Windows 7 RC: First Observations
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009Only a few days after the Release Candidate of Microsoft Windows 7 was released, I took the plunge and installed it on my primary laptop. Previously, I was running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 and I was really disappointed in how sluggish the system felt, especially when entering or leaving hibernation. With little to lose except for a bit of time, I completely removed Vista and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7RC.Se
Setup and Configuration
If you’ve ever installed Windows Vista, the setup process for Windows 7 will be very familiar. While there are some minor aesthetic changes, the process appears to be mostly the same. However, one difference that you may have noticed is the spare 100-200MB partition in front of the system partion that setup creates automatically during a clean install. This partition is created so that Bitlocker can easily be activated later if the end user chooses to do so. As I will describe later, this makes enabling and configuring Bitlocker drive encryption very easy for the end user.
Once setup completed, I checked Device Manager to see what devices were missing drivers. For the most part, the Vista drivers for these devices worked fine. The Lenovow website did not have a working driver for the fingerprint reader, but I managed to find a beta version through the hardware manufacturer website. Overall, the install process was relatively painless.
Interface Changes
Clearly, Microsoft focused on the interface in this version of Windows. The first difference that most users are likely to notice is that the task bar has received a major overhaul. Open application windows are all grouped under a single icon in the task bar, and the title of each window is no longer displayed. Surprisingly, this isn’t a bad thing thanks to the new behavior of task bar icons. For example, hover over an application icon, and thumbnails of all open windows for that specific application are displayed above the task bar. If you then hover over one of those thumbnails, all other windows become transparent so that you can see the application window, courtesy of the new ‘Aero Peek’ feature. Right click on the icon and you are presented with additional application-specific options or items. For example, right clicking the Internet Explorer icon shows frequently visited sites, while right clicking the Remote Desktop Connection icon will show recent and pinned remote desktop connections.
Hovering over the very right side of the task bar sets open windows to transparent so the desktop is visible. Clicking the right side of the button minimizes open windows, just like the 'Show Desktop' icon in previous versions of Windows.
The ‘Show Desktop’ icon that was in the quick launch menu in previous versions of Windows is now a permanent, yet inconspicuous, part of the task bar. Clicking on the thin blank button on the right side of the task bar will minimize all open windows so that the desktop is visible. However, if you only need to see the desktop and would rather not minimize all open windows, you can hover over this area instead of clicking it so that windows are temporarily transparent.
I’m sure there will be users that will cringe at the idea of learning to use a new task bar with different behavior, especially since the former has been in use since Windows 95. However, after a few hours of using it, I’d imagine most users will be comfortable with the new features and concepts that this task bar introduces.In my opinion, it is significantly improved. In the long run, I think most users will be happy with this change and will have a hard time looking back.
Bitlocker is a Bit Better
Hard drive encryption has become a hot topic recently, especially in the realm of laptops and mobile devices. The implications of data loss or theft are far reaching and, depending on the industry, can result in a company receiving large fines, fiscal losses, negative public image. To defend against this, organizations have started to mandate hard disk encryption in order to prevent data from stolen or lost devices from being recovered by malicious third parties.
Turning the Bitlocker feature on and off in Windows 7 is very easy.
This time around, Microsoft did things right and pre-configured the hard disk partitions during setup to support Bitlocker encryption. Turning on Bitlocker is very easy in Windows 7 (assuming your computer has a Trusted Platform Module). Simply go to ‘Bitlocker Drive Encryption’ in the control panel and click ‘Turn on Bitlocker’. The wizard will go through the process of saving a recovery key and then proceed to reboot the system and configure the Trusted Platform Module. After booting, existing files on the hard drive are encrypted in the background. The machine is still usable during this process. The disk encryption process finished in about 2 hours on my laptop. Since encrypting the drive, I have noticed little performance impact. Even my battery life seems to have remained fairly consistent.
Intuitive Device Management
Not only was pairing my Windows Mobile phone easy, the Windows Mobile Device Center was automatically installed afterward.
Microsoft seems to have tried to streamline the administration and configuration of peripherals for the in Windows 7. A new area in the control panel, called Devices and Printers, allows users to quickly view and add device connections to their system. Previously with Windows Vista, I had inconsistent results establishing a Bluetooth connection with my Windows Mobile phone. Sometimes it would work great, but most of the time it took several tries to actually get the laptop and phone to pair and begin a sync. With Windows 7 RC, my experience was quite intuitive. From “Devices and Printers” in the control panel. I clicked ‘Add a device’ and selected my mobile phone, which Windows had automatically found. A pre-generated code was displayed to pair my phone. After entering the code on my phone, the pairing was complete and the phone appeared in the devices list. If that wasn’t easy enough, Windows 7 proceeded to detect that the phone was a Windows Mobile device and automatically began installed the Windows Mobile Device Center. Impressive.
There’s More
I’m continuing to find other new features and changes in Windows 7 that I really like. Some of these changes are more subtle than others, but the majority of them seem to share a common goal of making the interface more intuitive, responsive, and efficient to the end user. Even the minor changes to components, such as the Resource Monitor and the wireless connection task tray feel like great improvements when compared with previous versions of Windows. And to compliment all of this, Microsoft seems to have made no compromises in the areas of security, reliability, and performance. Microsoft really seems to be taking the shortcomings (both real and perceived) of Vista seriously. As for me, I am going to continue using the release candidate and look forward to the official release of Windows 7 at the end of this year.
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Webfaction Update
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008Well, I’ve been using Webfaction for over a month now and I’m pretty impressed with their service. It is more reliable than my previous host and has more features. The price difference is really negligible compared to what features I now have (SSH, Python, Ruby, etc).
