I'm a UC Blog

The folks at Engadget just posted a great review of Windows 7, an except below.

“Where Vista felt like a sprawling mess, Windows 7 has patched up the holes and feels like a tight, unified mechanism. It’s hardly full of surprises, but that’s usually a good thing when it comes to operating systems. If you’ve never been a Windows person, there’s hardly anything here that will change your mind about that. However, most human beings on this planet have some sort of interaction with Windows on a regular basis, whether by choice or necessity, and Windows 7 is great news for those millions of souls.

Instead of switching up the formula, Windows 7 is really an extension and a refinement of the true tenets of Windows (that we just made up): broad hardware compatibility, coatings of usability over deep functionality, and a “everything for everybody” approach to feature sets and SKUs. With such broad aims, and such a diverse userbase, it’s no wonder that there are plenty of spots where the OS still falls short, but taken as a whole it’s clear that Microsoft has taken a strong step forward with Windows 7. The world will know on October 22.”

Source: here

Rumours are afoot that Snow Leopard build 10A432 is gold master and likely to go RTM. Snow Leopard is due for general release in September, just ahead of Windows 7 on October 22nd – strange coincidence eh?

Source: here

IT purists have previously told us that if you want to run an operating system on lower-end hardware you need Linux, but it seems that the community is changing it’s tune.

Taken from Computer World:

What: Circa-2002 ‘white-box’ desktop bought off Craigslist for $25

Specs: 2.4GHz ‘Northwood’ Pentium 4 CPU, 1GB PC2100 DRAM, 120GB IDE hard drive (7,200 rpm), ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder 7500 graphics card

Windows Experience Index: 1.0

Performance: Don’t be fooled by the CPU’s respectable-looking clock speed: This computer is pokier than it looks. There’s no hyperthreading to help with running multiple apps, and the secondary memory cache is puny. Its PassMark benchmark score is just 329, barely higher than the Intel Atom N270 CPU (309) used in most netbooks. Also, Windows 7 refused to recognize any of the drivers I tried for my ATI graphics card (I’m using a standard VGA driver instead).

Despite everything going against this machine, high-def YouTube and Hulu videos — even DVDs — all played with only a hint of a stutter. Compatibility with XP apps was no problem: My 9-year-old copy of Photoshop 6 and 12-year-old copy of Office 97 both ran great.

Comparison to other OSes: I ran Windows XP Pro on the other partition. Windows 7’s performance was nearly as good, even though XP had the big advantage of a working graphics driver. The biggest plus for XP Pro was in startup times: It booted in 1 minute, 25 seconds (1:25), versus 1:52 for Windows 7. But both shut down in about 30 seconds.

Recommend Windows 7? Windows XP Pro still responds more crisply when doing things like navigating menus and opening apps. Windows 7’s languid pace reminded me of Mac OS X. But like OS X, Windows 7 is also a lot prettier, excels at automatically handling device drivers (except for ATI’s, it seems) and includes Vista features like Media Center, BitLocker encryption and disk utilities such as format and partitioning, without the sluggishness. So I do recommend it.

Continued on Computer World

If you are an “IT Pro” and need to make sure you retain management of your Windows Server environment after upgrading to Windows 7 then you are in luck!

The remote server administration tools for Winows 7 have been released and can be downloaded here.

Source: here

Yesterday Microsoft PressPass announced a teleconference between Microsoft Corp. and Nokia executives, with no more information.

But that does not stop the blogs speculating and the beliefs suggest that Nokia will be releasing a Symbian based version of Microsoft Office for their smartphones. Nokia (like Apple) has already licensed ActiveSync for Exchange connectivity so a Symbian version of Office is definitely not out of the question, in fact another announcement from the Microsoft Mac business unit also suggest that an iPhone variant of Office could be on the cards?

Microsoft are without doubt looking at making the next version of Office as available as possible with an emphasis on cloud and hints that point to further interoperability with “other” devices.

By tomorrow all will be revealed…

Update: The Nokia deal is confirmed, Microsoft will bring the following deature set to E Series devices:

• The ability to view, edit, create and share Office documents on more devices in more places with mobile-optimized versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft OneNote
• Enterprise instant messaging and presence, and optimized conferencing and collaboration experience with Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile
• Mobile access to intranet and extranet portals built on Microsoft SharePoint Server
• Enterprise device management with Microsoft System CenterSource

Source: here

You might not like my idea, in which case feel free to submit your own Microsoft Office idea?