Windows Vista usage itself surpasses Mac OS usage

Windows Vista, the most vilified and misunderstood operating system in the history of the PC, mostly because of misinformation and misperceptions spread mostly by non-users, based on anecdotal situations, has an usage share of about 65% compared to the number of users of Mac OS X. This, according to Gartner, an information technology research firm, and to a Wikipedia usage share of operating systems article, which reproduces the findings. The combined Windows operating system usage (XP, Vista and Windows 7) amounts to 77.69% against a 7.31% for Mac OS and a 1.11% for Linux. These figures are estimates as at August 2011.

I will continue to publish this blog for another year

Dear Readers,

While waiting, as anybody else, somehow anxiously, for hurricane Irene to pass by New York this weekend, I have renewed this domain name for another year and I will continue to cover, though more frequently, about Windows Vista. I have noticed that  there is a considerable number of users everywhere of this undeservedly underestimated PC operating system. Everybody, everywhere, have a safe weekend!

That's all folks!

It's been a pleasure to share my "advocacy" for a great operating system such as Vista with all of you in cyberspace. This blog will cease to exist this summer and, since I'm busy with other endeavors, this may be my last post. I really enjoyed the ride. I will continue to blog about Windows 7, though. THANKS SO MUCH!

Service Pack 2 and that is it for Vista?

Yes, believe or not, Windows Vista will be around for many years to come and it will receive mainstream support until April 10, 2012, and extended support until April 12, 2017, the latter only for commercial customers. Notice also that support for Windows Vista SP1 was already retired on July 12, 2011. To receive mainstream and extended support you need the new Service Pack 2 (SP2), which includes compatibility fixes for new types of hardware and emerging hardware standards and, as usual, it will include  all of the updates that have been released since the previous service pack (SP1).

WPF and extreme user interfaces like StreetSmart edge™

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), introduced with Windows Vista, is an state-of-the-art presentation system for building Windows client and web-hosted applications with visually stunning user experiences. Curiously enough, the encyclopedic books about Vista and Windows 7, like the traditional Resource Kits, mention this technology in passing, mainly because it is part of the .Net Framework and intended mostly for developers, as its cousin Silverlight. One of these developers, Projekt202, an Austin, Texas, company, which without a doubt knows a great deal of usability and UI design, used WPF controls in the design of Charles Schwab's StreetSmart edge™, a very intuitive online trading application that has received good reviews since its release at the end of 2010. It runs in Windows 2000 and up and also in Mac 10.3 or higher.

Translations on the fly with Internet Explorer 9

Among the many features that make IE 9 once again my default browser, after a Firefox hiatus, is the "built-in" translation service that can be easily accessed by right-clicking on a word or expression and then selecting "Translate with Bing" in the menu. Sure enough, the service easily detects the source language, no need to select it from a list of languages, and then provides a translation in the target language, which usually is English (or any default language you may choose). See the example above, while on a jobs Website in German. This free service for online automatic translation is Microsoft translator, also known as Bing Translator, which allows real-time, in-place translations of the Websites you are reading or your own Website for a global audience. Explore the Translator V2 API & Widget, mobile tools, the ESL (English as a Second Language) Assistant and even an English Language Search for Chinese Speakers. Developers and linguists will be delighted.

Linksys AE1000 wireless adapter: just forget it

The Cisco Linksys AE1000 "High Performance Wireless-N USB Adapter" does not even install neither in Windows 7 nor Windows Vista. The setup program, no matter what you do trying to follow the "instructions" on the screen, does not go beyond the screenshot shown here. The "wireless connection manager", mentioned here, does not exist in Windows 7, it's a thing of the past, so at this point of installing this adapter the situation turns hopeless. Trust me, I've tried everything conceivable. Long story short: product returned for a full refund.
There are three more reasons for disappointment: 1) the package has the "Compatible with Windows 7" logo, acting as a bait, 2) the only "help" available in the user guide is "Double-click your CD-ROM drive" (in my computer) and then, on page 4, "After you have installed the Adapter" (!) ... and 3) other unsuspecting customers were equally disappointed. Whatever happened to quality assurance?!

The promise of T-Mobile 4G. Just about that: a promise

This post should have been written two months ago when, of necessity, not having other choice and simply because I like T-Mobile, I decided to purchase the services of T-Mobile broadband. The customer service representative in the store was very helpful and knew her lines, but she did not give me straight answers to whether this wireless broadband service was in fact 4G-capable, that is, fourth generation wireless. Not at the moment of signing a 2-year contract and not a month later when I brought up, once again, the issue of slowness and not being able to watch YouTube videos and video news clips without a hiccup. Even with the best broadband modem or "laptop stick", in their parlance, the T-Mobile® Rocket 2.0 4G Laptop Stick, I get ridiculous download speeds, how about 6 kilobytes or maximum 30 kilobytes per second? (!), and that's in Manhattan, not in the middle of nowhere,  not to mention that watching an online video is frankly frustrating because the signal keeps reloading (20%...30%...). This post was motivated by reading an article at ZDNet where the authors state that "T-Mobile is actually fourth among the big four in the US when it comes to maximum network speeds, and explain how T-Mobile and AT & T "conjured 4G networks out of thin air." There, they have an explanation for what I perceived from the very beginning. Oh, and if you go to a store of T-Mobile or AT&T and even Verizon, they invariably, and by coincidence (?) don't have a live demo of the 4G capabilities, go figure. The answer, however, is pretty simple: they don't have much to show for it. Period. Not in my experience.