HP Pavilion DV4-2161NR 14.1-Inch Laptop (Digital Plaid)

I had have this computer for a month now, so here goes nothing:


Pros:
- Excellent design
- 4GB Ram, enough for most tasks
- 500GB hard drive, for me that's enough for now
- Small size and little weight (even lighter when DVD is removed, which is an excellent feature in itself)
- Windows 7 (better than Vista, we'll see about XP)
- EXCELLENT PRICE

Cons:
- Battery life is about 2 hours, bound to decrease within 6 months, not on par with most other laptops this size.
- Touchpad really has a mind of its own on ocassion.
- Glossy design is beautiful, but it's also a fingerprint magnet
- Opening it is a cumbersome task, not really bad, but a little.
- Windows 7 "64bit" - Some old programs I use refuse to work in such environment.

All in all a solid laptop, with excellent features (and minor inconveniences), but please, HP, this is my third HP laptop and the batteries have never been your forte. (yet I keep buying HP) DO SOMETHING!

UPDATE: The battery won't last for more than an hour and a half, so I took two stars off my review for this major inconvenience. Sorry to say this, but I no longer recommend this purchase.

Toshiba Satellite L505-GS5037 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

I did about 2 weeks worth of research before buying this laptop and I found the Toshiba L505-GS5037 for $579.99 at Amazon the best deal around. I'm a first time international buyer and had this shipped to my country through a relative and I must mention the excellent guidance and service given to me by Amazon. I felt safe and secure and had all my questions answered fully - so good job Amazon, I'll definitely be buying more from your website!


As for the laptop, my previous laptop was 15" and I was surprised by how big the ".6" difference in this 15.6-inch laptop is. But I love the big screen and very much happy that I did not go for the other 13.3-inch bestseller here on Amazon. It's also not heavy at all and 6 pounds is really nothing to carry around. It's a lot sleeker, slimmer and more beautiful in person and the reviewer here who said that the pictures don't do this laptop justice is right.

I bought this laptop for its great everyday use specs - Intel Core i3, 500GB hard drive, and 4GB upgradeable memory. I love how much faster I can edit pictures, make short videos and create documents - definitely a huge upgrade from my old Pentium 4, 60 GB, 512 MB RAM laptop (it was 5 years old okay!). I have no problems using the keyboard (I type very fast - 75WPM) and at first I thought the number keypad would be too much but I found myself using it very often and love that this laptop has this feature.

Lastly for the pros: the trackpad is great (though I use a mouse more often), it doesn't come with a ton of bloatware, the 3-hour battery life is good enough for me, I love the old school volume wheel, and best of all is that Toshiba has INTERNATIONAL WARRANTY.

The downsides to this laptop for me are:
(1) the speakers aren't very good (even with the volume boost tip here in one of the reviews)
(2) I had to buy a USB port because it only has 2 USB ports
(3) I find the screen oddly lacking in color even with the brightness at its highest level (mine looks like there's a sheet of grey plastic over it), and
(4) Although this isn't Toshiba's fault, the Windows 7 64-bit OS and the new 1366 x 768 resolution aren't compatible with some of my favorite games and programs. This kind of makes the other great specs of this laptop useless. Others who have older laptops can play games seamlessly while mine is choppy and lags a lot. But I blame Microsoft and the game developers for that, not Toshiba. Just want to mention it here in case there are others who want to play games on this laptop too.

Overall, the Toshiba L505-GS5937 is a great buy for those looking for an everyday use laptop. And the price here on Amazon is just unbeatable! I see myself using this laptop for the next 3 years or so - hopefully by that time, software would've caught up with Windows 7 and the new widescreen resolution!

Apple MacBook Pro MC374LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop

The Macbook Pro has just been updated on April 13th 2010. There are some upgrades and a few changes between this year and last years model, detailed below.


UPGRADES
1) The MBP 13 now has 4 gb of ram standard. This allows you to multi-task easily without any issues ( last years model had only 2gb of ram which was inadequate) Now there's no need to spend more money upgrading your ram UNLESS you're really into heavy duty multimedia work

2) It also features the Nvidia GeForce 320M integrated graphics processor with 48 processing cores. This is an improvement compared to the Geforce 9400M graphics chip in last years model and will help in graphics and content creation.

