Ashwath Ram's blog

First week of using Vista RTM

I installed Vista on 3 machines this week, my office machine, my Toshiba laptop and my home Dell machine.

Installation tips

1. The installation is really smooth. The OS asks a few questions asks for your code and then pretty much does everything else. Even on my tricky Toshiba installation everything went smoothly.
2. Make sure you disable all anti virus applications.
3. The software needs at least  8gb of free space to install.
4. Make sure you go to the web site of your manufacturer and download all the latest BIOS and other device drivers before you begin the installation. 
5. Make sure you backup all your documents before beginning the install.
6. If you can a clean install where you wipe off all old data and start from scratch wil lyield best performance.

Vista Upgrade adviser

The OS is pretty stable and I did not experience any major crashes.

The only problem I observed was that outlook 2005 B2Tr would not work as well and required a reinstall to get working (Buts that probably a problem with the beta)

Some applications such as ACDSee won't work right away but will work once reinstalled. You won't need it as Vista now has its own photo gallery which is pretty good. Most other applications seemed to work well, though I had some problems with Acrobat.

The Aqua interface is nice but a bit overdone on the transparencies.

All in all its getting to be more like a Mac.

Visit the features site for a more in depth listing.......Vista Feature Site

Happy installation, its coming by January 2007

Nakama.ca nice site for camera phone users wanting to share images and video

nakama.ca

is a cool site for those interested in sharing photos and video they take from their camera phones or other mobile devices.

The nice features of this site are that, it works great all over the world, including India.

All you need is to send an e-mail (mms) message to youraccount@nakama.ca with the content and it automatically will set it up on the site and make it available to all your friends and family.

So, imagine the scenario you are out on the beach and take a photo, you can beam it live to nakama and your friends and family. The site has some other fancy feature like calling you back on your mobile and allowing you to record voice comments, etc. even if you don't us that the base feature set is  easy to use.

Pretty cool, check it out.

Great Philosophy and Practice at Toyota

Perfection

Weimaraners! What wonderful dogs.

DSC00002 iris

Our first large dog as a family was a Weimaraner (Iris). This is a beautiful creature. When we got her she had large paws, blue eyes and absolutely flawless features.

As she grew up we found that the Weimaraner as a breed of dog is excellent for families. The nature of this type of dog is to be extremely friendly to the family but reserved towards everyone else, this nature makes it a perfect pet for homes with growing children as well as to provide reasonable security for  a home.

Breed Data

Our experience with Iris has been fantastic. As she grew up she has proven to be a great help to our family, in helping us be more normal.

She goes to work with my wife and can almost sense all her feelings.

DSC00070

For families looking for a dog and some security a Weimaraner is best of breed.

For first time pet owners something like a beagle or labrador is probably more suitable.

6 months of using a Mac

I have now been using a Mac laptop and desktop at home for over 6 months.

apple website

Pros:
1. It almost never crashes.
2. Works great with my ipod.
3. All Office applications work
4. Graphics are great and fast.
5. The OS is really easy to use.
6. Files are incredibly easy to find using Spotlight.
7. Skype, Firefox and other web access tool work great.
8. System automatically discovers printers nearby and installs driver.
9. Built in application require very little investment in new software.
10. No antivirus and still no viruses.

Cons:
1. Sometimes, file sent via outlook end up as .dat files in Entourage (Have a solution for it though).
2. Some applications such as Project and visio are not supported needing to boot up in XP (Which the mac does now)
3. Games don't work well on th Mac (PC has hug variety of games not available on the Mac)
4. Doesn't have a good restore package built in.
5. Doesn't support many of the PC wireless cards, etc.
6. Many phone synch softwae package snot supported on the Mac.

Conclusion more pro's than cons and next version of Mac OS coming in January will address most of the cons.