Deleting a shortcut in Windows Vista...

It now takes 7 glorious steps to delete a shortcut.

I'll post a longer rant about Windows Vista in a few more weeks (once I've had a good run with it). At this point in time there are a lot of gaps -- mostly in terms of polish and making it consistent.

Short summary of stuff so far:
1. Plan on 2Gb of RAM. It will run on 1Gb fine -- just like XP does on 512Mb. Then again it is Beta, so maybe 1Gb will be sufficient.

2. UI is still not polished, some dialogs have the old look&feel - I do not know why this is the case. But, my guess would be that there is code that directly draws the UI rather than use Win32/Aero API. This I'm certain will be corrected.

3. The so called protection features are a tad annoying, I'm most certain that they will be pretty much crippled either by M$ or by the user in the first few weeks of using it.

4. The bulk of the annoying bits are really to do with UI being inconsistent, rather than the underlying technology.

5. I've had a few problems getting Networking working properly.

6. There is still some artifact noise when dragging windows around, flipping between Windows etc. At times the whole UI becomes very very slow -- then it decides all is OK and starts being more responsive. [This again is a Beta issue, will probably change soon]. I noticed this when I was running a few apps. and tried moving between Windows when compiling a large application.

7. If the rumors of them charging US$450 for the Home-Ultimate edition are true -- this beast of an OS will never really take off. Considering that the average price of a basic PC is around US$600 -- anything more than US$100 for the O/S will be just not work.

8. Firefox runs faster and better than IE7. I hear IE8 is now the Firefox killer...

I just started to realise how polished XP really is, after playing around with Vista.

RSS2PDF

Here is a service that is really nifty and most likely of limited use. This website will convert any of your RSS feeds into a PDF. I'm still wondering when I would use it, but just in case you ever need it - do check it out.

Technically, all they seem to have done is create a XSL-Formatting Object that converts the RSS feed into a PDF file, using the Apache FOP library.

Do leave comment if you can find a real use for RSS2PDF.

Who will win the next-gen console war?

Nintendo has decided to name their next-gen console "Wii" (pronounced 'We'), it was hyped under the codename Revolution until now. There is a lot of speculation on what will go into this machine, but what is now known is that the controller is innovative and different.

Sony has indicated that PS3 will ship later this year, probably for around US$400. XBox 360 has been around for a little while now, mostly to good reviews.

Who will win?

XBox 360 has the lead, PS3 alledgedly has the best graphics (alledgedly), Wii has the new controller. My take is that if 'Wii' works as advertised in the videos and the controller is indeed simple and fun to use -- they will pretty much sell a lot more units than Sony or M$.

My reasoning is that ultimately consumers will buy a console for game-play, not to replace their home-entertainment system. Not in 2006 anyway -- and Nintendo seems to be pretty much focused on great game play and making their console as widely accessible as possible. Even if they can get 10% more women to start playing their games -- that along will be a huge new market for them.

Sony/M$ seem to be starting on a long path to build 'the entertainment box', and in this regard their product line is really Version 1 and we/they have a long way to go before it will be the 'one box that will rule them all'.

In 12 months we will know...