3) The battery lasts longer - now for 9 to 10 hours of use as advertised by Apple (compared to 7 to 8 hours on last years model) Your mileage may vary but it allows you to be mobile for up to 6 hours - depending on what task you're using the computer for. It's an inbuilt battery so once it's exhausted, it's back to the Apple store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for replacement. However, Apple states that the battery will hold 80% of it's charge for up to a 1000 charges which means approximately 3 to 4 years of daily use. So it should be a while before you have to go in for that battery replacement.

4) The included hard drive is 250 gb (160gb in last years model).

5) Mini display port now supports video AND sound with a compatible Mini-DP to HDMI adapter (last years model only supported video)

STANDARD FEATURES - from last years 13 inch model (minor changes noted in brackets) are
An Aluminum unibody,
Core 2 Duo Processor (2.4 ghz - up from 2.26ghz ),
1280 x 800 resolution Glossy LED backlit screen,
iSight camera,

8x slot-loading SuperDrive dvd burner
Large glass multi-touch trackpad ( Intertial scrolling is now enabled ),
Backlit keyboard with comfortable chiclet keys
Magsafe power adapter (with redesigned tip to reduce stress on the cable)

1 Firewire 800 port,
2 USB 2.0 ports ,
SD Card slot,
Wi-Fi - 802.11n specification; 802.11a/b/g compatible, Bluetooth 2.1 and Gigabit Ethernet -10/100/1000.

Software included is OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and the iLife 09 suite of content creation tools. A 1 year warranty on parts and 90 day telephone technical support is standard.

The lack of the latest Intel Core i5 or i3 processors processors in this machine is disappointing to some extent ( Anybody paying a premium price for a product, would expect new rather than "old" processors to be part of the configuration ) but I'd still recommended the MBP 13 to people looking to buy the lightest and most portable Macbook Pro as well as a capable machine in it's own right. Demanding applications like Skype, Photoshop, Lightroom, iMovie run smoothly.

I would also consider purchasing applecare - AppleCare Protection Plan MC258LL/A - For Portable Apple Computers 13.3 Inches and Below along with the notebook. What most consumers don't know is that is that if you don't have Applecare and a product malfunction occurs after the first year, Apple's prices for repair/ replacement parts are extremely high. Another warranty extension option is Squaretrade (which also includes damage protection). It's better to pay once for Applecare or Squaretrade (whatever you prefer) and be covered for 2 more years after the first year is up than pay exorbitant repair/replacement fees if a part malfunctions.

For those who are confused about whether they should purchase the $1199 MBP 13 or the $1499 MBP 13 - the only difference between this model and the higher priced model is processor speed and hard drive space - the $1199 MBP 13 has a 2.4 ghz processor and 250 gb hard drive and the $1499 MBP 13 has a 2.66ghz processor and 320 gb hard drive. Whether a 266 mhz (10% difference) and 70 gb more of hard drive space is worth 300 dollars more is your call. (Although you can purchase a 500 gb notebook hard drive for approximately $80 and install it yourself. Instructions are in the MBP 13 manual and you'll need a Philips #00 screwdriver. Installation videos are also available online)
Apple MacBook Pro MC374LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop

Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 3-User

I've used just about every security system in the world over the years and a year ago settled on Kaspersky 2009, which is easy to use, runs well, and does everything perfectly.


Then, in September, it came time to renew my annual license. I paid my money, and, instead of just renewing me, Kaspersky sent me their new program, 2010. I installed it with no problem. The interface is more complicated but not *really* hard to figure out. After a while, however, I started noticing that there were various sites that I couldn't get to on the Internet (I use Chrome as my browser). Then I discovered that some programs, such as Eudora and Agent were taking longer and longer and longer to shut down when I clicked the X in the corner. And that almost *all* programs I opened or *all* websites that I went to were *much* slower in starting up than they had been before. I tried getting help for various issues at the online Forum where various people send in their problems and other people, including, I guess, some types hired by Kaspersky, try to help them. I got various answers but not very good ones.

