Windows 7

Microsoft used the GITEX week to platform the launch of Windows 7 in the region as the timing was very convenient. Nevertheless they brought a high level VP to give the preview to a tech hungry audience.

I have been waiting for some time for this to get to public launch and I had a sneaky desire that I really wanted to get my hands  on it.

Over the last year or so I have been following the various pre-releases and even installed a couple of them but for day to day computing I can’t deal with alpha or beta software. One thing I have learned in computing is that above all else, stability or reliability is key to my own personal sanity.

As with most people I have been using with Windows since Window 3.1 – I was blown away with Windows 95  - it was the first time that the pc user had a real multimedia operating system from Microsoft and the subsequent release of Windows 98 was a good improvement. Following this I made the vow that I would buy OS’s and avoid the world of “warez” – but I was a poor student back then. Piracy just does not go hand in hand with reliability.

With this decision of buying Operating systems the first one I brought was Windows ME. As we know now this went down in the annals of history as the single worse operating system from Microsoft and probably any that has been commercially released since. It would crash and blue screen so much that I was convinced that I had faulty hardware. Turns out my PC was fine it was the pile of garbage that I was installing on it that was the problem.

After all of these issues with Window ME (Mistake Edition) I couldn’t get on to Windows XP fast enough and I still have the original boxes as the keys are really useful for Virtual Machines. While XP had its flaws security and application compatibility wise these were well understood – once they finally had decent wifi support in service pack 2 (2004!) it quickly became a well used OS. While not perfect, PC hardware quickly caught up and it gave home users a well performing platform for games and office tasks. In fact it is still around today and I happily use XP on my netbook.

Once Vista was released I immediately upgraded. A lot of people didn’t but I was really keen to get a proper 64bit OS and I found that XP-64 had really poor driver support after having an abortive flirtation with it. Vista had its teething problems – the UAC still bugs the hell out of me and I couldn’t believe that despite being a brand new operating system with shiny 64 bit engine, basic file management was slower than XP. Unforgivable really.

I thought that service pack one would address things – but it wasn’t until service pack 2 that Vista really became an OS that was dependable and fast. It only took Microsoft two and half years to get there. Sadly, huge corporates had voted with their feet and resolutely refused to migrate to Vista and stuck to XP (and the awful Internet Explorer 6 – browsers are a topic of a whole other essay).

Quite rightly Microsoft acted and pulled forward the release of Windows 7 from mid 2010 to 2009 – a remarkable feat for an Operating System. I did install the final release candidate of Windows 7 to give it a bit of a test drive but all the dire warnings of hourly reboots once it had expired gave me the jitters so I patiently waited for launch day.

So Thurday 22nd October rolls around and I am way too busy with GITEX and Japan to give a second thought to Windows 7. The following day while seeing off the last of my hangover I purchased a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition – upgrade version (899 aed) and set to work getting it going. While most people would be fine with the Home Premium version of Windows 7 I am never one to settle for anything less than “full options”"

Microsoft have employed some region locking on the disks and my copy could only be activated in the Middle East. Not a problem for me of course but an issue if you are buying to take advantage of the slightly cheaper pricing here:

I am fortunate enough to have a very modern computer (3 months old) and even luckier to have a spare SSD drive to install it on – thus saving my previous Vista build should anything go wrong.

The install was flawless with all devices being found and the whole process taking less than thirty minutes. There were also relatively few updates to do (the last time I buily a Vista system it took nearly a day to do all the system patching) and Windows 7 was ready for me to battle test.

You don’t really get much in the way of apps with Windows 7 (unlike OSX for instance) and I set about getting some “core apps” on board – Avast antivirus, MS Office, Chrome, Firefox, Thunderbird, Picasa, Digsby, Spotify, Skype, Mozy. VLC Player and some proper codecs for video and audio support. I was pleased to see everything installed and worked properly – a good start.

