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Windows 7 – Could this be the best OS ever?!

Hey all.

I just want to share my experience with the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system – Windows 7. How good (or bad; for the skeptics) is it? Well, I’d read a few blogs during the beta release and it seemed most people were actually quite positive about it. I mean there were a few niggles here and there, but in general and to my surprise… a lot praise was being given to the upcoming OS.

I say I was surprised and that’s because most of the times these blogs hammer any Microsoft product – especially operating systems. However, that isn’t the case this time around – and I can see why.

I’ve been using the Microsoft operating systems at home since “Windows 95” – and I’ve used prior releases at school. I’m not one to care much about the OS or be anxious about release dates – if something works for me, then I’m content and if eventually I get around to upgrading my PC, then at that point I usually decide whether I want the latest version of the OS or not.

Well I have to say, I’ve never truly been impressed with new releases. Vista “looked” like it might be promising – but I couldn’t describe in words just how much I hate it. It is probably the worst OS I have ever used. And I was thinking, perhaps this was one reason why a lot of bloggers found Windows 7 “so good” – because its a big step up from its predecessor.

Download Windows 7 & Install

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks – I got really annoyed with Vista on my laptop and decided to give Windows 7 a try. I downloaded the latest Release Candidate (RC), which is free by the way… you can get it here.

It took almost an hour to download the 3GB iso file. You need to download the file and burn it to a CD – but its a .iso file – so you need to burn it properly – I used Nero. Just double clicked the file and it did the rest.

I inserted the installation CD whilst still in Vista (just to see what’s on the CD). It started an Auto-run screen which gave me the option to test whether my system is compatible and if there would be any issues with software/hardware etc. So I ran the scan . The only thing it said I “might” have an issue with was McAfee AntiVirus. But that’s ok, I wanted to get rid of that anyway. So I rebooted my laptop with the CD inside…

From that point it took about 25 minutes for me to fully install the new Operating System and get online, print a document and start watching a movie! WOW! Now that is amazing. The fastest, smoothest trouble free OS installation EVER!… From formatting my drive a clean install – and 20 mins later I’m online! No need to install hardware drivers, sound cards, wireless cards or graphics cards etc. Everything was done. Seriously, I was pretty shocked.

So far so Good!

Anyway, I’ve only been using it for about 8 hours – so I can’t really give a in-depth review just yet. But so far, the things that have impressed me are:

  • Lightening fast installation
  • All devices detected and installed automatically(sound, graphics, wifi + networking etc)
  • Booting up takes about 6-7 seconds! Compared to 40+ seconds on Vista!
  • Shutting down takes less than 5 seconds!
  • Everything just seems to be lighter and faster
  • So far, no compatibility issues

Over the next few days, I will be testing it out properly. My main concern is with running graphics and web design software – ie. most of the Adobe packages. I don’t really play any games, so that side of it probably won’t get tested much. I’ll do another write-up when I’ve had enough time to mess around.

Here’s a bit of info about Windows 7.

The final release is due out in October 2009. But you can download and try out the RC (release candidate) for FREE! It’s a fully functional evaluation copy and will work until July 2010 – so you get almost a years use out of it for nothing! Pretty good I think.

I got an email from Amazon earlier this week that offers Windows 7 pre-orders for about £80 (Home Edition) and £170 (Pro Edition). I’d personally go for the Home Edition since I don’t need the extra Pro features – and after the experience today, I’m seriously considering placing an order.

Anyone else using Windows 7?

If you’re using any of the beta releases or Release Candidates – I’d love to hear what you think about it so far. Would you recommend it? Would you agree its probably the best OS release from Microsoft (at least since after NT)? Leave a comment, share your views.

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Blog Featured Articles

Demonised.com Site Updates

It’s been almost a year since I started developing Demonised.com; my domaining, designing and developments blog and it had sported the same funky and vibrant theme since its launch. I’ll be first to admit that I have been very lazy at writing articles and adding content during this time. But to my defence, I’ve also been very busy with client projects and a major domaining project that’s eaten up about 6 months of my time.

Anyway, I decided this site needed some major changes. Starting with the design and layout. It’s not so much that I didn’t like the original template I’d spent hours customizing. Nor was it that anyone had said they disliked the theme. But the truth is I felt it was a bit dated, I was growing bored of that “web 2.0” look with all those shiny / glossy graphics.

So here it is, right before your eyes. The new theme. I haven’t had much time to customize it yet, its pretty much the stock theme I purchased from Elegant Themes. I just love the simplicity and minimal graphics. I’ve got some ideas for customization, but I’ll do that gradually over the next few weeks.

I’ll also be doing some major updates to my domain portfolio, not just in terms of aesthetics, but also by adding another 500 or so domains that I’d left behind all this time.

The links section and the faq section will also get some new content. However, the most important thing is that I will now be able to add new articles much more often than before. So, come back tomorrow and have a look around, you’ll a few new bits and pieces… and some available domain names lists.

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Blog

My Dial-up Horror!

Picture this… Wednesday, 9.00pm and I’ve managed for the first time in about two months to get a dropping LLL.in domain name into my cart and 1 click from checking out! And… nothing. My Internet connection failed before… actually not before – but JUST as I clicked “submit” to checkout. Bummer!

I spent about an hour trying to figure out what went wrong… then another hour waiting, thinking maybe my local exchange had problems or something… being optimistic that it’ll all be alright soon… but no.

I then spent almost 2 and a half hours on the phone to tech support at BeThere.co.uk – the guy was fantastic, he did his absolute best. We went through so many possibilities, IP changes from Static to Dynamic to MultiPort… router resets… some fiddling around with Mac addresses… he even got his senior manager on the line trying to help out… all this at like 1am.