I finally discovered by reading a number of anguished threads in the Forum that *lots* of people were having terrible slow-down problems with Kaspersky 2010, even though 2009 had run smoothly. A few people said that the only way they fixed their problems was to uninstall 2010 completely and to reinstall 2009. Finally, after 2010 suddenly vanished from my screen and disappeared *entirely*, I used "Revo Uninstaller" (a *great, free* program, by the way, that everyone should have) to uninstall 2010 and then, using my CD that I had bought a year earlier, finally managed to reinstall 2009. It was hard, though, and took me several hours, countless reboots, and various clean-ups that hadn't been necessary when I first installed it a year ago. Now my system is once again humming along with 2009 and all the problems that I experienced with 2010 are gone.

Buying 2010 is like buying Microsoft Vista and installing it if you had previously been running XP -- a big mistake, and don't do it! It's nothing but a piece of over-priced bloatware that is full of bugs and should never have been released. Users of Internet Explorer 8, particularly: take warning! According to the Forum threads, it's *really* a problem with that browser!

PS -- For the Teckies: My computer is a Compaq Presario, with XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3, Pentium 4 CPU, 2.80 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM, running Google Chrome as the *only* browser on the system.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard

Here are some pointers for those who have not used Dragon, but are thinking of purchasing.

1. Don't skimp on a headset. Visit Nuance.com. Click on Support > Hardware Compatibility List > Dragon NaturallySpeaking > Headset Microphones Current. While it is possible to use a wireless microphone, if you are just starting out, go with a wired, such as a Plantronics DSP-400 (Amazon has this headset for $[...]. It seems cheap, but it is a very good headset). If you can hook the headset up via USB instead of mic in, you will get better recognition accuracy. Additionally, you don't need an internal sound card if you are connecting via USB as the headset comes with its own external sound card.

A good wireless headset will be expensive, and they do not have as good of recognition accuracy as a wired headset.

2. Once you have your headset, connect it to the PC, and install Dragon. It is a straightforward install.

3. You will have to go through an audio and quality check, and then go into General Training. I recommend doing one of the easier readings. You can always go back through and do additional general training. My BIGGEST piece of advice here is speak with your normal voice. Some of my students seem to want to over enunciate, or speak with a different voice during general training. That is only going to set you up for a difficult time when you begin dictating.

4. After your general training, I highly recommend going through the Tutorials. You should be given an option to do this after your general training. If not, you can get to them through the Help Menu on the Dragon bar.

Note: At some point, you will be given the option of having Dragon scan your email and documents. Nuance recommends this, but I don't. You can always have it scan your documents later via the accuracy center. Additionally, I never recommend letting Dragon scan your email. What it is going to do with these actions, is to learn your writing style. Rather than letting DNS do this at setup, move a bunch of documents you have written to one folder, go to the Accuracy Center, and let DNS scan the entire folder.

4. Dragon has some shortcut keys. The number keypad + key is used to turn your mic on and off. The number keypad / key is used to put your mic to sleep, and wake it up. You can go to Tools > Options to change shortcut keys.

5. Remember that while you can do a lot with Dragon, you will find that your best usage comes with using Dragon, the keyboard and the mouse.

6. Set up some Custom Commands. Visit [...] to learn how to set up Custom Commands. There is a book by Larry V. Allen called Scripting for Dragon NaturallySpeaking that will help you out with Advanced Scripts.

7. When you begin dictating, Dragon WILL make some mistakes. It does not help if you yell at your microphone. You will have to continue to train your profile as time goes. If Dragon makes a mistake, resist the urge to delete the mistake and start over. I use this analogy with my students. Think of it as a new puppy. If a puppy makes a mistake, you don't get rid of it (at least you shouldn't), you should correct its mistake. The same goes for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Use the command "Select That" to have DNS highlight the word, and bring up a menu of possible alternate choices. If the correct word is not there, use the command "Spell That" and then spell the word such as: a m a z o n

8. My last tip concerns the Acoustic and Language Model Optimizer. You can get to it through the Accuracy Center, or the Start Menu. Run that after about two weeks of use, and again on a monthly basis. This will fine tune your profile with all corrections and training.