Now onto usage. Much has been touted about the “streamlining” of Windows 7 so some thoughts – after a rather large pre-amble:

1. UAC – this hideous invention now bows its ugly head and Windows 7 silently gets on with what you are doing. Once in a while it will pop up and say hello but it is much less frequent

2. Taskbar – this has been totally reworked so that it really is a task bar. They have take the best from OSX and made it better. Now you can pin applications to the task bar so no need really to use the old start button. The advantage now is that when you hover over an application in the task bar it gives you a mini preview of each of the instances you have open of said application. Even better hovering over one of those previews highlights that one window hiding everything else till selected or you move off. It is really well done and sets Windows 7 aside from previous versions.

3. Stability and Performance - it is just as fast as Vista SP2, the start up shutdown and hibernate functions are all very quick now. From a stability point of view I have had some application crashes (stupid outlook) but the OS has been stable and I have had no lock up so far. But time will be the only real test of just how stable this is.

4. Aero snap – dragging a window to the top of the screen automatically maximises it. Kind of good but has been annoying when I am shifting stuff around and I get repeated full screen applications.

Windows 7 has been warmly received by the press. Sure it is expensive but from a user and technology point of view – this is what they were trying to do with Vista and failed.

Microsoft owed it to the world to deliver a home user operating system that they could be proud of and they have finally delivered. Sure there are some irritations and there will be security issues but it finally just works.

aadictedtotech rating – 8.5/10 – fast, stable and easy to use now. If you need to use the windows environment then this is the best ever and you can safely leave XP or whatever else you had and step into a brave new world. Now if only they would make it about 20% cheaper.

All this for a Fiver?

Back in the day (1999), before the RIAA understood what the Internet or Peer to Peer was, I was addicted to Napster. All of a sudden there was this ability to get all manner of music. But as suddenly as it was there it was quite rightly taken away. So when Napster re-invented themselves as a legal place to buy music it was rather overshadowed by the mighty iTunes store and I never gave it a second look.

However with the recent surge in press around Spotify, Napster have had to do something. They cut their price from GBP 9.99 a month to GBP 5 a month. Now for access to 8 million tracks (nearly twice as many as Spotify) and the ability to download and “own” 5 tracks a month this really is rather a good deal. So despite having a subscription to Spotify I thought I would try it for three months. As they give you one month free as a trial you get three months for the princely sum of a tenner. Bargain. After this it settles down to a fiver a month.

My initial thoughts on this are:

1. Value – really good and the ability to keep some tracks – I will probably save them up and get an album

2. Interface – while the Spotify Client is genius in its simplicity the Napster interface does not seem to have moved on in the last ten years. I really dislike using it.

3. Play-lists – Spotify’s user collaboration play-lists are awesome. However I like the way Napster has a whole slew of ready to go play-lists. From their Top 100 to play-lists for dinner parties and even the style of mood for said dinner party. I thought this was excellent and made for a quick start into enjoying some new tunes and old classics

4. Bitrate – Spotify premium subscribers get the option to switch up from the regular 160kbps to 320kbps (the highest of any online service) while Napster streams at a reasonable 128kbps for the UK service and downloads are a moderate 192kbps. In some blind A to B tests the difference is quite noticeable with vocals sounding thin and bass overblown. However, for casual and not critical listening it is acceptable

5. Sonos Intergration – I will be writing a Sonos review soon and the long and short of it is that I love it. Napster’s killer blow is that it has seamless integration into the beautiful remote control of the Sonos. To quote one of the original iPod ads “It makes me feel powerful” that kid was talking about 1000 tracks, I am talking about 8 million. The other great thing is that Napster on the Sonos platform with the remote control is a real joy to use. Sadly, there is no Spotify client integration at the moment (Sonos have tantalised us in the press but nothing yet) however hooking a pc running Sonos into the line-in input gives a reasonable work around, but it is not quite the same

addictedtotech rating: 7/10 – if it was not for the Sonos integration I would rate Napster as only 5/10 as the PC client is hard to use and the streaming quality is only ok. However if you do have a Sonos I would say that at a fiver a month it is unmissable.  If you don’t have Sonos – go and subscribe to Spotify.

