This is a follow up to my recent post, HP’s Shipping Shenanigans.

On Thursday, January 7, I got my laptop back from HP. I excitedly opened it up to find that they did, in fact, fix the problem.

As it turns out, my system had been overheating due to a clogged heatsink. I should have probably checked for this long before it was a problem, and I feel a little dumb for that. Regardless, they replaced the mainboard, and the heatsink/fan assembly. Given my previous experiences with HP’s support, I expected far less.

Not only did they replace these system components, they also replaced the cosmetic components that were damaged. Now, this was also covered under my warranty, but again, given my experience with HP, I didn’t expect them to replace these parts. After all, I had sent the laptop back before to have just these parts replaced, and they instead replaced something else entirely. Something that didn’t need replacing.

To top it all off, they cleaned my entire system of dust and debris. I got it back in like-new condition, all shiny and pretty like the day I bought it.

Wrapping up, I think it’s safe to say HP support has started cleaning their act up, at least a little. I’m much happier with them now than I have been at any point since purchasing my laptop. I may be getting another HP in the future, after all.

So you want to switch from Windows Vista back to Windows XP, eh?

I have one thing to say about that: You’re dumb.

I know your “computer whiz” friend and the Apple Switch commercials want you to think it’s what everyone is doing, and it’s the best decision. But it’s not. Windows Vista has been out for almost a year (Business release date: 11/15/06; Consumer release date: 1/25/07), and I’ve been using it since March. Sure, it has some quirks (takes longer than desired to finish booting, looks/works a little different than XP), but what version of Windows doesn’t? It also has it’s advantages (better memory management, better multi-processor/64-bit support, faster API).

Chances are, if you’ve upgraded your computer to Vista, the reason it “sucks” is that your computer was built 4 years ago with the intent of running Windows XP, and simply doesn’t meet Vista’s requirements. If you’ve bought a new computer, and it sucks, I’m willing to bet you bought the bottom-notch model to save money, and you have a miniscule amount of RAM to work with, and probably only Windows Vista Home Basic.

Am I right? I bought an HP Pavilion dv9230us in March. Sure, it was a little pricy (after all, it is a high performance notebook), but a desktop with the same specs would have been dirt cheap. It came with Vista Home Premium, which I promptly upgraded to Vista Ultimate.

Since I have gotten Windows Vista:

- I have never seen a Blue Screen of Death
- I have NOT had to reinstall
- I have been able to leave my computer on for weeks on end, only putting it in standby to travel between work and home.
- I have had exactly 3 programs that were not compatible with Vista, and since then, all three have new versions that are.

All of these things would have been only pipe dreams with Windows XP.

And you know I’m right.

Stop being a pansy, get more RAM, get a new computer, tell your computer whiz friend to bite it, and don’t listen to the Apple commercials. I know Apple would have you believe that it’s what everyone else is doing, but it’s not. Look at the stats. According to w3schools, the amount of people who use windows Vista on the web increases by nearly 1% every month. Wanna know how much Apple’s users increase every month? Fractions of a percent. Fractions. As a matter of fact, their usage has increased by 0.1% since January. Eat that, Apple.

And your computer whiz friend probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about. As a matter of fact, I’d say it’s safe to say that most of those guys have no idea what they are talking about most of the time. If you really want to know something, either use your brain and look it up, or pay a professional to fix it.

Seriously.

And while you’re at it, switch to Firefox. Internet Explorer sucks. And so does Safari. Trust me, I’m a web developer, I know these things.

I retract my previous statement about Windows Vista sucking. The only problems I have had have been software compatibility, which will fix themselves with time.

If I have to make a suggestion though, go with Vista Ultimate. Home does not give you administrative features and Business does not give you Windows Media Center. Ultimate costs a little more but it will be well worth the extra few bucks.

I do, however, have a few more statements regarding Apple and iTunes. Last week they released iTunes 7.1.1.5. It claims to work “with most 32-bit versions of Windows Vista.” I downloaded and installed it, and it seemed to work fine, although about every third time I start it, it comes up and says it needs to repair itself, then after about 45 seconds I am back on track. Unfortunately, twice now has it ceased working completely, to the point that I have had to uninstall it, restart the computer and reinstall it. That’s not cool.

I am running Vista Home Premium (probably the most common version of Windows Vista) on a Dual-Core HP dv9000. This seems to be a pretty standard set up when compared to the current market.

Steve… are you listening?