Vista

I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 on a spare 40GB 7200RPM IDE HDD on my main Windows machine (S478 P4 o/c'd to 3.6GHz, 512MB GF6800, 1GB DDR400). I get a "Windows System Performance Rating" of 3 (though if you actually average-out the scores, I get 3.92; higher if I were using my main hard drive).

Anyway, here're some first impressions:

• Slick installer; quick, painless
• Very pretty, smooth, responsive
• Doesn't seem to like KVM switches; device issues disappear when KVM switch is not connected
• Crashed a few times (one blue-screen); possibly due to default drivers or the KVM issue
• Woke-up from standby at unsupported refresh rate; fixed by installing monitor drivers
• Gadgets appearing randomly on desktop at start-up
• Nice interface, convoluted Control Panel, annoyingly redundant confirmation dialogs
• New games! :)

Overall, it's a very nice interface upgrade, but doesn't seem to do much of substance otherwise. From here, I guess we wait to see what 64-bit applications and DirectX 10 have to offer.

Ooooh... Pretty!

Windows Live Messenger - the successor to MSN Messenger - is out, and it's very shiny... Shiny like Windows Vista. I think it does some new stuff that works (or will work) with other (upcoming) Microsoft software applications and online services, but really, I just use it to keep in touch with friends and make arrangements to do thing things in RealLife© The shiny is a nice upgrade, I guess.

I've also been playing with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 and Opera 9, and comparing them to Firefox 1.5.x.x. Both IE7 and Opera 9 look very slick, offer all of the same basic functionality we've come to expect from Mozilla's products, and seem to offer comparable browsing experiences to the general user. They have some interface nuances that aren't exactly what most users are used to, but they're intuitive enough that they can be picked-up pretty easily. Aside from the font-smoothing of IE7, all three browsers looked pretty much the same, and performance differences between the three were negligible as far as I could tell (although I like how IE7 and Opera 9 free-up memory when you minimize them; Firefox hasn't done that by default for a few versions now). Aside from what seemed to be a Flash issue on YouTube with IE7, I didn't run into any glaring problems... I think that means that things bode well for Internet Explorer. Like Messenger, these products all do much more advanced and wonderful things like run "widgets" and "extensions" and the like... But really, I use them for browsing webpages, so I'm gonna leave it at that.

I also got to play with the latest Windows Vista Beta on a laptop that had a performance rating of 1 (out of 5), and it still looked very pretty. The menus (and Control Panel, etc...) seemed convoluted, but then again I only spent like five minutes with it while two people looked over my shoulder. I might put it on one of my systems some day soon if I can find a hard drive to spare, but I'm in no rush.

Sorry for the delay...

...I wanted to finish Half-Life 2: Episode One before posting this.

So let's get that much out of the way: I was able to pick-up Episode One a few days after my last post, and I just finished it about 15 minutes ago; it's a short game, but a fulfilling one. I spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of two weeks of very casual play on this game, and even though the final scene came about sooner than expected, the road leading to it was engaging to say the least. It was standard Valve fare, so there's really not much more to say. If you enjoyed the first two Half-Life games with their clever puzzles, creative enemies, and epic storyline, then you'll enjoy this. Really though, for $20, you know you're gonna try it anyway. Also, the trailer for Episode Two looks very promising... And green.

So what else is new... Ooh! I've come across the laptop to end all laptops, and by all laptops, I mean all of my laptops. I found me an IBM ThinkPad X22 in pristine condition, complete with a docking station. Highlights include an 800MHz Pentium IIIm CPU, 640MB of PC133 RAM, an ATi Mobility Radeon, a 30GB HDD, integrated 802.11b, and a DVD-ROM and a floppy drive in the docking station. So it's an upgrade from the Toshiba Portege 3480CT I was using, but here're the best parts: It weighs well-under 4lbs, has a 12.1" screen, and is no more than one inch thick! Also, I've installed Ubuntu 6.06 on it without issue (wireless and power management work great), and on top of all that, it's got the fantastic IBM laptop keyboard! Who's a happy boy? That's right, I am :)

Anyway, back to games. I kinda took a break from every other game I've been playing lately to finally get around to finishing Golden Sun: The Lost Age for Game Boy Advance. Still a lot of fun, if kinda easy to get lost (especially if you haven't touched the game for many months and can't remember what you were supposed to do next), and very easy to overpower most enemies. Oh, and the dialogue... *snore*. Still, as I was saying, a lot of fun to play. It's a relatively simple, yet satisfying, RPG. I'm almost done, with just a goal or two left to achieve before I can finally get into Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. I've heard good things, and I'm getting excited.

Finally, the Japan-only release of the "SEGA Ages" remake of Panzer Dragoon for PS2 has come and gone. This news inspired me to dig out my old PC port of the game and see if it was still compatible with Windows XP... And compatible it was! There was something inexplicably entertaining about playing an old SEGA Saturn game in high resolution on a 3.6GHz CPU with an XBOX 360 controller.

Dapper Drake

Ubuntu 6.06 ("Dapper Drake") was released yesterday, and most of the main distribution servers were subsequently rammed. Luckily, I seem to be the only one who tried the Ukrainian server; it was quite fast. I've installed it over Debian, and I'm impressed; very slick. The disc is both a 'Live' CD and an install CD; unfortunately, this means that one must (apparently) wait for the "Live" version of the OS to start before it can be installed to your hard drive. On the plus side, however, this means that the installer is very pretty and the installation process is a piece of cake. Overall, installation was relatively quick and painless. I still had to manually edit xorg.conf to take full advantage of my monitor's available resolutions and refresh rates, but aside from that things were great on the hardware side.

1. The default packages are fantastic (almost everything you could want, and up-to-date), the interface is shiny and clean, and updates are a breeze. I've run into only two issues so far:DVD and MP3 playback aren't available by default, so I grabbed VLC, etc... from the "universe" and "multiverse" binary repositories. While I understand why this is the case, they didn't make any solutions apparent for novice users.
2. After installing the updates, VLC, Flash Player, Java 1.0.5_07, and ATi's proprietary driver, OpenOffice.org stopped working. My guess is that it's related to the Java Runtime Environment I installed, but I'm still looking into it.
   

So far, Ubuntu 6.06 is shaping-up to be one of the cleanest, most lightweight (*ahem*SuSE*cough*), and easiest-to-use versions of Linux yet. The more up-to-date stable packages are a big plus, and the automation of many everyday desktop functions elimiates a lot of the headaches that Linux can bring to the majority of computer users. Unfortunately, it kinda takes a lot of the fun out of the Linux experience for enthusiasts. I just don't feel the same kind of satisfaction here that I do after installing Debian or tweaking Windows to get the best performance out of my hardware. Regardless, this release of Ubuntu is a huge step forward for Linux becoming a viable desktop environment for the casual computer user.

In other news, I went to Best Buy, EB Games, and Wal-Mart (same plaza) to pick-up Half-Life 2: Episode 1 yesterday. Best Buy said it came out on May 30 (but didn't have any copies), EB Games said it wasn't out yet (even though it is), and I tried not to talk to anybody at Wal-Mart ;)