10 Spotify Playlists

I thought I might share some of my favourite Spotify play lists after a friend of mine messaged me today that he had become a premium Spotifybased on my last post.

1. Ronski’s RnB Boot Shakin’ Mix – self explanatory

2. B@1 – based on the music they play in my favourite cocktail bar in London

3. 00s - some great rock tracks that define the naughties

4. X-Factor – because I am enjoying the TV Show at the moment

5. The UK Top 40 Albums in August

6. Gym Bunny – For hardcore training sessions

7. SingStar – Volume 1 from UK PS3 disc

8. SingStar – Volume 2 from UK PS3 disc

9. SingStar – Volume 3 from UK PS3 disc

10. SingStar  – Volume 4 from UK PS3 disc

Bonus

11. All the songs I have brought from the SingStar Store

I put most of these together myself one evening while I was feeling industrious and gave me a glorious kick start into the world of Spotify.

iTunes Be Gone

In a recent post I wrote about Spotify. The truth is at the time I liked it but a couple of things really held me back from delivering the glowing report it deserves.

At the time of the review I honestly felt that the library of songs they had available was a little limited and I did not understand at the time of sharing and collaborative playlists.

I am now in love with Spotify. Enough in fact to pay for a year’s subscription up front. Let me tell you why:

1. The music library has grown dramatically over the last few months – there are a few noticeable absentees (Beatles, ACDC and Metallica)

2. Sharing and collaborative playlists have given lots of access to playlists without some computer deciding what I might like – this is a far better approach than Genius in iTunes. I have found to consume all my PCs compute cycles, won’t let me play a song or do anything useful while it is “busy” and the end result is all a bit hit and miss

3. Mobility – Spotify have recently released the iPhone, Andriod and S60 versions of their client. I have been using it on my iPod touch over the last four weeks and it is a great first effort and easy to use. Its killer feature however is the ability to cache playlists you select for offline listening. This is amazing! Never now will I have to battle with iTunes. Never will I have music without album art of ugly labeling i.e. <track 1>.

It is limited to 3333 songs. But it turns out that about 2000 songs is more than enough for me to have 20 playlists and all of the top 40 Albums in the  UK chart. The best bit is though when you add a song to a playlist on your pc it is automatically updated on the iPod no need to sync. It just does it.

4. Laptop – Spotify last week have just given their desktop client the ability to have offline caching of playlists. Great for laptop users and personally awesome for when I am travelling with my netbook. Though I did have a surprise when I
enabled it and suddenly was out of space on my C drive – always worth checking that Spotify is using the right disk or directory for storage.

5. Quality – As a paying subscriber not only do I get the offline features, no ads but also the ability to listen to a higher bit rate version of the song for my listening pleasure

It is simply brilliant. For £10 a month I have four million plus tracks at my finger tips and I can bring my favorites with me on the move. It makes iTunes redundant for me now and I can not tell you how much this makes me happy. I am now left wondering what to do with the 250gb of music I have stored – but I have a solution to this (stay tuned)

additecdtotech rating – 10/10 – £10 a month for nearly every song you could wish for and the ability to have songs synced to your mobile device automatically. I think we will be using Spotify as a verb in a few years time. Just like we use Google – only this time for music -

“Have you heard the new Chilli Peppers song?”

“One sec, let me just Spotify it”

My Pipe has Expanded

I was looking at some old posts as I tidied up this site earlier today and nearly a year ago I was very pleased about getting 12 Mbps internet. Du has continued to work on its network and as the result of the their investment into their backbone they are now offering improved services.

The first thing I got excited about was an upgrade (at no extra cost) from 12 Mbps to 24 Mbps. Despite it being expensive ($204 a month) at least I have the option to choose this service. Below is a chart of the different offerings:

Having had this speed for a couple of months I am overall really pleased with the service. Typical web browsing is a good experience and HD streaming sites like Revision 3 are now a joy to visit. I have benchmarked the speed and I can easily achieve full line speed late in the evenings. I think there is some traffic shaping but I rarely see anything less that 16Mbps at peak times. The best bit – there are no bandwidth caps. I didn’t realise just how good this was till I was in the UK recently and realised that you pay dearly for having a true unlimited download package from an ISP. Now if only I could get a service with really low latency – I would be ecstatic.

