How To Make Ubuntu Sexy

Most people come into the world of Ubuntu thinking it's a beautiful operating system with 3D cube effects, wobbly windows, sharp colors and beautiful wallpapers. I certainly did when I first put in the Live CD for Intrpid Ibex; and believe you me I was disappointed!

What I got when I booted up Ubuntu the first time was a flat, simple and brown wallpaper with a barely modern color scheme. It didn't look BAD, but it didn't look great; and for me to feel comfortable using an operating system it has to look good as well as run smoothly. First thing I noticed was that it was really simple, and being a complete newbie at Ubuntu, I was crestfallen. Many people are when they try Ubuntu, and that turns them off completely before they actually take the time to learn about it and realize the simplicity of it is in actuality the beauty of it.

Ubuntu is built upon the huge community (forums, blogs, videos) that it inspires; and the simpler it is, the easier it is for the community to find a way to modify it. Aesthetics are the one thing you can rely on the community for no matter which operating system you're using. With Ubuntu, though, it's so open and so simple that the possibilities seem endless. Of course, the community is more than willing to take advantage of those possibilities and to share them with others.

Some of us, however, are somewhat scared to dive into a gigantic community spread across the internet just to ask about something as simple as "how do I change the theme of my user interface?". Fortunately for those people, most of the effects you see on YouTube with Ubuntu (3D Desktop Cube, custom font selection, fading windows, custom animations) are available within the OS out of the box. They're just not turned on to avoid graphical issues for those with lower end graphics cards. They can all be turned on by simply going into the menus, and looking around and basically just playing with it. This is all assuming you're using the latest (and updated.
If not, just go to your Update Manager and update your software. It's just pointing and clicking.) stable release, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

Once you build up enough courage to go to the community however, you open up a whole new universe of options. Granted, it becomes more complicated; but if you're patient and confident, then it won't be very difficult at all. There are a huge number of places you can go to for customization, but the most famous as of now is probably GNOME-Look.org. They have a huge list of things you can do with your Ubuntu GUI, and I think they may have a few tutorials to guide you along too.

There are also many, many, many ways to modify the GNOME user interface with third party software and modifications, but those tend to be more difficult and can potentially damage your computer if you're not careful. My favorite that I've seen so far is an exact replica of Mac OS X in Ubuntu down to the keyboard shortcuts. If you look around on the internet, chances are you'll be impressed with what you see people doing with Ubuntu; which is PROBABLY why you wanted to try it in the first place.

I really do like the GNOME interface. It's accessible, simple, and fast. It gets the job done, and it does it well. It's not ugly, but I did have my few issues with it. Especially with the default icons and fonts. Unfortunately, you need to have a little confidence in terminal usage before you can fix the badly rendered fonts; but once you do the difference will be extremely clear and if you're as picky about fonts as I am, it will probably make your jaw drop. I haven't considered changing the fonts once since I did that.

So what are you waiting for? If you've already got Ubuntu installed and want to make it look better, just do a Google search for it, and try the communities if you're brave enough! If you're not using Ubuntu however, why not try it? You can use a free Live CD without touching your hard drive at all so there's no reason not to. Unless, of course you don't have a CD burner... If you don't have a CD burner why are you even thinking about Ubuntu?

Anyway, I'm going to leave you today with a screen shot of my Intrepid Ibex Desktop.

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

Alright, so on Saturday I decided I was going to format the partition of my hard drive with Windows Vista on it just to clean it off and give Vista a new start. I figured why not at least try because the last time I had gotten a clean start was when I got this notebook on Christmas; and it was covered in useless HP software.

While looking around in my hard drive for some possible last minute data that I wanted to save, I noticed that windows was offering me a chance to go ahead and format my drive from a drop down menu. Formatting right then and there in the GUI seemed pretty convenient; but I was skeptical of the chances of that actually DOING what it said it was going to do. Predictably, an error window popped up telling me something about how I couldn't do that at that particular time. While I was exiting out, however, all the information under my drive disappeared. As you would PROBABLY suspect, I began to mentally freak out a little.

