I’ll admit it: I hate being stranded with nothing to do. It’s one of the things that has bothered me about taking the van back to the dealer for service–I’ve spent more than enough time trapped in a small room with old magazines, three strangers, and Jerry Springer on the television. This morning I took it in for an oil change and sat down with my laptop to write out a couple of outlines for articles. Lo and behold, there’s a wireless network. Oh, not at my dealer. The fancy Acura dealer next door, though, has an open wireless net and I was next to the window. Three bars symbolized happiness and productivity for about an hour this morning.

During all this short-lived joy, I couldn’t help but notice that Vista does a pretty good job of managing wireless connections. I particularly like the division of networks into public, home, and business, with different levels of protection for each. It’s a good thing.

I’m somewhat less impressed with the power management settings. Normally I like to keep my laptop on high-performance, fire-breathing, full afterburner mode. When batteries are carrying the load, though, I’m willing to ease of on the horsepower to get a battery life that goes beyond double-digit minutes. Vista offers three pre-set power schemes, with a setting that tells the machine to switch schemes depending on whether or not it’s plugged in. Trouble is, that last piece doesn’t work. “Balanced” is a weeny way to go, but it works for now, and I’ll keep with it until I figure out how to make the switch automatic.

Off to Las Vegas for Interop next week…more from Sin City.

Categories: General computing
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Vista is, in many ways, like a new puppy: I enjoy taking it out, but I’m always on the lookout for stray puddles on the carpet. I’m working on a set of tests down at the university, and today was the first trip to the lab with the new Vista machine. On the whole, I was pleased. My laptop recognized the university wireless network, properly complained about a certificate, and asked just how vulnerable I wanted to be while I was there. Good stuff. On the other hand, I needed to download a file and Vista worked hard to keep me from storing it where I wanted.

That really sums up my experience with Vista, so far: Lots of good stuff with a lot of little annoyances thrown in to keep me from being enthusiastic. I’ll agree that it is, on balance, an improvement over Windows XP. I wish the 64-bit version was readily available (and usable) right now, but I’ll limp along with the junior version. With everything I’ve been through on the switch to Vista, though, there is one thing I’m confident of: If Apple released a version of the Macintosh OS that would run on my laptop I’d switch in a heartbeat. I’m confident I’m not alone in this. Apple should be listening.

Categories: Consumer Technology, General computing, Software
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