The installation of 7 on my Dell Inspiron 1520 ran smoothly. Nowadays, and despite common misconceptions, operating system installations are quite simple (even Linux ones) and anybody can do them, so the smoothness of 7’s doesn’t really stand out. Being exited (as only a geek such as myself can be when installing a new operating system), I didn’t measure the installation time but it certainly was fast.

After the installation was completed I was immediately surprised by how fast it booted up. After three weeks, I am still not used to these blazingly fast start-ups. Shutdowns are also fast too, and unlike all other Windows operating systems I used (98, Me, XP and Vista), so far I am still to experience frozen programs delaying shutdown indefinitely. I did experience programs freezing a couple of times during shutdown (which is normal as after the shutdown process is initiated, non-system program’s permissions are harshly restricted), but in each case Windows was able to force those programs to quit, and shutdown the computer.

The first thing I did after the installation was completed was open the Task Manager, where I found out that my laptop’s physical memory usage was around 32% of my 2GB of RAM, which is not even close to Vista’s 48% at start-up. In fact as I’m writing this, iTunes is running in the background together with around a dozen Chrome processes and the physical memory usage is 42%, still bellow Vista’s at start-up.

As for hardware support, the release candidate’s driver library did not include drivers for my memory card reader, nor for my Nokia E51 phone; but having in mind the number of devices on the market, that cannot really be taken as a flaw. What impressed me though is the way Windows handled this issue. I was presented with a window informing me about the lack of drivers, and a download link to a specific driver in each case. I was done in just a couple of clicks. And as if that didn’t make my life easy enough, after the installation of my Nokia drivers I was presented with another window that informed me that I am missing Nokia’s PC Suite. It also had a download link, so Windows did all the work for me. No CDs, and no searching on Nokia’s web site.

Truth to be told, I did experience a couple of annoying problems with the hardware support, but having in mind I am running just a release candidate I am sure those will be fixed before October 22, when Windows 7 is due to come out. The first one is a real pain in the neck as it involves drivers for the USB interface of my iPod which freezes when I try to sync it with the Disk Mode disabled (but simply enabling that mode solves the problem). The other problem I have is with buttons on my touchpad. Under Vista that was shipped with my Dell, a middle click is achieved by pressing both touchpad buttons at the same time and that doesn’t work anymore in my case.

As for system stability, it did not crash once in the past three weeks.

As for usability, Microsoft obviously put a lot of work into user interface which really stands out from Vista. The traditional taskbar withstood heavy modifications. It does take some getting used to, but when you do, you will wonder how could you ever use the traditional one without a headache.

One of the main things new Vista users complained about were the so-called “cancel or allow” messages which proved to be a great idea for this Get a Mac Apple ad Windows 7 offers several levels of security, and that setting sets the frequency of these messages. You rarely get them by default.

A lot of tools were drastically changed as well. For example, the Resource Monitor is now more detailed, and much better organized than its Vista counterpart. The integrated backup program was also changed and works great too.

Microsoft took a great blow with Vista’s failure because of bad PR. I have been a Vista user for two years and I do not think it is half as bad as people made it to be. Although a good product, it wasn’t released polished which allowed unsubstantiated rumors to spread. With the Mojave Experiment Microsoft did try to combat these rumors, but its PR department obviously failed. Unlike Vista, the release candidate of Windows 7 appears to be almost perfectly polished. As history repeats itself, I am sure that Vista will be remembered as Me of its time, and as for 7, come October 2010 Microsoft will probably declare it to be its lucky number.

Photo courtesy of www.itsmywindows.com.

You can also check out the movie trailers here.

On April 7, theater professor Nedyalko Delchev, together with van Lynden and about a dozen students, opened this semester’s theater season with Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!

Guards! Guards! follows a plot of the Supreme Grand Master Lupine Wonse (van Lynden) to overthrow Lord Havelock Vetinari (Delchev) and install a puppet king. Wonse plans to achieve his goal by summoning a dragon to instigate mass panic, using the only copy of a book that explains the process.

The local librarian (Shpatar Morina) later reports that the book has been stolen to a new volunteer of the city guard – Carrot (Ilya Petrov), who tries to investigate the matter.

The play mocks today’s world by illustrating it in a rather hilarious way. Wonse, like an average politician, would do anything to overthrow the current head of state. After the dragon, which was meant to replace Lord Vetinari, proves not to be as obedient as he hoped, Wonse becomes the servant of the dragon King. He seems careless about all the people that have died just because of his hunger for power.

The “Thieves’ Guild,” an allusion to today’s mafia, is closely integrated into Lord Vetinari’s government. The thieves’ actions seem to be unrestricted. When Carrot, who seems to know the book of law by heart, and is still uncorrupted, puts the leader of the Guild under arrest, a huge scandal ensues.

Unlike other AUBG plays, Guards! Guards! is spiced up with some special effects and professional looking lighting. The acting performance was good enough to cause the whole hall to laugh at least a couple of times. Actors definitely did a great job having in mind most of them are not professionals.

Guards! Guards! allowed AUBGers some cultural time off before the ugly finals’ weeks of the semester. Even though some might label it as too long, and thus boring, the play is a “must see” because of its comedy, special effects and of course the cast.

Make sure you take full winter gear to survive through the over-an-hour-long play, as Blagoevgrad’s Opera Hall is an unbelievably cold place.

Originally posted on www.defactobg.com.