Now go out and be productive!
Firefox 2 has been a good browser, the only complaints are the memory management issues. Firefox 3 fixes those issues and adds some new features. Tagging is now available for bookmarks, though I haven’t found a use for it yet. There are the additional security feature updates and there are claims that the new toolbar is awesome, but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t think its any smarter than the old one. Overall, there isn’t any significant impact to my web surfing. Firefox 3 has more features to better organize and search data. However, I still can’t live without my Tab Mix, Download Statusbar, Colorful Tabs, NoScript, ScribeFire, and Speed Dial extensions.
Vista SP1 is officially out. I’m finally getting around to installing it because lets face it, Microsoft has a poor track record with releases. First off, its not a quick install, it does warn you up front that it may take up to an hour to install, and boy was it right, it took close to a hour to install. SP1 installed itself successfully without any problems which is good and even better everything ran fine. I do notice there are no longer any consent dialogs for file operations which speeds it up. Other than that, disappointingly there are no other obvious signs of SP1. I am sure it addressed many security updates and fixes, but I am not blown away. Still, I recommend you install the latest SP1. It can only help for the most part and only hurts a little.
I know Assassin’s Creed has been out for a while, but I have been busy playing Crysis and Gears of War. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in since it suffers from mixed reviews. On one hand you hear the Game of the Year, on another you hear the only ifs. Starting with the graphics, its stunning, on par with Crysis, which may be a bad sign. The world is very free flowing ala GTA, you can run everywhere. However, at its heart its a stealth game, you don’t want to attract attention. It hampers you from going all out and having fun, you are restricted to walking slow and being docile. I agree with some reviews the controls are not easy to handle and require some fine tuning. Its understandable with the free range of motion, but it sucks a lot when you fall off the roof and get stabbed just because the controls didn’t respond. I admit I am only in the beginning stages, yet it hasn’t captivated me. The plot is hazy, wtf am i supposed to be doing? I see potential and will stick it out even though I’m not clamoring for more. Oh if only…
Vista makes ripping DVDs a little more troublesome since most of my old tools are not supported. I recommend two software, DVDFab HD Decrypter and Handbrake. DVDFab will rip and decode DVDs on to your hard drive and assorted options. The best part is there is a free version, though functionality is limited. Afterwards, I use Handbrake, I find its the easiest tool to use to encode your files into different formats. So there you have it, 2 tools to backup your DVDs.
Hurrah!, I actually found something in Vista that was not previous present in Windows XP and that is actually useful. Vista Ultimate includes Windows Calendar, a stand-alone calendar that supports To-do items, appointments, and reminders. Best of all, it supports the standard calendar format (.ics) that way you can import, download, and share calendars online. Previously I blogged here about how Mozilla had a stand-alone calendar application that was worthy of consideration, but was still in beta. I have to admit I switched to the Windows Calendar, its just faster and more stable than than Mozilla Sunbird. Windows Calendar also links to your Windows Contacts, it can be improved by making more options configurable such as the layout, its very simplistic. However, I find the calendar serves its purpose well. If you don’t like Microsoft or don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket you may stay away, but when it comes with the OS your doing yourself a disservice if you don’t at least try it.
It can be a major headache to tweak and adjust Vista for performance, especially when they changed, I mean improved all the setting locations. I found a very helpful software that will do this for you, Tweak VI. The Basic edition has everything you need, but if you want to get more technical there are various other versions. I found the utility saved a lot of time, I only wished I knew about it earlier.
My brand new computer rig is running, now to test it with the mother of all games, Crysis. Lets skip past the part where I had to update the nvidia drivers, download Vista updates, patch the games, and speed up the fan so the 8800 GT graphics card does not overheat. Crysis, is a very beautiful game, its ultra realistic, even not on the highest setting. The initial game play was engaging with the armor suit capable of special abilities. However, the biggest drawback is even though the environment is reactive, the AI is intelligent, nothing about the game is intriguing or draws you in for more. I was having more fun playing Gears of War than Crysis. Even though the graphics was amazing I felt it lacked the imagination and emotional impact of even an older game like Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Is Crysis a must own? No, I would not upgrade my machine just for Crysis, wait a bit.
3Dmark06 score: 11514
It must show a lot about the human condition to become tolerant of any evil once it becomes the mundane. I have actually become less hateful of Vista. I can’t say that I love it, but once you have all the drivers updated and all your software running, its less noticeable. At this point I have succumbed to their diabolical plan that its much more of a hassle to revert back to XP than to stay with Vista. Sadly, there is still yet a feature in Vista that I can rave about, the best I can say is Vista is probably more secure.
The Hardware
If you have been reading up on Vista and the state of gaming, my issues will sound familiar, but there’s nothing like sharing misery, chuckling over mistakes, and in the end you may even learn something new.
To kick it off right, I needed new hardware. Vista Aero is a huge hog and to play the latest and greatest games with DirectX 10 (more on later how much that sucked) I need the latest graphics card. I went cheap with the CPU and went with the dual core, but I bought the Gigabyte P35 motherboard that would support the latest Penryn 45nm Intel chips. I bought 2 Gb of ram and the current champ of video cards, NVidia’s 8800 GT. TechReport has a good system guide here. Slightly off topic, in order to save some cash I decided to reuse Dell’s case, a BIG mistake. Dell has the greatest deals on systems, however to prevent you from cannibalizing their parts they have a lot of non-standard parts. The case fans on Dell have non-standards plug wiring such that if you plug them into any other motherboard they do not work. The motherboards do not have the standard screws into the case, this was my gotcha, double check between your new motherboard and the case there is no short circuit. After a lot of hours, $30 dollars poorer, and more pissed off at Dell, I did get it all to work.
Newegg did the job, no major complaints, parts did come in two separate shipments. Its another story on getting it over clocked and stable, but next time we actually get to how Vista doesn’t play nicely with Crysis.
