Microsoft has recently released a few updates – one of which fixes a bug with the Windows 7 graphics card driver on my laptop (driver for SiS M672MX), which now means I can use the Aero interface properly and without issues.
Since Aero is now working, I’ve decided I’ll take some screenshots to give people who haven’t downloaded Windows 7. I recently did a full Windows 7 review without screenshots, so if you’d like to see that instead, please click here.
With my new iPod Touch going fine, I needed a budget dock for it. I really don’t like spending a fortune on gadgets if I don’t have to, so I tried to aim for something cheap but reliable.
After a lot of browsing round various sites, I found this. It’s a real entry level iPod dock, but it does the job I want it to do fine.
It doesn’t have speakers so it won’t play your music aloud (and frankly for something this cheap I wouldn’t want it to – the sound quality would be relatively poor) but it does have a 3.5mm line out socket so you could hook it up to some external speakers or a hifi. It also has a sync plug so you could either hook it up to your computer and iTunes will sync and charge it, or you could just plug into a mains USB charger which would then charge the iPod when it’s docked (which is what I do).
It also comes with a remote control so you can change the track remotely. Seems to work fine. It has the usual controls you’d expect (change track, volume, play/pause), plus controls for mute, repeat and shuffle. It also has controls so that you can browse for a track and play it, but I think this is relatively unnecessary as when I sit 2 meters away from my iPod I can’t read the screen to see what track I’m choosing – and that’s on an iPod Touch with large text, so it will be useless on something like a Nano.
Overall, I’m very happy with it. It works fine and it’s really good value at £12.99. It comes with a range of dock adapters for the different types of iPod, but personally I don’t use any of them since my iPod has a case on it. Works just as well without them. A good budget buy.
So now I’ve had a few days to trial out the new Windows 7 Release Candidate, I shall review it as promised. If you haven’t already downloaded it and you feel tempted to, please do so as you get plenty of time to trial around with it. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t have much experience in IT, but if you know what you’re doing don’t hesitate to try it out. Don’t forget to think about your internet bandwidth limit as the ISO image is about 2.5GB. You’ll also need a blank DVD to burn the image to.
Anyway, the review.
What do I think of it? Overall, I’m pretty happy with it. The install was very smooth and worryingly fast, but all seemed to go fine and within 30 minutes of burning it to DVD I was up and running in Windows 7. The new Aero updates are definitely well worth it, and I’m very pleased with some of the new features.
Do I have any complaints? A few yes. My main problem was trying to get drivers for hardware, which proved to be an utter nightmare for me. In fact, it wasn’t so much getting the drivers, but trying to get them to function correctly. My SiS M672MX graphics card in my laptop was a right nightmare in Windows 7. Windows Update found a suitable driver absolutely fine, but the driver would not allow me to use a resolution higher than 1024×768. My laptop’s monitor should run at 1280×800 so you can image how skew-if the display looked. In the end, I used SiS’s official Vista drivers for the monitor which cured the resolution problem, but then the Aero interface refused to run. As of today, I haven’t found any way to resolve that problem. I had similar problems with my Realtek HD Audio sound card – the sound was absolutely dreadful with Microsoft’s drivers for the sound card, but this was fixed by installing Realtek’s Vista drivers.
Will I be buying it when it’s released? Most likely, yes. I really love the new ideas that have gone into Windows 7 and hopefully by the time it is released, Microsoft will have fixed most of the driver issues. As long as the upgrade isn’t too expensive, I should think there’s a 90% chance I will get a copy.
Would I recommend the upgrade from Windows XP/Windows Vista? I’m not entirely sure what to say here. I still reckon there are a large chunk of Windows XP users who aren’t going to like Windows 7. Many people are saying that hopefully Windows 7 will encourage some of the users of Windows XP to upgrade, but I’m not entirely convinced. I personally, would recommend the upgrade to most users but you have to consider that many XP users aren’t going to have hardware powerful enough to cope with the upgrade and now many people don’t have the money to be forking out cash on upgrades. So yes, I would recommend the upgrade, but I think we have to consider what people can afford at this point in time. Also, some people just prefer Windows XP, it’s not that they can’t afford Windows 7 – they just have a personal preference for XP.
I think we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I really like Windows 7 and I’m sure many people would agree that it’s going to be much better than Vista, but in this economic time there just isn’t going to be enough people who can afford to stretch out for it. My verdict is that if you can afford it, buy it. If you can’t, don’t worry about it. Then again, it isn’t going to be out until late 2009 so there might have been a change in economics by then. We’ll just have to sit back and wait.
I managed to dig out some money lately to buy a few gadgets and bits of kit, so you’ll probably see a few reviews on various items in the next few days. But first of all, I’ve got this 9DBi wireless router antenna.
I bought it simply because the little antenna that came with my D-Link DSL-2640B doesn’t quite cut it in my house. For some reason, the signal it emits just isn’t powerful enough to cover the whole of my small house, so I decided it was time for an upgrade.
After a quick search around on eBay, I found this. It is really a pretty good deal at just £6.99 so if you are having signal problems, I suggest you get one.
Most routers generally come with either built in antennas or removable ones. You are lucky if you have a removable one, because you can upgrade it. Sadly, built in antennas aren’t replaceable so you’ll just have to live with the poor signal range or just buy a new router.
If you do have a removable antenna on your router, you’ll be glad to know that you can use a wide range of different antennas. The most common type of antenna that is fitted to most routers by default is omnidirectional. This means that they broadcast in all directions – great if your router is in the center of your house but not so great if its in the corner of the house since a good 30-40% of your wireless power will be wasted going through the wall out of your house. You can get antennas that point in one direction, but these are less common and more expensive. Unless you’re really desperate, I’d suggest you stick to omnidirectional.
Another thing you’ll need to understand is the rating of the antenna. Most routers come with an antenna of about 3-5DBi which is fine for a small modern house. However you can get antennas up to about 9DBi which are much more powerful. Bare in mind they are much bigger than 3DBi antennas and you won’t be impressed if you want don’t like the look of your gadgets. F0r example, the one I now have (see eBay link above) is 37.5cm high so it will be quite hard to hide.
They are definitely worth the upgrade though. I am very impressed with mine, as the signal range is much better and I get much fewer disconnections which is good. The only thing I’m a little puzzled about is that my router says to lower the transmit power of the router if I install a high gain antenna – but why should I, doesn’t that just defeat the point of buying a more powerful antenna? Little odd.
Anyway, so yes, if you do experience wireless signal issues try getting a new antenna. Check that you can replace your antenna before you buy one for obvious reasons. If you can, you might find this makes a big difference.
I’ve had my iPod a couple of days now to play around with, and have become addicted to it. Anyway, as promised, here are my 10 favourite apps for the iPod Touch in no particular order. There are both free and paid apps, so you can have a range of both if you like.
Any comments on my choices are welcome via comments, so if you’ve tried something I mention already, let us know what you think of it.