Windows 7

Default Desktop theme

So I got Windows 7 beta installed on one of my pcs, an emachine t6540, upgraded with 4Gb of RAM, a corsair psu and  and EVGA 9600 gt graphics card. I must say the install was painless. And quick! I was surprised how quick it went. It was finished by the time my oatmean was finished cooking. Anyway, after install this is one of the first screens you see. I played around it a bit and you know what reminded me of this desktop? Enlightenment Desktop running on Linux! I swear this was how my desktop looked like on one of my Linux Machines(I  managed 25 Linux servers in my previous job). Some even say it borrowed a lot from Mac Os X but from what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t be surprised it this is based on Enlightenment.

Themes

Back to Windows 7, the wallpaper was pretty but too lonely for my taste so I switch. Guess what, themes! Again reminding me of Enlightenment. Sure Windows did themes too but not as slick as this. And Enlightenment and other Linux desktop managers was doing this at least 3 years ago.  I think I’ll grab some of the cool wallpapers they have a Enlightenment and add them here. Would be nice to see some Linux on my desktop even as a wallpaper. I managed to install Firefox and my tv tuner and these went fast and easy as well. In fact, I’m writing this blog on it now.

Mouse over

A nice feature is that when you mouse over the application at the task bar, a preview window opens and gives a thumbnail view of each page.  nice.

So far I like it and it looks promising. I’m already thinking of upgrading once the official release is available. It may have been a good decision to forgo Vista after all. This may be the Linux desktop killer, much the same way Microsoft killed Netscape. Not by innovation but by a combination of copying another person’s idea and outspending them in marketing. Once this goes mainstream, competition drowns. And we, the consumers have no recourse but to go along.

Till next…