Windows 7 - installation experience

Having used it now for about 18 hours, I really like Windows 7.  It has a ton of refinements that make it easier to use.  It's much faster than Vista, and is rock solid so far. 

I installed it over the top of Vista on my own laptop - I always experiment on myself first!

I downloaded the upgrade advisor, http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1b544e90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15, and ran it.  It identified a handful of programs I'd installed that needed to be updated to run with Windows 7.  I also upgraded to Norton Internet Security 2010, just to be sure.

I decided to install as an upgrade, rather than starting from scratch.  The installation took almost 3 hours.  It didn't ask me a thing after it got started.  I just watched it go.  Remember, I have a TON of software installed on my machine - more than most people. 

As it started, it identified two additional pieces of software that I needed to update for Vista. N.B.: the majority of the total of 10 programs I was advised to update were Lenovo utility programs, most of which I don't seem to need, since I just removed them and haven't reinstalled them.

There have been NO wrinkles after the update, with one exception, and that's a program I use extensively.  This program, the very cool MaxiVista, isn't something normal people would use, though, and the only action I had to take was to uninstall and reinstall it.  It adds virtual display drivers, and they needed to be added in to 7 directly.

All in all, very easy, if a bit slow.  I understand that a clean install can take mere minutes.  This would be because a clean install doesn't have to preserve and update all the settings and programs from the previous operating system.

If I were a normal person would I pay $219.00 for the Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade?  Probably not.  The upgrade to 7 Professional for $200 or to Home Premium for $120, maybe. 

I would without hesitation buy a new machine with Windows 7 instead of either the aging Windows XP or the much (and unjustifiably) maligned Windows Vista, though!

Stardock's ObjectDock - it's like MacOS, only better!

Apple builds beautiful hardware and breathtakingly simple, elegant and easy to use software.  That's a given.  Apple is still far from a good first choice for most users for several reasons that I'll not detail here.

That said, Stardock, a company that makes a wide and somewhat strange variety of software, has made a tool called ObjectDock that brings a small, elegant piece of MacOS to the Windows desktop.   ObjectDock is free (unless you want to buy the Pro version; something I have not yet done) simple to set up, and quite useful!  Configured correctly it's more intuitive, more productive, and just as pretty as the dock in MacOS.  The free version has a left section for folder-y type things, and second from left section for applications, a second from right section for utility type things, and a right-most section for running programs.  After a little tinkering to tone down the big zooming of icons (I chose size 40 for regular and size 55 for zoomed, it's a VERY nice replacement for the Quicklaunch toolbar, which I've turned off on my laptop, and desktop icons, which I'm slowly putting away.

There are other tools, rocketdock, most notable among them, but I find ObjectDock to be better, and they're both free!

Fun, productive and free.  What could be better?

Off-site backup - it's not just a good idea, it's the law (now)!

Well, I must say this is an example of "do as I say, not as I do", and I'm going to pay a price for that.  Not a huge price, but a price nonetheless. 

Like the doctor who smokes, or the shoemaker with holes in his shoes (and yes, I know nobody under the age of 30 knows what a shoemaker is; just go with it), I was not following my own advice, fully.  My laptop, and those of my kids, do back up regularly to the Rackspace Cloudfile infrastructure using Jungle Disk.  That's good! 

However, the machine which serves as the hub of my house, the place my music and pictures (60gb of music and 23gb of pictures dating back to my first digital camera from Christmas, 2000), was still just backing up to an external hard drive.

Then,

The machine (a very cool Hush Technologies - www.hushtechnologies.net - silent computer) had a little problem:  its power supply failed one day. "No problem, says I!  I have a backup!"

(N.B. A power supply for a Hush Technologies machine costs 290 euros.  Yes, that's $424, and yes, one can buy a whole computer for that much.  Whole computers for that much are not completely silent, however, and whole computers for that much are not carved from a block of solid aluminum.  But I digress.)

Then,

Upon trying to copy the contents of the backup drive to another of my computers, I found that it, too, had failed.   

"Yikes!"  Says I!

Now, sure, I can take (and have taken) the hard drive out of my beloved Hush Technologies machine, hooked it up using one of my Highly Trained I/T Professional Devices to another of my machines, and can copy (and am copying as I type this) the pictures, music and other things from that disk onto one of my other computers.  This will take about an hour, and does demonstrate why local backup is still a good idea.  To restore these files from an online source would take DAYS. 

HOWEVER,

Due to space limitations, I'd put a few things on that backup drive (the one that no longer functions correctly).  Yes, this is something I tell my clients to never, never do.  My file recovery tools MAY be able to recover those things.  If not, they're gone.  Forever.  Forever is longer than DAYS. 

You see where this is going.

The next thing I'm going to do, once the files finish copying from the disembodied hard drive of my Hush machine, is set up online, encrypted, off-site backup of those files.  The 100gb or so of stuff will cost me $15/month.  I may decide to just back up the pictures remotely (since I could get the music back).  That would only cost me $3.45/month. 

Just like I do with my three other computers.  Just like I tell my clients to do.  I'm also going to set it to back up to one of my $60, 640gb external hard drives, since an hour is shorter than DAYS, should I ever need to restore them.

I will do as I say, not as I did.

And if, on reading this post, you have an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, you should, too!

Managing a Palm Pre - documents, pictures, and, maybe music

Palm's historical affiliation with desktop computers was (rightly) thrown out the window with the Palm Pre.  The Pre is designed, as a PDA, to be affiliated (and sync'd) with either Gmail / Google Apps or Exchange (or both, as in my case).

This raises a question, and poses a problem:  how do I get "computer" stuff to the Pre?

