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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week
11/18/2009 The promise of Vista as opposed to
its realities … A couple
years ago I bought a powerful new Dell Computer with the new Intel Core 2
Processor, 3 gigs of ram, and a half terabyte hard disk. All
this computer horsepower was recommended to run the new Microsoft
Vista operating system. An Intel
ad at the time stated: Some
things just belong together Revolutionize your PC with the
Intel® Core™2 Duo processor and Microsoft Windows Vista*. Get blistering performance, stunning
entertainment, and the power to do more than ever before. Because when
superior design meets groundbreaking technology, the possibilities are
endless. In other
words, Vista was a new operating system that required a new generation of
Intel processors, and ” they just belonged
together”. My
biggest problem at the time I bought this Vista computer was the time it took to create
movies on my older Xp computer. Movie
creation, and then the subsequent burning of dvd’s – was slowing
my only 3 year old Pentium 4-based
Dell XP computer to where
I was I/O bound (input/output) – that means you’re doing a
process on your computer that is taking most of it’s resources, and you
can’t do anything else on it. To test the real time speed of my new
Vista system – I created a DVD using Roxio Media Creator V. 10 of 6
home movies in Windows movie maker format, totaling about 110 Megs of files. My older Dell XP immediately
got i/o bound while this process was running, and it took almost an hour to
burn the dvd. My new Dell Vista with Intel Core
2 Duo processor started flying through this, and I was able to simultaneously
surf the internet, watch Youtube videos, edit a Word file, and play an online
Blackjack game all at the same time. It finished the dvd in 12 minutes. This real time speed and power
increase was exactly what I wanted in a new computer. So for a
long time I used my new Dell Vista
to create movies, do graphics, and surf the internet, but I
didn’t consider transferring all my data and programs to it from my
older computer, because of all the bad press over Vista problems, and I did
have a few problems myself. I had
several system hang-ups, while running just Firefox and Outlook, where the
computer would hard freeze and I’ve have to power down to restart it.
One time I had to go into the BIOS to get it to come up, and this made me
leery of using it for regular business. Last
Summer I did start transferring data off my old computer to it, and sure
enough it crashed again, to the point I had to take it to my friends at
Accurate Data Service, who were able to get it working again without my losing any
data, but I lost all confidence in Vista and was just waiting for Windows 7. So now
with Windows 7 just released, and supposedly beta-tested, I upgraded my Vista
computer to it. I know, like a
rat leaving a sinking ship .. I first
ran the Microsoft windows 7 upgrade advisor, which basically gave me a green
light – no major incompatibilities or devices or programs that
wouldn’t work, but it advised my that I had to upgrade to Vista service
pack 1 before I could upgrade, which I did. Next week
I’ll tell you about the actual upgrade procedure and what I think of
Windows 7. |
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2009 MTA Micro Technology
Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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