Thankfully, all I had to do was pop in the Vista recovery disc and it repaired everything while also formatting and re-installing Vista. I no longer wanted to USE Vista, obviously. So as soon as it was done formatting and doing a clean install I put in my Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex CD, and began my journey into the wonderful world of Linux!

...Unfortunately, it didn't FEEL that wonderful at first. The install went by smoothly and quickly; and most of my drivers worked out of the box. My wireless card however, did not. I spent anywhere between two and four hours sifting through the community, looking for past decisions. I FINALLY found a solution that worked though, and have not had an issue with it since.

After sorting my internet problems out, I started actually working on my system. It took me a day or two to get used to Ubuntu again; and despite what most people will say, you WILL get frustrated. If you come from the World of Windows like I did, terminals, package managers, and configuring your graphics will take a lot of time to get comfortable with. Nothing in life worth having comes easy, as they say. Once I became acquainted with the user interface it got easier and easier as I went, though.

As hard as it may seem using terminals and package managers over the simple point and click method of Mac and Windows, it's actually quite rewarding. Downloads are fast, simple, and safe. I don't feel nearly as vulnerable because whenever you install something or the system tries to open an important file, it asks for your password. Seemingly annoying, yes, but in reality it's all part of the excellent security of Ubuntu. I haven't even CONSIDERED finding a third party security software yet.

Aesthetically, in my opinion, Ubuntu out of the box is gorgeous. I had a problem only with the icons and the fonts without any modification. A lot of people really don't like the way Ubuntu looks. "Windows 98 with too much lipstick on" is a common titled I see placed upon the GUI; but that's the actual beauty of it. It's extremely, extremely simple out of the box. No special effects, no shiny and glassy themes, and no folders full of pre-designed desktops. In Windows, all of that is merely bloat software and effects that we rarely use or notice. All of the special effects are THERE, they're just turned off to save CPU power for those who don't need them; and the theme of EVERYTHING is customizable. Websites like Gnome-Look.org provide everything from themes, to cursors, to system sounds, and of course, screenlets.

Speaking of screenlets, Ubuntu has applications for EVERYTHING. If there was an app you loved on Windows or Mac, you can be almost completely assured that there will be one like it on Ubuntu. My personal favorite right now has to be Conky. It's a simple desktop moniter for your entire system. It's entirely customizable, and there's a huge amount of pre-made Conky scripts available.

In my opinion, that has to be the best thing about Ubuntu. Everything is completely driven by the community. Almost every bug gets noted, and gets looked at. There are apps for everything you could ever want; and there's an array of replacement software for almost everything from Mac and Windows. People are always working, commenting, reviewing, and posting tutorials for so many different things it's impossible for anything to be impossible on Ubuntu as long as you're patient. It's designed with the people in mind, and that's exactly how it works. It's made to work for people who have lower end systems, and it's got the eye candy and power to satisfy those with top of the line power user systems.

Speed is essential to my daily use on Compaq Presario (CQ50) notebook; and Vista most certainly wasn't working that way. Windows 7 was faster, yes; but Ubuntu takes the prize for speed. I've never felt like my OS was actually working faster than I was until now. It actually took me a while to get used to how fast it was compared to my previous OS experiences. I even have all of the graphics and eye candy turned all the way up without any sort of lag or speed issues. Firefox is as impressive for me as it was in Windows, if not more. It feels smoother, the gNOME GUI is very nice to look at.

Mozilla Thunderbird is wonderful, to me. I never liked using Outlook, so I had always been turned off to email clients for the desktop. To my discouragement, I had trouble setting up Evolution; so I decided I would download and try Thunderbird. Once I got it configured for my Gmail account (which only took only about two minutes), and once I used it for a while, I fell in love with it. It's very comfortable and easy to use, and it just feels natural to me.

There's actually a lot of Mac and Windows replacement software out of the box for Ubuntu. GIMP, Pidgin, and Rhythm Box are three of the programs I find myself using CONSTANTLY; and for me they're just as good, if not better, than they're famous counterparts.

