George Hall Online

Exploring Social Media, Tech And Gadgets

Does the Zune Phone Have Wings?

Yesterday I examined the fact we don't yet have the Palm Pre in Australia.

There's another gadget I have yet to see here.  The Zune.

Whereas iPhones and Google phones are well-entrenched in Australia, the Zune media player doesn't seem to be in any Australian shops yet, or at least not in any big department stores I go to.

Then again, I'm sure friends in America will tell me it hasn't been a super-big hit over there either.

Perhaps it's got a lot to do with that name.

Zune.  Zune-y.  Rhymes with...

It doesn't catch the imagination like iPhone or iPod.

So it's interesting today to read Mashable and hear of the Zune PHONE.

Another Windows Mobile phone?

The specs at least sound good.

However, I've not been a great fan of Windows Mobile except for drawing programs.  I have painful memories of trying to set up the Internet using Microsoft's particularly strange way of doing it compared to other devices of a few years ago.  A Windows Mobile phone was the only one which needed a few dozen online tutorials to connect to the Net. The more recent versions of the OS seem to have improved things somewhat.

Then there's the naming of the project associated with this Zune phone.  Project Pink.  And you thought it couldn't get any funnier after naming a Mac tablet similarly to a sanitary product!

It all sounds well and good to try to imitate Apple (again) with a media player-cum-phone.  However, I would suggest getting away from the Zune label if they're really serious.  And it's really time for Microsoft to take a good hard look at the current (and future) Windows Mobile OS.

Both iPhone OS and Android have made great strides over Windows Mobile and it shows in current market share.

Even Nokia are having to look at going a bit better with Symbian OS.

I'm suppressing a yawn thinking of the Zune phone.

So, Mister Balmer, when ARE you getting the Zune to Australia...?

It Wouldn't Be Windows Without A Silly Glitch

While Windows 7 is quite an improved little beast, it's the annoying glitches that dent the experience.

I put Windows 7 Home Premium on my Macbook the day Win7 was released, via Parallels 4/5.  

For the most part it's been a reasonable OS, though it hasn't exactly made me think it's better than OS X or Linux.  The one thing that has made me grumpy is that the boot screen no longer shows the new Windows animation coming towards me.  Instead, I'm seeing Vista's green progress bar.  That's, what, merely a few weeks of use?

Some quick searching via Google shows I am not alone.  This seems to be a common experience for users of Windows 7.  The causes seem be something to do with the locales and there is a fix  for it.  If you use an elevated command prompt with Administrator rights, you simply use bcdedit or bcdboot.

I tried that and got my favored boot screen back for just one time.

Admittedly, this is a really small thing that hasn't greatly impacted on my use of Windows 7.  It's just plain irritating as I never used Vista and can't see the sense in this happening.  It just makes me wonder if, a few months down the line, something else will revert unexpectedly.

While it was good having a WIndows here on the Macbook, it really needs to stand out.  The competition is now nipping at Microsoft's heels and in some cases surpassing it, so stupid things such as this bootup glitch are going to have a greater impact.  Less users will tolerate things that detract from their productivity and computing enjoyment.  After all, who wants to spend an hour or two searching the net for an answer that only works for one restart.  If we want to do that, Linux gives us greater control and satisfaction for the same amount of work.

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Virtualizing Windows 7

I'm told the one piece of hardware a Windows installation works perfectly on is an Intel Mac.

Imagine the irony of that.

This week, my budget finally stretched far enough to get a 13" MacBook and one of the first things I did was download VirtualBox to it.  Then, since Windows 7 Release Candidate is on the cover DVD of every local computer magazine, I put that inside a VirtualBox virtual machine.

I also put a couple of Linux distributions in sandboxed virtual machines too.

It's a bonus of even Macs running on X86 Intel powered hardware.  Everything can be virtualized on the same machine and you can experiment to your heart's content with any OS you want.

VirtualBox sets up the necessary requirements for each VM via a wizard.  You specify the amount of memory you want the VM to run, the size of the virtual hard disk, set a few more small parameters and then start up your VM.

So I'm really enjoying seeing a Windows sitting inside a Mac program.  Considering the Release Candidate becomes useless sometime around June 2010, it's better being used this way.  No need to dual-boot it with anything, no need to redo everything for a clean install of the full release.  As it is, after March 1, 2010, the RC will shut down every two hours.

If you use a similar method to me and get the RC from a magazine DVD, you have till October 31 to get a product key from Microsoft.

So what do I think of Windows 7?  Well, I missed out on Vista, so it's a huge jump for me.  Very different, perhaps a little less intuitive than previous models.  That's saying a lot for someone who's learnt computers by self-teaching and intuiting.

I like some of the customization and theming, though I'd love to change the taskbar color.  I like the circular Start button and the gadgets (clock, weather, calendar).  I'm especially fond of the new Wordpad, a way more functional version than that previously seen.  Most of the Control Panel is relatively easy to work out.  However, it's still such an alien creature compared to my netbook's Windows XP.  I figure I'll be spending quite a few weeks exploring it before I'll consider myself comfortable with it.

I've read in one of the magazines that a lot more thought went into Windows 7.  Where Vista shipped still waiting for some features to integrate with what was already done, nothing went into Win7 unless it was already finished.  More say by engineers, less by managers.  More thought, more planning, more cohesive.

So, theoretically, it should be a good Windows version.

Then again, I'm still making sure it stays trapped inside my Mac until I'm absolutely sure of that.