Overall, I’m a fan of the visual refresh brought on by Windows Vista; I think it has successfully revitalised the stagnant UI’s generally found in Microsoft’s Operating Systems. In fact, the biggest problem lies not with Microsoft’s work (not entirely; more on this later), but with certain developers inability to conform to Operating System UI guidelines. Cases range from the occasional misstep, to a full blown visual nightmare.
Bizarrely, Microsoft does not always conform to its own UI guidelines. The best example of this is the Windows Live family of products. Windows Live messenger sports a non-standard UI border (although, to be fair, this can be changed in the settings); as does Windows Live Mail.
Windows Live Writer, by far my favourite app in the Live Suite (in fact, Writer is my favourite blog editor on or off-line), has an undeniably beautiful aesthetic to it; in many ways it is prettier than Windows Vista’s native Widgets. Regardless, this is a poor move; Microsoft should be leading by example; all their applications, from every department, should use the OS’s native Widgets.
Postscript: I knowingly excluded Microsoft Office 2007 from this post; for the simple reason that, although I would prefer a totally native UI if possible, in it’s current incarnation Office in fact benefits from having a distinct UI. Also, I find it difficult to visualise presenting the magnificent Ribbon in any other way.
John Gormley has earned the acclaim of members of Greenpeace for the introduction of laws banning traditional light bulbs in favor of energy-saving alternatives from 2009, and legislation which will penalize high-emission vehicles, according to a news article posted by Reuters yesterday.
Environmental group Greenpeace said the move made Ireland the first country to take specific steps towards implementing a European Union pledge to switch the whole region over to energy-efficient lighting by the end of the decade. "Today Ireland has taken a lead in banning energy-wasting light bulbs by as early as January 2009," the group said in a statement. "Greenpeace hopes that Ireland’s decision will light the way for the EU and the rest of the world." Gormley, whose party joined Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s centrist Fianna Fail party in a coalition following a May general election, said he would also phase out the current system of taxing cars annually based purely on engine size.
I have mixed feelings about how far some of the new measures go, but it a decent first step nonetheless, especially when stacked against the lacklustre efforts of other developed nations.
Today marks my third time installing Ubuntu alongside Windows Vista (the first was an ill-fated attempt on my desktop, the second resulted in a successful triple-boot system with XP, Vista and Ubuntu on said machine); this time on my new laptop.
Being familiar with the pitfalls of such a configuration, I’ve come to appreciate the value EasyBCD holds. The BCD (boot configuration data) is new to Windows Vista, and by most measurable tests is far, far superior to the NT Loader of old.
Unfortunately it’s crap to configure; the only verbose way of editing it is with an archaic command-line tool.
This is where EasyBCD from Neosmart comes in. It’s small, feature rich and an absolute joy to use. It comes with presets for all major Operating Systems and wraps the whole BCD in a really nice GUI.