Eventually, he confirmed the worst… I’d have to get a replacement router. BeThere.co.uk would be sending one out in the post free of charge, but he also said it could take two or three working days!!!!

Oh well, no big deal right?….

WHAT?

Are you mad!! Its a huge deal. I’ve six days to complete a web development project for a client – $5000 project to be precise. I also have a corporate showcase party arranged for Photography company and I need to get all the promotional material out to all the attendees!!! I’m FCUK’d!

Two days… I can live with… but if its three working days, that means Monday – actually no… Tuesday since its a Bank Holiday weekend!!! I thought I was totally screwed!

Anyway, I sulked and smoked about five cigarettes in the space of an hour before realizing a had a 56k modem! YES! Atleast I can send my promotional material out to clients. Great!

So I hooked it all up and pressed “dial”. I haven’t done this for years! The sound of the modem dialing and connecting was like going back to the early 90’s!! Reminded me of the movie “Hackers”.

Well, after a minute or so… I was back online. Now first thing I did was check who caught that domain – and so off I went to Whois.sc and there it was the name I’d been after for two months, taken by someone else. What made it worse was that it was taken about 10 seconds after I had it in my cart, meaning I would’ve successfully checked out had my connection not failed.

Ok, got over that quickly, nothing I coud do. I then opened Outlook – and that was it. I realised I was stuck. I had – what seemed like – normal everyday emails, but each one was taking like 3-4 minutes to load!!! Doesn’t seem so bad, but think about my promo material – each email is like 5mb-10mb in file size, thats gonna take like a day to send 1% of my list!!! Forget that.

I’m really annoyed, angry, panicing and bored all the same time. So I decide I need to stop thinking about work and chill… go to BBC and check out the latest sports news. www.bbc.co…. oh forget that – I can’t wait 5minutes for one page to load! 30minutes if it has a video on there. I’d had enough and went to bed.

This is getting a bit long now, I’d be surprised if anyone actually reading this far down.

I’m sorry.

I just had to share my pain of using Dial-up again. Its horrible. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I feel really bad for those who still use Dial-Up! Its WRONG!

Oh, luckily I only had to wait 2 days and I got a new router on Friday. All this made me realize how much we take broadband for granted. So many people out there still use dial-up connections, broadband still isn’t an option for many people around the world – we should be grateful for what we have.

Right, back to work now – I’m already 2 days behind.

Cheerio.

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Blog Featured Articles

Welcome to Demonised.com

The wait is finally over! Well for me anyway. Demonised.com is now live and accessible to public. Please take a moment to have a good browse around the site and make sure you add it to your bookmarks for future reference. Keep in mind the site was only launched about 12 hours ago, design wise its pretty much complete, but in terms of content theres a lot to be added.

For more information about what this site is about please visit the ‘about section.

Don’t forget – add the site to your favourites and feel free to register, it only takes a few seconds and you’ll be able to stay upto date with site updates, available domains lists and special offers.

Tell me what you think of the site, leave a comment below.

Thanks for visiting and hope to you’ll be back here more often.

– Shay (site owner).

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Blog

Google releases Knol

Google.com has finally released the long awaited ‘Wikipedia competitor – Knol. Just when you thought ‘Wiki was the de facto source for all your information – in comes Google and threatens to Knolminate Wiki! *excuse the puns*

So right about now I can hear most you asking…

“What on eath is Knol?”

You could be excused for thinking its a cool trendy new way of shortening / saying the word “Knowledge”… but.. oh hold on – I think that actually is the idea behind it! SO yeah you’re on the right track there.

http://knol.google.com <- check it out (after you finish reading this article)

According to Google (and this is the slog an as well) – “Knol is the unit of Knowledge”.

Google states the key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an identified author (or group of authors). “It’s their knol, their voice, their opinion. Google expects multiple knols on the same subject.”

“With Knol, we are introducing a new method for authors to work together that we call moderated collaboration. With this feature, any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public.”

Good ol’ Wiki

Finding information online (without a sales pitch attached) can be a time consuming and frustrating process. For many years we have relied on Wikipedia.org to provide unbiased content – maintained by knowledgeable people according to the subject.

You can find information / facts on pretty much anything on Wiki. In fact I’ve used Wiki at least 10-15 times in the last two days when researching for my articles here at Demonised.com.

You can’t beat the good ol’ Wiki!

Many sites and services have tried to do a “wiki” but so far none have come even close to really being a competitor to the free online resource site. Instead many sites have focused on more specific niches and done a similar thing – but none have been able to beat Wiki.

Or can you?

Now that Google has stepped in with “knol” all that could suddenly change. That’s my personal view anyway. I mean think about it… to find information you have to search for it. Most people use a ‘search engine. The biggest and most popular search engine EVER just happens to be Google!

So… how fair do you think Google will play it? Now that they have their own product, how long will it be before a KNOL ‘page ranks higher than a wiki page when you search for something. How long before KNOL pages come above Wiki pages despite Wiki being around long and having more information?

In fact, would it be a bad thing for Wiki to have a competitor? Will Knol even be a competitor? Maybe Knol will go a different route – target different people etc?

We can’t be sure how it will turn out, still too many unanswered question… we’ll just have to wait and see.

What do you think of KNOL?

Are you a member? Will you become a member? – I want to hear your views.

Leave me a comment below and don’t forget to check out the related contents as I’ll be no doubt writing a lot more about KNOL!!

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