It has been a busy few weeks
It has been a crazy couple of weeks. I've been heads down, trying to get work done on the Web Client Software Factory. I've been busy with some stuff around the house: new appliances leading to the need to move a gas line and a water line in the kitchen. I started running Vista. And I had my laptop meltdown on me.
Now, I had been planning on upgrading to Vista for a while. I just had not taken the leap. Then, last Monday, I got to work, turned on my computer, and nothing happened. Actually, something happened: I got an error message that there was no hard drive. After an hour, I decided (with some help from our local lab admin and all around good guy Eric) that I was screwed. The drive was a complete loss and would not even spin up. No data could be recovered, but I could get a replacement on Tuesday. When I did, I just installed Vista, but more on that later.
Now, I had been planning on backing up my data when I upgraded to Vista. However, it had been about 2 - 2.5 months since I last backed-up my data. I lost all my notes for blog posts, a lot of email, some code, some project documentation, my favorites list, and some other personal information. Ouch! But it was my own fault for not backing up my data more often. Live and learn (eventually). I'm working on a simple, no thought required way to backup my data without my intervention.
So after I revived my laptop with a new hard drive, I installed Vista RC1 and Office 2007 Beta 2TR. Wow! So far, I am impressed. I have had a few problems, but nothing too major. My biggest problem is the inability to connect to my home wireless network. Now, I have not spent enough time troubleshooting to figure out if it is my network, user error, or a problem with Vista. My guess is user error, but for the moment I have a wired solution.
Everything else about Vista is great. The new Start/Run/Search functionality on the old "Start" button allows me to hit 3-4 keystrokes to get to most of the programs I want to run. This is great, since I can keep my hands on the keyboard, not on my mouse. The new control panel organization is clean, logical, and well thought out. The integrated search is fantastic. The restricted permissions are occasionally annoying, but not all that bad. It is no worse than the restricted permission set that users run under in OSX (my wife has a MacBook Pro that dual boots OSX and XP)
Office 2007 is definitely an improvement. Outlook 2007 rocks! I love the rich categorization and the To-Do Bar. And running with the Navigation Pane hidden is great. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all great, too. The ribbon based UI is simple and easy to navigate, and makes it easy to find what you are looking for.
So, please be patient as I recreate the rest of the articles I was working on for my "Why did I go agile" series.
