VistaJuice

I follow a lot of technical blogs and one I like the most is Engadget (Gizmodo is my second choice).

While browsing around Engadget today, I stumbled upon a really nice comparison between features in Windows XP vs. those in Vista.

So here is what they say in short (to read the full post on their site, click here):

A common thing I noticed everyone who likes Vista is doing, is writing about top 10 or 15 things about what they like. I do not know how many favorites I have, but I'll just start writing about things I found cool, useful or just plain pretty and let's see where it ends.

1. Windows Start Menu
   Start menu is something we're all used to. Since the old days it hasn't changed much, until now. Finally, it is easy to use and navigate through; it has a bunch of options, and a nicest thing of all – if you make a good use of it you'll have to see it only for less than a second when starting an application. The reason why this is possible is thanks to an integrated search right into it. Sure thing, before it was easy to just click a Windows button and R (Run command), and then run say "notepad" or "calc", but what if you want to run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or any other application which does not lay in your system's path for easy find? Well that's where this search bar comes into place and if you make yourself use it to run applications instead of looking through the list of all programs you will be amazed! I just type "dream" and a Dreamweaver opens up. Productivity boost? You bet!
   
   

   Default Start Menu		Dynamic change while typing

   
   
2. Sidebar and Gadgets
   Sidebar in Vista is OK. It is really not as cool as widgets are done on Mac OS, but it's good enough I suppose. I really like a simple design it presents, and it's nice to have couple of widgets like weather, analog clock, system up-time and maybe battery monitor always at a glance. Check out my sidebar below.
   
   

   My Sidebar and Gadgets

   
   
3. User Folders
   You'll see that Microsoft finally changed the way things are stored and named in your personal User Folders. Namely, there is no more My Documents, My Pictures, etc. but rather, since it is logical that all of those are My folders, they followed common sense and named everything without that annoying "My" prefix.
   This helps in couple of ways, firstly if you have a lot of folders in your personal user folder, you can start typing the name and get to the folder in matter of milliseconds. On the other hand, your Pictures, Music and Videos do not reside in your Documents folder any more (thank God), but rather in the user folder itself. This way you can put all of your stuff in the user folder where it is easily found, and accessible. This makes backups of all of your files really easy easy as well since they all share a common place.
   
   

   User Folder (if you click on the left empty corner twice you can close the window ;)

   
   
4. Shadow Copy
   This is a really important and great feature. How many times it happened that you overwrite or make changes to a certain file (document, photo, etc.) and then you realize you wish there was a way to go back and undo the change, either immediately or couple of days later. With Vista, this is possible thanks to the Shadow Copy. You can go back in time and revert to any version of a file at your convenience. Thank you Microsoft! :)
   
   

   Shadow Copy - the Time Machine

   
   
5. Network Center
   Networking took a major overhaul and it is really user friendly. Everything is controlled through a Network and Sharing Center and all of the little but important options about your network preferences are right there in one window. Besides connection to other networks you may set Sharing and Discovery preferences and easily control (and always know who) has access to your files, printers, media, etc.
   A very cool thing is that you can specify the location type for any network connection, and Windows will automatically apply the correct settings for that location. For example, you can designate any network you connect to as Home, Work, or a Public location and Windows will do the rest.
   
   

   Network and Sharing Center

   Setting up Network Location

   
   
6. Backup
   Finally there is an simple way to backup files in Windows. Windows Backup existed for a long time but for a novice user it is definitely too much to set up. Now, with Backup and Restore Center at our fingertips it is easier than ever. Within two minutes you can have a daily backup scheduled and then you can simply forget about it. The interface could not be simpler, you choose what types of files you wish to backup, (Documents, Media, etc.), set the backup location (say your external HDD), and that's it. Vista will go through at the times specified and create an incremental backup of all files you desire. There is also an option which allows you to do a full system backup – which you can restore in case of a system failure, emergency, or whatever may come your way…
   
   

   Backup and Restore Center

   
   
7. Mobility Center
   For laptop users, this is a really cool gadget. You get a small control panel with an instant access to the volume controls, battery status, network status, external display configuration, sync center and presentation settings. The most important details for any laptop user all in one place. If you are about to give a presentation you can easily turn on the Presentation Mode, and your default settings for such task/event will be applied immediately. You can set special wallpaper, turn off the screen saver, access the external display and set the desired volume with one click of a button.
   
