Vista Delayed Again!

Microsoft announced last week that Windows Vista wont be out this year after all (well not for us consumers anyway)!

Instead it should be on general release by the end of January 2007!

This is a bit disappointing really, as I have been looking forward to getting a new computer later this year, and was planning on waiting for Vista to be released.

I guess it's better for them to release a quality product rather than meet a deadline though!

I think I will just wait and see what happens nearer the time (and see if they ever release any hardware requirements info).

Hopefully they will offer free upgrade options for PCs bought during the Christmas period.

Either way, I would think the PC companies aren't too happy right now, with no big release to push over the important holiday sale period. Regardless of how Microsoft try and spin it that the delay is for their benefit!

Office 2007 UI

I've mentioned the radical changes to the new office UI before, but a lot of new information has come out recently on Jensen Harris' great blog. For example, check out the screenshots on this post, and the video linked form this one .

This is definitely a change from the current UI, but I think its going to be a major improvement. Of course I can't be sure until I get round to trying it! :)

I think its great to be able to read blogs like Jensen's, as they give a great idea as to not only what's being done, but more importantly why these changes are being made.

Microsoft are definitely one of the best companies around for blogging about what they are doing, and it sure is getting me interested in their products! :)

GMail's American Bias

I have been using GMail for quite a while now, and am impressed by the service. It's very easy to use, I love the way it groups conversations, and best off all it's fast!

However, I had been starting to wonder when the new features that have been announced (eg Web Clips , Google Talk integration , or even the delete button ) a while ago now would appear.

I asked around and found out that a lot of people already had the features, so I started looking in the settings for the switch to turn them on.

It turns out that this switch is actually the language setting. Set this to English (US) and all the features are there, but set it to English (UK) and they disappear!

I can't see anything specific to America in these features, so really can't understand why this setting is being used to control them. Perhaps they just don't like us Brits! :)

Writely now part of Google

Writely is a web based word processor that I've mentioned before, and it has now been bought by Google for an undisclosed amount!

Writely is pretty good (I now use it for writing my blog posts), and so this acquisition has been seen by many as the start of Google's plans for a web based competitor to Microsoft's office suite.

But personally I think this is a bit premature. We may well end up using a fully web based system, with all our data stored remotely etc, but I think there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before we get there, and I think it's a long time away.

As good as Writely is for a web based application, it is still far away from the like of Office, and so will only be a replacement for a small number of users or situations.

I think it is much more likely that Google have bought the product as a replacement for their text editors in products such as GMail and Blogger as some people are suggesting. That's what I'm currently using it for, as the blogger tool isn't very good - the spell checker doesn't even work right!!

I also think what Phil talks about on his blog sounds a good idea: The Online Offline future

In this situation, you're documents are always available, but depending on what you have available you get a different view of them, ie Word if that's installed, or Writely if you only have a browser. This is still some time off yet, but I could see that fitting in with the Google Drive that's been talked about!

My Thoughts on Origami

Microsoft's Origami project has been generating a whole load of talk recently, and now that the details are known, I thought I'd give my opinions of it.

As far as I can tell, an origami or UMPC device is basically just a small tablet PC. It runs the full windows XP tablet edition OS (and Vista when it comes out) but on a much smaller device with a 7 inch screen!

While this is undoubtedly neat and quite impressive technologically to fit a full PC into such a small device, I can't really see myself ever having the need for one!

Currently, when I go anywhere, I take three things with me, my phone, wallet, and keys, all of which fit in my pockets! Microsoft and partners are pushing these devices as ultra mobile, but in order to carry one around you're gonna need a bag for it - They're just too big to fit in a pocket, and there lies the problem.

If you've got to take a bag anyway, why not just buy a full tablet PC? You'll then get better specs, a bigger screen, and a full keyboard! The cost of the UMPCs is not yet known, so this might be a factor, but you can get lots of tablet PCs for under a grand, so there may not be much in it!

Personally, I don't want to be carrying anything that wont fit in my pocket, so I'm looking to upgrade my phone to a more fully featured one, and don't plan on buying either a UMPC or a tablet PC any time soon!