The Rabapab Blog

There will be a Windows 7 Launch event taking place in Cleveland on October 12th @ Regal Severance Stadium located on 3492 Mayfield Road, Cleveland OH 44118.  The event starts @ 7:30AM with the Developer Event Registration & Continental Breakfast, that will run until 9:00AM.  Then the event really gets moving with the following sessions:

Taking You Application to the Next Level with Windows 7

Building Next Generation User-Interface with Multitouch and Ribbon on Windows 7

Beyond Human Interaction with Windows 7 Sensor and Location Platform

Those 3 sessions will last until around 11:35AM and will complete the developer portion of the event.  There will also be several seminars for IT related technologies which include Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2010.

For attending the event you will receive a free copy of Windows 7, which is well worth taking a few hours out of my Monday morning.  For more information on the event and to register to attend please visit http://www.microsoft.com/business/thenewefficiency/Cleveland/default.aspx

A few weeks ago I posted about the Zune HD, the new Microsoft media player to compete against the iPod Touch.  While Apple is certainly not in anyway close to losing their lead over the media player market, the new Zune HD will certainly close the gap a little more.  Prices were actually leaked a few weeks before the Pre-Order pages started showing up.  Currently both Amazon and Best Buy have the 16GB version available for $219.99 and the 32GB version for $289.99, both to begin shipping on 9/15/2009.

Best Buy – http://bit.ly/20OYJ4

Amazon – http://bit.ly/xtzds

From what I have seen the 16GB version is available in Black, while the 32GB version comes in a Silver color.  Other than memory size both devices are the same on the inside.  The new Zune HD has the following features which will make it stand out against the iPod Touch.  It includes an HD Radio tuner, OLED touch screen, the ability to display videos through the A/V Dock in 720P HD format.  Those are only a few of the new features that will be coming with the new Zune HD media player.  I certainly look forward to being able to play with the new device when it is released.

Once I have the device in hand I will throw a Review post up with some pictures and what not.  The one thing this blog is missing is some pictures, they help to break up the constant stream of text that the blog currently is.  And with those pictures hopefully I can settle this blog into a niche, one that will bring with it some new readers.  Until then, have a good day and make sure to check out the new Zune at a Best Buy near you.

So I must say that I am definitely looking forward to the Zune HD release supposedly sometime this fall.  The previews and few hands-on reviews that I have read with pre-release hardware samples lead me to believe that it will be quite the piece of hardware.  The touch screen interface is what I am definitely looking forward to, it has been long overdue.  The jump to the HD Radio will help to keep the device out in front, which will add to its appeal.  And now that it will have a web browser built in the device gains the utility of similar devices with WiFi connectivity.  The OLED screen should be absolutely amazing to see in real life, and I certainly cannot wait to get my hands on one.

I do hope that Microsoft can see the huge market for allowing applications to be developed for the device.  And with that knowledge I hope they open the device to 3rd party developers to create software similar to that capable of being run on the iPod Touch devices.  Otherwise, even with all the nice bells and whistles the Zune will still be lagging far behind the iPod Touch and iPhone applications market.  I would think that making the Zune device capable of running 3rd party software would be possible, considering as how it is running a Microsoft operating system.  Certainly they can build something that Apple is clearly capable of building, only I am sure that Microsoft can do it better and with the ability to multi-task.

If you are looking for more information check out the following articles, I found them informative.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-10303243-49.html

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/28/zune-hd-hands-on/

http://gizmodo.com/5272228/zune-hd-hands-on-photos-and-video-tour

Those are just a few articles with pics of early versions of the device in the hands of the reviewers.  And so far the device looks amazing, it can only get better between now and release.  Hopefully Microsoft will see the light and start releasing development kits to developers to begin creating applications.  That way with some luck they have some apps ready to go when the device is released.

Stay tuned for more on this device in the future.  I do plan on grabbing one as soon the device is released.

So I broke down over the past few days and did a complete Windows 7 re-install on the netbook.  I had done it already on the laptop, but had not done it for the netbook.  It has went well so far and everything seems to be running smooth.  I was able to get away with installing only 2 drivers from the Asus site, the most important being the ACPI driver, which it took forever to find.  Everything else so far has been running as expected, the battery life is right where it was when I had 7 installed the first time.  I really like the power management features in Windows 7, it is able to make the most out of the 6-cell battery on the Asus  Eee PC 1005HA, in low power mode I am able to get around 8 hours out of the battery and around 5 hours in balanced.

So far I am extremely impressed with Windows 7, it seems to deal with the shortcomings found in Windows Vista, and in most cases dramatically improve the user experience.  I do have to agree with the common complaint that there will not be any Windows XP upgrade paths, but considering that I always do Full Install versions of Windows I am not too concerned.  Upgrades in my experience never seem to run as good as a fresh install.  Files that are worth keeping are usually easy to backup, and most software that you may have purchased can either be downloaded easily or you will have disc copies of.

So no matter if your on Vista or XP, if you meet the system requirements for Windows 7, you should definitely make the jump to Windows 7.  I will be putting a copy of Professional on this netbook when the OS officially releases.  I don’t think I really need the Ultimate edition on the netbook, since I don’t do the BitLock stuff nor do I have a need to switch to any other language than English.  That will save me a little bit of money, but I will still be able to do all the things that I want/need to be able to do. 

Next article I will be going over the things I hope to see improved in the final release of the Windows 7 OS.  Most of which I am sure we will not see, of course keeping in mind that I have not as of yet seen the RTM release of Windows 7.  Once I have a chance to check that out then I will have a better idea of what issues I see still needing to be fixed shortly after release.  Until next time, everyone take care.