So yes, I am completely happy with my switch from Windows. Do I plan to abandon Microsoft or Apple? No, not really. I don't see myself staying away from either permanently. I'm still beta-testing Windows 7 on this notebook on a small partition, and I still use it frequently. I don't see myself ever going back to Windows XP again though, and I DEFINITELY will never go back to Winodws Vista.

Tutorial: Windows Vista Ribbons Screensaver

Have you ever went to look at the screensavers in Windows Vista and been extremely disappointed like I was? Well, at first thought the best fix would be "Oh well, I'll just search Google for a new screensaver!". Sadly, Microsoft decided to take that little bit of freedom that you had in Windows XP. Sounds like something our dear friend Bill Gates would do.

Luckily, there's a fix for it! A combination of a tiny amount of courage with the Windows Registry Editor and the will to take five minutes to memorize some numbers, your screensavers will look infinitely better.

With this tutorial I'll cover only the Ribbons screensaver, but the same general hacks can be applied with any saver from Vista. This tutorial is all over the internet, but I've seen a lot that don't really explain it all that well; and for people with limited knowledge and courage, that can be quite foreboding.


<sub>Before.


After.</sub>

Go ahead and go to your desktop, open the start menu. In the search bar at the bottom, type in "Regedit" and hit enter.


_{New search tool actually works in the latest version of Windows.}

Now, once you have the Registry Editor open, find the software tab, and click it to open the drop down tabs. Skim through these to find Microsoft, and then Windows. Click on Current Version, and find the Screensavers tab near the bottom. Open it, and find the Ribbons tab. Once you find it, don't click the Screen 1 and Screen 2 tabs. You won't be needing those in this tutorial.


_{So many choices! It's the sixteenth tab under Current Version.}

This is where the fun starts. First, go to Edit (in the menu bar) and hover over New, and then click DWORD. This will simply bring up a new item in the screen. You can't name it just anything, however. Name it "Numribbons", without the quotes. Once you're finished with that, right click on Numribbons, and click "Modify". Once a pop up shows, click the "Decimal" orb under Hexadecimal. Typing in this increases, or if you want it to, decreases the amount of ribbons. Set it anywhere between 1 and 100. I like mine to be set at 100 just because I think it looks really cool.


<sub>The Windows 7 registry is pretty much the same as Windows Vista.


Ohhh! You hacker!</sub>

Repeat the process of creating the DWORD twice. Name the two new ones Blur and Ribbonwidth. It's relatively obvious what Ribbonwidth does: it determines the width of the ribbons. I set mine at 50 for a cool effect. Blur defines the amount the ribbons blur into one another (E.G. If you set this to 0, the ribbons simply pile on top of one another until the screen turns white.)


_{You can always delete the new DWORD files to reset the saver to it's default look.}

Now that you've finished everything, simply close the Registry Editor to save it and preview it by right clicking on your desktop and clicking personalization and clicking the Screensaver button.

Everything in this guide is easily reversible if you don't like the changes; and they're all completely editable.

I am not responsible for any mistakes you make, or damage done to you're computer.

Thanks for reading this tutorial! Don't hesitate to comment and follow if you liked it!

Note:I might do some on the other screensavers once I get around to messing with them. I am also completely aware that this is all over Google; but no one has pointed out that this registry hack works perfectly in Windows 7 Beta. Most lack screenshots and make it far more complicated than it really is.

Windows 7: Instant Messaging

So a good sum of people have been asking me about how instant messaging in Windows 7 works. To be quite honest, there's a very simple answer to the question, "Is instant messaging in Windows 7 as easy and quick as it was before?": Yes. It is extremely simple and quick. Every messenger that I ever used for Windows XP and Vista works as well as it ever did, and in some cases even better.

Of course, I'm sure it would be much more helpful for me to go into detail rather than just blindly state that it works better and expect everyone to believe me. So let us begin with my most used instant messaging software.

AOL (America Online if you've never seen it before) Instant Messenger, or AIM as most of the huge community of people who use it so affectionately call it. I've been using it personally for about three years now; and to be honest I never really thought much of it. It's pretty basic compared to other messengers like Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger. Although, after using it extensively this past year, it really has grown on me. Simplicity can be quite a nice thing if you can see the charm within it.

