I got this from a moving taxi which is a testament to the lack of shutter lag and speed of the iPhone 4S camera.

I’ve seen more stuff on a motorcycle but this is a pretty good load and it’s geeky to boot. Can you believe this?

This post is part of my One Photo Per Day of 2012 project. Technical details: iPhone 4s using Camera+.

Since I’m running Windows XP Pro I’m going to be doing what Microsoft refers to as a custom install. My 160 GB laptop drive has 25 GB free so I’ve decided to do the install on a clean drive (hopefully). I haven’t found a definite answer that this is even possible or not.

At any rate I placed an order this morning for a new 320 GB drive for my laptop, expecting to get it on Friday with my 2-Day Prime shipping. The delivery esitmate is Monday the 26th. My stuff almost always ships the same day. I placed the order early this morning so I’m wondering if all the Windows 7 shipments are slowing up the normal pace of things at Amazon?

Anyway, I’m definitely making the move to Seven, but I’m going to move in deliberate steps. Hopefully someone else will have experience doing an XP upgrade to a new drive over the weekend. If that’s you I’d love to hear from you! I will return the favor as soon as my new drive is delivered.

I do remember the computer lab in college having some type of Apple computer. Probably an early Macintosh operating system. I never paid much attention to Macs because they wouldn’t run games like Wing Commander, which I spent hours playing between classes.

Lately though, I’ve been bitten by the “Mac Bug”. I don’t play games any more and I just want to get some work done. My main work is processing photos and web development and from what I hear a Macintosh PC is great for that.

I stopped at an Apple Store a couple of months ago and I have been reading a lot of reviews about MacBook Pro since then. I’m wondering if the 13″ Macbook Pro screen will be big enough for those infrequent times that I’m on an overnight photo shoot. Otherwise I’d have it connected to a 22″ Dell 2209WA monitor which is due to arrive here within the hour ~8-)

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Sidebar:
The Dell 2209WA display (I got two) arrived as I was typing this. Of course I had to hook one up and I’m looking at it now as I type this. Out of the box it looks great. Maybe too bright, but I’ll adjust it later and maybe do a full review post.
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During my Mac research I noticed a bunch of people recording “Unboxing Videos”. So instead of immediately opening their new MacBook they set up a video camera and record their experience. I wanted to make an exaggerated version of those as a parody, but I ended up just doing a “for the record” type of thing with my wife’s new Vostro 1520 from Dell. Her school sytem is actually almost anti-Mac so she decided to go ahead and fit in with a Windows PC this time.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s the video I recorded on my Sony Hi8 camcorder and imported and edited with Windows Movie Maker that comes with Win Vista Home Premium. Enjoy!

Here are the specs on this Vostro 1520:

• Intel Core2 Duo 2.24 Ghz
• 3GB RAM
• 320 GB HDD
• 15.4″ Widescreen
• Vista Home Premium (Make sure you specify the Windows version you want when ordering a Vostro. They were going to put Home Basic on this one until I caught it.)
• Webcam built into the monitor
• Express Card slot.
• 4x USB 2.0 Ports (2 left / 2 right)
• IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port on right.
• CD/DVD Burner (Tray-loading)
• LAN and VGA on the back (No DVI)
• SD/MMC Memory Stick/Pro slot and headphone/mic jacks on the front.

Kelly Poe is a big fan of Windows 7. So big he started a site to campaign for the release of Windows 7, the newest operating system from Microsoft. I just voted yes!

As Kelly says though, I want Microsoft to take all the necessary time it needs to make sure it is fully baked. Just don’t put it off waiting on more Vista revenue. It ain’t gonna happen!

Just a note to all of you that are saying that I don’t understand about the Beta process…I understand bug fixes and taking the time to make sure it’s ready for mass consumption. I’m simply trying to create a community of people that say they are ready for Windows 7 (when the times right…which we hope is soon) and were proud of it.

