Six years ago, Windows XP was launched with a television advertisement called “Soar”. Six years later, Windows Vista is launched with a television advertisement called “Wow”. How has a television advertisement for an operating system changed?

The Windows XP “Soar” advertisement shows 8 different scenarios with practical examples of how it benefits the user. On the other hand, if you don’t count the artistic interpretation of Flip3D, then the Windows Vista “Wow” advertisement does not show Windows Vista one bit. Not one feature, not one scenario, not even what it is.

Both ads are very good, but interesting to see how times have changed.

Last Thursday, the Windows Ultimate team released two Windows Vista Ultimate branded wallpapers featuring strands and a backlit Vista orb to the public for download. They were very cool wallpapers to begin with, but had severe gradient blocking and the Ultimate branding which might not appeal to some people. So I took the liberty of editing the wallpapers to give it a little visual makeover.

For the Vista strands wallpaper, I removed the Ultimate branding, fixed up a LOT of the gradient blocking and that huge ugly patch of black in the middle of the picture. I also made the background darker, and brightened the strands for it to out more. Download 16×10 version / 4×3 version.

For the backlight “Start” orb wallpaper, I removed the Ultimate branding, tried to fix up some of the gradient blocking and added a slight ‘aurora’ color filter to make it a little more vibrant. Download 16×10 version / 4×3 version.

They’re only available at one resolution, the highest, at 2560×1600 (30″). I would assume most people don’t have a larger monitor, so you can downscale them pretty easily. Thanks to Andre for creating some 4×3 aspect ratio versions. Enjoy.

I got an interesting email today, “we have received your resume and contact information”. Great! I’ve always wanted to work at…hang on a second, I don’t even have a resume prepared.

Unless the future me has time-traveled to the present and submitted a resume for me, I’m pretty confident it wasn’t me, although I don’t really remember much of this week. So if any of you have recently submitted a resume on my behalf along with my contact details, please let me know. I promise I won’t cause any physical harm.

Whilst I appreciate anyone’s effort and concern for my career path, it might be in my best interest to know what I’m applying for and what experiences, education and interests “I” claim to have, before a recruiter starts to think I have amnesia or some form of psychological issue. 😛

I wonder if there is a such thing as “resume fraud”?

Update: It appears this is part of the employee referral program, but it still doesn’t explain how someone could get my resume if I’ve never created a resume.

Update 2: Confusion all cleared up. And just as I suspected, the information submitted probably wasn’t as accurate or as formal as I would have written otherwise if I knew it was for a recruiter. And yes, it was from Microsoft.

Today, Microsoft released a bunch of new games under the “MSN games for Windows Vista” branch, showcasing popular arcade games refreshed and exclusive for Windows Vista. Seven games in total make up the launch line-up, with one coming soon. These games will not run on XP, only Vista, making them unnecessarily targeted towards early adopters. One game in particular has attracted my interest ever since it’s unveiling at CES, and that is, Geometry Wars: Retro Revolved for the PC.

There’s a reason why Geometry Wars has been so popular on XBOX Live Arcade, because it’s fun. It’s mindless shooting action with the sole purpose to survive and attack everything you see. And you do that in a very vibrant and colorful environment with mega-points to match. Big numbers make people feel good about themselves. It’s a quick and easy game that screams to be played whilst waiting for the train or during a very boring lecture, and that’s why I was so excited to hear it coming to the PC.

I downloaded it, played it once, uninstalled it and will never play it again.

I really feel this an attempt to abuse a cash-cow product to make more money without putting much investment or effort into adapting the product for a different market. What you get is an XBOX game that doesn’t fit the requirements and expectations for a PC system. The graphics aren’t up-to-par with high-resolution PC displays and there is an extreme lack of options and customizations. I can’t even use my tablet stylus to control the aim!

My high expectations are the result of sampling many free Geometry Wars alternatives readily available on the PC. My favorite, and obviously Microsoft legal team’s favorite one too, is Grid Wars 2. This is what Geometry Wars for the PC should have been. An abundance of settings and customizations with high-fidelity graphics (if you system can handle it); colors, styles and effects you can mix-and-match; customizable controls with tablet PC support!

Sadly as a preemptive action before Geometry Wars’s launch on the PC, Bizarre Creations asked the creator to remove and stop working on the Grid Wars game because it was “hurting sales”. Luckily for you and me, the internet has a way of archiving and distributing content like no other medium. Just ask Google.

What makes me angry is how Microsoft is trying to capitalize on this poor attempt by charging $7.95 per download, which is an absurd 60% markup over the XBOX version for $5. As one user on the Gamerscore Blog noted, you don’t get XBOX achievements, not even an global leaderboard and certainly a game not as good.

Save yourself $7.95 and the effort, get Grid Wars 2.

Update: I did a little remix of these wallpapers to remove the branding and enhance the effects a little bit.

Thanks to a tip by Brandon LeBlanc, the cool-black Windows Ultimate wallpapers have finally been released by the Ultimate team in its full-fidelity glory. It was originally sighted in a CES promotional video displayed on a laptop screen. Several commenters linked to various imitations created by other enthusiasts in the past, credits to all those who tried, but none had the exact same look and feel as the original.

These are available freely from the Windows Ultimate website, even available to those who do not own a copy of Windows Ultimate. There are two styles, ones with the aurora strands, and the other with a backlit Vista orb. Both versions comes in a delicious variety of resolutions up to 2560×1600 to fit a 30″ display.

To end on an interesting note, the backlit Vista orb wallpaper bears a striking resemblance to Apple’s “First 30 years” picture displayed earlier this year. But I’m confident the two were created without each other’s knowledge well in-advance and this is the result of an amusing coincidence. 😉

After hearing all the rants and raves about Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost feature before and after the launch, I thought I just had to try it for myself. So over the weekend, I bought myself a top-of-the-line SanDisk Extreme III 2GB Secure Digital memory card from eBay to try it out for myself.

ReadyBoost works for all sorts of memory devices – USB, CompactFlash, Memory Stick Duo, XD, SD and anything else you can slot in your integrated card reader. I actually already own a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB stick specially optimized for ReadyBoost which works as described, but it feels quite awkward having a USB drive sticking out of your laptop whereever you go. Especially when I just toss my laptop in my bag, I don’t want to break anything.

The benefit of a SD card or any other low-profile memory cards is that it can ‘slot’ into your card reader, and appear hidden without anything sticking out. Such a small aesthetics difference actually makes a huge impact on the experience, it feels like nothing is there. Of course, there are exceptions to this with certain laptop models where the card reader isn’t as deep as it should be, but the Toshiba Portege M400 works as planned.

After setting up Windows to use 1900MB of the available 2GB space, the activity indicator started flashing immediately. A good sign that something is working. It would continue flashing whenever I launched a program, and several times during idle, also good signs that something is happening. Just to check exactly how much is happening, I loaded up the Resource Monitor and looked for activity on the ReadyBoost cache file.

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