Thoughts on Vista

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

no reason why it shouldn't. It looks spectacular and has some really nifty features. I went to a Microsoft Camp locally and they said when they were developing Office 2007, they interviewed a shit load of people (in the thousands) and a majority of them said they didn't use about 80% (or more) of the features of MS Office. Reason being there were too many menus and sub menus that made it hard to remember where the features/functions were located and a naming convention for features that most couldn't relate to.

As a result, Office 2007 pretty much did away with menus. The only menus you see are the first level on top such as "File", "Text", Cells" etc. Clicking each of them actually displays icon based buttons of the sub menus that were originally in place in previous versions of Office.

Oven better now is the XML based file-saving for easy sharing of data between various products of the Office suite and even saving your shit in 100% web compliand html files. Built in "standard" Adobe PDF features allows you to create and edit PDFs.

The only downside is that the XML based documents and spreadsheets in office 2007 format are not backward compatible. But you do have the option to save in the older formats.

Couple of screenshots of word and excel below

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

So I got a HDMI to DVI connection and connected my PC to my TV. Holy mother the resolution change from S-Vid to Digital was just a little more than drastic. I couldnt believe how vibrant the colors became and resolution changed from being barely readable at 800 x 600 to crystal clear at 1170 x 900 (yea its a weirdly stretched cause I have a wide screen TV).

But the biggest problem is that I have a single HDMI input which my DVD player is already using. So unless I can find a cable that allows me to connect 2 to 1, I'm gonna end up going back to S-Video.

Any suggestions ?

[miketpoto]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=HDMI+DVI+switcher&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&sa=X&oi=froogle&ct=title

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

cheers for that.... I've been on google all morning trying to find a solution that's not over 40 - 50 bucks.

[toasty]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

OK, never heard back from that dude on craigslist -- must have already sold it, I guess. I've moved on to Plan B, which is the following system:

HP Pavilion Media Center a1620n PentiumD 925 3GHz 1GB 250GB (refurbished)

Relevant Specs:

PROCESSOR
PentiumD 925 (P) DC 3.0 GHz
800 MHz front side bus

MEMORY
Memory Installed 1 GB
Maximum allowed 4 GB* (4 x 1 GB)
Speed supported PC2-4200 MB/sec
Type 240 pin, DDR2 SDRAM

HARD DRIVE
250 GB SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec)
7200 rpm

MULTIMEDIA DRIVE
16X DVD(+/-)R/RW RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe drive

VIDEO GRAPHICS
Intel 945G Integrated graphics

DIGITAL MEDIA
9-in-1 Memory card reader
USB interface

SOUND
Integrated High Definition audio
Realtek ALC 888 chipset
Supports up to 8 audio channels
Dolby Pro Logic II compatible

EXTERNAL PORTS
Front:
9-in-1 (4 slot) + 1 USB One
1394 One
USB Two
Headphone One
Line-in One
Microphone One

Back:
PS2 (keyboard, mouse) Two (one each)
Parallel One
VGA One
USB Four
1394a One
LAN One
SPDIF out (coaxial) One
SPDIF in One
Audio (side speaker out, rear speaker out, center speaker out, line-in, line-out, microphone) One Each

OPERATING SYSTEM
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

TECHNOLOGIES
Viiv
Vista Capable

This one's for sale on uBid. What do you think is a reasonable price on it? Buy it now is $553, I've currently got a bid in at $351. If the auction price starts to climb and the price is within the range of reason (which it seems to be, to me), I might just pull the trigger and get the thing now rather than waiting out the bidding process. There are 7 available, BTW...

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

I wouldnt touch it for more than $400 and that too if he throws in an actual video card with it. That integrated graphics crap is restricted to Laptops - cant believe that shit crawled into a desktop. And to top it all of, its refurbished ? lmao beanz if you read this, I bet my $92 for 220 GB HD is pretty good init

[toasty]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

good to know. Guess I'll be pulling to be outbid, then...

Oh well. It's an extra computer anyway.

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

Toasty, you can get a pretty solid desktop from Circuit City online - I'm in the market for a laptop myself and I've been watching Circuit Citys specials for a few weeks now. Check this

$769.99

Processor type - Core 2 Duo
Processor speed - 1.8GHz

RAM - 2GB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-4200)
RAM expandable to: 4GB
Hard drive size - 320GB
Hard Drive Speed - 7200RPM
Burns DVDs - Yes

Ethernet - Yes
Operating system - Windows? Vista Home Premium


(edit - didnt realize this sucker has embedded vid card too but its a brand new machine and dual core at that)

[toasty]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

Toasty, you can get a pretty solid desktop from Circuit City online - I'm in the market for a laptop myself and I've been watching Circuit Citys specials for a few weeks now. Check this

$769.99

Processor type - Core 2 Duo
Processor speed - 1.8GHz

RAM - 2GB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-4200)
RAM expandable to: 4GB
Hard drive size - 320GB
Hard Drive Speed - 7200RPM
Burns DVDs - Yes

Ethernet - Yes
Operating system - Windows? Vista Home Premium


(edit - didnt realize this sucker has embedded vid card too but its a brand new machine and dual core at that)

One kinda ironic thing, though, is that I'm actually better off without a dual-core processor. I'll be running MAME off of it, and although 95% of the games will run on any old shit, some of the newer games really slow to a crawl on anything slower than 2 gHz. Because MAME can't take advantage of the dual-core processor, though, it's performance would be limited to the speed of one of the cores. At least that's what I understand.

My decision could be made for me if no one outbids me

[toasty]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

Oh, BTW, is there any sort of benchmark out there for comparing the speed of dual core processors with single core? I know that it isn't as simple as just doubling the speed of the dual core. Would be helpful from a comparison standpoint...

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

there's several benchmarking softwares out there. And from personal experience, I can assure you that dual core processing will chew any P4 inside out. I setup a 3.2 ghz P4 and a 1.g GHZ Dual Core machine (in the same afternoon) on our network and installed the standard software that our company uses in addition to the regular antivirus etc. Dude installation time on the Dual Core was 1/3rd of the time of the P4.

I mean the gain was significant enough to motivate me to considering buying a dual core laptop

[toasty]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

good to know. Guess I'll be pulling to be outbid, then...

Oh well. It's an extra computer anyway.

Good news, was just outbid!

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

poor soul who's gonna snag it

[Simon Preston]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

I don't see the problem with getting a motherboard with intergrated graphics. I could so with one right now as that'd be one less cost I'd have to worry about (for the initial outlay anyway). Then when I have come cash, get a PCI-Express card.

[Kamal]

Re: Thoughts on Vista

for a desktop ?