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.

Now this is cool

This is so cool I can't wait until this arrives and is affordable! ! !  OLED's - Coming soon   Super flat.  Excellent Color.

PC World - How TVs Will Get Much, Much Flatter

First Impressions of Vista

I was planning on using Microsoft XP Professional for many years to come. But a few weeks ago after my computer motherboard went bad I felt I really didn't have a choice and I needed to get a computer fast. I couldn't wait to figure out which new components I would need to build a new one, let alone wait to have it shipped, so I went to the local Best Buy and found two Gateway models that seemed like they may work. So I came back home and did some research on the particular model numbers and found that the one model seemed to have people reporting cooling problems and that it restarting all the time after 3 weeks, so that one was out. So then I looked around at Circuit City's web site and found similar Gateways there and finally decided on one and brought it home.

I was not very enthusiastic about Vista. Only one person has it at work which is the only one I previously had any experience with. What I previously saw of it, it didn't seem very user friendly. After I got it home and turned on and worked with it a little there is alot I like about it. I did get the Home Premium version knowing that the Vist Basic was worthless for what I use a computer for.

So far I am very impressed with the media center capability. Navigating windows explorer is alot easier in some ways and others it is a little harder, I guess I have to just adjust my habits to work with the new OS. Renaming is pretty cool. You don't have to worry about the 3 letter extension anymore, when renaming it only highlights the actual name of the file. New folders open after renaming. The folder structure automatically centers it self. I am anxious to try the speech recognition. I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking previously and want to see how Vista's built in version compares.

I was disappointed that I had a problem of Outlook 2002 remembering e-mail passwords, which I found is a known problem that there probably won't be a fix for being that that version of Outlook is out of Microsofts regular support cycle. I did find a work around that works for me that I will write about in a future blog entry.

As I continue to work with and learn more about Vista I will detail my experience here.