Posts by techfreak

I'll use Windows 8 as soon as its RTM ...

I can't ignore the architectural improvements and the cloud integration, so I'll use Windows 8. But my install will be heavily customized. While I've ignored nifty desktop utilities with Windows 7, you can bet that I will use them on Windows 8. The windows will display glass, there will be a start menu, maybe even flip 3D, you can bet on it. My hope is for a glassy translucent Metro start screen. I'll make Windows 8 'my idea'...

Keep at it!!

LibreOffice 3.5 will make its way to my current Ubuntu installation. LO is very powerful in its own right, but needs a bit more polish to satisfy me. I don't mind the toolbars and the menus, but some aspect of the user interface seem vary dated (e.g. form controls that don't use the current theme making them hard to seem, jagged graphic elements). Meanwhile, on paper at least, it bring much competition to the market.

My experience from the work environment is that average user's needs would be completely fulfilled with Abiword, and Gnumeric.

I'm wondering why never hear of other office suites (e.g: Kingsoft Office, Softmaker Office)

Go for it!!!

I hope the designs are not altered too much. So folks have taken upon themselves to do a visual refresh of the original episodes and in my mind the sample results I viewed were quite successful. Except for computer interfaces, much of everything seen in the show stands the test of time (like 2001). Although, arguably, the com-lock seems dimished next to a Galaxy S.

Trail of debris from BSG-75

I'm quite positive that when Battlestar Galactica, as bad of a shape as she was, bubbled out of FTL above the moon, she left a long, long trail of debris. It would be proof positive that Moore and Eick are Cylons. And they have a plan.

Finally ...

The non-US/Canada version of the Focus/Escort was always more appealing and interesting to me. I'm glad the styling has been harmonized worldwide for this particular car. This Ford Focus looks really nice.

Yet another linux desktop ...

... and that's a good thing. With Windows or OSX, there's only one kind. With linux, we get to pick what works best for us. Our mileage may vary. I'd like to read a review of a non-free linux distro to see how it stacks up for codecs, display drivers and wi-fi adapters ... maybe they're worth shelling out some bucks.

Performance and operation

Except for ccleaner, which automates some tasks that can be executed through a batch file, I see little value in these utilities. I use contig.exe in a batch file to defragment some files that get constant read/writes by their applications (e.g. outlook databases, guildwars, indexing databases for WDS, Google Earth), use the "defrag c: /b" on XP to defrag the pre-fetch data routinely, and keep the web browser cache to 64 MB.

Something is definitely wrong with the test machine. I haven't experienced this level of poor performance on less impressive systems running the same OS (how about a 1.8 gHz Sempron with 1GB RAM?). I don't disable services, like indexing. In my experience, disabling some Windows built-in services slows down the computer. However the default settings on Windows Vista for VSS and Defender are definitely a problem; this seems to be addressed for Windows 7.

My Golden Rule for good computer performance is to aim for a steady state system, as much as possible. I install a stack of carefully selected software, and try to not alter anything after that, except for patches and updates. The xBox360 runs Windows. Does it ever crash? Maybe it does, but not very often. Everything runs inside an hypervisor, and as such things don't change much.