The more recent service that I am happy to see is the introduction of a High Definition (HD) TV service. When I left the UK mid 2006 HD was something that had yet to be launched to the general public and in the interim three years has become defacto with most of my friends (even my Mum has HD TV now!)

The DU HD TV service involves getting new decoders and an engineer to come and install them. After a four week wait I got them installed last weekend. The set top box appears to be a Tatung model with the added bonus of acting as a PVR allowing the recording of TV shows for viewing later (I didn’t realise how much I had missed simple VCR functionality). It looks quite slick:

The good thing is that the new HD box has HDMI output for easy hook up into the rest of my home cinema gear. The options for HD display are 720p and 1080i and with the right HD content the output is really quite decent. Below is a photo (excuse the light reflection) of “Chuck and Larry” from the Showtime HD channel and it is on a par with DVD quality.

If I look at the three key areas for HD TV I rate the picture to be a really good improvement, the sound to be an excellent improvement and the EPG (Electronic Program Guide) to be a huge step forward. Now with picture in picture channel surfing and easy to set-up recording of shows it is very friendly in use. The downside of all the promise of HD TV is that there is still a lot of content in regular standard definition which now looks even worse in direct comparison.

It is great to see the service provides Du and Etisalat now bringing these offerings to consumers in Dubai and pulling home entertainment onto a par with other parts of the world. I am interested to see what else is in the pipeline maybe 50Mbps home internet or a wider variety of HD content – either way it is all upside for the regular Joe.

Six Great Web 2.0 Applications I can't live without

As a self confessed geek and web addict, the advent of Web 2.0 and the almost seamless integration between desktop and on-line applications and services is so powerful. Here are a few that I find absolutely essential and use on a daily basis:

1. Chrome

The browser from google. While I am a huge advocate of Firefox I find that on my netbook Chrome’s turbo mode is fantastic for editing blogs at high speed. Chrome is also my browser of choice on systems with limited capabilities i.e. my Netbook

2. Picasa and Picasa Web Albulms

The photos on this blog are hosted on Picasa Web albums which integrates beautifully with Picasa allowing me to quickly share photos with people. Picasa is a gem of a photo organizing and lightweight image correction tool. I currently have over 30,000 photos in my collection and I can surf through them at blazing speed. I also really like the plug in for facebook which makes uploading a whole album of photos a breeze.

3. Spotify

A mate of mine was telling of some amazing web based replacement for iTunes. It kind of interested me so I want to check it out, this was further reinforced with a vast selection of tunes available. The sad thing was that being based in the UAE the free ad-sponsored version was not available but the premium paid for version was. I thought I would try it out and have enjoyed having a perfectly tagged selection of music at my finger tips.

4. Digsby

I admit it. I am hoplessly addicted to social networking. Similar to the way that reality TV grabbed me when I first saw Big Brother some years ago. The issue with this whole Web 2.0, user generated content trend is that to keep up to date with it all means a sprawl of web browsers open all over ones computer.

I read about Digsby on Lifehacker and thought I would try it out. It consolidates instant messaging (MSN, facebook, Yahoo messenger, AIM and ICQ), social networking (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and email (Google, Hotmail and Yahoo). As I regularly use nearly all of these services I find Digsby a boon. I now only have to log into one application to see everything I need. If I want more detail on any one thing it is all hotlinked to the appropriate website. It is neat if you can get used to its interface. I would describe it as a “stock ticker” of social networking. It is a real shame it is not available on Mac OSX.

5. Xobni

I get an overwhelming amount of email. Not just circulars but things that I need to action on a regular basis. As a longterm user of Thunderbird the switch to Outlook was painful to say the least. Xobni is a plugin to outlook that I find invaluable. It scans all email that I have sent and recieved and discovers links to those emails.

