skippy.org.uk

I installed Vista (Business Edition) about 48 hours ago, spent 2 hours configuring it to use my document stores, and install Outlook 2003 (Legal Copy). the full list of installed software is as follows:

• Vista Business
• WinAmp (because it would be silly to use EMP WMP)
• Outlook 2003 (as 2007 is found through other sources)
• Mozila Firefox.

So not a heavy workload by any stretch of the imagination? so why is it that my 2.0GHz PC with 1GB of ram runs slower (boots faster) than my XP laptop (still the hi-grade pile of poop 1.4GHz 512MB ram),  that runs more stuff? (running as we speak)

• Windows Live Writer (to write this)
• Pidgin
• Mozila Firefox
• Mozila Thunderbird
• RSS Bandit – RSS reader.

True my desktop loads images faster than my laptop, but i think that is down to my ‘My Documents’ being located on a SATA hard drive away from the OS, as well as dedicated GPU.

A strange set of observations:

• It connects to Outlook for searching, yet it has its own calendar, and contacts folders? surly it would be more helpful if it data-bound to the Outlook PST and displayed them? at the log on screen on XP it tells you how meany unread emails you have in Thunderbird.
• It has its own Contact Folder, (all contacts are flat file .contact files) but you cant Tag these things, or group them. I can tag all my photos (using the Windows Imaging Component Meta Data space, doesn’t seem to be EXIF. See Comment one) so why not tag Contacts? or Documents?
• The Vista Search does not seem as fast as the Add in for XP, despite the XP one being an Add in. True the XP one does spend half its time writing an index for itself. but doesn’t the Vista one?

I am going to go back to XP on my desktop and by adding the following tools, most of the usefull parts of Vista can be replicated.

tools from MS:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta – not a bad lite photo manager, with tagging capabilitys
• Windows Live Writer – Anyone know if there a Linux Equiv that will work with Ubuntu?
• Windows Desktop Search – It works, it reads Image Tags, it connects to my Outlook stores.
• Alt-Tab Replacement – A windows XP power toy that makes Alt Tab nicer

And tools not from MS

• iTag – works with the Tags to give you a Tag Cloud. (Vista doesn’t do Tag Clouds)
• TeraCopy – Makes the Copy/move progress bar more friendly, as well as speeding up the process.

Now to find my instructions for setting up Notepad2 as a Notepad replacement.