Lets face it, if you use a beta OS on your main computer you are taking a risk with your computer and your data.  Not only is this so, but whenever you move to the next version of an OS you should do a fresh install.  Of course, in the real world, a lot of us recognize that Windows 7 beta is more like Windows 7 free trial.  The OS is suitable for daily use and any issues can generally be worked around.  The main exception is for web developers who insist on testing for certain versions of operating systems and browsers, those dirty guys (warn and allow it to work if it can, don’t block and complain).  If you’ve decided that its worth the risk to use the beta on your main PC, or all of your PCs for that matter, you probably also don’t mind taking  your chances with upgrade installs.  I hold this view, although Microsoft differs and many so called experts believe you should always back up your data and then do a fresh install.  Unfortunately, since Microsoft doesn’t support upgrading the Beta of Windows 7 to the Release Candidate, and probably from there to the final either, they cripple the install image by making it check the Windows version, then complain about not being able to upgrade pre-release software and forcing you to end the install.

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I’m a Fedora fan, and I’m impressed with each new release, but in the end, its just nowhere near ready.  You have to do far too much research and under the hood work to get it to do everything you want it to do, and in the end, not everyone writes drivers for Linux, and the community doesn’t write drivers for everything.  The main problem to me is that the average consumer (non-savvy computer user), can figure out Windows from the start.  Basically with Linux you have to learn how to use the OS before you can use it as your daily desktop OS.  In Windows, you can use it as is, but then you can learn how to customize it to your liking and needs at your own pace, with little effort.

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For years Adobe has set the standard for digital paper documents with it’s PDF (portable document format) standard.  Adobe Reader is a standard install for Windows administrators and in some cases is required to make other software work correctly.  This is fine if you only want to view these documents, but if you want to create them, the Acrobat software needed to do so starts at $299.  This is pretty pricey for the average home user.  Luckily Microsoft flew under the radar and came up with an alternative called XPS (XML Paper Specification).  › Continue reading…

Many people were taken by surprise when trying out the Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 when it first came out.  It was buggy, and the main deal breaker for me was the fact that the Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ feature didn’t work.  Not that its a feature I use everyday, but at times it just turns a laptop into a portable movie player, and in my application, my laptop sits next to my bed and acts as my movie player since I don’t have cable or a vcr/dvd player in that room.  Not only was it annoying not being able to use the service, but a quick google search showed me that uninstalling IE8 from Vista SP1 wasn’t going to happen (although if you’re upgrading to vista from XP SP3, you’re automatically downgraded to IE7 for the save). › Continue reading…