Dear friends of all sorts of computers, the Macintosh, PC, mobile devices and whatsoever. Today I’d like to talk about my new experiences regarding my new operating system: Windows XP.
Well I am late, really late, although it seems some other folks around are just now experiencing the same thing. When my new new notebook arrived, It was flashy, small and damn fast. And it was a PC. After having used Macintosh computers for almost seven years now, I got to be familiar with MAC OS versions 10.3 till 10.4. A G3 iBook, G4 Powerbook and my brother’s G3 eMac were for sure THE alternative for someone who wanted a fast, reliable and usable interfaced device. It cost us lots of money (we were gladly paying), but only had one downside: It was going to become slower with each update. These beautiful and smart boxes were on the edge of their time, but didn’t give you real alternatives: In the process I discovered GNU/Linux, Solaris and all sorts of BSD, but yet it would only be possible to use these up to a pretty much defined grade, where hardware incompatibilities were regular and even Ubuntu dropped its support. Power consumption, the problem of not being able to get the notebook to hibernate and the berserk Broadcom WiFi contributed to my last decision: Switch back to MAC OS X.
Suddenly everything happened really fast: The computer went beep, beep, beep, and my paper was gone. And it was a really good paper. I gave up.
Why didn’t I live my dream of a simple interface within a simple computer? I had to make a decision wether I would try and jump into the cold water, or… well, there was no alternative. My family over in Austria helped me to find some really neat devices, as I had to live through some rough weeks without the Internet. Finally I made up my mind and opted for my all-time favourite, from my new favourite company: A Panasonic Let’s Note CF-R7. Complicated payment, weeks of waiting for it to arrive from Japan, the only country where they are sold, gave me enough time to think about how to install Ubuntu on it. It doesn’t even have a CD-drive. Then it finally arrived, taxes had to be paid, and I was free to take it home.
What greeted me? A fine selection of Japanese keys, Windows Vista Business (of course in Japanese, too) and some really nice explanations (in Japanese). So what next? I knew all of this before I purchased it, so I was very glad, and I knew the first thing I would do is to install an English OS instead, but first I had to get myself a external DVD drive, which turned out to be a lot more space consuming than my new 10 inch R7. I brought it back, and got myself another huge DVD drive. No small devices available.
Installation was smooth, Ubuntu made my day. First cool feature: 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo (U7600) are fast, and played back HD-Video that wouldn’t even start on my 1.3 GHz G4 as if there was no tomorrow. The first bummer: Turns out its battery only lasted 2.5 hours, and it became really hot in the process. The fan too wouldn’t stop for a second. It had to go. Everything I wished became reality, but Linux was not. Power consumption, again. 14 Watts wasted for nothing. Alternatives? None.
I had to switch back to Windows, but as I for now was striving for better power management, I decided in favour of Windows XP that also came with the R7. Funny, isn’t it? It turned out that Panasonic developed about 20 applications custom for this type of computer, that regulate all sorts of consumption settings. You may alter the fan’s speed, the display brightness and there is a special ECO mode which only charges batteries 80%, and thus lets them live a happier (and longer) life.
What did I learn from the switch to Windows XP, then? I never before used this operating system, and it is in Japanese, which I haven’t mastered so far, but still it is very intuitive, virus liking, but runs for more than 5.5 hours, sometimes even up to 7 hours. There are lots of applications, drivers, open-source even nowadays makes my day. And I can type 新幹線 without having to click around, because there are five dedicated keys for it.
Conclusion: Windows XP isn’t that bad, and I happen to rather like it. OMG.