   

   Windows Mobility Center

   
   
8. Windows Defender
   With all kinds of Malware going around the internet, it's nice to have Windows Defender inside Vista by default. Besides protecting you against malicious software, it also comes with Software Explorer tool which gives you a nice view for managing important security-related areas of the computer such as: Startup Programs, Currently Running Programs, Network Connected Programs and WinSock Service Providers.
   
   

   Windows Defender - Software Explorer Tool

   
   
9. Reliability Monitor
   This tool is a great thing, especially for a geek like me. If you ever wonder what's going on inside your computer at any given time, open up the Reliability and Performance Monitor and check out anything, from what the CPU is working on, what applications are writing/reading from a hard drive, to what applications are using the network, as well as how much memory is being used by currently open programs. Really, just an amazing informative tool!
   It also lets you run System Diagnostic test which generates a beautiful Report on pretty much everything! It even gives you suggestions on how to improve system's performance if such action is needed.
   
   

   Reliability and Performance Monitor
   System Diagnostics
   System Diagnostics Report

   
   
10. Parental Controls
    I do not have kids yet but I find this feature to be really great. In the world we live in today, it really is important to protect your family in all ways possible. Parental Controls in Vista let you do just that, so you can rest assured that when your kid (or a friend) is On-Line, they can do everything within specifically preset limits. You can restrict certain websites, set log in time limits so you can make sure your kid is doing homework and not playing on-line, set game ratings you approve, and limit any specific applications from being run on the computer by that user. It also comes with Activity Reports which let you see at any time top 10 websites visited, logon times, applications ran, games played, etc.
    I use Parental Controls for a special Friend account, to set the applications friends who visit me can run, and what they can really see on my computer. There is a Guest account in Vista as well, but I prefer to do it this way since I have more control.
    
    

    Parental Controls

    
    
11. Clock
    Looking at a clock is such a trivial thing, but once you get some more options you realize what you've been missing on. In Vista you can set two more different times you'd like to keep an eye on, and with a simple click on a clock in the taskbar, you can pull up a widget with a calendar together with all of your time zones. Calendar is also integrated so effectively that getting to a date you desire can be accomplished with minimal effort.
    
    

    Ah, the Clock

    
    
12. Photo Gallery
    Not that I use the Photo Gallery much, but I just may start doing so. It is beautiful, useful, and with everything just a click away. You can touch-up photos, tag them, rate them, add captions, print, email, burn them to a CD or DVD, and make movies with them – all with a click of a button. Everything is accessible right from the Photo Gallery itself, so you will have no more excuses why your photos are not organized and why your friends are still waiting for a disk with photos from a New Year's party a month ago.
    
    

    The Photo Gallery

    
    
13. 3D Flip
    Yea, everyone brags about this as being a really cool thing. Flipping through the running applications as if they were slides in a 3D environment. I think it's nice, but I am not yet used to it that much. Mostly beacause I forget it exists, unless someone stops by and then I have to show off my Vista a little bit. Therefore, once I get into my head that it exists – I bet I'll use it more often. It's pretty!
    
    

    The 3D Flip (nice screenshot)

    
    
14. Power Options
    Finally some more power to the (mobile) users; we are now able to fine tune everything from hard drive running time, wireless adapter preferences, even PCI Express, USB and Processor Power Management. There's a lot more too, and I really love it since it really means a lot when I can set up my laptop to last 3 and a half rather than 2 and a half hours on battery!
    
    

    Advanced Power Options

    
    
15. Ready Boost, SuperFetch and Hybrid Drive Support
    Vista comes with couple of never before seen terms which all spell: performance and efficiency.
    There's never enough RAM on a computer, so if you are not really looking for a RAM upgrade, or you just can't fit more into your machine, Ready Boost comes in handy. Some of those super fast USB flash disks and hard drives can be used by this Vista feature and pretend like they are RAM – therefore – you get to work with more applications without need for Vista to bother too much with those slow swap files on the hard drive.
    SuperFetch is a memory –management technology built in right into Vista that keeps track of all applications you use most frequently and it preloads them into memory. Its algorithms are able to detect even which programs you most likely run on weekends, and load those into RAM for a faster access just before you're about to use it. Maybe this is why I am experiencing a really fast opening of both Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop. They are just snappy!
    Hybrid Drive technology is developed jointly between Microsoft and Samsung. Hybrid drives are those hard drives which come together with some amount of Flash Memory on board, besides the conventional hard drive space. They offer an extended battery life for laptop computers, faster application access times and faster resumes from the sleep mode. When the drive is not much in use it can turn off and use its energy-efficient flash memory for data storage until that buffer is filled up or new data is needed directly from the drive. It is a promising technology and definitely something I'd like to have – therefore it's in my faves. Vista supports it right out of the box.
    
