Jamie's Random Musings on Video IM
Having spent a good part of the last year struggling with a variety of video chat and IM programs, I have decided to write a few things down and see what other people have to say about them.
Friday 8 August 2008, 7:51 AM
Maybe Vista Really Is Getting Better
This might be wishful thinking. At the very least, it is totally subjective. But after the first few days of testing and use, it looks to me like it might really be better than it was any of the times that I previously tried it.
The first thing that got my attention was the speed with which it turns on again after suspending. This laptop (Fujitsu Lifebook S6510) has the optional 1 GB of "TurboMemory", and I can guarantee you that the previous times I ran Vista I could not see anything unusual about the suspend/resume speed. But this time it practically jumped up and grabbed me - after suspending the laptop, I hit the power button and in less than five seconds it is ready to use again. Now, I have updated the Intel TurboMemory driver from the Intel Support Downloads page (no sign of an update on the Fujitsu Support page...), but I did that the last time that I tried Vista also. Whether this improvement is due to one of the recent Vista updates, or it is because SP1 installed more easily this time, and therefore perhaps "better", I don't know.
Next, it is connecting to the Wireless-N network at my house consistently, whereas previously it would invariably be unable to connect two days in a row without a router reboot. Again, I can't be certain this is because of an improvement in Vista, because I have also changed the wireless router in my house. I know for certain that the fact that it is connecting consistently at a higher speed is because of the router. But either way I suppose this indicates that Vista and the things around it are getting better.
The other thing about Vista this time is that it just "feels" more stable. I haven't had any crashes yet (what is this for a world when we think we are doing good by going three days without a crash?), and perhaps more indicative, I haven't had any programs hang or permanently "stop responding". Everything that I have installed so far has gone smoothly, and I haven't gotten the "that program might not have installed properly" question from Vista yet. Performance is still not as good as Ubuntu or Mandriva on the same laptop, but even that still seems better than before.
I know that we all love to bash Microsoft in general and Vista in particular, but maybe Microsoft really has finally improved Vista - to the point where it is the way it should have been 18 months ago, when it was released. I am still primarily using Linux, and only run Windows during my morning and evening commute, but I will at least continue to run Vista rather than XP for a while, and see how it goes.
jw 8/8/2008
PreviousComments on this post
Gordon Brown and Vista have a lot in common - yes capable, maybe much improved but in the back of your mind you know there is a better way of doing things and fundamentally this is not the right way.
No relaunch will ever persuade people different, the initial experience put off many that no matter how much you try to convince them there is no going back to take a second peek.
Whether it be driver compatibility where XP proved an overall better experience, the endless confirmations, or menus rearranged for the sake of it, (the latter which has the feeling of someone tidying up your desk who hasn't a clue how you actually work)
Or maybe its just the feeling that the endless activation, DRM - these people like your money but they don't trust you one bit when it comes to actually buying music, video for your own consumption, after all if you intelligent enough to choose the right version of Vista for yourself - you'll know how to download the latest album for free.
NO company has ever released a problem free OS. The latest from Apple, is the worst from Apple.I've been using Vista, since it came with my computer, and it has not caused any problems. I think people are mad at MS$ and just use Vista as an excuse to vent.My next OS will be Linux as I'm tired of both Apple and MS$ forcing me to upgrade to overpriced OS's.
@adamjarvis - You are probably right, a lot of people have been so put off that they will never try Vista again. I didn't mention driver compatibility in my post, because I wasn't look at that (yet). It is still a significant problem - basically all of the things I have which didn't work with Vista when it first came out STILL don't work with it - HP 4670 scanner, Linksys WiFi adapters, Canon BJC-55 scan head, and so on. That is one of the things that really gets under my skin about this "relaunch", or whatever the latest publicity push is called. It seems to imply that some driver compatibility problems have been fixed - well, not for any of my things! The other thing that really bothers me about it is that it seems to me that they imply that people have the "wrong impression" about Vista. They say "people thought the world was flat, but then they learned that they were wrong". To me that implies that people thought Vista had serious problems, but they were wrong - which is not the case, it did indeed have VERY serious problems. If the analogy were to be correct, it would have to be something like "The world was originally flat, but over time it slowly changed until it was finally round" - i.e. "Vista had a LOT of problems when it was initially released, but over time, with a lot of updates and now SP1, it has become better and more stable".
@dwr50 - Your case is more typical of what I was thinking of when I wrote this blog entry. My S6510 also came preloaded with Vista, and my point was that SP1 and the subsequent updates seem to have made it quite a bit better. I am, at least, willing and able to continue to run it on this laptop now (when I need to run Windows rather than Linux, which is becoming less and less frequent).
However, my advice to friends and family who ask me is still basically the same. If you have XP on your current computer, and you are happy with it, there is NO reason to upgrade to Vista. Not only does it not bring anything to existing systems that is worth the time, trouble and expense of upgrading, you are likely to end up a lot less happy with Vista than you were with XP on such systems. If you are buying a new PC, and it comes preloaded with Vista, my opinion is that it has improved enough that you will probably be able to use it, rather than going through the trouble of somehow getting XP on it.
I absolutely agree with you about the "forced cost" of upgrading operating systems - especially because I view that cost as not only the cost of the OS itself, but also the cost of replacing the various peripherals which are suddenly, and inexplicably, "no longer supported". Perhaps the best example of this is Logitech web cams - look how many of them are not supported on Vista! Now, Logitech basically says that it is because of Microsoft (the time and expense required to get each individual model "Vista Certified"), but the user doesn't care, all they know is that suddenly they have to replace a camera that is working perfectly.
As can be seen from most of my recent blog posts, I too am looking long and hard at Linux, for all of these reasons.
jw 10/8/2008
Although I will not go back to Vista myself in the near future, I have observed that recent laptop purchases running Vista Home Premium purchased by friends do give a better experience. Whilst I'm sure SP1 must help, I attribute the improvement to the newer hardware and drivers and compatible design.
On the subject of hardware, we had a brilliant Xerox scanner in our small office, fast and reliable with XP, but although Vista updates were (theoretically) available it never functioned properly with Vista and we had to replace it with a scanner which has turned out to be inferior. This was the secretary's computer and the total cost of replacing hardware and software plus technician's time was huge, just for one computer in a small business.
I was a beta user and it always seemed obvious that Vista was brought to market before it and hardware were truly ready. Notwithstanding, I did buy a new computer with Vista Business installed in August last year but it still had issues with the built in hardware and after several time consuming attempts to resolve the issues, I reverted to XP. Incidentally, although I didn't notice the small print at the time of purchase, the Vista sticker on the computer was for Vista Basic, so the laptop manufacturer knew that it was unsuitable for higher versions of Vista but still sold it with higher versions. This manufacturer has lost my custom and my recommendations.
Of course, we do know now, from Microsoft emails publically released, that the release of Vista was premature because of unresolved hardware issues.
