Jack Hoelz posted on February 14, 2007 07:38
I have gone through another installation on my main desktop which went very smooth except for a graphics card issue that was quickly resolved. While Vista is not a must have upgrade, I do like it enough to want both of my main systems running it. Ultimate for the desktop and Business for the notebook.
Now that I have everything installed and running it's time to talk a bit about the features of the OS. While any new system takes time to learn, Vista is pretty intuitive. Most users will pick everything right up with one exception. It takes a little time to get used to navigating the file manager when opening and saving documents. Once you get past that it's a breeze.
There are three features as part of Vista that I really like. One of them will change the way the average user get their content, the other two are just great additions.
Desktop RSS Reader
I have written about this before. This is the single feature that will change the way people get their information. This is nothing new,
RSS readers have been around for a long time, but this is the first time they have been incorporated into the desktop and visible at startup. It's my belief that new technology does not catch on for the masses until it becomes a part of the "Standard" systems people use. Everyday users are just not going to search for and install
"Google Desktop Gadgets".
The RSS reader is very easy to use, and becasue it ties into the RSS feeds you grab through IE7 it really sets up itself. If we use this site as an example all a user needs to do it select the
link at the top of this page and they are presented with a list of all the available feeds from the Blog area on this site. By selecting the area of their interest, in my case the lates 25 entries, a new screen appears with the information. By selecting the "Subscribe to this feed" option the feed is added to my list and sent out to my desktop reader.
The desktop reader can be configured to display a limited number of entries from any feeds you choose. By default it will display all of your feeds with the latest 100 entries. When you see a headline that grabs your interest just select it and a small box will pop-out with a summary.
If you want to read the entire article just select the title and your off to the site. Once you have subscribed to content through IE7 your feeds not only go to your desktop, if you are using Outlook 2007 they also show up as unread messages in your feeds folder there.
I use this everyday! I can watch for new posts here on TCD. I can monitor the classroom news from school, see the latest software updates from some of our developers and all of this without adding to my already overflowing inbox!
My next favorite Vista feature - the
Snipping Tool