From Crunchgear
All-around performance seems to be good, too: only about half of the netbook’s RAM was eaten by the operating system. Running fancy applications like Skype and GIMP—calling GIMP fancy must be some sort of sin—also worked well. They even managed to play 720p video with only a few bumps and bruises.
Not too bad, then. And just think: we’re still at least one year away from Windows 7’s release, which is plenty of time to optimize the operating system’s code.
Microsoft, we’re secretly rooting for you. Don’t screw it up. Again.
I’ve had the chance to play with Vista a bit over the last few weeks. Home Ultimate 64-bit came installed on the g’rents new machine (HP with quad core AMD, 8GB RAM, 7200RPM drive). While it looks pretty cool, and works ok and has some nifty features (desktop is part of the alt-tab cycle…bitchen), it’s slow. Well, maybe not slow, but on a machine as buff as that (roughly the twice the speed of my mac), I would expect it to be snappier.
Windows open lag. Closing them there is ghosting and a bit of lag. Boot time isn’t that hot. Start menu lags. IE lags. Office is slow.
I know that machine would be screamer running XP. Be even faster running 2k. Heck, if I put ‘nix on it, I’m sure it would almost be too fast.
But not Vista.
I keep reading very good and positive things about Windows 7 however, much like the the article I linked above. Pretty good performance out of a beta product on a netbook? That’s definitely nothing to sneeze at.
I still won’t switch, but a netbook with Win7 on it might be keen.
It would seem I’m posting quite a bit of late about beverages. It’s what I’ve got, so please bear with me.
Previously on the blog I posted about the first of Grand Dad’s good wines I’ve had the chance to sample. I must say, that ‘79 Mondavi Pinot was awesome.
Tonight we went newer. When I was sorting I came across more than a few bottles of BV Rutherford Cabernet from ‘96. For those of you that don’t know, ‘96 was an epic year for Napa Reds. For example, Fetzer released a Valley Oaks Cab (which, in my opinion, is always great) that was a ‘96. Wine Spectator got a hold of a bottle and gave it a pretty high ranking. I don’t remember what, but I think it was high 90’s. That happened shortly after the ‘96 was off the shelves. Fetzer, being of sound body and mind, re-released the ‘96 at triple the original price. Should you come across a bottle, I highly recommend it.
Back to the BV. Like I said, I came across a couple of bottles of the ‘96. I had the sense to stick one of those in the cabinet, but in the back. As it turned out, tonight was the night it got opened.
I’m a big fan of the red wine if I’m honest. I’m all about a good cab, zin or pinot. I am especially all about the BV Cab, which usually runs about $20 a bottle from Costco and other places for current (’02/’03) vintages. I’m pretty sure the ‘96 would be quite a bit more expensive.
This bottle was fantastic. Peppery, a hint of cinnamon, very mild oak and a nice berry finish. It was, as I mentioned above about the ’96’s, epic.
Should you get the opportunity, I highly recommend it.
A little late night chat with our good buddy Josh about a recent Facebook friend addition I had.
J:the biggest person i got as a friend in the mini world is todd
J: lol
J: hehe
Me: dude
J:i kill me
What? No, I’m ok with this. I’m sure if he were chatting with Todd he would have said me. Or Gabe. Yea, probably Gabe.
Just when a guy starts to think he’s getting ahead, along come 4 lines of IM to knock him down.
Saw this yesterday.
Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences inside a Web browser. It is expected that Netflix members who watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight, due to the quality built directly into the player. Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding. The new Netflix player takes advantage of PlayReady DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs. That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.
Honesly, at this point, does anybody care?
I tried using Silverlight during the Olympics like most of you did I’m sure. And it was a poor experience. I’m sure a big part of that was because of NBC and the Olympic commitee, but it was still a poor experience.
I’m no DRM expert, but why can’t they do it like Hulu? Hulu offers movies that play in a flash player. Is piracy so bad they the studios are concerned someone will steal the stream? Or somehow get access to the server where the files are located and download them? Honestly?
I can get my music DRM free from Amazon. How much longer until I get big label video content the same way?
I’m not currently a netflix subscriber. Cuts had to be made. This isn’t anything that is going to make me jump back to being a customer any sooner, if at all.
Sure I’m keeping the name. Wouldn’t you?
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