• I upgraded the eee PC by adding a 2GB memory stick. Although the stock standard installation of Xandros only recognises the first gigabite of that memory, I think it was a worthwhile upgrade in anticipation of further “upgrades” to come. I have been able to simultaneously open a couple of documents in Open Office, several tabs in a couple of Firefox windows and play some MP3s without too much difficultly. I’m interested in going further though and looking at putting Ubuntu on the machine to have a look at how it handles things.

• I applied Vista SP1 to my laptop (HP 6710). I have 4GB of ram in there and finally it all shows up in the Syem Properties. Whether it’s being used is a different matter of course! This is the best installation of Vista that I have done (out of about 25) and I was a bit aprehensive about applying all of the “updates” but in the end it has all worked out OK. And yes, again I did backup first.

• Last night I gave in and upgraded this site to Wordpress 2.5 RC1. I backed up first – I have an automatic backup of all the sites that I look after happen every weekend – and uploaded the files. The upgrade was smooth and, so far, everything appears to be cooperating. I like the look of the new dashboard, and am particularly happy with the new addition of the full screen button – less clutter! I am looking forward to testing the new “Add Media” component of the “Write” page. More about that at the end of this post.

• This afternoon I got a tad side-tracked by the latest fad. Muxtape is a 21st century way of sharing your favourite music with your friends aka the old fashioned mixtape. It’s super simple – upload 12 MP3s, sort out the order and share the URL. My Muxtape is here – today it’s a mellow late afternoon playlist taken from the first twelve songs from my favourite iPod playlist. I could change things tomorrow by uploading some different songs. It’s simplicity is its strength – although I’d love to see a few stats. Who else likes Cordova from the Indigo Girls? And how many other people have played my Muxtape? I’m sure it will all come. Of interest I can’t play any Muxtapes in Firefox on either my laptop (Vista) or the eee PC. I think it might be something to do with the extensions that I have installed. I need to rouse myself and troubleshoot it further.

• The other job that I’ve been doing over the last few days is putting together a P4 2.8GHz machine for my daughter and her family. Their old Celery is dreadfully slow so I have put together some old parts and got a nice machine for them to use. It’s a nice solid P4, 1.5GB ram, DVD RW and has 180GB of hard drive space for them to collect photos of my grandchildren. It’s running Xp but after that I loaded Open Office and a whole lot of other free and open source programmes. Hopefully it will suit them for a little while.

And so to “Add Media”. Firstly an image:

Easy. The options are really clear and easy to follow. And, incidentally, checkout a whole gallery of Last Supper pictures (I know – Easter is over …).

And a link to a YouTube (make sure that you have your headphones on):

The Virtual Barber

or via the embed media button in the advanced options:

Which may or may not be something that Artichoke mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago? It’s definitely worth the five minutes it takes to watch / listen / think about.

Related posts:

1. Flash Problems
2. Vista on the Tablet
3. Getting the Jobs Done

Early impressions:

Good

• Vista installed very easily.
• Tablet functionality is excellent – a vast improvement on the earlier software. Handwriting recognition is much better.
• Aero glass looks good. Even though the graphics score of this machine is only 3.0 it looks great.
• I installed Ultimate Edition so I have access to Media Centre. Looks good – as above. I don’t think that my aging TV card will work under Vista. Might need to find a new one.
• It seems to be more stable than XP. I hope that I am not tempting fate here!
• Ready Boost – it’s happening, and I think I’m faster!

Bad

• I have set Firefox to be my default browser but Vista doesn’t listen – I am not impressed with the fact that I can’t get IE7’s new tabs to open in the background.
• I haven’t got Remote Desktop or Logmein working to my server yet. I haven’t tried hard though.
• Constant dialogue boxes and “are you sure?” questions could drive me demented very quickly.

EDIT: I am not impressed with having to go to the Microsoft Site and download the Mobilie Device Centre to get my iPaq Pocket PC to synchronise with Vista. That’s something that should have been sorted for RTM.

Indifferent

• The sidebar. Not sure yet.
• I haven’t got the power options sorted yet.

The geek in me wants the latest and greatest operating system on my computer. The pragmatist knows that it’s really important to get my work done on a well functioning computer. At this point I won’t be dropping my XP partition anytime soon. Certainly I’ll get more work done on Vista because it won’t let me do my usual morning’s scoot through FeedDemon opening masses of links in the background for a later peruse . On the other hand I think it could be faster than XP and I haven’t had the annoying 20-30 second freeze that is an annoying ‘feature’ of Tablet Edition on the M00.

There are a couple of things concerning me about Vista – one being the DRM and content protection measures built into the operating system (read here). On the other hand, in my line of work I will be asked to support Vista reasonably early this year.

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
2. Tablet Apostasy
3. MS Vista

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On getting noticed:

Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw.

Nicholas Carr looks at the hierarchy of the blogosphere. The A-Listers bite back.

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You just have to look at this great piece of Flash: Animator vs Animation

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is this a JAP (Just Another Photoshop)? Via jkOnTheRun

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And from my I-want-it-no-I-need-it-now-well-its-probably-not-available-in-NZ tags: the iGo PowerXtender Battery Operated Charger.

Related posts:

1. Linkeracy – 14th August 2006
2. Linkeracy – 16th August 2006
3. Linkeracy – 26th August 2006

According to the blurb,

It enables a new level of confidence in your PC and in your ability to get the most out of it.

It introduces clear ways to organize and use information the way you want to use it.

It seamlessly connects you to information, people, and devices that help you get the most out of life.

It’s very interesting that the brave new world of computing is now about getting, storing and organising “information, people, and devices”. A quick flick over to the Wikipedia where they’ve already noticed the Microsoft announcement. Interesting though is this reference to vista from Tolkein. Now I get it. It’s really a middle earth thing.

Related posts:

1. Vista on the Tablet
2. Getting the Jobs Done