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Friday, May 23, 2008

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Thoughts on Some Recent Software Stuff

Here are some thoughts and reactions to some software and updates I’ve been working with lately.

The install went fine. As expected it took several days before things really settled in after the install was complete. I’ve noticed a few quirks that I’m not sure I can pin any specifics on though.
Outlook is the only application that seems to take longer to load under SP1 than it did before. I’ve noticed this with Xobni installed and not installed.
Some times screen rotation is absolutely faster than it was before. Sometimes it seems like it will take forever to get the screen to reappear.
Moving large files is noticeably faster.
I’ve had more system hangs under SP1 than I had before installing it, and I’ve noticed that it takes much longer to get the system back to a state of running smoothly after a reboot, than it did before.
Accessing other computers on our office network is considerably more hit and miss than it was before. Once a month or so, I would not be able to access the network prior to installing SP1. Now, sometimes this occurs several times a day. It often requires a reboot to fix it.
My guess it is time for a clean install and then adding SP1 to that.

I’m not sure if this Outlook add-in solves anything for me or not. While I like the searching functionality it provides and the ability to track conversations through various emails, I don’t find the search any more or less reliable than than Windows native search. Going back and forth I’ve been able to get less than reliable search results with both.

As mentioned above I’ve seen a slow down with Outlook loading since I installed Vista SP1. I’ve uninstalled Xobni to see if that had any significant impact and to be honest, I can’t tell one way or the other, but at various times, and in various scenarios, Outlook will take quite awhile to load.

EverNote

This is becoming more and more of an application that I rely on as I move between computers. While still in beta, I love being able to store and retrieve info between multiple platforms and devices. The Windows client needs to do some serious catching up with the Mac version on a number of things, most importantly:

We need the same PDF support on the Windows side that we have in the Mac version.
I want a thumbnail view in the Windows version. Now. Please.

The Mac version needs to allow me to view Inked documents sooner rather than later.

Windows Live Mesh

It is still far too early to tell if this will deliver on the promise it holds as a syncing tool and more. I do like what I see here so far, but so much hasn’t been implemented that commenting is really unnecessary. That said, I’d like to see those things start rolling out pretty soon.

Tags: Xobni, Vista+SP1, EverNote, Windows+Live+Mesh

Software | Evernote | Microsoft | Vista

5/23/2008 11:57 AM MST

Thoughts on Some Recent Software Stuff Comments [7] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Friday, May 23, 2008 12:57:51 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I was lucky enough to get one of the invites from Rob a few weeks back but unfortunately cannot install the client locally as it comes up as being for US localised systems only. I can see enough via the web interface to see the promise though.

Gavin Miller

Friday, May 23, 2008 12:58:22 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

That's Windows Live Mesh I'm talking about.

Gavin Miller

Friday, May 23, 2008 2:41:48 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I like Xobni, in particular because I find the conversation display kind of useful. It fits in with the way I file away emails and adds some ease of use. But it definitely slows Outlook down, esp for loading.

Of course, I think the increasing number of RSS feeds in the list isn't helping either, but Xobni is definitely causing some Outlook crashes.

Metatone

Friday, May 23, 2008 4:47:32 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I second the Evernote Mac Inknote comment. I am hoping for at least a provisory read-only version as soon as possible. Honestly, the whole point of using this software for me is the ability to use Ink on my tablet and pocketPC and have that available on other devices. For text and other formats I already have other means, so the syncing feature for these is not a selling point for me.

Marcelo Rodrigues

Friday, May 23, 2008 4:48:46 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I am really liking Xobni and I find the search much faster and easier to use than the Outlook or Windows searches. I also like the conversation thread - I don't have to sort emails by sender and search for that one email anyone.

ouzome

Saturday, May 24, 2008 5:36:00 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I was all excited about Xobni but at the end of the day it doesn't add a heck of a lot for me. The search function doesn't seem to contain a way to pinpoint any results, for me the few times I've yet had time to try it it simply gave far too many results. The statistics and stuff made me go ooooh for a while until I realized I don't give a rats behind about how much mail I get and at what hour - the mail is the mail and it has to be dealt with, so who cares when it was sent? The thread views of mail is marginally useful but it is rare that I need that, either. Trying it for free is fun I guess, but I'd never pay for this stuff.

Of course I'm still on Outlook 2003 because I really dislike the search functionality in Outlook 2007 - it's a so-called instant search, which means it will only find old stuff. ;) Or rather, the indexing feature that it enforced on my XP computer to work made it churn as if it was Vista, due to the massive and on-going indexing, and it still didn't pick up new mail content quickly enough for me. The 2003 search is slow and all, but at least it goes out and searches my messages in real time, instead of peeking in an index that may or may not be current.

I read somewhere that what Xobni the company really does is open up access to Outlook and opens up for development of more plugins. I hope that's the case, because Xobni the current product is pretty easy to live without.

cr0ft

Saturday, May 24, 2008 1:42:52 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I've installed SP1 several times on my X61t, including through a simple upgrade and a clean install. Both times it made the system significantly more unstable (it hung more frequently, it took forever to go into suspend and frequently didn't work, and it had trouble shutting down) and both times it made Outlook 2007 completely unusable. Outlook not only took longer to load but the Outlook would freeze constantly when doing basic operations like viewing message or writing mail.

As much as I want to use SP1 on my noteboook, it takes little time to make it totally unusable.

Odaya

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