laptop has arrived
I got it today... it's pretty nice. So far the only annoyance is Vista.
I tried coming into using Vista with an open mind; I know a few people who are pretty happy using it. Perhaps the bad reviews were coming from people still pining for the 'classic' Windows experience, and perhaps Vista was novel enough and cool enough to put those people off. Nope.
User access control is annoying; so far, it's functioned like a near-constant "Are you sure?" button. Re-format C:? Are you sure? Give this person your personal information? Are you sure? Un-install this program using an unsigned executable from some company we can't verify called "Microsoft Corporation"? Are you sure?
Some things are better. In Vista, Microsoft has finally improved upon the Alt-Tab dialog, something they had barely changed since Windows 3.1 before. They did something OS X, Window Maker, Gnome, and KDE all did years ago - the dialog finally responds to mouse-overs. Before Vista I was using a little program called TaskSwitchXP to do that, and it's finally built-in.
Right now I'm debating whether to install Ubuntu - which I've heard is the best free operating system for laptops - or OpenBSD, what I tend to naturally prefer everywhere at this point. I haven't found a good way of easily scanning/switching WiFi networks with OpenBSD, and my results with WPA (which at least one WiFi network I use regularly requires) have been pretty negative. I'm considering Windows 7 when it comes out, or the RC once I get definite information one way or the other about how to upgrade to a non-Ultimate version of Windows 7 once it's actually released.
But Unix appeals more: it means I can't do work on the laptop, and thanks to Intel graphics I know already that I won't be playing games on it... for what other purposes would I want to run Windows?
Oddly, the other task I have set to do is to re-install Windows XP on my previous laptop, the T23, so a friend of mine can use it. To make that as easy as possible, I'm also looking into re-creating the XP recovery partition Thinkpads come with, but that I wasn't able to carry over when I replaced the dead hard drive.
I tried coming into using Vista with an open mind; I know a few people who are pretty happy using it. Perhaps the bad reviews were coming from people still pining for the 'classic' Windows experience, and perhaps Vista was novel enough and cool enough to put those people off. Nope.
User access control is annoying; so far, it's functioned like a near-constant "Are you sure?" button. Re-format C:? Are you sure? Give this person your personal information? Are you sure? Un-install this program using an unsigned executable from some company we can't verify called "Microsoft Corporation"? Are you sure?
Some things are better. In Vista, Microsoft has finally improved upon the Alt-Tab dialog, something they had barely changed since Windows 3.1 before. They did something OS X, Window Maker, Gnome, and KDE all did years ago - the dialog finally responds to mouse-overs. Before Vista I was using a little program called TaskSwitchXP to do that, and it's finally built-in.
Right now I'm debating whether to install Ubuntu - which I've heard is the best free operating system for laptops - or OpenBSD, what I tend to naturally prefer everywhere at this point. I haven't found a good way of easily scanning/switching WiFi networks with OpenBSD, and my results with WPA (which at least one WiFi network I use regularly requires) have been pretty negative. I'm considering Windows 7 when it comes out, or the RC once I get definite information one way or the other about how to upgrade to a non-Ultimate version of Windows 7 once it's actually released.
But Unix appeals more: it means I can't do work on the laptop, and thanks to Intel graphics I know already that I won't be playing games on it... for what other purposes would I want to run Windows?
Oddly, the other task I have set to do is to re-install Windows XP on my previous laptop, the T23, so a friend of mine can use it. To make that as easy as possible, I'm also looking into re-creating the XP recovery partition Thinkpads come with, but that I wasn't able to carry over when I replaced the dead hard drive.