AIM offers the basic instant messaging components (Voice, video, and font customization along with basic contacts list customization), along with the useful feature of being able to list your contacts with their nicknames. My only real complaint about it is the fact that you simply cannot change your screen name. Considering the fact that if you want to change your AIM screen name, you would have to create a whole new account and re-add every friend on your contact list, it is most certainly annoying.

Aside from the very minor problems I have with it, it is a very good instant messaging client; and it runs very well on Windows 7, as anyone would expect. Sending and receiving messages is as quick, simple, and enjoyable as it ever was before. Unfortunately, as of right now AOL has yet to release and update for the client with Windows 7 like Microsoft did with Windows Live Messenger. It is not, however, a Microsoft product, so you can hardly expect such a proposition.


_{Nicknames are an excellent way to remember who's who on your contacts list.}


As you may be able to guess, my next instant messaging client to look over will be Windows Live Messenger. Being my second most used compared to AIM, of course I'm going to review it second. I've been using Windows Messenger and MSN messenger ever since I got connected to the internet. Being laden with features like chat logging, custom themes (if you knew how), complete integration with your Hotmail E-mail address, vibrant and large display pictures, and the infamous "Nudge!" feature, it was always more comfortable for me to use. To my fortune, it only got better and better with almost every release or two. Adding new features like sounds you could send back and forth to annoy your friends, custom emoticons, and backgrounds for your conversations, it definitely still remains the winner when it comes to fun and simple features without any third party intervention.

Coming out with a new release along with the Windows 7 beta builds, I was more than happy to try it out. When I saw the new layout for it, I was taken aback by the similarities to Yahoo! Instant Messenger; especially the contacts list. Getting used to it from the older releases takes at least a day of familiarization; but after doing so you'll find that it's actually more comfortable and has the same features from the old releases, along with some new ones. For example, themes for your conversations, which in my opinion are a nice replacement for the somewhat annoying backgrounds.

If you do a little research, you'll find that for a long while there has been a Plus! release for Windows Live Messenger. Windows Live Plus! adds a full variety of new features: Colored names, Messenger Lock, and deeper, easier to read chat logs to name only a view.


<sub>The new contacts list is large, well arranged, and colorful.


Well arranged chat logs have to be at least one of the coolest features to Windows Live Messenger.
(In the above screenshots, I'm using the latest version of Windows Live Messenger Plus!)</sub>

Now, we move onto the messengers that I rarely, if ever use. Yahoo! Instant Messenger, ICQ, and Trillian. Yahoo! and Triallian are instant messenger clients that I currently never use, and have only sparsely used throughtout my entire time on the internet. ICQ, on the other hand, I used until about four years ago; until I got bored with it because of MSN Messenger. All three of them have their own, unique features, and are very capable instant messaging clients. Given, all three are very different messengers. ICQ has it's simple number system, Yahoo! is a lot like Windows Live, and Trillian is an "all-in-one" instant messenger, supporting anything from Windows Live Messenger to ICQ. Trillian is the most convenient for me considering it holds all of my messengers into one, but it strictly limits the fun, eye candy features.

All three of them, predictably work flawlessly on Windows 7. I didn't have any issue installing, testing, and uninstalling these three messengers at all, and that's a praise that cannot go to Vista.

Note: I recommend turning the UAC either down or off as soon as you install Windows 7. If you leave it all the way up, it's still as obnoxious and intrusive as it was in Windows Vista.


<sub>ICQ's GUI is pretty colorful, even with a lack of friends.


Yahoo! Messenger's GUI is large and colorful. Somewhat Windows Live-esque.


Trillian is excellent if you don't want your space taken up by messengers, or your desktop covered in icons.</sub>


Would I ever use ICQ, Yahoo! or Trillian over AIM or Windows Live Messenger? To be honest, I probably would never choose any of those over my current selection. Why? ICQ is too simple, and just isn't as enjoyable for me; and Yahoo! is a lot like a perverted mixture of AIM and Windows Live Messenger. Trillian is somewhat convenient if you're trying to save a little bit of CPU usage by using one messenger, but the amount saved is so miniscule that I can't ever see myself actually needing to do that.


