.

Windows Vista I don't mind. When I was running it I had little to no trouble with it apart from a pretty hefty decrease in my gaming performance. I don't think it's as bad as some people make it out to be although I can see where they are coming from. It's deffinatly not worth the money.

Now Windows 7 is scheduled for release in 2010 to replace Vista. Kind of what happened with Windows ME, it was so poor MS got XP out pretty fast to replace it.

I'm keen to try Windows 7 but after seeing this series of screenshots I don't know what to think. Obviously it's still in development but my god. Take a look for yourself



That.. Had better not be the new WMP. I love WMP for my music, not so much my video as I find WMP Classic to be more reliable. Look how childish and kiddy it looks! It looks like a bath toy not a media player. WMP 11 is fine. Don't fix what isn't broken and WMP 11 is far from broken (I am aware that point could be argued for days but I don't care, this is my blog and obviously it contains my opinion) If I am forced to use this one day I will be begging the creator of Amarok to make a version compatible for Windows as I've used this on Ubuntu and it's a really really really good media player.

The following set of screenshots show the Windows desktop with what could and hopefully will be a different set of themes as they are a bit over the top and not to my like at all.







This next one isn't too bad though. Just needs to tone down on the transparency.



Still I prefer the UI of XP with a nice simple theme and a dock such as the Zune Desktop Theme and RK Launcher.

The new Windows Media Center isn't looking too shabby, pretty nice I think.

I wont be able to make my final judgment on what it looks and performs like untill it's released but I'm really hoping that MS make the UI a bit more normal and try not to rely so heavily on 3rd party applications. Windows is really needing the ability to open and view simple files like a .PDF without a 3rd party app like Acrobat or Foxit. Something even like Preview in Mac OS X would be good..

Images and more from here

Screencast and Intelligence test.

Just finished my screencast before. It's about setting up a Mac with the wireless network at school, will be uploading it tomorrow.

Also just did that intelligence test for IT. Rather random I must say.

Ghoooooooooooooooooooooooooooosting.

Yesterday in IT, Jack Miller a few other people and I ghosted a couple of the Dell laptops for the science class. It was extremely easy. No trouble at all, apart from the ghost server not having network drivers for the d610 laptops, this prevented us from doing all this last week.

All in all, it was really easy and I showed a couple of people how to do it. Woo go me :D

Digital Distribution

Digital distribution is exactly what is sounds like, distributing goods digitally. I'm pretty sure everyone who is going to read this knows what it is and may have even participated in 'legal' digital distribution.

Now I know this is not new at all but some companies, one being Microsoft think this is the key new medium (Personally I think they shifted their beliefs into this gear so quickly due to the fact HD-DVD got annihilated by Blu-Ray)

Well I don't. It's stupid, If I'm going to pay for something I'd much rather have a hard copy of it. I'd much rather have all my games, movies, music and whatever else as physical objects not data on my HDD, why?

1. It uses your bandwith - Internet costs in Australia are pretty expensive so unless you are fairly well off you probably have a rather mediocre plan. Probably something like.. say, 512kbs with anywhere from 5Gb to unlimited downloads. An Internet plan truly not worthy of DD. So if you're someone with a download limit you're either going to get your net shaped to a much lower speed or you're going to find yourself with a massive Internet bill at the end of the month. Imagine downloading a game that are the size of DVDs and sometimes dual layer DVDs. My 'on-peak' limit is 5Gb so I'd be shaped pretty much instantly if I were to download a game. $30 game + $44 for my Internet cost and what do I get? A virtual copy of my game and Internet that crawls along with dial-up for a month? I don't think so.

2. Physical proof - What's better? Having all your games on your HDD? Or having them all in the physical world. I think the latter. Looks better and you can show them off (if you're that type of person) It is generally cheaper to buy the game online but that comes with hassles. On the website Direct2Drive.com you can get Unreal Tournament 3 for $29.92 (I think that may be a special at the time of writing this as the price of $49.95 is crossed out) Be it either of those prices it's cheaper than in stores. If you went to JB, Big W or wherever you go you'd probably be looking at something like $70 through to $100 if you're really unlucky. So imagine your HDD fails and you want to play UT 3 again, have fun downloading it again while I simply re-install it.

Plus when you buy the physical version you get a cool box and maybe a manual. I find manuals are not as common with PC games while being standard in console games. Seriously though I find it hard to actually find the words to describe how much better owning a physical copy is. It's just.. One of those things. Would you rather have a physical dog or a Tamagotchi?

3. The Internet in Australia sucks. Australia's broadband service is among the worlds worst. It's overpriced and with silly bandwith caps I don't see how MS could even think of digital distribution, and that's just Australia. I'd hate to see Internet plans in some lesser developed countries.

I'm sure there are a host of other reasons why DD sucks but these are my main reasons to hate it.

Now, of course we are well off seeing DD as any form of mainstream media distribution and by the time that happens.. If that happens. Things will be different in broadband and telecommunication services.

Links
Wiki
Direct2Drive
MS for DD