It is official I have completely transitioned myself away from Microsoft (Personally). I think Vista was the final nail in the coffin for me. Back in September before my Vegas trip I purchased a Mac Book Pro, under the assumption I would run both OSX and Windows on the notebook. I found myself more and more using the OSX side until I no longer had the need to run Windows. Believe it or not, everything I needed to do could be done under OSX. As far as my client’s servers, I could manage them all remotely with the Mac version of Remote Desktop. This past weekend I replaced my workstation with a Mac Pro. The only thing left was my Windows server and my wife’s workstation. Moving away from my Windows servers that were handling my network file sharing (running raid for data protection) as well as Exchange and Blackberry services would be the hardest, so I thought. I wound up moving my domains to Google Apps for email and used T-Mobile’s services to connect via IMAP and forward my email to my Blackberry. I am purchasing a Drobo to handle my network file sharing as it runs it’s own version of raid for data protection. Continue reading “Mac Convert”
BFG: Shameful Support
Ever since PCI express slots were available on motherboards, I have been running dual NVIDIA graphics cards for quad displays under Windows XP. When Vista arrived I decided to design a new rig with dual 8800GTXs at it’s core. The quad displays worked fine as they did before, however now under Vista Ultimate x64 albeit with questionable drivers. The system was shaky with blue screens left and right with no logical reasoning. The driver support from NVIDIA was abysmal for both their 8800 video chipset as well as their 680i motherboard chipset. In an earlier post you saw how I couldn’t stand it anymore and I dropped Vista for the time being and went back to XP.
Well after reinstalling XP Pro I could only get two monitors operational. I decided to give BFG tech support a call for some assistance. When I described the problem I was having they quick answer was “We don’t support more than two displays on a system”. I said the unit has 4 available ports with two cards why is there no support for this configuration. He was steadfast in his answer. I informed him I have been running quad configurations in this manner with both the 6800 and 7900 series of cards. I asked what was different about the 8800 series that it cannot support quad monitors. He couldn’t give me answer a straight answer. I then stated if it is not supported why it is not displayed on a FAQ on their site or on the box. I then asked him what I should do with $1200 worth of video cards. His answer was returning them. At that point there was a long pause on my end, as I tried to keep myself from blowing up on the technician. I guess he figured I was at that stage and asked if I would like to speak to a supervisor, which I agreed too.
Continue reading “BFG: Shameful Support”
Throwing In The Towel
I am officially throwing in the towel on Vista. It just got to frustrating to handle, it was so unstable that anything could bring up a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). I cannot blame Microsoft entirely on this one. But what I can say without a question is that NVIDIA & Apple should be thrown in front of an oncoming bullet train. They were the two companies that made my life miserable the most with Vista. NVIDIA’s role in this nightmare was not being able to deliver stable drivers for their motherboard or video chipsets. It’s not like this new OS was sprung on them out of nowhere. The final shipping version of the OS has been available for enterprise customers since November. They have been receiving a lot of flack about the current state of their drivers from their faithful fans. I just couldn’t stand my system sitting idly and then all of a sudden *BOOM* blue screen. Or my raid array being broken every couple of days and having to wait for it to rebuild. Enough is enough, I’ll give it another 3 months or so before I attempt to install Vista again.
Now onto my gripe with Apple, can someone say iTunes? Is Steve Jobs insane enough to think that by holding back on a version of iTunes that works on Vista, it will make people jump ship for Macs? Enough already iTunes worked better on Beta versions of the OS than it did on the retail version. Their latest release of the software that supposedly fixes Vista compatibility still crawls like a dog and is still not recommended for x64 versions. God to import several MP3s took about 15 minutes for processing alone.
Last night when I had the latest crash for no reason whatsoever, I had to have a little reality check. Was there any benefit at the moment to running Vista over XP? The answer was a resounding ‘NO’, not even close. Besides all the eye candy there is not much else being offered as a benefit at the moment. I could however list all the negatives, the biggest one being lack of drivers. So back to XP I went and quite frankly my system runs faster under XP then it did with Vista.
Vista + Zune = NOT!
There are a lot of mixed reviews out there for the Zune. So I decided to purchase the Zune and give it a try for myself. I walked into a local BestBuy and took a look at the unit and it wasn’t too shabby looking especially the brown version. I had to inform the salesperson that they should remove the Plays For Sure tag since it is not. I get home unpack the software slip it into my workstation and off I go. First couple of screens went fine, then it checked for updates. Then to my amazement I was greeted with Vista is not a supported OS check back later. Check back later? Didn’t Vista go gold last week, didn’t they have a ton of downloads for the Betas. Maybe it’s just me but the people picking this thing up are mainly geeks in the know since there hasn’t been a huge media blitz as of yet. So wouldn’t it be wise to have support for Vista out of the box or at least downloadable by launch. There is no indication if there will be any support soon from their site so looks like I will be returning the unit. My other choice is to wipe my system in order to use the unit. I think not!!!!!
Bad move Microsoft another plus for Apple since iTunes runs under Vista.. get a clue will ya.
http://www.zune.net/en-US/meetzune/software/OS_not_supported.htm