Enjoy Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It is a great piece of software.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard

I upgraded my Leopard-equipped late 2006 Black MacBook to Snow Leopard. I had it on pre-order all week and delivered on release date. It doesn't boast a whole lot of new stuff to it, but I like the new features it does have, and I love the fact that it takes up so much less hard drive space on my MacBook (I gained an amazing 29 gigabytes of space). I also noticed a pretty good speed boost after upgrading.


I really love the new Dock Expose, and how I can look at just one particular application in Expose instead of all the open windows in any given space. It makes finding things a lot easier. I also like the fact that you can now resize your icons in the finder. Dock scrolling (with magnification) and cover flow have been smoothed out greatly which makes it that much more attractive. Quicktime X is a pretty good movie recorder and the interface looks a lot better than previous version of Quicktime. Some other refinements are pretty nice as well.

64-bit support is amazing and I can see a difference in the apps that are now running in 64-bit (see the Activity Monitor for the apps that are running in 64-bit). Things just run smoother and faster.

Now, as far as some drawbacks of the system, this first one is a major one: when redesigning Safari, they made Safari and its plugins and completely separate processes, supposedly to improve the stability of Safari. Perhaps it did this, but as a result, it eats up far more CPU power than the previous iteration. This can result in your system slowing down, and I'm running into serious issues with heating (when using Flash for example, it eats up almost 70% of the CPU and I'm running around 150F, which is somewhat dangerous). Also, there has been some lost backward compatibility with Snow Leopard, and for me, most notable with VMWare Fusion. I hope this is addressed soon.

So would I consider this a necessary upgrade? Not really. If an upgrade is considered, it should be more for the speed boost than for new features, as most users won't take advantage of many (if any) of the enhancements in the interface itself. However, the speed boost and freeing up of hard drive space are nice. Also, if you have programs that might have compatibility issues I'd probably recommend holding off and waiting for these to be resolved before upgrading. If you don't have these issues, go ahead and upgrade, however, I believe you should do so with caution, and keep a copy of your Leopard install disk handy in case you need to revert should you run into any of the issues mentioned.
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard

Norton Internet Security 2010 1 User/3 PC

I have used Norton as my virus protection for quite a few years and prefer Norton over McAfee. As a matter of fact my new laptop that came with a 30 day trial of McAfee just got replaced with this Norton download. This virus scan easily found and deleted 3 viruses I had on my PC and I was pleasantly pleased with the speed in which it performed this total task. Norton offers free backup online with this software too. Buying this from Amazon saved close to half off verses buying direct from Norton's website. Gotta love Amazon! Download time is minimal if you aren't using dialup. Only took about 10 minutes for my PC which is on DSL. Laptop took a little longer due to wireless connection, but still only about 15 minutes. This is well worth the money. Norton Internet Security 2010 1 User/3 PC

Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Business (Disc Version)

The user interface is a little more elegant than in the 2007 version. The programs feel otherwise the same. Outlook starts by default in conversation view, which might be a little disconcerting at first when viewing and deleting emails vs conversations (more than once I've inadvertently deleted a conversation instead of an email that was part of the conversation), but it gains the unified ribbon look. Word feels the same as the 2007 version. Excel gains sparkline charts and a couple of other features; it's, however, still plagued by the same flaws as its predecessor, especially the buggy page view, which sometimes forget your pagination settings (switches from letter size to legal or 11x17), selects 4 or 5 rows at a time instead of one, and so on. It works otherwise quite well. Powerpoint is the usual pig with lipstick. It's competent, but lags behind Apple Keynote when it comes to creating classy presentations.