Who do I email the most? Who emails me the most? What files have I shared with that person? It answers in blazing fast speed these and many more questions. Xobni is built on an ethos that we organize are thoughts not around topics but around people and their networks. As a result, threaded conversations are highighted. Also if you are connected on LinkedIn or Facebook  to that person their profile is provided in the Xobni window. It really is a super useful plug in but I found I needed a powerful computer to run this on, so I don’t run it on my netbook for instance. Again, a real shame it is not available on Mac OSX.

6. Mozy

My photos and a number of documents I have on my computer are irreplaceable. While I have some folder syncing going on giving me multiple copies which is great for convenience. But having an offsite back up then I can access anytime is really what I want. I am happy to pay for such a service to protect my valuable digital assets I have spent sometime researching online back up tools. The good news there are plenty of them. A little status update on Twitter/Facebook led to a flood of recommendations. These were:

Dropbox, Mozy, Carbonite, SafeCopyBackup, BackupMax, Cloudberrydrive and Zenfolio

I really liked Dropbox as a service that is beautifully integrated into the OS shell, and I use it for quick filesharing. However, it was just too expensive for the 60gb of online storage I wanted. This was a similar story for the others too.

I settled on Mozy which for a very reasonable $4 a month (with voucher) I get unlimited online storage. There is a nice tool which is set and forget – but the downside with all online back up programs is that getting it all online for 60gb is going to take about two weeks of constant uploading. However, once done the incremental updates are a breeze. So far I am about halfway through uploading my photo library and I will be glad when it is done.

Blog is on the Run

After a love affair with Sony Ericsson phones for more than 10 years last week this ended. Why? I have always admired their style and more recently their advances in camera phone technology made for an attractive package. The last model I brought the c902, exmplefied these features. But when a mobile phone can’t perform basic tasks like letting me answer a call everytime. Not freezing during basic navigation, not allowing the use of the keypad during a call to interact with a IVR menu. I also expect a phone not to mute the other line for five seconds at random intervals. In short, just not useable. I am over it. All I want is something reliable.

I had a look at the bewildering choice of phones on the market. It was a hard choice to make.

I ruled out windows mobile phones, I tried the interface on a PDA a while ago and I did not like it. I also decided that I would avoid the smaller brands like LG, samsung and other niche vendors. When you discount all of that the choice narrows significantly basically leaving nokia.

There are basically two options their N series Symbian based smart phones and the more regular nokia interface. I looked hard at the symbian phones particularly the N85. However I just could not get excited about it and I did not really want to learn a new interface. And that is when it struck me. I wanted a smart phone which is reliable and has an interface that I all ready knew. The answer was clear an iPhone.

It has only been a couple of days with with iPhone so a little early to make a judgement. However I have written this blog on the iPhone with the help of an excellent wordpress app. All of a sudden mobile blogging has become a reality.

Waiting for a Star to Fall

OK I admit it. While I love the Playstation 3 for its wide games catalogue, photo and divx handling as well as Blu-Ray movie capability. Hands down the single best thing it does for me is SingStar.  The simple fact that SingStar, while essentially Karaoke, provides a competitive edge to it with its on screen scoring system and has provided a compelling source of entertainment over the last year for me and my friends. We often find a BBQ, a few drinks and later some SingStar make for an enjoyable evening.

I am a horrible singer at the best of times and sadly the game gives no extra point for interpretation or flair. But I give anyone extra kudos for taking part with gusto. The other nice bonus is that it has allowed me to discover a few bands I had previously not paid much attention to i.e Coldplay

The problem with any Karaoke style game is the catalogue of songs you have at your disposal. As the Depeche Mode song goes “I just can’t get enough”

This leads to a publishers dream of extra content sales – and I have gone the whole hog on it. Not only do I own SingStar Volume 1,2 and 3 as well as the new Abba disc I have downloaded from the online store a further 100 tracks (from a choice of 500) – but somehow one is always wanting more. And today Sony delivered, by allowing the PS2 SingStar discs to be played on the PS3 – suddenly opening a huge back catalogue of hundreds of tracks previously unavailable to PS3 owners. (I feel a trip to amazon.com in my near future) 

