Changes blowing in the wind

So, I will be taking on a new challenge come 1 March 2012, which means I will not be purely focusing on OpsMgr anymore. Instead, I am widening my horizons a little, and will be looking after the full System Center suite. I am rather looking forward to this, and hope to blog some more interesting things here going forward.

iPad vs Samsung Galaxy tab

Been playing a little with Quentin's Galaxy tab to compare it to the iPad. Today's test was simply the quality of a YouTube video, so I pulled up Ensiferum's From Afar on both tablets.

The sound quality on the iPad is marginally better than that of the Samsung, and the graphics are crisper too. In fact, I was surprised at how blurry bits of the video was on the Samsung.

I also noticed that the loadtime on the iPad was much shorter than on the Samsung.

I will be performing the same test with the Asus EEE Transformer as soon as my daughter remembers to fully charge the tablet :)

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First glance: Windows 8

I finally installed the Developers Preview of Windows 8 onto my netbook (HP Mini 200) last night after much deliberation and several stabs at getting a variety of Linux distros to work with this netbook, and am quite happy with both the performance and ease of use.

The disk image (iso) is a whopping 2.8GB for the 32bit version, while the 64bit version is 3.6GB. Once downloaded, you can either burn it to a DVD or convert to a bootable USB key. As my netbook doesn’t have a DVD-rom, I used Linux Live USB Creator to make a bootable USB key from the disk image. You will need a USB key/memory stick with a minimum of 4gb of storage.

The installer is reminiscent of the Windows 7 installer, with a few small changes, and you are offered the option of configuring your Live account as your primary log-in account – obviously gearing up for the tablet-market.

The tablet-style home screen is easy to navigate, but a desktop view is also available for those of us who like some things old school.

What is glaringly missing is the old start bar. When one clicks on the Start button now, the view switches between the home screen and the desktop.

The control panel – that has, admittedly been evolving massively over the last couple of versions of Windows – also now reminds one more of the settings screen in both Android and IOS than the Control Panel of old. And it is pretty, and it is good. But don’t fret, the old school control panel is still available.

So far, all the apps I have installed were automatically pinned to the home screen. Right clicking on the icon allows one to unpin the app – so one can still keep the home screen clean – and this applies to the apps that are installed with the OS.

 

Those already using tablets may find this version of Windows easier to use, while I think those who are still attached to Windows XP may resist conversion quite vehemently. Performance, however, is a massive perk, so if you are running a netbook and would like to get a bit more out of it, I would happily suggest giving Windows 8 a try – just be sure to read the minimum requirements and ensure that your machine matches the minimum at the very least.

First glance: Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

After many, many months of deliberation, research and arguments - both internal and with others - I have finally made the switch to Android.
I really had my heart set on the Sony Ericsson S006, but had to look at other options when it became clear that this 16 megapixel camera phone would not hit our shores. Being a fan of Sony Ericsson phones, I looked through their catalog and after much deliberation settled on the Xperia Arc.
A beautiful slim and lightweight phone running Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), it is fast and responsive and sports a very nice 8 megapixel camera. Getting up and running if you already have a Google account is quick and painless, as is connecting to all other social networks.

I ran into a small issue with the wireless network for a bit, which was resolved by reconfiguring our wlan a little. I would normally be reluctant to reconfigure a network for a single device, but our wireless lan has been a little sluggish recently anyway, and the config changes improved the overall performance for the other devices too.
Changes were switching from mixed auth to TKIP, and excluding the n option. If you are having issues with the WiFi just dropping on this phone, have a look at your router config.

Once the wireless issue was resolved, my love for this phone grew exponentially, and I started liking Android too.  I prefer the marketplace over the Apple app store, and love the ability to add active widgets to my screens. And android is made for online living.

This phone is a vast improvement over all previous phones I have owned, and I look forward to travelling with it.

(ETA - photo below taken while writing this post)

Need for speed Hot pursuit on Android

So you will be able to play the game on any platform.