For all of the apps, I like the new print dialog window a lot: it's big, clear, with a nice preview feature.
In general, $240+ for this suite seems a little too much. It still feels like an office suite from the '90s with some lipstick on. I was hoping that the 2010 version of Excel would take some clues from Apple Numbers, the spreadsheet application in iWork '09, which sports some cool tricks like multiple tables instead of one giant grid, alignment guidelines, and more tricks in the graphics department. I design lots of spreadsheets for reporting purposes, some of them for big clients that want slick-looking reports. It's still much easier and faster to create gorgeous reports using Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote in the iWork suite than it is in Microsoft Office at 4 or 5 times the price.
Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Business (Disc Version)

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition

I just bought a MacBook Pro 15". I love it. I was concerned about making sure everything I produce on this machine is compatible with microsoft documents and programs. I bought the Macbook Pro because I didn't want to deal with Vista and because I am over microsoft in general --hot fixes, service packs, all sorts of SLOP work...and then this most recent and astounding inability to produce a stable product. Anyway, it was a big deal for me to buy a Macbook Pro rather than a Toshiba with Vista preloaded..I digress.

THE PROBLEM: I loaded microsoft Office for Mac, 2008 Home and Student Edition with hopes of using it. I shortly found that COMMON fonts do not transfer in Word, Excel does not work as smoothly and then I received a "Welcome to Entourage" email from microsoft that literally overwrote a weeks worth of emails. Poof! all gone! (gratefully I only had a weeks worth before my welcome email) I called microsoft to ask if there was a way to unwrite the overwritten and was promptly told that I need to establish a "case number" before they could process my inquiry. A Case number? good grief---A CASE NUMBER. Is it that bad? Yes, I could see how many companies may want to sue microsoft for all kinds of things right now. Anyway, I promptly uninstalled Office for Mac 2008 and I will return it. Maybe microsoft will decide to fix this BETA, surely we can expect microsoft to service pack/ hot fix this product to death and then MAYBE in six months at least something as minor as the default settings will coincide with the real world.

THE SOLUTION: I partitioned the hard drive on my macbook, installed WINDOWS XP and loaded my copy of 2003 Office Suite. Everything is perfect now. I get to have the very best laptop in the world and all this great functioning apple software (If you haven't made the switch---you will love Apple --it's so clean). I can create documents (because I must) THAT DON'T CRASH on the other side of my mac HD (the dark side). It's like having two computers in one; the preferred being the Apple. Why can't Apple make microsoft Office? (yes I really do know why).

THE FUTURE: Will I ever install a microsoft product onto the mac side of my HD again? --Not until mircosoft decides to come clean and deliver a product that isn't messed up. Who do these people think they are? How long do they think we'll just take it? Well, this time I didn't take it, instead---- I took it back.
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition

QuickBooks Pro 2010

I have been a user of QuickBooks since QB 2007. I actually purchased QB 2009, with the intent of upgrading last year, but was scared away by a number of user complaints (both in reviews and in user forums). As a result, my first real upgrade was to QB 2010.

To be clear, I am not a QB power user - I don't use QB Payroll, I don't accept credit cards, I don't carry a product inventory, and I prefer to balance my books manually without relying on the automatic transaction download features of QB.

In other words, I tend to use it primarily for book keeping during the course of the year. The bulk of my work centers around a very simple list of items, and around the entry and payment of bills, creation of invoices, receipt of payments, and deposits into my company account. I reconcile my books every month, and rely on my accountant to manage the year end processing.

About 4 months ago, I decided to finally bite the bullet and upgrade to QB 2010. This was in the middle of my year end processing for 2009 so I was hoping that I wouldn't run into any serious issues. I was absolutely thrilled to find that the upgrade of my company file from QB 2007 to QB 2010 went without incident, and I've been successfully using it for a while now.

The new features introduced between 2007 and 2010 are actually quite significant. I've tabulated these below, in the order of their usefulness to me:
> Favorites (nice to keep all my favorite tools ready at hand)
> Attach documents (I'm a big believer in electronic records)
> Professional look for invoices, etc. (no more bland invoices)
> Company snapshot (nice one stop shop)
> Report carousel (really cool effect)
> Accountant's copy using Intuit's FTP server

Overall, QB 2010, under Windows 7 32-bit, has been as stable as 2007 for my needs. I have not experienced a single crash, and even auto update has been rather error free.

This software works well for my needs and I have not regretted upgrading.
QuickBooks Pro 2010

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

This student edition of Microsoft Office 07 comes with four programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Unless you specifically have a need for another Microsoft Office program, this will be more than enough for the average Office user. You've got all the essentials: a word processor (Word), a spreadsheet (Excel), a slide show creator (PowerPoint), and even a nice program to put all your notes (OneNote). Home and Student Office 07 version gives you the basic programs at a cheaper price than the other versions of Office.