My only complaint with Webfaction is that their control panel could be more intuitive. It takes a bit of getting used to, especially if you’re used to cPanel. Still, the price is right for the features and in the end, that’s what I care about.
Stop wmpenc.exe from Hogging CPU/Disk
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008For the past few weeks, my system running Windows Vista Media Center has been a bit sick. At seemingly random times, the hard drive would start crunching away abnormally. Upon further investigation, I discovered that a process known as wmpenc.exe was taking as much CPU as it could get (near 100%). After a bit of digging for information on issues with this process and Windows Media Center, I finally figured out that it was just Windows Media Player trying to be a bit too helpful.
From time to time, I synchronize my portable media player with Windows Media Center / Windows Media Player. My sync list includes, among other things, all of the TV I’ve recorded in the past week. I believe that wmpenc.exe was actually transcoding the recordings and caching them so that my next sync would be faster. There are two disadvantages to this: First, the cache size was set to 15GB, which is a lot of space on my measly 160GB drive. Second, the process ran at times when the system was not idle and affected the performance of Media Center. Fortunately, disabling caching is fairly simple, provided you know where to look.
The first step is to get to the devices tab in Windows Media Player 11. Do this by opening Windows Media Player and right-clicking near the top of the window. In the menu that appears, go to Tools -> Options… and click the Devices tab in the options dialog that appears:
Next, Advanced… button near the bottom of the dialog window. You should see this pop up:
Now, it should be pretty self-explanatory at this point. I unchecked Allow video files to convert in the background, changed the Amount of disk space to use to 5GB, and clicked Delete Files to, well, delete the files. You may want to customize the settings a bit. I just wanted the damn thing turned off for the time being. It’s definitely important that you complete this procedure while logged in as the primary Windows Media Center user, if you have one. However, I recommend you do this for each and every user on the system.
Happy MCE-ing!
Samsung Blackjack 2 Review Part 1
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008So right after Christmas my 7 month old Motorola MPX220 decided it no longer wanted to recharge. Fortunately my contract with AT&T was about to expire so it was time to pick out a new phone. After a little bit of browsing and comparing, I picked the Samsung Blackjack 2 (SGH-i617) over the Moto Q Global because it was cheaper and had a comparable feature set. I also talked my Dad into getting this phone.
First Impressions
The Blackjack 2s arrived today in the mail. When I first looked at it I was really surprised by its size. It’s definitely the thinnest phone that I’ve owned. When I first picked the phone up, I nearly dropped it. The smooth body of the device is slick. I will definitely need to buy a rubber cover to protect it and give me some grip.
Activation
Activating the phone with AT&T was super easy. I dialed the activation number from another phone and answered a few questions. Supposedly, you have to wait 20 minutes after activation before powering on the phone. I got impatient after about 5 minutes and pressed the power button on the top of the device. I immediately had wireless service. Nice!
Snooping Around
I’m above reading user manuals, so I started pressing buttons and clicking through menus. The MPX had Windows Mobile 2003, which has a very similar interface to Windows Mobile 6. However, navigating on this WM6 device seemed much faster. The first thing I found was the built-in camera software. Camera phones have come a long way since the days of the Sidekick 2, but they’re still far from replacing even most basic digital cameras. The images I took were decent but not very clear. Also, there was a huge delay when taking a picture. It was very easy to miss a shot because of this. One other thing that I found annoying was that I couldn’t turn off the shutter sound even though other sounds such a zoom could be disabled.
GPS Me
The second thing I checked out on the blackjack was the GPS feature. The reviews I read mentioned that the receiver built into the phone wasn’t very strong and took too long to ‘lock’ satellites. I installed Google maps to investigate these claims. Much to my content, the GPS receiver locked my position within 30 seconds while indoors. Outdoors, the device worked just as well. Even on my trip to State College this evening the receiver continued to track my position up route 322.
I should mention that while the device came with GPS software, my understanding is that there is a monthly fee to use it. However, Google Maps is free to download and use at http://maps.google.com/gmm.
My Memory Runneth Over
Although it’s not a lot compared to storage available on the iPhone, the Blackjack 2 has much more memory than any other phone I’ve owned. The MicroSD slot on the side of the device should support cards up to 4GB as well.
Internet Woes
If you’ve ever used Safari on the iPhone, you’ll be sorely disappointed by Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile 6. Browsing to websites is cumbersome and generally feels unnatural. Several sites rendered poorly, which is to be expected on a mobile device. However, I still think there is a lot to be desired. It really doesn’t even compare to Opera Mini, which I’m having difficulty installing at this point.
Other Thoughts
The actual phone features of this device seem to work very well. The earpiece seems loud enough to talk with in a noisy environment. The speakerphone seems to be clear and loud enough as well. My next task for this phone is streaming TV recordings from my Media Center via WebGuide4. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to browse to the guide using this device. Internet Explorer keeps giving me a 502 proxy error. Perhaps this is an AT&T issue. I’ll have to try another browser to be sure and then go from there.
One thing that really pissed me off was Microsoft Office Mobile. I haven’t transferred any documents to it yet. However, when I tried to create a new Word document, I discovered that I couldn’t. Or maybe, I just wasn’t looking in the right place. Still, it’s something that should be possible and much easier to find. I’ll follow up on this in the next part.
New Domain
Thursday, December 13th, 2007I’ve been trying to come up with a new domain name that I can use for my personal site. I’ve been having a lot of trouble thinking up one that isn’t taken. However, I finally decided on one this morning and in a few hours I should be the owner of iBoyd.net. Yes, I know the ‘i’ prefix is very cliché these days but it’s all I could come up with. I’ll probably purchase a new hosting plan somewhere and use the site for testing web applications, class projects, etc.
Now that I think about it, I guess I subconsciously came up with iBoyd after watching the iRack video posted below. Hmm…