_{They're taking over!}


Every messenger you see here was installed, tested, and uninstalled (save for AIM and Windows Live Messenger) without a single hitch, or even any lag for that matter. Windows 7 runs each one smoothly, quickly, and efficiently, whereas Windows Vista lagged on all three of those occasions.

I hope this article answered some of your questions, and I hope that it helps you gain some insight as to what Windows 7 is like. Thanks for reading!

Final Note:One last thing: mIRC runs perfectly without any server lag or connection issues. File transfer is smooth and quick as if you were running Windows XP.

Windows 7: Screenshots

I decided I would post some screenshots for you guys to take a look at, and show some of the features of Windows 7. Some of the features were present in Windows Vista, except they work much better and are alot more comfortable than in the previous OS. Have a look. Oh, and a warning, they're all links to bigger versions. 1280x800



First off, here's a picture of the Desktop setup you've all probably seen sometime or another on Google. Thankfully, the desktop environment is much more comfortable than Vista's, and even more so than XP. It has a lot of eye-candy compared to XP, but the difference is that the functionality of it is far superior to Windows Vista.





Seeing that there's a new taskbar, it obviously comes with some new features. Including the ability to browse in real time what each open window of each minimized (or pinned) program is doing. The Start Menu, though, looks almost identical to the one in Windows Vista. Thankfully, though, they changed the "Hibernate" button to "Shut Down". Of course, it gives you the option to change it to do whatever you like.







Next, as you probably wouldn't guess considering the terrible of out-of-the-box desktop customization Windows has always offered, Windows 7 actually has some nice, and interesting customization options. Including the feature to have your wallpaper change itself on a timed basis, having the window color, transparency, and color intensity changed, and the ability to save each customization you may make as a custom theme that you can back up. Fortunately, with the desktops, you can also simply choose a full folder of pictures, and either have the whole folder play through like a slideshow as your desktop, or just pick a couple of pictures from it. A nice upgrade from Vista, I must say.





One thing I am actually glad it kept from Windows Vista is the nice bit of eye candy they gave us with the 3D tab scrolling feature when you press WindowsKey-Tab. It's actually smoother (at least for me) in Windows 7, though. Being a less than necessary feature, I've seen a lot of people complain that it's there; but in my opinion a little eye candy is nice.





Being the older sibling to Windows Vista (Although I heavily disagree it's just a new Vista, like some claim.), it carries on with it the glassy Aero GUI. I honestly really do like them, but with Vista they made the whole OS slow. Windows 7, on the other hand, runs much, much more smoothly, so they're actually nice to use over the old XP GUI.





Even though I still use Firefox, Windows 7 is being shipped with Internet Explorer 8. The Beta, fortunately for those who use IE, came with the release of it too. Along with it, it came with the new Windows Live Messenger and Windows Media Player 12.









One of the things that I thought was a really cool, nice update were additions of the new calculator and Paint. Paint actually reminds me of the old Paint program from older versions of Windows. Unbeknownst to a lot of people is the new calculator. It's really smooth, and yet another nice bit of eye candy.







Aero Snap, and Aero Peek are two new features that were presented with Windows 7 that, for me, have made my Windows experience actually easier and quicker during simple day-to-day use. Aero Snap allows you to drag one open window to either the top, left, or right sides, and it snaps to that particular area with an invisible grid. You can, of course use windowskey-left, right, or up to do the same thing. Aero peek is kind of like the new taskbar feature that lets you look at what's going on. It allows you to either click the little clear button at the far right of the taskbar, or hold windowskey-spacebar to see your desktop and what's happening with it in real time. I use it a lot when I'm using messengers, or on mIRC and I'm just trying to keep up with big chats, but not saying a whole lot.