The main difference you'll find between this 07 version and the Microsoft Office 03 is that all the programs now have the "ribbon" instead of being menu-driven. The ribbon is a much more visual representation of all the features you can use. All the different tasks are grouped into ribbons; which are divided up into different tabs you can click on. For example, if you clicked on the "Insert" tab in Word you would find tasks such as "inserting" a header or "inserting" a table. What this means is that instead of being hidden in menus and submenus, most features now can be found simply by being in the right tab. This allows you to find some useful features that you might otherwise not have known existed.

Everything from Microsoft 03 is there, it just might take awhile to get used to the new layout of things. There are also a lot of cool new features added in this version, such as easily being able to write complex math equations in Word (it was such a pain in Word 03) and being provided with an easy format to create a bibliography in APA, MLA, Chicago style etc.

Perhaps the only drawback of Office 07 is that it's such a drastic change from Office 03 that it will take awhile to get used to. After years of knowing all the complex menus you'll have to learn where everything is all over again, which can be frustrating for vetrans of Office 03. However, if you just give it some time, you'll fall in love with just how well everything is set up and appreciate the new visual style this version implements.

Pros:
* The new visual style allows easy access to all the various features
* You can still save files in Office 97-03 format (Example .doc)

Cons:
* You must relearn where everything is because of the Ribbon
* Not all websites/ programs recognize the new 07 files

Final Recommendation: Buy it, get used to it, and love it!
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

Should you upgrade from Windows Vista? YES! I mean it - upgrade today. Windows 7 is quite simply faster, more stable, boots faster, goes to sleep faster, comes back from sleep faster, manages your files better and on top of that it's beautiful to look at and easy to use. Even the preproduction version of Windows 7 was better than my Vista with SP2.

Should you upgrade from Windows XP? Maybe, but for different reasons. XP is a good operating system and if you don't need to add new hardware or software, XP is good. However, XP is old as an operating system. Also chances are that if you're running XP, you might not meet the minimum requirements for Windows 7 - check the compatibility site at Microsoft to see if your system will support Windows 7. That said, Windows 7 is light years ahead of Windows XP in terms of functionality, ease of use, etc - to me it's worth buying a new system.

64 bit or 32 bit?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's ok skip this section. If you have a core2 duo or core 2 quad or a multi cpu machine, go with the 64 bit OS, it handles memory and the CPUs much better. If you have a single core CPU, one CPU or run special programs that require 32bit, then stick with 32 bit for now.

Before Installation:
I recommend you have:
-a core 2 duo or core 2 quad machine
-4gig of RAM (That's about $50 in today's market)
-good hard drive with (200 gig - it doesn't need that much but that's another $50)
-back up your files to a USB drive like Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black) -check to make sure your computer is compatible with Windows 7

Installation: Installation was very straight forward. You put in the CD and reboot your machine. You might have to enter your bios and enable the "boot from CD" option. Once the machine reboots a nice screen comes up to guide you through the installation. You have the option to upgrade your PC or do a clean installation. I did an upgrade and it brought in all of my files and settings from my windows Vista system. It worked great. The upgrade did take about 2 hours for me so definitely consider. I noticed that early on in the installation the operating system went out to Microsoft's site to look for the latest and greatest updates, so I think this should help Microsoft respond quickly to any hiccups with compatibility.

What Doesn't Work: The driver from my old HP Inkjet printer for 2001 doesn't work on Windows 7 so there are some things that will not transition. I had to use a generic HP driver which doesn't give me the quality that I got from an injet - so overall, I'm up and running with that printer but I'm degraded on the inkjet front. That said, I recently upgraded to a HP CP2025DN Color LaserJet Printer that I love so no real loss there. I'll likely pick up a cheap inkjet for the occasional photo that I might need to print. Everything else upgraded.

