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For the record, I like Windows Vista.  However, for those of us who remember the Vista beta program and even early days of running Windows Vista it wasn’t always fun – largely due to the driver support but there were plenty of bugs to avoid even in the later betas. When I purchased my MSI Wind (OEM rebadged as an Advent 4211 here in the UK) XP was pre-installed.  I remember when I picked up my Wind from the local computer store the salesman tried to sell me on the fact that it came with XP rather than Vista which is not a good sign of Vista’s reputation with consumers.  That said, XP didn’t last long on my Wind before Vista replaced it.  The stock Wind runs a 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom processor on the Intel 945GSE chipset.  As part of the initial batch of Winds, mine happily has the Synaptics touchpad.  One of the many things I like about the Wind is that it is end-user upgradeable, but the only addition I have made was to upgrade it to 2Gb RAM as the stock Western Digital Scorpio 120GB hard drive is a pretty good one for a budget netbook.

Remembering the early days of the Vista beta program, I had to contrast this with the absolute delight that installing and running the PDC build (build 6801) of Windows 7 has been on this diminutive device.  For a start stable drivers for the Wind were all available from Windows Update.  To get them I first had to install the Realtek WiFi driver for Vista by changing the compatibility settings to trick the installer into thinking I was running Vista RTM.  But once I had an internet connection, Windows Update found updated drivers for the graphics card, Wifi, Ethernet and even the SD card reader.  Everything on the device appears to be working, including bluetooth and the built in webcam.

I then ran the “blue-badge” unlock hack from Rafael Rivera Jr because I wanted some of the shiny eye-candy showed off on stage at PDC2008 that is not active in the standard 6801 build.  Note that after running the hack, I had to manually set the security permissions on the following files that the tool modifies to grant the “Users” group read permissions – but this was just because of my hackery and because I want the device to support multiple users, not something that a normal user would have to do.

• \Windows\Explorer.exe
• \Windows\System32\wisptis.exe
• \Windows\System32\ieframe.dll
• \Windows\System32\shell32.dll
• \Windows\System32\stobject.dll
• \Windows\System32\TabletPC.cpl
• \Windows\System32\themecpl.dll
• \Windows\System32\themeui.dll
• \Windows\System32\powercfg.cpl

Then I was up and running, and ready for the ultimate test – leaving the laptop on the kitchen table for my wife to pick up and use.  I warned her that I’d been “messing about” with the laptop – but she logged in, checked her mail (using the shortcut to the Windows Live Mail application in the fancy new taskbar) and did her online banking using IE8 (again from the pinned shortcut in the new taskbar).  All without issues.  Windows 7 = Passed. It is now the official operating system on my netbook.

Resume from standby is noticeably faster in Windows 7, and general system usage is also a lot snappier than Vista on this underpowered device.  Not sure what I think to the new “Libraries” but at first pass I class them as “not too annoying”. 

I am liking many of the new features in Windows 7.  “Aero snaps” (where you can drag a window to the top of the screen to maximize or to the left and right) is good, the new magnification tool (press Win and “+” to zoom in, Win and “-“ to zoom out) will replace ZoomIt as the tool I use during on-stage demos and it was nice to see that the calculator has had a revamp (programmer mode will now be my personal mode of choice for it).

Despite all the additional stuff, what is really nice about Windows 7 is what they have taken away.  The overall experience is just less noisy than before.

I am very excited to see how useable this very early build is and what the later builds, betas and eventual release of Windows 7 will bring.  Windows 7 is looking to be exactly what Microsoft need – it will probably be known as “the release that Vista should have been” which is a little unfair as Vista obviously laid down a lot of the ground work in terms of architecture.  That said, at this early stage it looks like Windows 7 is going to be a very popular release.

It turns out that the little video I posted yesterday has taken on a bit of a life of it's own.  Last time I checked, it was in the top 10 Science and Technology posts for YouTube in Ireland.  It's funny how it is always the posts that you do more for your own entertainment that take off. 

Anyway, there is no doubting that Brian is a bit of a character, he's already recorded his first TV appearance as a guest on this weeks, "This Week in Channel 9" (to be broadcast soon).  I wish that Nabaztag had an affiliate program as it sounds like I may have sold a few rabbits for them. 

Anyway, if you can't afford your own bunny, then you can have the next best thing for free.  Your very own Brian the Build Bunny Background on the desktop of a computer near you (standard and widescreen versions available).  Click here to chose a image size that suits you.

I'm always keen try new and novel ways to keep in touch with the status of my software projects.  Fortunately, Team Foundation Server provides many ways to do this.  While the Build Wallboard is fun if you have a spare monitor and machine lying around, I wanted to experiment with some inexpensive dedicated devices, and so Brian the Build Bunny was born.