    

    ReadyBoost

    
    
16. And for grandparents – BIG ICONS
    Vista icons have changed, and they can be rapidly resized and still stay very smooth. This makes it just awesome when my grandma is browsing the computer, since she does not have to wear glasses in order to look for a CD icon in My Computer, but rather see it immediately because it can almost be sized up to a real-life CD ROM. Check out the screen shot! I love it, and she loves it. Also, with a nice control over the fonts, I can easily size those up too, and then everything will be Crystal Clear for her.
    
    

    Nice Big Super Clear Icons YES, that really is an icon!

    
    
17. And last, attention to detail
    Even though many say Vista needs some more polishing done, and I agree to a certain extent, do note that developers at Microsoft did pay attention to those nice little details we all start appreciating once we experience it. When renaming a file, in most cases we do not want to rename the extension as well, so to make our life just a little bit easier and more productive, developers went a step further. When you click the file name, only the name is automatically selected so if you start typing - the extension will stay the same. Thanks!
    
    

    Sweet...

    
    

So, this has been my two cents why I will definitely NEVER ever go back to the Windows XP again. It just doesn't cut it!

If you like this post, please comment and also Digg it...

Wow, I remember that looooong time ago I saw this awesome video somewhere on-line and since then I completely lost track of it ... This is the main thing that got me so hyped up about Vista in the first place, I jumped the Longhorn wagon, downloaded the early Alpha versions and bragged about this awesome OS ever since ... Look where it got me - I got a blog I'm writing in Windows Live Writer (Beta), on Vista ;)

The question is, did Microsoft answer to it's concept? In my opinion - ALMOST. Surely Vista at this moment does not look as cool as in the concept, but If nothing else, with such innovative new design, new ways for programmers to make amazing looking applications (just see Office 2007), I think this concept is still not that far away from truth.

The main thing is - Microsoft gave us all the Potential to be more productive and make more interactive and innovative applications - and within a year - you'll see - this will come true. Some crazy looking, beautiful new apps will be developed which will change the way we use computers. Also, I really hope that someone at Microsoft checks out this Video as well - and makes sure that we do get the coolness you can see below. They made a great start - now it's at least possible for programmers to make such things happen. I see no reason why this will not happen.

Check out the video and let me know what you think:

I hear so many people complain about Vista's defrag tool lately. Sure it's not all pretty and what not, it looks a lot simpler, but here is why some things are the way they are, and why they are better. Less is more!

For those who do not know, Defrag is a special program, which on Vista runs even automatically in the background, whereby parts of data files on all segments of a computer hard disk are taken from their fragmented state (with parts of files spread all over the disk), and grouped together in complete-file segments. This makes it quicker for applications to find the files they need and frees up disk space, making the computer run more efficiently.

In XP, defrag program would go, check the current status of the drive and suggest if we should defragment the drive. Then, it would read those files and try to piece their parts as close together as possible in order to remove those fragments and speed up the system. That was pretty much it. A linear process where your computer knew what has to be done pretty much before it even starts.

So, if you wonder how simple the process of the upgrade really is, TechRepublic has a really nice gallery of screenshots so you can see what to expect.

It's really the simplest installation/upgrade of an OS yet!

Click on a pic below to proceed to their gallery.

Via: TechRepublic

P.S> More stories, tips, tricks, etc. are coming later on today and tomorrow - I have the whole thing already thought out and I'll show you all kinds of cool stuff, but I'm just having a minor problem: I went to sleep after 4am for the past tfour nights - so I'm just a little bit lost ;) Tonight I'll get a good night's sleep and from tomorrow - you can enjoy all the cool content as you would expect!

If you are really into reading a lot and want to find out a lot of cool things about Vista, from Pricing, Setup and Installation, Activation, Networking, Application Compatibility to Multimedia, Integrated Apps Review, Developer Technologies etc ... all in ONE post (28 pages long), then you definitely gotta check out ActiveWin.com's review.

