It does seem an excellent idea, as it sounds as though it “just works”,  I could do with something like that, as I never get round to backing up my PC, as it requires me to think about it. Plus vista’s built in backup doesn’t like to recognise my server running samba. hmm. But, it’s over £100, £100 for that.

So, let’s say hypothetically I bought it, thats £100 for the os. Then i’ll need a new computer to run it on, along with plenty of storage, thats around another £200 (give or take a bit). Bye-bye £300 for a bit of convenience, oh, and that still won’t be backing up my linux server. That’s kind-of an expensive inconvenience.

Fair enough, it is good in some cases, you may accidentaly run a virus for example, or click “destroy me now”, but I have to say, I have only ever done that once. Purely out of curiosity.

But, it get’s annoying when everytime I insert the DVD for NFS: MW it asks me if i want to run it, then I click play, asks me again, now, anyone with half a brain can remember it, and surely at least give an option to save the preferences. But no, in true MS/caveman style “We MS – You idiotic user”.

So, I may be opening myself to a gazillion security holes, but, who cares, although if I do suddenly dissapear, blame UAC

In terms of ease of use it is great, the UI designer work’s very well, and let’s you see exactly what the final thing will look like (ok, you don’t get Aero, but it’s no big thing). And the actual programming behing it is aided by the tips that come up as you are typing, so you can start off with a knowledge of pretty much nothing!

I have created a couple of App’s with it, both the standard thing’s just for a learning curve, although am currently working on a client for StuffAtSchool.com, but more on that another time!

Although something I don’t like about it, and probably will never be changed, is the fact that it only works with Windows, which in the narrow view is fine, since most people use windows anyway, but, it is still annoying that an application the has been developed, can’t be directly exported for other OS’s, Linux in particular.

So In conclusion if you are looking to start programming, and don’t mind going windows-only I’d reccomend Visual Basic, best of all it is available as a free download from Microsoft (A little oxymoron in there) from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/default.aspx.

Just a bit of a rant from me

Not sure why, but I think this is a pretty funny way of attacking someones computer. I can just imagine hearing voices in the background, whilst my computer is self detructing

Anyway, this morning I didn’t even know it was released. I’d seen a post on the eBuyer forums about it being available to reserver from the 27th of Jan, so was plannign to get it then. But I was looking round to see what prices were like elsewhere, and found this, I was about to order it online, but then noticed the address:

Overclockers UK – Unit 40 Imex Business Park – Fenton – Stoke-on-Trent – Staffordshire – ST4 3NP – Tel: 0870 443 0880

Now, that’s about 1/2 an hour away from me, so this afternoon i went to buy it, got a nice (non) shiny OEM package with Microsoft’s T’s & C’s on one side, and information about it on the other. Open it up and you get a nice DVD case, with a booklet inside. Not wanting to make the mistake I have done before of reinstalling the OS and not backing up everything, I checked, and checked again.

Finally I got to the stage where I could shutdown windows, and restart, going into the nice install of Vista, but no, I soon got nowhere, I’d booted into the vista installation, but no screens would come up. My initial thoughts were a dodgy DVD, so I popped it into another computer, and it worked straight away. So i took the dvd drive out of there, put it in my computer, but to no avail. Still as slow, but I left it and eventually it did let me start to install, so it’s probably some kind of hardware problem with my computer, specs below:

• Intel Core2Duo E6300 Processor
• 1Gb DDR2 Ram
• Asus P5V-VM DH Motherboard
• Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA HDD
• Ati x1650 pro graphics

Now, the installation process, all i can say is thank god for that, you can actually use a mouse, yes, that’s right, no more flicking around the screen with arrows, you can point to where you want to do everything, and it just works. So much more simpler, it let me choose my SATA HDD without begging for a floppy disc, and everything was painlessly simple, in fact I’d say almost anyone would be able to do it, it requires about as much skill as installing a piece of software. It did seem to take a while at some parts, but I am putting it down to the problem I had earlier, although it wasn’t too slow, I was able to install everything and write this post in the time it took my brother to build a medium size lego model.

Once it’s installed it goes through a little wizard asking you your username, password, the display picture you want to use, and then finally it run’s something to give your computer that gives it a rating, which I think is out of 5. And then (again, I think) this configures your computer for optimum performance, which is a nice little addition.

Now, once Vista’s installed, you have the dread of installing all your hardware, or do you, vista offers to do this for you, and seems to be very good at finding drivers, for example, my sound card. I purchasd it a couple of weeks ago, it was a pain to get to work in XP, but vista just found the drivers, and it worked straight away, I didn’t even need a restart! (In fact, the drivers seem much more useable than what I had before) The things it didn’t install automatically are my WLAN adaptor and Analogue Video Input device, and graphics card, but for these (except for graphics card) I was just able to use the XP drivers, and both are working great so far.

Once I had everything sorted I thought it was time to get my documents back onto it, and install some software. iTunes worked straight away, and in fact it has far better visual performance now on my second monitor. I haven’t yet got round to everything, but so far everything I’ve thrown at vista has worked.

I have to say I am very impressed with vista [home premium] it is stable, responsive, and hasn’t got loads of updates to install! Windows aero, admittedly, is a novelty, but it works very nicely. I’ll probably write a bit more in depth about all the other features soon, but for now i’ve got my new toy to play with