By the way, Microsoft: Don’t be stupid and make Internet Explorer + Active-X mandatory to download the ISO, also it wouldn’t hurt with a torrent.

I burned the ISO onto a DVD, and booted it up in a virtual machine. I am using VMWare Fusion running on an iMac Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz with 1.5 GB of memory, half of that memory dedicated to the virtual memory (yeah, I think I need to upgrade my memory a bit).


This is the first screen you will see, a loading screen similar to the Windows Vista installation.

The next screen gives you the possibility to choose which edition of Windows 7 to install: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. The difference between these is probably the same as with the Windows Vista equivalents. I went for the Ultimate edition.

After that starts the process of copying over and installing the files. I chose the semi-automated installation option in VMWare, using Windows Vista as the operating system type, so I didn’t have to provide any username etc.

Windows 7 installation is not free of restarts.:-)

 Starting up again, doing some post-installation procedures and another reboot.

Finally, the login window!

After you have input your user details it will go through some automated procedures, and a wizard to set up the network will open up. You will also be able to set up a “home group”, which I presume is a way to set up a personal network in your house, sharing files and printers with other machines.

Windows automagically detected my resolution and configured it correctly. Due to limitations in VMWare I am not able to run Aero, so the graphical UI doesn’t run with all features, such as translucency, that a fully accelerated Windows 7 would do. The start menu is equal to Windows Vista. The shutdown button is simpler, but works better than the one in Vista.

Notice the message bubble in the photo above this one. Windows 7 will collect all messages in one place, instead of a dozen of message windows popping up.

It also has a tool to select the network. In this case it can only see the wired network (provided by the virtual machine).

By right clicking on an item in the taskbar it feels much like this is a dock in OS X.:-)

Windows Media Player have a new Pictures option.

Windows Explorer hasn’t changed much from Vista graphically, but Windows 7 got something new called Libraries. Libraries is basically “Smart Folders” that contains items/files of a specific file type. For example, all documents on your local hard drive; and even documents on shares in your local network; will be put in the library folder for Documents. The same goes with Pictures and Videos, probably with the possibility to add more. This is equal to the “Search for” option in the Finder application in Mac OS X Leopard, but more integrated into the system. Time will show how/if people will use this. For me personally, it is a feature I don’t use much; but the Windows OS is indeed more “messy” than Mac OS X so perhaps this will come as a welcome addition for a lot of people.

Internet Explorer 8 has some new features. A “Suggested Sites” window pops up on first launch. A StumbleUpon competitor for Internet Explorer? It also has a “Safe browsing” feature, where data such as history and cache will be deleted after the user session is finished.

A new “Snipping Tool” is now included, that allows you to take screenshots of a specific part of your desktop; much similar to OS X’s Shift+Cmd+4.

Wordpad has received a welcome update, taking interface elements from the newest versions of Office, but Notepad haven’t changed (thankfully).

Paint has also received a facelift similar to Wordpads.

That’s it. Hope you enjoyed these screenshots. If there’s a specific application you would like to see a screenshot of, please voice off in the comments.

The availability of GTD applications for Mac was pretty small just a couple of years ago, but lately a lot of applications has become available. The most notable ones are iGTD, Actiontastic, OmniFocus, Midnight Inbox and of course Things.  I have evaluated all of them, but Things is the one that I keep coming back to.

When making a software application, especially one like this, it is difficult to get the correct balance of either too few features versus feature bloat. Things, in my opinion, got the perfect balance.

The user interface contains just the correct amount of GUI controllers without feeling bloated. It is pretty much self-describing; but it also got some nice descriptions in the background of each view which appear when the it contain no items (it can also be disabled). This is, in my opinion, a very nice and innovative way to help you get started using the application – the application got virtually no learning curve. Many software developers have a lot to learn from how Cultured Code have done this.

The application is divided into 6 main views: Inbox, Today, Next, Scheduled, Someday and Projects. Inbox is the place where you normally will put tasks that don’t below to a particular project or Area yet.

The Today view contains contains tasks that you have marked as to be fulfilled today, while the Next view got all the next tasks that are either scheduled or the next tasks to be completed in a project.  The Scheduled view contains items that are scheduled for a specific day; which can also be a recurring task. In the Someday view you can store tasks or projects that you don’t plan on starting on yet, and will therefor not appear in the Next or Today view. Projects contains your current running projects (duh).

Adding new tasks is easy as pie. You can basically add tasks in any view, and there is also a feature called “Quick Entry”. Quick Entry is available by clicking its button, but you are also able to create a system-wide keyboard shortcut to the feature – eliminating the need to go into the application first. Adding a task inside the application is equally easy, with a similar box.

Once  you have added a task you will see it in the corresponding view(s). Moving it around between projects etc. is a matter of drag-and-drop. When you have completed the task you can tick it off. When you got some finished task (or projects) the Log Completed button will appear, which will move the completed tasks/projects into the Logbook, for archiving.

After you have added a task you can use the Tags window, or corresponding shortcuts (seen to the left of the tag name), to add tags to your tasks. You can then choose to show just one tag. This prove very useful, especially when you tag your tasks according to priority (shortcut 1,2 and 3). You can of course also create your own tags.

Hopefully the screenshots in this post make you want to try out the application yourself. A 15-day full-featured trial is available from Cultured Code’s website. Also, be sure to check out their blog, forum and wiki pages.

The price is reasonably priced at $49.95, or $74.95 for a family license (which can be used by up to 5 users who live in the same household). Additionally, until January 15th, you’ll be able to get the application for 20% off the full price by using the coupon code THINGPRESALE20, so be sure to take advantage of that offer.

Last, but not least, I should mention that Cultured Code has also created a Things client for the iPhone and iPod touch which is just as good as the desktop application. Be sure to check it out in the iTunes Store.

One bad thing, however: It seems to be Intel only; so I am not able to use it on my trusty iBook G4. Another reason to get myself a MacBook Air.;-)

You can download Picasa for Mac from http://picasa.google.com/mac/

WordPress 2.7 has finally been made available for download for stand-alone installation. The developers have worked a lot with the admin interface in this version; and the result is, in my opinion, really nice! I’ve always liked the WordPress platform in itself; but the admin panel has been so-so. I strongly encourage you to check it out. You can do so by creating a free account at wordpress.com or by downloading it, also free, from wordpress.org/download if you’d like to install it on your own machine/server or at your hosting provider (WordPress requires PHP and a MySQL server to work).

Songbird, the open source alternative to iTunes, has just turned 1.0! Songbird is based on a Mozilla core, the same as browser Firefox and e-mail reader Thunderbird. It has most of the functions of iTunes; but being made by a community it contains features such as wast user customization and the possibility to create add-ons. It has built-in support for submission of media plays to Last.FM among other things.

It cooperates well with iTunes, and can even play songs purchased in iTunes Store! Also, it is available for all the major platforms: Mac, Linux, and Windows.

If you want a change; try Songbird! It is available for a free (duh) download at the Songbird’s nest!

If you need a software app that help you structure your thoughts XMind I suggest you try XMind. It is available for download at the XMind website for all major operating systems; Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.