Spece it out guys, it burns the eyes after page 16! ;)

ActiveWin's 28 page Review of Vista

OK, on a funny note for this Saturday, while I was reading Chris Pirillo's blog, on the end of the first page I saw this photo:

This is amazing! For the past few days I was so busy starting up this site, promoting it all over the place, reading all possible tech blogs and forums I could find to get the best and freshest news and tips out to the masses that I did not even think that this is how my girlfriend probably sees me right now!

I promise I'll be more available as soon as Monday starts! It's a promise OK!

Windows Easy Transfer Companion enables you to automatically transfer your most important programs from your Windows XP-based PC to your new Windows Vista-based PC. The software will move more than 100 of the most popular programs, as well as many others that you may have installed.

You have complete control over selecting which programs to transfer, so only the programs you care about will move. The software will alert you if some programs may not be able to transfer, or may not transfer with high confidence. Most security software is not able to transfer due to technical reasons.

Easy Transfer Companion is designed to be used in addition to Windows Easy Transfer - which is part of Windows Vista and automatically transfers your data and settings.

Nice thing if you are looking for a way to transfer existing applications without need to do all of the installing yourself :)

To get more info check out out the source, and for a download, click here.

So, I wrote about it here, and it was about the time for it to arrive. Donavon West got us a new nice Gadget which you can read more about right here: http://livegadgets.net/#blog_2bd741cf-bf22-4112-8a1a-74d8868a827e

 Get it here.

I4U news has some nice photos. I have no idea what's going on, but I do not even care, here, take a look, and then jump to the closest MicroCenter and get a copy! :)

Via MicrosBlog

I just got a BlackBerry so I've been quite busy playing with it (a great device by the way) - and the news on Vista pretty much all evolve about the possible big hoax on cracking the activation.

True or not true, I did mention in the article that there is a way this is just a fake - but either way, there is a high possibility that such thing does or will exist and either way it will hurt end users.

The truth is that Microsoft WILL give you another key but the point is WHY let people go through this. No-one deserves to go and spend an hour on the phone with MS Tech support for something they legally bought.

Also, if this news is to believe as well, the "hacker" apologized to Microsoft for making this (be warned, spell check was not used in the apology):

...once the news got out, and Microsoft confirmed that it was investigating Vista KeyGen, the Computer User, the workaround's creator apologized to Microsoft. Computer User stated that he loved Windows Vista, and that he would disassociate himself from the crack-project in the future. Here is the apology (the syntax is that of the author):
“For all you guys working for microsoft! If you are reading this thread. I apologize for exposing the workaround in question. but we all know its highly unlikely to ever work.
I regret the fact that it has been leaked all over the net, which i guess was to be expected.
I simply love windows vista, and i happend to stumble upon this trick. I thought mysef alittle vbscript and that was it. I guess it just happened to work although truthfully i never though it would!...

Source: StolenStories.com

In my opinion, this guy should get some money for:

1. Putting Vista back in the news - at least everyone's talking about it again (free marketing!)
2. Getting my Apache Web server to flex it's muscle since the post about the crack was the most visited one since the start of VistaJuice.com (over 3000 unique hits at the article within an hour!)

He should also pray that the crack does not really work since if it does, I do not think Microsoft will simply accept the apology! :) Good luck mate!

Oh, and last - WindowsVistaMagazine.com reminds you to watch the Lunar eclipse tonight!

Eclipses are exciting times for space enthusiasts, and pretty cool for everyone else. On Saturday, 3 March those in Europe, Africa and Eastern North America will be best placed to see a full lunar eclipse at around 8pm GMT.

Via: StolenStories.com and WindowsVistaMagazine.com

You may have noticed that Restore Points on Vista take a lot more than the usual 50 or so megs as they did on XP. They can take up as much as 3GB at times.

If you ever wondered why, Eduardo (the Program Manager for System Restore at Microsoft) has a very nice explanation for this:

In Windows Vista, System Restore is now based on the VSS technology, which keeps track of block-level changes across your entire volume(s). In contrast, Windows XP System Restore would keep copies of changed system files by using a file system filter. The Windows XP method isn't performance efficient because it works above the file system level, impacting every system operation. It is also not consistent as it doesn't have needed information across the entire volume. It wouldn't restore, for instance, applications that place binaries (purposely or maliciously) in the user profile.