Benefits
-faster boot time
-faster go to sleep
-faster wakeup
-faster about 20% to 30% faster at running applications than my Vista - seriously (but those are my results without any benchmarks or anything like that, just seeing how fast Adobe Illustrator loads, and how fast all the applications respond)
-joining wireless networks is much easier
-the interface is just plain beautiful
-my wallpapers are now a slideshow that can be set to change every few minutes (I'm not stuck with the same picture)
-Gadgets - these are wonderful little small applications that you can drag onto your desktop. I have a weather gadget and a calendar gadget on my desktop that tell me
-Better taskbar management - hovering over the taskbar icons shows me mini windows of what's running
-Better file management - I can organize my files into Libraries that are sortable not only by type but by folder or other data. It's great! I can browse through my presentations or illustrator files!
-Windows Media appears to be smoother which I love.
-You get some virus protection and firewall with Windows 7 but consider something more comprehensive like McAfee Total Protection 3User 2010. Yes, it'll make your computer run a bit slower but

Cons:
- Some older programs might not work and some drivers might not be available like my inkjet driver.
- Other than that, there aren't too many drawbacks to Windows 7 - it's a great OS.

Which version should you get? I got the ultimate version because I have clients who ask, "is your hard drive encrypted?" -- I wanted to be able to say yes and have sensitive data encrypted one of my computer volumes - Bitlocker is only available in the Ultimate version. Ultimate also includes Multilanguage support.

If you're a home user that doesn't do a lot of networking, you might consider just the home premium edition. If you're using a laptop and connect to networks at work, you might want the Professional version of the operating system to help you with domain joining. Also Windows Professional gives you the option to run applications in XP mode so if you have old applications you can use that nifty feature. I already have 1 application running in XP mode - it's nifty to run an old application.

Note: The box contains both the 32 bit and 64 bit OS.

Overall: It's very hard to write a comprehensive review on an entire operating system so I didn't even try - I'm sure magazines will devote entire articles to the operating system and several books will come out. My goal here is just to give everyone a glimpse of what I've found to date with this new OS. I do hope this has helped you in making a decision.

Hats off to Microsoft on Windows 7. It's more of a refined Windows Vista than an entirely new operating system but it was needed. Thank you.
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student (Disc Version)

Office 2010 is to Office 2007 what windows was to Vista.

The biggest change is the addition of the web applications. Its not a direct competitor to Google docs but it will allow you a much easier way to share documents, as well as making your documents easier to access. The second change i notice is that the ribbon is back and it includes the "File" option and a new feature called the "backstage view." What Backstage View does is incorporates the commonly used actions in one place. Isn’t that great? No more of those dialog boxes with the tabs.

You still have the open, save and print, but now you have templates as well for your new documents, print layouts, and options for sharing your work. You get all of this without dialog boxes and tabs. Everything is now easily accessible for you. Now the other new feature they offer is that the ribbon is customizable so you can organize it according to what your needs are. there is also a paste preview so you can switch between the paste option so everything is formatted the way you like.

Now lets talk about the changes in PowerPoint. Now you can edit video in PowerPoint directly. You can trim the video, add effects, fades and even triggers for animations for the presentation. You can now add effects and edit images without the use of third party applications. The changes in word are new nifty "Navigation Pane," which replaces your old documents map.

It's corporation with changes in design will make for major changes in productivity and your ease of use. This allows for you to quickly rearrange your documents. For example a document with several headings/sections will have a list of all the headings used in the navigation pane. The headings are live, so you can drag them up or down, thus rearranging the document. It also incorporates most of the functions that used to be available in the "Find" dialog box but now they are all visible so you don't have to go digging through several menus to find the option that you need.

Most of the changes in Excel deal with very large datasets. There is a new PowerPoint add-in which works great if you are dealing with a very large dataset that does not fit in one Excel spreadsheet. PowerPoint pulls the data from multiple sources (several Excel spreadsheets for instance) to analyze it. Overall this is one well planned and executed upgrade that essentially takes all the promises of Office 2007 and makes them a reality. Yes, some things are different, and it will take some getting used to; but, once you realize the improvement in efficiency you'll agree that the changes are mostly for the positive. The only thing that I truly wish had changed but didn't is that this version does not include Outlook. That is available in the Home and Business version.
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