Computer Stuff:

Documents, Pictures, and, maybe, Music:  Until or unless someone comes up with a robust (read: supported) wifi connection between the Pre and a computer, you need a microUSB cable to connect the two devices.  Once that's done, you choose (for the purposes of this and the next paragraph) to connect as a USB device.  Your Pre's internal memory shows up as a drive on the computer. 

To designate what should be sync'd between the two devices, and since I don't want ALL of my documents or pictures sync'd, I created a folder called Presync in my Documents folder, in which I put documents (Word, Excel, PDF) I want sync'd.  I have a folder called Contact Pictures and another called Photo Album in my Pictures folder that I want on the Pre.   I use a utility (have for years) called Second Copy, and I set up a profile in Second Copy to sync these two folders with the Pre.  I could also add a folder or folders in Music to this, but I chose not to.  More later.  Now, I hook up the Pre, select USB mode, double click the Presync profile in Second Copy, and in a few seconds the devices are in sync.  Easy!  It will be easier when/if someone comes up with a wifi connection that would serve in place of the USB cable.  Then, the Pre could sit on the Touchstone charger, and I could run the Second Copy profile automatically every so often, or manually whenever I want, without having to mess with the microUSB cable.

For music, I chose to use the other mode of connection the Pre offers:  Media Sync.  Right now, this causes the Pre to look like an iPod - pretty cool, actually, and I think Apple is NUTS not to support this, but in their usual style, Apple is bristling at this intrusion into their proprietary world.  I chose to use this method of syncing for one primary reason:  playlists.  I know iTunes isn't the best or most stable or functional Windows application - never has been - but it's easy to use, and so I choose to use it for its simplicity, and the fact that it can sync with the Pre.   iTunes also causes album art to be included with songs, and I like that on the Pre.  I know there are other ways to manage music (I've used them all) and all will work.  But I like the simplicity of this solution.

So there you have it!  Until something better comes along, this works pretty well.

Addendum: 

I found a solution to the problem of not being able to access, and therefore back up, .prc and .pdb files from Classic (PalmOS) applications on the Pre.  My need was to have a backup of my HandyShopper backup.  This is my solution (with help from the folks on the Treo Yahoo group):

Following the advice here:

http://forums.precentral.net/official-classic/187716-get-data-out-classic.html

Download and install RFBackup from here:

http://www.dt002.titandsl.co.uk/software/rfbackup.html

When you run that tool, it puts the backup files (including my precious HandyShopper database) in a folder where Second Copy can get at it.

So, now I have two profiles in Second Copy: one to update things as described above, and another to copy the backup to my Pre folder on my laptop.  Not as easy as HotSync, but then again I don't HAVE to hotsync, and this works just fine.

FINALLY! A suitable way to manage todos electronically!

Some who know me know that since adopting an electronic format for my todo list (thereby giving up my old, paper, Covey-based way of doing todos), my todo lists have become "where I put things I need to remember to do and then forget all about them since I never look there".  There are many reasons for this (procrastination, awkward user interfaces, etc.), but suffice it to say that my todo lists were next to useless. 

The technology base for my useless todo lists was Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003 and now 2007.  I also wanted desperately for my portable device (Palm PDAs, Treo, Centro, Blackberry, Palm Pre) to be a successful part of the equation.   I tried GTD tools, Franklin-Covey tools, and multiple configurations of Outlook, using Due Dates, Priorities, Categories, Starts Dates, and so on as ways to organize things.

You might notice that I mentioned the Pre - the Palm Pre - above.  That new mobile device, combined with a little discovery from Mark Forster, a time/life management guru whose work I've followed, may finally have delivered to me the holy grail - a working, efficient, effective electronic todo list!!  Yey!

I haven't quite finished this yet, since I haven't quite mastered the concepts of dismissal, and some of the other finer points of the system, but it's already helping me keep on top of todos better!

Here's how it works, so far.

Setup:

1. You read Mark Forster's information about his AutoFocus technique for managing todos.  His focus is on a paper-based system, but I adapted it to the tools I use:  Outlook, Exchange and the Palm Pre!   Autofocus is here:  http://www.markforster.net/autofocus-system/  Autofocus 2, an update, is here:  http://www.markforster.net/blog/2009/6/27/autofocus-2-time-management-system-af2.html.
2. You set up a new view in the Outlook Todo/Task list (and/or the To-Do Bar), that shows these fields: Icon, Complete, Created, Task Subject (and, as a crutch, Due Date, although I think I'll be getting rid of that).  You set up the view to sort by creation date.
3. You use the Palm Pre's task list, synchronized with Outlook through Microsoft Exchange (corporate, or hosted).  The reason the Pre works when no other mobile todo list I know about will work is that the Pre sorts todos by date created!   N.B. I hope desperately that when/if Palm adds the ability to sort on other fields (not there yet), they won't remove the ability to sort by creation date, or the Pre drops out of the equation, just like all my prior mobile devices. 

Use:

1. Your todo list in Outlook, and on the Pre are sorted by creation date. 
2. You add todos immediately as you think of them, so you don't forget anything.
3. You review and act on your list like the Autofocus system suggests - starting with the newest and working your way back.
4. The rest of the Autofocus system, and how I'll end up using it, will have to wait - too much to do!! (yes, I should remember to sharpen the saw . . . Thank you Dr. Covey!).

That's it!  There are some specific tools required to do this the way I do it:  Outlook <-> Exchange <-> Palm Pre.  You might be able to adapt to other/lesser tools, or just use paper, or Outlook or other electronic todo list that can sort by creation date and NOT use a mobile device. 

For now, I'm just happy to have an efficient, effective way to use electronic todo lists!

More soon.