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When a friend of mine relayed another impassioned plea for laptop buying advice my way, I fired back a very venemous anti-Vista message. Avoid it at all costs, I said, even pay more to get XP! My own Vista laptop simply doesn't feel as powerful as my XP-based work laptop with significantly weaker specs. Plus I had a crash recently when trying to install -- not even play -- Diablo II.

Here's an article that actually takes all of the Vista venom in stride and teaches you how to handle the biggest annoyances users complain about with Microsoft's latest and greatest workstation OS. The author goes to great pains to distance himself from Microsoft by citing Microsoft's own attacks on his other written works and citing some level of impartiality, but he also calls a spade a spade by claiming that most anti-Vista venom is not much different from the bile spewed at Windows XP before it.

It's always good to get some history with your technical advice, and the article delivers. Check it out and how it helps you overcome some problems with Vista at the source link below. I used it to solve the folder settings issue and tweak the search settings, and overall learn more about what Vista's doing when the drive light doesn't seem to go off. Maybe it'll help you too.

Source.

A couple of weeks ago on July 10th gamers who have enjoyed going way too fast and slamming into tings online and offline on their PS3 with Burnout Paradise got treated to the Cagney update. Xbox 360 gamers with Burnout Paradise got hold music instead.

Before I give my thoughts on the three press conferences that have been put on over the past day and a half I'll just remind the audience that I currently own a Sony PS3 and PSP and don't own any other gaming platforms, namely those produced by Microsoft or Nintendo. I've also based my impressions not on the conferences themselves -- that would take too long -- but Joystiq's very good liveblogging along with a little reading online afterwords. As for my thoughts on Nintendo and Microsoft, I'm generally neutral on Nintendo even though I'm as shocked as anyone else at their runaway success this generation and I'm generally hostile towards Microsoft mostly because of their long history of underhanded and anticompetitive activities in the PC space.

The Common Theme
Across all three conferences I noticed what I think is the operative theme: pleasing your established base. To be sure some feints were made into markets that aren't the primary one for each of the big three, but almost everything announced for each system caters to the crowd currently owning and using that console. Now if you're trying to steal gamers away from a console in the same space this isn't so bad, but if you're trying to grow your console's appeal this isn't how to do it.

We all like to be able to shed some light on games we feel are classics but didn't get the attention they deserved. Sometimes those games become cult classics, and like the Beyond Good & Evil sequel recently announced, the franchise gets a second chance because of word-of-mouth popularity and critical acclaim even if the original title sold poorly.

The internet is so interwoven into everyday life for so many people on a personal level that it's hard to imagine a world without it. Throw in entertainment and the internet probably touches most of what you like to do for fun as well. For video game players the internet has become integral to their hobby. Whether it's Sony's PlayStation Network, Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade, or Nintendo's Wi-Fi online support someone with any of the big three machines has something to connect up with others.

PlayStation Universe has issued a wake-up call to gamers of all stripes about network neutrality. While I'm certainly glad that one of the bigger gaming blogs "gets it", I'd like to welcome PSU to 2006. They've got a couple of years of catching up to do and while I hope they keep a close eye on the network neutrality debate and report on it further, if you'd like to keep an eye on things yourself I highly suggest following BroadbandReports.com. Not only does it cover network neutrality when there are movements on that issue, it also covers other bigger internet service and industry related issues that could affect all of us -- gamers and online addicts alike.

If you'd like to see my own posts on the smoldering network neutrality debate, you can check out this thread.

For PSU's editorial, click here.

Marc Rein, the VP of Epic Games, has stated in an interview that the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 won't be retrofitted with the split screen multiplayer mode that will ship on the Xbox 360. He also stated that the 360 version won't have mod support, at least at launch.

Personally I think that slaps UT3 into a very crowded multiplayer shooter field on the Xbox 360, one dominated by the likes of Call of Duty 4 with Halo 3 hot on its heels. And really, if Epic can't convince Microsoft to let them put in mods before the game ships you can kiss that feature goodbye entirely on Microsoft's console.

Via PSU.

Palm has finally admitted that they are working on a new version of the PalmOS based on linux. The revelation was made at today's Palm Investor Day event. This is not the Access Linux Platform (ALP) that is being worked on and is now giving out development kits to handset makers. Other announcements that fit with recent moves by the company were also made and are worth noting.

Palm OS 5 devices will still be released this year, but devices based on the Linux kernel should (my emphasis) be released by the end of 2007.