Windows Live Essentials 2011

I normally wait to install the latest software, but I decided to install Windows Live Essentials 2011 the day it came out and so far I like it. I have mainly used the Live Mail component so far and am using Live Writer to write this.  Not a fan of the “Ribbon” Microsoft has been going to since Office 2007, but it is easily minimized when it takes up too much space.  I am leaving it up in Writer but it takes up too much of my space in Live Mail so I minimize it.  I mostly use IMAP accounts and I can tell Live Mail 2011 is definitely faster then the previous incarnation.

I decided not to try the new Social Networking parts of Live Messenger, it just seemed like it would be too confusing to have another Social Networking thing going on.  It might be advantageous for some one else, but not for the way I use them.

I look forward to trying out the other components, Live Movie Maker, Live Photo Gallery, & Live Mesh.

Dell Axim x51v works with Windows 7

After doing a Google search and finding that most people seem to have had no luck in getting their Dell Axim x51v to work with Windows 7, I was really reluctant to try it and almost didn’t.  But today I decided to try and it worked. 

At first I was discouraged because I got a driver not installed correctly message.  I decided to try to manually add a device through the Devices & Printers in the Control Panel.  Not sure if that is what triggered to Windows Mobile Device Center to finally start and recognize it or it just took that long, because after it installed correctly the add a device box was still looking for devices. 

Anyway, it installed correctly and it syncs what I need to right now.  I ditched Outlook when I upgraded to Windows 7 because I only had Office XP/2002 which isn’t supposed to work with “7” and I rarely used it when I had Vista anyway.