Instead of boring everyone with the ridiculous songs I have brought, I thought I would compile my top five list:

Best One Hit Wonder Song:

To Be With You – Mr Big (also wins best refrain)

Best Power Ballad:

Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler  (also wins best haircut)

Best Song for Taking on all comers:

Fix You – Coldplay (one of the few songs I can get a decent score on)

Best Duet:

Its Tricky – Run DMC (I love being Run)

Cheeziest Song:

Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla (a hard choice)

I highly recommend SingStar to anyone wanting some lighthearted fun. As can be seen by Ursula and Renata seen here singing their hearts out:

Part of this post appeared in the Gulf News.

Netbook Affair

Pick up any PC magazine or go into any electrical store or even Carrefour  and you will see a veritable cornucopia of tiny, diny, weeny laptops. Now affectionately none as netbook.

I did not realise just how big the netbook phenomenon had become till a few days in the UK. Sure you see a couple of Acer or Asus models in the UAE. In the UK it seems that everyone is in on the game with models on display from MSI, Samsung, Dell, Acer, Asus, Medion, HP and Fujitsu the choice is kind of bewildering.

The netbook started out with the with Asus E-PC last summer. I looked long and hard at them but the 8″ screen, 512mb ram, 8GB flash drive, linux OS and 2 hour battery life did not really make it an appealing option to me. But six months is a long time in the consumer computing market and how things have changed.

Yesterday I chose a Samsung NC10 notebook. It offers a 10″ screen, full size QWERTY keyboard, wireless/bluetooth 1.6Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, 160gb Hard Disk, Windows XP and a stonking 6hr battery life all for around $500 was an offering I couldn’t turn down.

My experience with low end processors in the past has been less than stella with 1.2Ghz Ultra Low Voltage CPUs give lack lustre performance. But the new “Atom” architecture chip from Intel gives sprightly performance. In web browsing it easily handles half a dozen tabs in Mozilla. Right now I am typing this blog sat in an economy seat whilst one side of the screening is playing an episode of Dexter.

Portability and power with an extra long battery life. I really am impressed. Now there is no real need for me to carry the excellent Arhcos media player with me to watch some TV/movies on a flight. It has a much bigger screen and a superior battery life. I am three hours into my flight and the battery still shows 3.5 hrs to go and 54% charge.

OK – so I won’t be playing crisis on this or using it to drive the latest Adobe photoshop. But for a travel computer to show a presentation, edit a document, browse the web, watch some TV or check some email I can think of nothing better to have with me, Also as it weighs a very modest 1.2kg it is extremely portable without breaking the bank.

Sure there are always comprises – I would love a slightly higher resolution screen and perhaps wireless n support. Other than that it is perfect. I think it will find a place in briefcase for zipping around the middle east on day trips – no power supply required.

There are plenty of netbooks on the market – I can not really speak for the others but this little Samsung NC10 is fantastic place to enter into the world of truly portable computing.

Overall 9/10 – a fully featured netbook that has a battery will last most of the day and will not break the bank. Oh – did I mention you can get them in white, black and dark blue. For me I went with stealthy black.

Light up my Life

Over the last few months I have had the pleasure of watching the Dubai Motor Yacht Club take shape. The club opened up for business a few weeks ago and at the same time they decided to turn on the lights. A rather alien like green illuminates the roof, the bridge is lit blue and there are little beacons of lights along the pontoons.

My favourite time of day is just after dusk when there are plenty of people in their apartments and the marina really seems to spring to life. I had some fun this evening with camera and tripod getting some captures.

Here is one looking down the Marina towards Ibn Battuta mall:

Here is another more straight on looking towards Jumeriah Late Towers. The 75 storey diamond trade centre in the background of the picture really sets things off.

This one I liked so much I have decided to make it my new blog banner.  I hope you like it.