danielcolomb.com » windows 7

an update and more windows 7!

Dan — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:47:32 +0000

I suppose I’ll cut straight to the chase. I’m le single again. Michelle left for MEPS yesterday, and i’m sure she’s well on her way to training by now. I wish her all the best of luck! Sunday night was pretty tough. We had said our goodbyes and sat in the driveway for quite a while just talking. I’m going to miss her.

I’ve put Windows 7 on yet another machine! Now it’s running on my Macbook Pro, one of my desktops, and my Eee PC 900! The Eee PC does pretty well even though it’s only got a 900Mhz processor. I’ve been thinking about putting it on my living room computer as well to see how it works as a Media Center. But I think I’ll hold off on that for a bit longer. I’ll want to wait to see what the prices for Windows 7 are actually going to be. If they’re too expensive I’ll have to down grade all my machines to XP (or find a hacked version of Windows 7). Seriously, no OS is worth more than 200 dollars. If I can get OS X for less than 200, and Linux for free, why should i pay more for an OS that comes from a certain company which has consistently produced dismal software? Seriously..

If you want to try Windows 7 on your netbook, you can check out the tutorial i followed: here.
I also read this one while I was in the middle of installing, it looks like it’s geared more towards the Eee PC 900: here. (I’ll say though, that his statement about needing a 4GB USB stick is inaccurate, i used a 120GB Seagate External USB HDD with the first tutorial and it worked fine).

It’s almost 4pm and Brad’s falling asleep at the computer again.. wtf.

Windows 7 – Day Two

Dan — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:15:33 +0000

Day Two is coming to a close, and Windows 7 is still doing quite well. Now, i haven’t put it under any heavy load yet, as I’ve been at work. But I was able to install the bootcamp files needed to get sound, the trackpad, as well as some other things fixed. The only downside was that I had to reinstall the windows 7 drivers i’d installed previously. But that’s not really something i’m ready to complain over, especially since if you’re going to dual boot a mac you should be ready for little hicups like that.

After that I installed Eve, Steam, and Pidgin; you know, the essentials. I haven’t installed any of my steam games, but Eve runs quite well. Pidgin works, I really didn’t expect that to break. I was able to get all my Danbo wallpapers from my desktop transferred over and they are now in slideshow mode for my wallpaper. Very sexy

So far, so good. I’m really liking Windows 7. If things keep up like this I might break the cycle and buy a legit copy of Windows again. The last time i bought a copy of Windows it was XP, just after Vista came out.

We shall see

Windows 7 – Day One

Dan — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:00:47 +0000

I installed Windows 7 on my macbook pro this morning. Why, you ask? Well, i had XP dual booted on it before, but wasn’t really using it for anything other than running my other account in Eve and for some programming work. It seemed it was the perfect test bed for Windows 7. The install went smoothly and it did everything it could with my mac, but i forgot my OSX dvd at home, so little things like bootcamp are still missing. This means that i don’t have sound, and i don’t think my wifi works. No worries though, because i plugged up my phone and it was able to use it’s internet connection right away!

I downloaded and installed some updates and then got right into installing Visual Studio C# Express and XNA Game Studio 3.0. Over my phone, it’s taking forever! C# finally installed and i’m about 50% on the XNA download (it’s only 62MB, but it’s been going for about an hour )

So far here is what i like:

Aero. So sexy, and it runs like a dream.
The new desktop personalization features (having your desktop wallpaper change every x minutes; changing the base color of all your windows, taskbar, etc
The new window changer, alt+tabbing between all your windows and getting a preview
Being able to choose what icons are shown and which ones are hidden in your system tray.
The snipping tool
the new paint, it’s about fraking time!

That’s really all i have right now. Once i get home and i’m able to get some fat pipe connected to this thing, i’ll install steam, eve, and whatever else i’m missing (IM program maybe?). We’ll see how those run. All that after I install bootcamp and get everything working.

For anyone that has a fairly new (meaning in the last 3 or 4 years) computer that’s just sitting around collecting dust, but you’re not ready to try it on one of your main machines, I’d highly recommend this. I know this will probably be my main OS on my laptop. The only thing they need now it for Windows to be able to read other file systems (like ext3, hint hint!).

you can get the RC here.

work, life, and windows 7

Dan — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:55:39 +0000

Things have been going pretty good i suppose. Things at work are starting to ease up (except for these damned scans that run on my computer… so annoying (started at 10:42)), we’re making progress on our new solutions. I’m getting better at making connections to multiple databases, even across the interwebs. The data processing we do has been going smoothly too. Amazing how thing start working once you fix them.. after you find out they’re broken.

Michelle got a new contract, and is shipping at the end of the month (she’s joining the Navy). I’m pretty excited for her, even though it seems that she’s not as excited as I am.. makes things a bit weird. I don’t see how it’s not exciting, especially for her. It must really be really tough not even being 21 yet and already having the financial burdens of someone who’s finished a master’s degree. She’ll also be well on her way to being who she wants to be. I think right now being here in Radcliff has stagnated any progress she wants to be making with her life. I just find it awesome that she’ll be going out doing things she’s never done before..

So, i’m installing the windows 7 release candidate. It’s been installing for about 20 minutes now, and looks like it’s getting close to being done. Things are going quite smoothly, even though it’s on a macbook pro (i’d imagine i’d run into problems since i have to use bootcamp), but so far so good. If Windows 7 is everything i hope it is i might actually buy a copy! If it’s not, and it’s still better than Vista, I’ll have to stick to the tried and true way of “acquire from the intarwebs”.

You know that scan i mentioned? Yeah.. still running, still making my computer run like shit