Microsoft Windows 7
One of the most ridiculous promotions I think I have ever seen - it failed to even be so dorky is was cool, it was just plain dorky - was the Windows 7 Launch Party promotion that Microsoft, inexplicably, thought would generate some excitement over its newest OS.
If you haven't seen any of it, you can check it out here. And be sure to watch the super-dorky launch party video.
That said, it appears that Windows 7 probably didn't need to do anything so embarrassing - by all accounts, the new OS is pretty good. Of course, that might be at least somewhat related to the fact that Vista, the previous release, was really really execrable. (I don't often get to use that word in polite conversation.) Vista was sort of like the Nanny State of OS's. Like the Mac commercial making fun of it, as soon as you asked to do something even remotely iffy, the OS sent a jack-booted thug to your desktop demanding that you show Identification, a Permit, and offer up your First Born.Oh, but it did all this with style. Evidently it felt that the smooth operation that Apple offered its Mac OS users was all about style, so the "chrome," and the security features (probably because of the amazing lack of security on previous Microsoft OS releases, another non-event for Mac users) were excessive, nay intrusive, and downright annoying enough to keep users away in droves. New computers that came with Vista were promptly returned to the store for an OS downgrade, and users even threatened to sue Microsoft because they couldn't buy a new machine with XP installed by default.
What I have learned about Windows 7 is that it basically corrects all that. Per PC Magazine, "Windows 7, set to arrive on new PCs and as a shrinkwrapped upgrade on October 22, has a minimalist feel and attempts to fix annoyances old and new. In contrast, Windows Vista offered a flashy new interface, but its poor performance, compatibility gotchas, and lack of compelling features made some folks regret upgrading and others refuse to leave Windows XP.
"Windows 7 is hardly flawless. Some features feel unfinished; others won't realize their potential without heavy lifting by third parties. And some long-standing annoyances remain intact. But overall, the final shipping version I test-drove appears to be the worthy successor to Windows XP that Vista never was."
Windows 7 emulates Mac's fisheye application chooser "taskbar," offers some tweaks to the way Explorer digs into your file system (notably a thing called "Libraries," which groups related folders), and minimizes many of the issues users had with "UAC" or User Account Control - that nasty, intrusive, endless prompting about running application and attempts to change settings. (Which actually had the effect of making you want to shut the whole bloody thing off, and expose yourself, naked to the Internet.)
Another cool feature of Windows 7 is a something called "Device Stages." Rather than simply giving you control over downloading photos from a digital camera, for example, a "stage" gives you tools for actually managing the device. Microsoft worked in collaboration with a number of device manufacturers to give a user access to things like battery gauges, user manuals, usage tools, and online accessory stores.
Again taking a cue from the wildly popular iPhone, Windows 7 ships on many touchscreen enabled PCs, and allows the user to scroll through document files and webpages with a finger swipe, or drag and drop icons, or zoom in and out.
The major downside of the new OS is that like every new OS before it, it requires more power to run it smoothly, so if you're working on an older PC, you may want to think twice. Say our friends at PC Magazine, "Here's a rule of thumb that errs on the side of caution: If your PC's specs qualify it to run Vista, get Windows 7; if they aren't, avoid it. Microsoft's official hardware configuration requirements for Windows 7 are nearly identical to those it recommends for Windows Vista: a 1-GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of free disk space, and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics device with a WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. That's for the 32-bit version of Windows 7; the 64-bit version of the OS requires a 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 20GB of disk space."
They also warn that if you're running older hardware and software, you may still run into compatibility issues, so as always, the caveat here is, check out any mission-critical apps or devices before you upgrade.
And my personal advice is, if you're not good 'n' geeky, it's always best to wait for the bugs to be ferreted out and fixed before you swap out a perfectly functional OS. By the time you must upgrade (because the software you now want to run prefers the new OS), the system will be ready for prime time.
But all in all, particularly after the Vista debacle, the early reports are good, and that's good for all of us!
If you haven't seen any of it, you can check it out here. And be sure to watch the super-dorky launch party video.
That said, it appears that Windows 7 probably didn't need to do anything so embarrassing - by all accounts, the new OS is pretty good. Of course, that might be at least somewhat related to the fact that Vista, the previous release, was really really execrable. (I don't often get to use that word in polite conversation.) Vista was sort of like the Nanny State of OS's. Like the Mac commercial making fun of it, as soon as you asked to do something even remotely iffy, the OS sent a jack-booted thug to your desktop demanding that you show Identification, a Permit, and offer up your First Born.Oh, but it did all this with style. Evidently it felt that the smooth operation that Apple offered its Mac OS users was all about style, so the "chrome," and the security features (probably because of the amazing lack of security on previous Microsoft OS releases, another non-event for Mac users) were excessive, nay intrusive, and downright annoying enough to keep users away in droves. New computers that came with Vista were promptly returned to the store for an OS downgrade, and users even threatened to sue Microsoft because they couldn't buy a new machine with XP installed by default.
What I have learned about Windows 7 is that it basically corrects all that. Per PC Magazine, "Windows 7, set to arrive on new PCs and as a shrinkwrapped upgrade on October 22, has a minimalist feel and attempts to fix annoyances old and new. In contrast, Windows Vista offered a flashy new interface, but its poor performance, compatibility gotchas, and lack of compelling features made some folks regret upgrading and others refuse to leave Windows XP.
"Windows 7 is hardly flawless. Some features feel unfinished; others won't realize their potential without heavy lifting by third parties. And some long-standing annoyances remain intact. But overall, the final shipping version I test-drove appears to be the worthy successor to Windows XP that Vista never was."
Windows 7 emulates Mac's fisheye application chooser "taskbar," offers some tweaks to the way Explorer digs into your file system (notably a thing called "Libraries," which groups related folders), and minimizes many of the issues users had with "UAC" or User Account Control - that nasty, intrusive, endless prompting about running application and attempts to change settings. (Which actually had the effect of making you want to shut the whole bloody thing off, and expose yourself, naked to the Internet.)
Another cool feature of Windows 7 is a something called "Device Stages." Rather than simply giving you control over downloading photos from a digital camera, for example, a "stage" gives you tools for actually managing the device. Microsoft worked in collaboration with a number of device manufacturers to give a user access to things like battery gauges, user manuals, usage tools, and online accessory stores.
Again taking a cue from the wildly popular iPhone, Windows 7 ships on many touchscreen enabled PCs, and allows the user to scroll through document files and webpages with a finger swipe, or drag and drop icons, or zoom in and out.
The major downside of the new OS is that like every new OS before it, it requires more power to run it smoothly, so if you're working on an older PC, you may want to think twice. Say our friends at PC Magazine, "Here's a rule of thumb that errs on the side of caution: If your PC's specs qualify it to run Vista, get Windows 7; if they aren't, avoid it. Microsoft's official hardware configuration requirements for Windows 7 are nearly identical to those it recommends for Windows Vista: a 1-GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of free disk space, and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics device with a WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. That's for the 32-bit version of Windows 7; the 64-bit version of the OS requires a 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 20GB of disk space."
They also warn that if you're running older hardware and software, you may still run into compatibility issues, so as always, the caveat here is, check out any mission-critical apps or devices before you upgrade.
And my personal advice is, if you're not good 'n' geeky, it's always best to wait for the bugs to be ferreted out and fixed before you swap out a perfectly functional OS. By the time you must upgrade (because the software you now want to run prefers the new OS), the system will be ready for prime time.
But all in all, particularly after the Vista debacle, the early reports are good, and that's good for all of us!
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