Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to write, edit, read, and record. For some reason, my life seems to be getting busy…

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.

I got my copy of Vista through the Express Upgrade program. My Gateway laptop, ordered in late November, shipped with XP, but I jumped through the hoops necessary to get my disc sent on its way. It arrived in due time, I backed up all my data files, and the Great Upgrade began.

I decided, against Microsoft’s advice, to try the update (rather than the clean install) for my first installation attempt. Big mistake. There’s nothing like a looping Blue Screen of Death in an OS install to get your attention. After an hour or so of trying to get the installation process to fix itself I gave up and did the clean install. Much better.

Vista comes alive, and it’s first impression time: Hmm, they seem to have given me a new toolbar. I’m a fan of the Google sidebar, so I look at the Microsoft version and spend about ten minutes with it before downloading Google.

Getting things set up was relatively straight forward, though it took a while before I got the MTU issue settled. I run a screwy custom MTU on my home network (thanks, BellSouth), and getting the new value established took a while. It was finally done, though, and I could start using the system.

First note: I’d been told that Office 2007 ran faster under Vista than under XP. My impression is that this is true, tbough the difference in performance isn’t nearly as great as I’d like. Perhaps if I work up the courage to upgrade to Vista 64…

More later, but it’s late. I’ll be back soon.

Today, March 15, I received a text message from Cingular letting me know that we are going to change to Daylight Saving Time on March 11. Oh yes, my Blackjack will need a software update last Sunday. When I went to check this out on the Cingular Support Page, I found that the page had been updated to say that, yes indeed, I will need to update my Blackjack on or before the 11th.

I draw several lessons from this. First, it’s to Cingular’s credit that they did eventually figure it out and deliver correct information to their customers–I’m going to assume that other Blackjack owners got a similar message in their in-box today. Next, in a company the size of Cingular/AT&T you’d think they could find someone who has mastered verb tenses. They need some work on the whole past/present/future thing. Finally, while I give them credit for eventually sending out correct information, why wasn’t it available, oh, last Saturday (March 10th)? It’s not like this whole Daylight Saving Time were some last-minute surprise tossed at the phone company. There were announcements about this. It was in all the larger papers.

Of course, I shouldn’t complain too loudly, since Cingular is far from the only small business to have trouble with the shift to Daylight Saving Time. Yesterday when I flew back from San Francisco our Delta Air Lines 767 gave us the local time at our destination. Yep, their clock hadn’t gotten its new marching orders. It’s hard to explain just how much confidence that gave me as we soared into the sky. It was enough to make me forget all about my cell phone…

I have a Samsung Blackjack phone from Cingular. On the whole, it’s a fine cell phone, though I’ll admit that I often miss the Treo I was using in my last job. Anyway, I went out to the Cingular support site and was told that I didn’t need to do anything to the Blackjack–it was ready for the shift to Daylight Saving Time. With my other systems patched, I felt pretty good. Silly me.

When I got up yesterday morning I had to quckly head out to the airport, so I didn’t look at the phone for a couple of hours. When I did, I noticed that the Blackjack was still on standard time. I turned it off on the plane, and when I turned it back on at the mid-point of the trip I expected the time to have reset. Nope. Turning the phone off and traveling to California didn’t help, either. Rats.

I finally did some searches and found that Microsoft had released a Special Daylight Saving Patch for the Blackjack. I downloaded the patch, applied it to the phone, and the world was once again in temporal balance.

So what’s the lesson here? I suppose it’s that you shouldn’t trust a single participant in a multi-vendor system to tell you all you need to know. In my case, there are three vendors who have portions of my phone; Cingular, Samsung, and Microsoft are each participants. My mistake was assuming that Cingular would have a handle on the operating system issues. It would be nice if the company that directly took your money for a product could be counted on to properly support it, but that may be asking too much in today’s world. Congratulations, pilgrim–you’re on your own. The times, they are a-changing, and it’s up to you to make sure all your systems keep up.

I’m looking at new recorders. Right now, my number one choice is the Zoom H4. It has most of what I’m looking for, though I’ve heard some complaints about the user interface complexity and a “light” feeling to the construction. Since I may do some music recording in addition to the basic podcast work, it seems like it would be a good choice. I’m also big on the phantom power capabilities and the ability to use it as an A/D interface when I do want to record directly to the computer.

Now, if money were no object I might consider the Sony Professional Portable 24-bit Linear Recorder, though I have serious reservations about the DRM Sony tends to stick on any of their recording equipment. Between that and the $1,600 price tag, the Zoom looks pretty good.

The other recorder that seems to be serious competition for the Zoom is the Edirol R-09. I’ve used Edirol recorders in the past, and found them to be quite adequate machines. The word from users is that the user interface is considerably simpler than that of the Zoom, and the physical dimensions a bit smaller. I suspect that, if speaking-voice recording is your only task, the Edirol would do a fine job. Since the feature set is smaller and the street price a bit higher, I suspect I’ll stick with the Zoom, though I’m open to suggestion.

I’d be interested in hearing your suggestions–what recorder are you using for podcasting? Comments are open…