Software

I finally bit the bullet and installed Windows Vista SP1 on my system.  The thing that put me off most about it was the size.  Updates of that size tend to take a long, long time to install.  I was dead right.  Microsoft were not lying with the disclaimer that it might take over one hour to install.  It took over two hours and possibly more than three.  It was as slow and syrupy as some sticky molasses.  The thing was that I actually had a lot of work to do, which made things decidedly inconvenient.

I have a 100MBPS FTTH Internet connection, the 700+ MB of x64 SP1 screamed home in about three minutes.  I was impressed, as I am assuming that there would have been a lot of people downloading it at the same time as I did.  I actually had the upgrade on my system about a month and a half ago.  I didn't install it and somewhere along the way it disappeared.  It did not appear again in automatic updates, so I opted to download it from the downloads page at Microsoft.

Link for the 64-bit version:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems (KB936330)

Link for the 32-Bit version:

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone (KB936330)

While the update process was remarkably slow, it can be installed unattended.  Rather than install when you need to use your computer, you would do better to set it up to run overnight.

The more devices that you have the bigger the problem of keeping everything in sync can become. SugarSync is a web-based service that aims to change all of that.  It is PC and Mac compatible and will allow you to share files between as many systems as you want.  It takes the work out of synchronization.  You do not need to have all of your systems online in order for it to work.  It would seem that the documents, images and other files that you sync are uploaded to the SugarSync server, from where they are sent out to the other systems that you own.  It is a common sense approach; sort of like Foxmarks for files.

SugarSync also brings your mobile devices into line; not all are equal in this department.  Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices can handle whatever you throw at them, but the iPhone will only display pictures.  According to the review in USA Today, the Mac software is presently in Alpha stage, but will be advancing to Beta shortly.  It is apparently a little buggy but gets the job done.

Quite obviously, services like this are not free.  The cost of your service will depend on your data synching needs:

"A basic subscription gives you 10 gigabytes of online storage for $5 a
month or $50 a year. A 30-GB plan costs $10 a month or $100 a year. The
top-tier 250-GB plan costs $50 a month and $500 a year. SugarSync
includes a 45-day free trial. First year prices are half off for
Sharpcast Photos subscribers and SugarSync beta testers."

As we get more devices and our mobile devices become more capable, synchronization is going to become somewhat closer to a necessity than a convenience.

Windows Vista SP1 has finally touched down and is officially available for download. It will be pushing mediocre broadband connections to the absolute limit as it is a heavy beast. There is a swathe of security updates and hotfixes in the mix which ways in at 434.5MB for the 32Bit version 726.5MB for the 64-bit version. Those that are unlucky enough to live in countries with bandwidth restrictions are likely to feel a bit of a sting.

The big question on the minds of many people is will this thing work with a cracked version of Windows Vista? There is some bad news there, I am afraid. If you made use of the popular Paradox crack then your product will be deactivated. Word on the street is that you won't be forced into reduced access mode, you will still be able to run your system, albeit with annoying pop-ups that you will need to work around (rumor has it there is a workaround for this). If you are using Vista Loader, it does appear that your system will still work, for the time being at least. Vista Loader is the only major crack that escaped the net. Just do a file search on your primary hard disk for: "Vista Loader" in order to find out if you should download Vista SP1.

If you are running a legitimate system then this should be good news. We are expecting to see a performance boost and better multi-core support. If you are running a quad-core processor, my guess is that now it will start to show its real benefits. There are said to be some major improvements with this release, let's hope so. I like Vista, but it does have a ways to go before it is a complete operating system.

If you are a Crysis player running GeForce then grab the latest drivers, they are currently in Beta. The older drivers are geared towards the original Vista and according to Extreme Tech, will actually cause a performance decrease at higher graphics settings. The new drivers will give you a slight increase, but nothing to write home about.

Source: Slashgear, Extreme Tech