I wasn’t getting the full effect of Windows 7 on my old Athlon machine so I formulated another plan. I had a spare laptop hard drive, (sometimes it’s good to be the family tech-guy ’cause you get to keep the spare parts when you fix a pc ), and I also have a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA Hard Drive USB Docking Station. Basically I’m doing a dual-boot the hard way, but I can still get to the data on the other drive with the drive dock.

Anyway my main machine is a Dell Inspiron 9400 with an Intel Core2 Duo T-5300 and 2gb of RAM. It’s a 17″ laptop and I normally have my desktop extended to an older KDS 19″ tube monitor. I swapped my “XP-Drive” for the spare drive, loaded in the Win7 Beta DVD and booted up. I just let the installer wipe the drive. Once again (with a clean install anyway) Windows 7 installed very smoothly.

At first I was disappointed because the graphics driver was “generic” and I couldn’t set the display to the native resolution of my screen (1400 x 900). I’m not even sure what I did, but it seems like Win7 sort of “learned” my system. After I connected my tube monitor back up and changed the desktop theme to the landscape theme included, I was able to set both displays to my desired settings.

Also, the Aero functions started working as well. When you mouse over the extreme right hand end of the task bar the windows go transparent. Move your mouse away and they come back. I also got the gesture based functionality and the window snapping. If you haven’t been keeping up with Windows 7 lately, you can catch up on Paul Thurott’s WinSuperSite.

Another impressive thing was that Windows 7 included a driver for my Canon MP600 multi-function printer/scanner that actually works better at scanning than did the original XP driver that came with the printer. No downloading necessary.

Similarly there was a driver for my IOGear eStata express card adapter. Window 7 didn’t blink when I inserted it.

I have a network attached hard drive (NAS) where I store a lot of the installer files for programs like Firefox, flash, etc. Those installers wouldn’t run from the network drive (although they will with XP), but I ended up getting them to work by copying them to the local drive.

All the software that I’ve tried works just fine. That includes Sony Vegas Movie Studio 7.0, DVD Architect Studio 4.0, Acid Music Studio 6.0, Flock, Firefox, and others. I’ve hesitated on installing Microsoft Office so far due to the activation issues. I haven’t tried the virtual tour builder software and the stitching software that I use in my business either, but I don’t expect them to be a problem.

I had some real work to do that required me to use my Office installation, so I had to swap back to my XP-Drive. The couple of days that I ran Windows 7 hooked me for sure.

My next steps are to set up my libraries and media center and be the guinea pig on my proprietary software. If all that goes well I will be ready to Release Windows Seven!

Brett

If you spend any amount of time online and you use a Microsoft Windows based PC you know, or at least I hope you know, that you need to be on your toes to protect the security of your computer and the data stored on it.

I want to share one of my core resources for keeping up with the latest news and information about keeping your Windows PC safe and running its best. That resource is Windows Secrets.

I have subscribed to the Windows Secrets newsletter for several years. Then this past summer I upgraded to their paid version. I read it thoroughly each week. It’s not always a home run for me, but this week was good enough that it prompted me to write about it. Click this link to read this week’s Windows Secrets Newsletter.

If you don’t have time to read it, at least install the NoScript plugin for Firefox (if you don’t use Firefox, you should). NoScript is a defense against “click-jacking” where a bad guy can install something on your computer when you click a seemingly legitimate link on a website. Be aware though that NoScript also blocks friendly scripts, but you can turn those on when you are on a trusted site.

The other good article in this week’s WS (you have to upgrade to the paid version to get it) is an explanation of how Adobe Flash player stores information on your computer similar to browser cookies. Too much to explain here but you really need to read it if you have the Adobe Flash Player plugin installed.

Check out Windows Secrets.

By the way for the record, Microsoft Windows based computers and Apple computers are both PC’s (Personal Computers). They just run different operating systems. Apple PC’s are not totally immune to viruses, etc. The bad guys don’t bother creating viruses for Mac PC’s because there are relatively few of them. For now. Just had to get that out there!

Brett