More Windows 7 Info

I came across this Windows 7 informational site yesterday on Gizmodo.  They have some great tips and tricks and also walk you through the installation process.  I’m sure there are more sites out there related to Windows 7.  Anyone have any others I should check out?

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.NET Events in Colorado

I know January is almost over, but to me the year is still new.  I wanted to inform everyone about all the awesome User Groups and Community events in Colorado.

One of the most exciting upcoming events is the first ever Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta on Saturday, Feb. 21.  I cannot explain how cool this event is going to be!  It’s basically an all day geek fix.  There will be sessions related to .NET development, SQL Server and Windows Server.  So, if you work with MS products or know someone who does this is the event for you.  We have tons of speakers (Scott Hanselman is coming!) from all over the country and many who work for Microsoft and have inside info you cannot get anywhere else.  If you like what you are hearing please be sure visit the www.rmtechtrifecta.com site to register for the event to reserve your spot.

Next I wanted to let people know about the South Colorado .NET User Group.  I have taken over the leadership of this group from Julie Yack.  Julie Yack, David Yack and David Milner round out the leadership team for this group.  Next Tuesday we have Kathleen Dollard coming down from Ft. Collins to talk about rethinking Object Orientation.  SHould be great!  Please check out the link above to get more details.

Here are the links to all the MS related user groups I can think of in Colorado.

Denver Visual Studio User Group

North Colorado .NET User Group

Boulder .Net User Group

Colorado Springs SQL Server User Group

Denver SQL Server User Group

Colorado Springs Windows User Group

Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group

Please let me know if I missed a group.

Windows 7 Beta Stability is Solid!

I took the plunge last weekend and loaded the latest Windows 7 Beta on my laptop.  I decided to just go for it.  I had already loaded it on a spare laptop from work, but until you use something on a day to day basis you don’t really get a good feel for it.  Overall the experience has exceeded my expectations.  Here is a list of things I like:

  • The most impressive thing was the easy of installation and driver support.  I have an AMD Turion 64 X2 laptop.  The laptop was loaded with Vista 32 bit.  I decided to go all in and load the 64 bit version of the Beta.  Install was clean and the first time I logged in my screen resolution was really low.  However, after the first login Windows Update ran automatically.  Once that was done and I restarted the machine and was happy to find that my video and audio where back to normal.  I’ve been running for 5 – 6 days now smoothly and without a crash.
  • Another thing I have been happy with is the power management.  I have three kids under the age of 6.  So, I like to move around with my laptop while I keep one eye on them.  The power on my laptop seems to last longer without sacrificing connectivity or performance.
  • Next, The new task bar is really useful.  Instead of having multiple entries in the task bar for every window, Windows 7 groups them by application.  This is big.  For example when I’m using Outlook I frequently have multiple messages along with calendar entries, contacts etc open at once.  Windows 7 shows one icon on the task bar.
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  • Then when I hover on that icon it expands and shows all the windows opened related to Outlook.
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  • Very Cool!

A couple things I don’t like so far.

  • Support for multiple monitors is a bit difficult.  Maybe I just need some time to get used to it, but it took some extra clicks to get my second monitor configured.  I also had to save my settings multiple times to get it to work.  Not a big deal, but kind of annoying.
  • I also was disappointed that there is not support for mounting ISO files built into the OS.  Also MagicDisk, which is the one I used on Vista, did not work.  I found tons of blogs on this and finally loaded PowerISO.  PowerISO worked fine, but the fact that this took so long bothered me.

I will post any other things as I come across them, so far I’m running without a hitch.  The bottom line is that if you are thinking about trying it I would recommend it.  It is beta software so buyer beware, but so far this buyer is very satisfied.

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