Brian is a Nabaztag smart rabbit.  He reads out details of check-ins and builds.  If a build has failed then his ears go down to show how sad he feels, but if you fix the build his ears will soon pick up again.

I've had Brian for about a year now waiting to do this project, but when I tried it in the past I always found the response times from the rabbit to be too slow.  However earlier this year, the Nabaztag developers updated the code running the rabbits so that they are now using the XMPP (Jabber) protocol to receive updates and the service now seems pretty good.

Brian is now sitting on my desk chattering away and letting me know what is happening in TFS.  If you want to find out more about how he works and see him in action then take a look at the video. If your company blocks YouTube but you have Silverlight installed then you can view a higher quality version of the video courtesy of the Windows Live Streaming service.  I'll go through the code behind Brian in a later post if there is any interest, but it is pretty much a standard TFS event listener that then sends text to the rabbit using the Nabaztag API.

Ok, I’ll admit it.  My name is Martin Woodward and I am a gadgetaholic.  I have a few USB memory keys and a couple of external USB hard-drives.  However, I’ve been thinking about getting a new memory key for a while because my other ones are either too small or are a bit battered looking.  I was looking to spend £3 yesterday on a UK to US phone adapter and ended up getting myself a new 512Mb memory stick manufactured by Didigo so I would qualify for free shipping on my order.  I’ve been wanting to have a play with TrueCrypt for a while and I think I might create a hidden partition on the device and give it a try.

What’s the big deal you may ask?  Well this model has an integrated ePaper display (or Bistable Reflective Cholesteric Display to give it the proper name).  It shows you the free capacity and also the volume name on a little display that stays visible even when the power source is removed.  If you rename the FAT32 volume (in Windows, Mac or Linux) the display updates to show the new name.

I’ve been a keen follower of electronic paper technology for a while and this is the first time a device with it has come into a price range that I can justify and I have a need for.  We’ll soon probably have these displays built in to all sorts of devices but for now I was willing to pay a little over the odds (£42) for a memory stick so I could see it working for myself.  I’m sure it will give me endless hours of fun demonstrating it to anyone unluckily enough to comment on the display.  If you are coming to TechEd this year be sure not to comment on it or I’ll bore you for hours.  Watching the display work reminds me of the feeling I got when I saw my first pocket calculator, the Sinclair Cambridge, with it’s mesmorizing LED display.

As I may have mentioned to anyone that will listen to me - I am currently getting up at a daft time of the morning to beat the traffic into work. On my journeys I have noticed a completely new invention that I have never noticed before but one that is such a good idea.

On certain high speed bends on the un-lit road, there are now LED Cats Eyes lighting the way. I first noticed them when I was coming out of a junction and looked to my left to see the cats eyes were lit even though my headlights were not on them. They had a slight stobe to them bit were perfectly clear lighting the road ahead. What a great idea, just an incremental improvement on Percy Shaw's original idea, but what a good one.

Found a bit more about them at a company called Relfecto, along with some interesting toys...

I've just treated myself to a new toy. A brand new HP4150 PDA. After much looking, the cheapest place seemed to be Amazon.

Been very happy with it so far. Has both Bluetooth and WiFi. WiFiFoFum is an excellent WiFi sniffer, the radar screen impresses everyone I have shown it to. Got Terminal Services, GnuPG, VNC, SSH and a console installed so I can do most debugging I need to. All I need now is a serial cable so I can TIP into sun boxes and I have a cool bit of portable kit for getting machines working.

It can store phone numbers, check my email and play a wicked game of solitaire as well...

Just got my hands on a new Fujitsu ST5010 Tablet PC for a demo and I really enjoyed working with it. I have been wanting to use a tablet PC in anger for a while now as the idea of the form-factor is one that I liked. The ST5010 can be yours for £1500 inc VAT. In combination with Microsoft OneNote and Windows XP tablet edition I feel that I have a replacement for my trust A4 notebook. The machine had no problems recognising my handwriting (or speach) and the feel of writing on the surface is so close to writing with paper on pen that it takes no getting used to. However the screen can be difficult to read (especially when writing with it flat on a desk or when showing to somebody else).

If I was going to spend my own money on a tablet PC, I think I would need one of the notebooks with a keyboard and foldable screen, otherwise I would feel the need to carry tablet PC and laptop. While that has a certain amount of geek cred, it certainly isn't good for my back.

My final gripe is with Windows XP tablet edition. There are options to configure the pen for left handed use, but that just seems to alter the handwriting recognition algorithm. For cruel fun, try watching a left handed person using scroll bars with a pen - it just doesn't work. There needs to be the option to switch scroll bars onto the left and side of windows.

Apart from that, good fun, great battery life. Impresses the customers when you bring it out to write notes. Superb for capturing feedback on UI design etc. Not quite impressed enough with it to spend my own money, but impressed enough to give it serious thought.