Welcome to Windows 2008 R2 ... and others

Ok I promise that is the last blog title in the “Welcome” series.

Yesterday Windows Server 2008 R2 beta download was made available on the Windows Server 2008 R2 beta site.

I still have my hands full getting to grips with Windows 7 which I now have installed on a Netbook; so I have not installed and explores Windows Server 2008 R2 yet.I must say that my initial impressions of Windows 7 from a performance perspective are good despite the limited resources on this hardware platform. Bearing in mind this is purely subjective and generally speaking it’s not a great idea to gage the performance of a product during the beta cycle.

The Netbook:

  • A 1.6 GHz Atom N270 processor (so no x64 capability)
  • 1GB of memory.
  • 160GB hard drive (not SSD)

The only thing I am still struggling with is the getting the WLAN working. It has an Atheros AR5007ED Wireless Network chipset for which the Vista drivers seem to install ok but then fail work properly. I guess I will just have to wait for the appropriate driver update from my hardware vendor.

There were a number of other product download announcements at CES worth noting:

·         Microsoft Tag Beta: I like to think of it as the internet barcode of the future. If you want the full details check out Microsoft Tag site.

·         SongSmith: a very cool application that lets you creates backing music for your vocals check out SongSmith site.

… and I promise to get back onto topic in the coming weeks, but it’s just been one of those weeks (all three days of it).

Quote of the day: “We are the sum of all the people we have ever met. You change the tribe. The tribe changes you.” – from the movie Fierce People.

<Gary>