As you can see, it's a far different system than Windows XP or even Windows Vista. Many people have called it merely a graphical upgrade from Vista, but I must beg to differ. It's much more stable, complete, and useful to use than Vista, therefore making my entire Windows experience different and much more interesting, fun, and comfortable than ever before. That, for me a large statement considering I've been using Windows all my life, since 1993, and used XP for the entirety of it's release. I only recently upgraded to Vista, not intentionally, and hugely disliked it compared to XP.



Although Windows 7 is still in Beta, and I probably won't be able to get it as soon as it comes out, I will most assuredly be upgrading as soon as I possibly can.



Thanks for reading!





PS: I also plan to do another review or two on some of the features, like Windows Media Player 12.


Final Note: I also know that this particular article seems somewhat...Muddled. Though, this is merely a compilation of screenshots of my own desktop with small descriptions of them as I go.

Windows 7: My Thoughts

Notes: I had given my thoughts on the Windows 7 Beta a good while back, but after about a week or two of using it, I wanted to try Ubuntu 8. Unfortunately, I had to send in my computer for repairs and thus get it formatted back to the all tormenting Vista. After getting my notebook back (getting it repaired THREE TIMES. Damn you misleading HP "customer care".) I used Vista for about a week. Needless to say that I got very sick of it very quickly. So I partitioned a nice 50GB chunk and put Windows 7 Beta-Build 7000 on it for my daily use. I still run programs from the C: drive and use my documents from there mostly except pictures and music. I think that's a little plus that makes it slightly more practical than Ubuntu: It's Windows. You can easily browse and use files from a different drive without any hassle at all.

Though, I'm sure the review would be more interesting (perhaps) than my ramblings. So here's an actual overview of my experiences so far with it.


First off, the installation process is SO much quicker and easier than it was for Vista or XP. It took MAYBE 15 to 20 minutes to install for me. It was almost entirely automated with the annoying "next" clicking kept to a minimum. It saw my partitions easily, and had even pre-selected the already empty one, my new "S:" drive. Considering the problems I had re-installing Vista, this was a blessing. Installing XP was never really a hassle, it just took a long time for some reason, and compared to 7 there was a good bit of clicking and it was a little more intimidating for someone that has little experience with installing OS's. The only thing that took a good bit of time was the first boot up where it sets up your desktop and chooses a theme for you; but of course that's to be expected.


In my opinion, Windows 7 is much more aesthetically pleasing than Windows Vista or XP. People argue that Windows 7 is just Vista with a new taskbar, blah blah blah. Although, it really isn't. It just has the same start orb and a the aero theme still remains. This can all be changed through various tweaks, or mods, or custom themes so it's actually quite an insignificant argument. It all comes down to opinion and the users ability to customize it; but out of the box, I think Windows 7 looks the best. Just a little bit better than the "Wow!" effects people get from Mac's.


Security seems to be pretty tight, to me. You can turn the UAC off (thank God) or you can turn it all the way up to where it's constantly annoying you. Whichever you like. I haven't had any success installing my Trend Micro Pro security software. Honestly, it gave me the blue screen of death and crashed my system to where I had to go into safe-mode and delete it. Granted, I didn't expect for it to work considering it was made before this was even announced and it was probably designed for only Vista and XP. I don't know about the "Windows Firewall" yet because quite frankly, I don't do anything stupid like go and click "DOWNLOAD FREE PHOTOSHOPZ LO000oOooL" or "UPDATE SECURITY PLZ" ads on Myspace. I am relatively sure it's decent to say the least considering I used that, and only that, on my XP machine for 3 years without any problems.


Windows 7 is signifigantly smaller, and less memory hungry than Vista. Vista took up a LOT of space on my HDD. Between 15-25GBs after a full install and update. Windows 7, on the other hand uses between 5 and 8GBs after a full install and update. The 50GB partition I made is probably far more than I'll ever use, but I'm glad I have it just incase. Also, Windows 7 requires only 1GB of RAM to function properly, but Vista takes 2. I've had horrible, painful experiences with Vista on anything less than a 2GB machine. I'm itching to try out 7 on a 1GB.


This is for the people who run on laptops and/or are worried about power consumption. Windows 7, because it's less demanding is alot more lenient on the energy it uses. Various studies on the internet have shown that Windows 7 uses %11 less battery power and electricity. Which is nice considering my particular laptop is very, VERY annoying with battery life.


