This is going to be very exciting. Simply Googling the phrase “Windows 7″ will return countless rave reviews, and as a tester, I can back up every last one of them. Windows 7 runs faster than Windows XP on my 2004 Dell Dimension testing machine. It’s quick, pretty, and easy to use. It’s clean, and smooth. If you haven’t had a chance to try it, you may want to scuffle on over to Microsoft.com soon and give it a shot before the Release Candidate is no longer publicly available.

As for me, I will be purchasing it the day it is released. I have never been this excited about a Windows release before. Actually, I don’t think I’ve been this excited about ANY software release. For serious!

One of the primary reasons I am so excited about Windows 7 is that it is Microsoft’s chance to slap Apple in the face just as equally as Apple did to them with the Apple Switch commercials of 2006-2009. Windows Vista was not a bad operating system. I promise. I have been using it since a few weeks after it was released, and I have never experienced a single one of the problems that everyone says it has. Granted, I bought a computer that met the damned hardware requirements. Apparently those mean nothing to some people, and running a brand new OS on a 6yr old computer should be no problem at all.

I mean, look at it this way: You can’t drive a Ferarri on a dirt road. Well, I guess you can, but it’s not going to be fun. Unless it’s someone else’s Ferrari, of course. Then it’ll be a blast! Am I losing the point here?

Seriously. When you upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows XP, you needed more RAM (and a faster processor helped significantly as well). When you upgraded from OS9 to OSX Tiger, you needed a whole new friggin computer! Snow Leopard will not work on any computer built before 2006 (Yeah, I know. It’s ridiculous.). How is this any different from needing a computer with a 1Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM for an upgrade to Vista? it’s not.

Windows 7, however, has the same hardware requirements as Vista did. That’s what it says on the box anyway. For those of us that have tried it, we know better. It runs just fine on a computer that’s not half as good as the “required” hardware. This is where Microsoft will win. While Apple is dropping older hardware, Microsoft is actually picking it up. A computer that wouldn’t run Vista will, in many cases, run Windows 7 just fine.

Kudos, Microsoft. You’ve done us well. Please please please please keep this philosophy. I’d like to see what you ahve in store for future versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Mobile 7. I’m really getting tired of my iPhone.

I’ve been putting it off for months, because I didn’t want to deal with the possible issues of upgrading to 2.8 from 2.0 (there were several versions in the middle that I missed). Looks like I could have done it a long time ago and been fine.

Anyway, let me know if you encounter any issues or oddities with the site. Thanks!

Have a look at this Lifehacker post, where the current beta of Chrome, the current beta of the upcoming Firefox 3.1, and the current beta of Internet Explorer 8 are compared for Javascript & CSS performance, startup times, and memory usage.

From what I’ve seen across the web and in my own experience, the new Google Chrome sits right next to Firefox 3. Take that, Microsoft.

http://lifehacker.com/5044668/beta-browser-speed-tests-which-is-fastest

At the leaast, they’ve added the App Store and a new feature that allows you to control your iTunes remotely from anywhere with a wi-fi connection.  That’s cool and all (okay, so it’s REALLY cool), but I still use Windows Vista, and Apple still hasn’t been able to make iTunes work correctly with the Vista Aero interface…

Since Windows Vista came out over a year and a half ago, iTunes has had this problem (see screenshot below).  C’mon Apple, will you fix it?  Pretty please?  With a cherry on top?

Who wants to help me start a petition to Microsoft to force an upgrade to at least IE7, and IE8 when it is released?

I think with Service Pack 3, a newer version of Internet Explorer should be part of the package.  Internet Explorer 6 still being used by about a third of the web population is really starting to hold back the rest of the internet.  It’s time to put this beast to a rest!

Available for download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/sp1.mspx

After using SP1 for about 2 weeks, I have to say, I’m impressed. I have not had to reboot my computer yet! As I’ve outlined before, I use the crap out of this bad boy. At any given time, I have all of Adobe CS3, most of Microsoft Office, Firefox, Internet Explorer, 2 messengers, Outlook, Thunderbird, Apache, Filezilla, and any number of other specialized apps I need for work. I do this for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

So, stability… yes. They have definitely improved stability. I’ll get back to you with more…

If you’re dumb like me, and want to try it, here’s the link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/default.mspx

So, I installed it on Windows XP SP2, and started using it. I am not lying here, I used it for 5 minutes (yes, 5 minutes) before I found a bug.

Now, let me clarify why this is such a monumental thing that I must blog about it. I expected bugs, it’s Internet Explorer. What I didn’t expect was new bugs. When Microsoft released IE7, they fixed a lot of the bugs that IE6 had. Not all of them, but a lot. So, naturally, I was hoping to see at least a few more bugs fixed. You’ll never guess what I found…

A new bug. Something that worked quasi-correctly in IE6 and IE7, that works completely backwards (yes, backwards) in IE8. z-index, a CSS property designed to set the stack order of positioned elements (lamens terms: lets me make stuff appear to be on top of other stuff, or stacked), actually works completely backwards in IE8.

Microsoft, can you do anything right? That’s not be being a dick… That’s me sincerely asking you. Can you?

“Anything you can do, I can do better”

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?

Vista has been out for home overs for almost 2 months. You, Apple, had a few years to prepare for the shift, much like everyone else did. Why didn’t you? Are you too caught up in your “Apple Switch” commercials to realize that the vast majority of market share still lies with you competitor? Here’s an idea, make your Windows using iPod owners happy with the product they bought from you. Don’t slack on compatibility! Since iTunes 7 first came out it has been nothing but a disaster for Windows users.

Come on Steve, you can do it! -goo-chee-goo-chee-goooooo-

Today, 7.1 came out, and still no sign of Vista compatibility…