Comments on: Vista is really slick http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/ I'm Steve Richards a strategist and all round tech enthusiast working on enterprise desktop, application delivery and collaboration solutions. I work from home by the coast in the North West of England. All the views expressed in this blog are my own. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:09:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Anonymous http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-352 Anonymous Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:33:00 +0000 http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-352 Steve, Actually I gave a presentation on the impact of technology on the media industry last week at Nottingham University. Although I believe that the iPhone will be very nice I do not see it as a disruptive technology. Hopefully what it will do is change the design process for mobile phones which despite the massive consumer take up still have interfaces designed by a blind child (and a stupid one at that). My big problem with Microsoft at present is the fact that their technology, despite being "bland", is just not simple to use. I attempted to make use of Office 2007 and had to go back to the previous version - moving menus were just a little too much for me. It seems a shame that the concepts originally documented in the "Athens PC" future design have not been implemented in the Vista operating system. The "instant on" is a case in point. I would be interested to hear how long the vista machine takes to come out of standby/hibernate. Steve,

Actually I gave a presentation on the impact of technology on the media industry last week at Nottingham University. Although I believe that the iPhone will be very nice I do not see it as a disruptive technology. Hopefully what it will do is change the design process for mobile phones which despite the massive consumer take up still have interfaces designed by a blind child (and a stupid one at that).

My big problem with Microsoft at present is the fact that their technology, despite being “bland”, is just not simple to use. I attempted to make use of Office 2007 and had to go back to the previous version - moving menus were just a little too much for me.

It seems a shame that the concepts originally documented in the “Athens PC” future design have not been implemented in the Vista operating system. The “instant on” is a case in point. I would be interested to hear how long the vista machine takes to come out of standby/hibernate.

]]> By: Anonymous http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-351 Anonymous Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:44:00 +0000 http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-351 Andy you are a cynic :-). There are lots of small UI innovations in Vista and they add it to an impressive improvement, however not surprisingly there is nothing really disruptive. Like everything from mICROSOFT its never highly tuned to the needs of a particular audience - i.e it tends to be a bit bland - but mICROSOFT have always provided a platform upon which others will innovate and provide solutions optimised for specific audiances. In my case I am into multiple monitors so I am waiting for full support from Ultramon and I want a solution to make docking windows easy. That said a explorer is pretty powerful now, surprisingly providing a lot of power user capabilities. I just wish they have made the toolbar a bit more customisable. Anyway - glad you are enyoying OSX - and I guess waiting eagerly for your iPhone, while I am happy with my trusty Treo 650 :-) Andy you are a cynic :-). There are lots of small UI innovations in Vista and they add it to an impressive improvement, however not surprisingly there is nothing really disruptive. Like everything from mICROSOFT its never highly tuned to the needs of a particular audience - i.e it tends to be a bit bland - but mICROSOFT have always provided a platform upon which others will innovate and provide solutions optimised for specific audiances. In my case I am into multiple monitors so I am waiting for full support from Ultramon and I want a solution to make docking windows easy.

That said a explorer is pretty powerful now, surprisingly providing a lot of power user capabilities. I just wish they have made the toolbar a bit more customisable.

Anyway - glad you are enyoying OSX - and I guess waiting eagerly for your iPhone, while I am happy with my trusty Treo 650 :-)

]]> By: Anonymous http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-354 Anonymous Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:38:00 +0000 http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-354 I previously recommended media Player Classic. By fefault it does not run with Aero enabled. These changes fix that. Go to the options menu option: Under Playback, select Output. Ensure that your output settings are as follows - Directshow video is set to VMR9 (renderless) - RealMedia Video and QuickTime Video is set to DirectX 9, - under “VMR7/9 (renderless)” & “DirectX 7/9″ settings, that Use texture surfaces and render video in 3D is enabled - Resizer is at least set to Bilinear - VMR9 mixer mode is also enabled. More details here http://www.respectsakura.org/images/media/step9.pnghttp://www.respectsakura.org/images/media/step9.png I previously recommended media Player Classic. By fefault it does not run with Aero enabled. These changes fix that. Go to the options menu option:

Under Playback, select Output. Ensure that your output settings are as follows

- Directshow video is set to VMR9 (renderless)

- RealMedia Video and QuickTime Video is set to DirectX 9,

- under “VMR7/9 (renderless)” & “DirectX 7/9″ settings, that Use texture surfaces and render video in 3D is enabled

- Resizer is at least set to Bilinear

- VMR9 mixer mode is also enabled.

More details here http://www.respectsakura.org/images/media/step9.pnghttp://www.respectsakura.org/images/media/step9.png

]]> By: Anonymous http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-353 Anonymous Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:08:00 +0000 http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-353 Quicktime is really unstable on Vista. Fortunately there is a great alternative which so far actually seems to be better than Quicktime and it includes the exellent Media Player Classic. http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm if you just want Media player classic - get ot here http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm Quicktime is really unstable on Vista. Fortunately there is a great alternative which so far actually seems to be better than Quicktime and it includes the exellent Media Player Classic.

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm

if you just want Media player classic - get ot here

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm

]]> By: Anonymous http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-350 Anonymous Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:16:00 +0000 http://steves.seasidelife.com/2007/02/15/vista-is-really-slick/#comment-350 Steve, Glad you are enjoying the life of a Max OS X user finally. Although Vista has improved the interface of the PC it is amazing that so much R&D money failed to deliver an innovative interface. As to the install being slick....well lets leave that for another time Steve,

Glad you are enjoying the life of a Max OS X user finally. Although Vista has improved the interface of the PC it is amazing that so much R&D money failed to deliver an innovative interface.

As to the install being slick….well lets leave that for another time

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