When it comes to compatibility(Programs, Drivers, etc), Windows 7 is pretty well rounded. Like I said, with my security software, it had some MAJOR issues, but those were expected and didn't surprise me at all. All of my drivers from Vista work just fine, and all of the programs I've tested so far run absolutely perfectly. Some things though are bound to be picky and not work, but it seems much more efficient than Vista.


Features are in abundance with Windows 7. You get the array of new windows-key based keyboard shortcuts, and little things like Aero-Snap, Aero-Peek, and Aero-Shake, all little bits of software that make the GUI a little more comfortable and entertaining. Granted, some of them will probably never be used or appreciated because I don't see myself happily dragging my internet windows around just to watch them change form when they reach all the way to the left or the right; but they're cool and somewhat useful nonetheless. Alternatively, the new keyboard shortcuts allow for a whole new feeling when it comes to ease of use with Windows. For Instance you can use Windows-key left-right-up-down to maximize, minimize, and move the window around the screen; and if you're using two or more monitors then adding shift to that combination allows you to easily move them around the monitors quickly. There are many, many more out there, and google is littered with them, so if you're beta-testing it like I am, be sure to check those out. I think the most people will find amazing aesthetically is the fact that now you can make the desktop change at almost any time between 5 seconds to every day with any number of pictures you choose by simply clicking the folder that they're located in and selecting which ones to use. This is all without third party software, of course.


When it comes to the network settings and everything like media sharing, it's just as simple, but also sometimes confusing as it was in Windows Vista. You can share just as much media, more actually and more easily, but you can also, it seems, block a little less media from being shared. For instance, I'm having trouble making it to where I can share my videos with my Xbox 360, but not my music at the same time. A small, very minor annoyance, but still confusing nonetheless considering it was made to where you could select it in Vista. I'm PROBABLY just missing something though. I do find, however, the fact that when you put your computer to sleep and wake it back up to after connecting to a network that it automatically reconnects to said network very handy and much less annoying than Vista. Reconnecting in school while TRYING to be inconspicuous and keep it hidden from the teachers was getting annoying.


Obviously, alot of people wonder what the new taskbar is like. Let me say, it's very, very nice. At first to me, it felt a little slippery and uncoordinated, but now it's a very natural feeling. It's kind of like the mac icon docks, or RocketDock (or Cairo if you're using Linux); except it's not a dock. It's an entire taskbar. You can pin and unpin things from it, and view in real time what's going on with each thing with the particular program that's down there. I don't pin that much to it because it gets confusing and I like having at least a few things on my desktop so I can find and access the programs easily, but pinning IE, Windows Live Messenger and AIM to it, assuming you use things like that, is really cool. You can hold Windows-key and any number to open up the program depending on how many you have. For instance, IE would be Windows-key 1, Messenger would be Windows-key 2, so on so forth.


I could go on and on and on and on about this OS all day because of all the updates from Vista, but I think this wall of text is large enough for now. So, finally, Windows 7 in my opinion is much more complete and comfortable than windows Vista. I actually like it more than I did XP, for now at least. I haven't had enough experience with Mac's to say any technical comparisons except that I can't stand using Macs because it was very uncomfortable to me. Obviously because of my lack of regular use, but I still just didn't like the layout or the feel at all. Better than Ubuntu? I'm not sure. It's certainly more...professional LOOKING than Ubuntu, and it runs just as well so far. For people with little knowledge of Linux or Ubuntu, it's better, for people that know what they're doing, it's a tough decision.


It is, however, completely irrelevant to say that ANY OS is better than another. Comparing personal use, yes, it is logical to compare. Comparing technical specs and features, not so much. Every OS runs different for different people who have different opinions on different things. It's completely illogical to compare those opinions because when it comes down to it, EVERY OS sucks for somebody for some reason.


Anyway, yes, I recommend using it over Windows Vista (especially SP2), but I do NOT recommend REPLACING it with this. Simply because it is a BETA and will be taken away eventually.