michaeltegler.com

With the new year nearly upon us. I’ve been thinking about what I’m looking forward to in the tech realm for the next year.

One. Gmail/Yahoo mail/Hotmail to marry for life. I want to be able to integrate fully my various Web mail accounts. I use Google’s Gmail primarily, and it has a very nice feature set that allows you to have various e-mail accounts filtered through it’s interface. It not unlike using a locally installed POP client like Thunderbird or Outlook Express. Far more graceful though. If you have the free versions of Hotmail (or Windows Live Hotmail) and Yahoo web mail, you don’t get to consolidate these services.

Now don’t get me wrong, from a business perspective, I can understand why Microsoft and Yahoo wouldn’t be so keen on such a integration. These free web mail services are paid in part by your browsing to their respective sites, so that they can advertise to you and get money from their advertising clients like good corporate entities.

Two. Windows Vista Service Pack 2. I’m actually already running the beta version of SP1 now of this already and, of course, SP2 will be coming whether I wish it or not, but still we need it. The SP1 beta has definitely given me a performance boost, for my Fujitsu Lifebook T-series. Granted I shoe-horned Vista onto this system, before I got the proper drivers from Fujitsu and it really wasn’t running all that well until I got those drivers. But still it was pretty slow. So I’m saying Microsoft needs to fastrack SP2, once SP1 is gold.

Three. A UMPC that does everything for under a grand. I don’t travel as much as I’d like to, but when I do I still need to keep tabs on what’s going on with my network and servers. A UMPC would be perfect for this only the limitations here and there really do. Which leads me too…

Four. A corporate friendly iPhone-type thing. The iPhone would be fine, only it doesn’t have the special corporate magic that Blackberry and Windows Mobile has. I’m not so fond of the software keyboard versus a real keyboard. I have the Verizon XV6700 right now. It was a fine phone 2 years ago. It’s saved my bacon on more then a few occasions, especially with the mobile Logmein client installed.

Right now I’m looking at getting the HTC Tilt, the only downside to that is it’s on AT&T’s network. It’s always hard to decided which corporate entity I find more difficult to work with. A clear toss up between Verizon my personal account and AT&T which we use at work.

All the iPhone really needs is a slide-out keyboard, a license for Microsoft’s Direct-Push technology and the Blackberry app and they you have a nearly perfect situation.

That said Windows Mobile only needs a better media player experience, bigger storage and for the love of all that is good in the world a decent Internet browser.

Now a lot of people will suggest they only want a device that will do one thing very well, not one thing that does 5-25 things sorta well. PDA phones are generally great PDAs for mail, and quick and dirty e-mail, but not so great as just phones. Even the iPhone has this said about it’s immaculate self.

Five. USB cords that do everything. Sure it’s fine that you can connect USB for hard drives, input devices, printers, cameras, the list goes on. But some clever folks are working on a video over USB spec, and still another wants to replace HDMI for HDTVs, etc with USB. Bring it on, I say. Fewer standards in Audio/Video and computer realm is a good thing and USB is just as good as any of them.

Six. 4 Gigabit Ethernet. You read that right: eff oh you are.  Four times what the standard is now for desktops.

Seven. Smart Clothes. Sure you have Scottevest, with it’s sophisticated pockets, straps, etc, but the mainstream companies need to realize we’re all carrying a lot of gadgets these days, PDAs, phones, media players. The list goes on.

Eight. OEMs and Vista. I know everyone seems to be taking potshots at Vista. It’s schadenfreude for sure. It seems PC World agrees with me the Macbook runs Vista faster then 99% of the competition. Since we know Apple is making a very healthy profit on every metal box, I really can’t understand why HP, Dell and Sony can’t get there systems into graceful harmony with a reasonable profit.

I took some perspective yesterday realizing that despite the fact that I have installed (including re-installs) Vista about 25 times, maybe more. If I wasn’t who I am, this would be very daunting and frustrating experience for who isn’t seeking the bleeding edge of technology (IE most people). I was in on the beta versions of Vista for well over a year. I’ve installed various versions of Windows Vista on multiple computers from HP, Apple (by far the easiest of the lot and the fastest), Fujitsu and a custom built PC.

First, none of these went particularly easy. I was impressed however what did go well. Hardware I’d previously had issues with installing under Windows XP went very well under Vista. Secondly I appreciate the effort Microsoft put into it’s User Account Control system. As an IT director any assistance on holding the integrity of a network is very welcome. As an end-user on Vista this is highly annoying. Similar to Unix systems this is the technological equivilant of asking “mother may I” for any and all system changes. Having to ask permission to change my systems settings 20 times a day is intolerable. So I’ve turned it off. But again this is a very nice and perhaps even essential for any Systems Administrators.

Buying a system with Vista pre-installed isn’t a walk in the park either. A new Sony Viao gave me a BSOD in the middle of it’s own Sony preset setup, only by un-installing Norton Anti-virus (which came pre-installed on the system) in “Safe Mode” was I able to clear up that little issue. Still later I plug in a USB printer and get yet another BSOD. Only by deleting the existing printer instance and re-plugging the printer in and letting Vista handle the install was I able to clear this up. Still I have a weary eye on it.

The Belkin Easy Transfer Cable, however, is very easy to use and I haven’t experienced any problems transferring the settings and files from an older computer to a new one. Even Vista to Vista transfers are efficient and clean. It’s well worth the $40 to save you the trouble of transferring this stuff manually.

Some quick advice:
1. Reading the documentation from your hardware vendor regarding all things Vista.
2. Get all the Vista drivers for your computer. Put these drivers on an external drive a USB flash drive is perfect for this.
3. Un-install third party applications especially your virus scanner, If your application was built by Adobe or Microsoft safe bet is they will work perfectly fine. Provided you’ve been keeping them up to date.
4. Do a backup of you system (Always important). I use the backup that comes with Windows XP/2003 all the time no reason to buy anything else.

Installing XP in the early days had many of the same issues, I can’t lay the blame of these install difficulties on Microsoft’s large feet alone. OEMs definitely share the blame here. Sony in particular has been a great problem.

My recommendation to anyone who has a “Windows Vista Capable” system is stick with XP unless you’re sick of looking at it or you have a lot of patience or you have me as a friend (cause I’m always eager to lend a helping hand or brain in this case).

There’s nothing wrong with XP per se you can stick with it for now without ill-effect on your computing needs. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met that are utterly content with Windows 2000. It’s surprising to me really. Windows 2000 was a monumental step in the right direction for Microsoft to be sure. But by 2003 it was pretty long in the tooth. The same is true of XP (released in 2003) it’s worn out it’s welcome about the middle of 2006. Vista is rough at the moment, but by the end of 2008, it will be matured and commonplace as XP is today.