These new restore points, aka Shadow Copies, are taken daily across your volume, or at application/driver installation. The size of each shadow copy will vary on the amount of changed blocks are being recorded on your system. The more it churns, more data will be stored aside. Once they reach their cap, 15% of your volume, older shadow copies will be deleted to free up room for new ones. With these improvements in place, the Windows Vista solution allows for a more reliable (restore points are readily available), robust (supports a much broader set of repair scenarios) and efficient (seamless impact on performance) System Restore.

The tradeoff of taking additional space is compensated by allowing features like Shadow Copy to work as an automatic local backup. With that you can restore previous versions of accidentally edited/deleted files and folders across your entire disk.

In my opinion this was a good tradeoff in the age of super cheap, extra large hard drives, we live in today. This always reminds me when back in 97 I got a 4 gig hard drive and the guy selling it to me told me - you will never fill it up! LOL!

Via: TheFilingCabinet

I have a very nice statistics program monitoring visits and trends on VistaJuice.com called Mint. I love a little add-on which shows me what keywords brought people to VistaJuice in the first place, so to make it easier to find things, here are the top searched keywords and where to find info on them right here on VistaJuice.

1. "KB929327" - or in plain English - Ultimate Update for Windows Vista - DreamScene Package
   ~ Click here to search for posts on dreamscene tag
   
2. "Windows DreamScene Preview" was a second set of keywords, and a preview can be seen here: DreamScene and DeskScapes in Action
   
3. "vista auto login" - is of course possible, and you can learn how to make it work here: Auto-login how-to for Windows Vista
   
4. Fourth keyword bringing people to this site was "VistaJuice", so I suppose no more info is needed on this since you're here already :)
   
5. "upgrading from XP to vista" was the fifth one, and more you can find in this post: Upgrading Windows XP to Vista - ScreenShots
   
6. "Nvidia 101.41" came from people looking for the latest Vista compatible Nvidia drivers. To get them go here: nVidia 101.41 - SLI 6/7 SERIES! (Beta)
   
7. "vongo vista" interestingly got a lot of attention. I guess people really do like Vongo and want to use it through Vista's media center. Learn more about it here: Vongo - Vista Edition is out
8. "vista aero tweak" - is of course possible: Tweak your Aero
   
   and last but not least
   
9. "windows vista defragmentation" caught a lot of attention when I reported on it in Windows Vista Defrag Tool is Cool! Here is why ...
   
10. "vista activation crack" is picking up lately, and for full coverage check out: Don't try to crack Vista's Activation - here is why... and Another Vista activation bypass: for real this time?

The other keywords were mostly a combination of the above 10 keywords which pretty much yield same results. I hope someone finds this useful ;) Think of it as a small and quite incomplete index of the most visited/searched-for posts on the site ;) There's a lot more cover in previous 90 posts.

The Filing Cabinet has a nice explanation on this. I'm glad they wrote it since I was really beginning to wonder - why! Incremental backups are suppose to save the amount of space over the full backup - which they do, but not in the ordinary fashion.

We’ve seen a number of customers ask why their incremental backups are almost as large as their full backup. This can be surprising on a lightly used system where you don’t change or add a lot of files between backups. Seeing files backed up that you know you didn’t change can be perplexing, but there is a good explanation: the files were indeed changed, either by a program or a perhaps inadvertently by a person. For example, any of the following actions can cause files to be changed and therefore backed up:

• Antivirus programs writing to alternate streams on the files or programs that update media file metadata (ID3 tags, for example). Even right-clicking a file and viewing its properties can add an alternate data stream to the file, thus changing it. 
• Changing permissions on the parent folder or setting compression.
• Moving the files to a different folder.

Backup in Vista does not make any decisions about which types of changes to back up versus those to ignore--any file that is changed will be backed up. To determine if a file has changed, Backup looks at creation date, modification date, and last written to date (visible only programmatically). Backup does not understand any file formats and does not look in any headers to decide when to back up a file, nor does Backup use the archive bit.

--Jill

I wish the backup program was more "smart", but I guess I'll live with it, until my external 500 Gig WD Drive runs out of space :)

Via: TheFilingCabinet

Hey all!

I just want to let you know why I haven't written anything in the past couple of days. I've been sick, some strange high temperature hit me out of nowhere so I was in bed most of this week. Before that for 3 days I had to work on a project of mine, so with the sick-days combined - it probably seemed like VistaJuice dried out :)

I am still not feeling quite all right, so within a day or so I hope to come back to the daily VistaJuice routine ...

Thanks!
Petar

All rite all! Thanks all for comments and patience waiting for me to get back to Vista Juice.

I've been sick for about week and a half some long time ago when I wrote one of the posts below, but then after that I just got so busy I had no time to even check my email - and a lot less to write here.

Now, after getting back on my legs, finishing some web dev work for my clients, installing a new Xtreme N gigabit router from D-Link in my home network, and finishing BuckeyeCollisionAndGlass.com website for my girlfriend's uncle - I'm ready to find some spare time and get back to giving you some more Vista tips. If Adam Curry can find time to do a freakin' awesome podcast every single day, I guess I can manage to write a post or two making your lives in Vista more fun :)

Talking about fun - I HATE SONY - Again! :) That does not stop me buying computers from them, but nonetheless - I hate them. Even with the DVD they sent me with the "Express" Vista upgrade package - it took over 5 hours to get everything installed! I just thank God for Acronis True Image software - without which I would probably die. Finally after everything was installed and nicely configured on my girlfriend's computer - I created a nice 20 Gig image of clean Vista install with all drivers and usual apps on it. Boy does this save time when it comes to reinstalling Vista at some point in the future :)

So, without further yada yada bla bla ado - I'm gonna go and organize all of my little notes and links I gathered during the past month so I can start giving you new tips ASAP.

Also, I got a question in one of the comments is there a "How do I..." section on this site... Not really - but if you email me anything you want to know or need help on how to do at vistajuice@gmail.com - I'll try and help you out. If a question is of a general interest - I'll even post it here on the site.

Please - do not abuse the above email - I am not Microsoft Customer Support - so questions you can and should ask them please leave out of my mailbox - you know which questions etc. you should ask me - just use common sense :)

Oh, hey, one more thing, my good friends Sash and KingV at JunkNova.com got a really cool On-Line store open now - so you can get some really nice t-shirts, polo shirts, boxers, heck even thongs with their kewl logo imprinted! I'm getting my shirt this week :)

Thanks and see ya in a jiffy.

I just want to thank Dennis Castaldi for being the first to officially support VistaJuice!

I just happened to glance over to the right side of the site where our ChipIn plug-in is located and I noticed we now have a total of $10.69 ... Sorry I haven't seen it earlier but it's not these types of things happen every day :)

Before his donation we only had a nice and fun contribution from our friends at JunkNova.com in the amount of $0.69 cents :)

Thanks Dennis - your PayPal donation is really appreciated!

Petar

It seems that some people find some useful information on Vista Juice which really makes me happy. What's even better is that they go a step further and make a nice donation which really does make me feel really nice and puts me in an even nicer mood for writing.

So, without further ado THANK YOU:

1. Neil Mills for a $10 donation
   
   and a really huge thanks to
   
2. Erin Brophy for a $20.69 donation!

You just gotta love the number coming from Erin :)

Hey, maybe OCC can make us a Vista Juice bike, wouldn't that be nice.

Hey guys,

Long time no see. I've been really busy lately starting up Peconi Group, LLC. and expanding PeconiHosting.com that I really did not have much time to write on Vista Juice.

Truth is - not much is happening with Vista at the moment. Some updates here and there, still waiting for the real deal on those nice Ultimate Extras.

Microsoft is making some changes to the integrated Start Menu search since Google sued them ... Wthell? Only in America can someone sue you for making your own product better...

Other than that - same ol', same ol'. I am still a bit pissed that MS is not updating some things in Vista: #1 annoyance is when you open a folder full of photos, thumbnails load only on those you are seeing at the moment. All those other photos which are just a scroll-down away do not have thumbnails available until you actually scroll all the way to them... What a hell with that? I work with thousands of photos every single day and this has been one of the main reasons I am still under the old - Rock Solid - and trusty XP. That was also one of the reasons I stopped writing for VJ - I just did not want to be a hypocrite - praising the OS I am not really using all that much right now. I did for months, but I had to go back to gain a bit on my productivity.

If there are any of you who are interested in becoming Writers for Vista Juice - please contact me at peconi at peconi.com. I'd definitely like to get the blog running. Since we're not Engadget - you won't get any revenue from this really (I don't either except for those REALLY NICE Chip ins by couple of you guys! Thanks so much, I really appreciate it!).

So, that's it for now just so you all know I'm still alive :)

Oh, and it seems that iTunes now finally works fine with Vista :) Let's hope that iPhones don't start dying in Vista while synching like some iPods did, haha ...

Leter guys....