[caption id="attachment_3624" align="alignnone" width="497"]
A wallpaper to tide me over. It's rougher than I intended, and there's a typo. Click on the image to see the 1366 x 768 pixel image.[/caption]
I've put the Pavilion dv6000 in my storage locker, so I can "bond" with the Pavilion g6 -- same size, but half the weight, and twice the hardware specs of the dv6000. It doesn't feel twice as powerful, but it smoothly plays any HD video I can throw at it., and it's USB read/write is much faster. However, compared to the three or four earlier Pavilions I've played with, the g6 looks, and feels cheaper; the case actually creaks a bit. The real issue though, is Windows 8. Since my previous post on the same subject, I've done a few more things:
This is the doorstep Windows 8 drops you on when it finishes booting up. In principal it's supposed to be a dashboard the user can customize with live notifications, and stuff. By default, it's just an illustration of the Seattle Space Needle which is between you and the log-in screen. The function of both screens could be rolled into one, thus eliminating a step, but this would appear to go against Windows 8's "journey of a thousand steps" approach. The lock screen can be turned off several ways. I chose the easiest, a Registry hack, neatly packaged as two little apps -- one on, one off, courtesy of How-To-Geek.
Pinning is one of the ways Windows allows users to customize how they access the contents of their harddrive. The Taskbar is always visible along the bottom of the desktop, so I think it's a good place to "pin" frequently accessed applications, or directories, aka. folders. Apps can be pinned to the Taskbar from the right-click menu, but not folders. You have to make a shortcut, and in the right-click menu > Properties, add "explorer" at the beginning of the Target field. The instructions are here, scroll down to step 5. Under Properties I applied the basic User icon from the C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll directory.
Boot screen > Lock screen > Login screen > Start screen > desktop screen; Windows 8 opens the way the Control headquarters opened in the credits of the 1960s TV series Get Smart, except in Windows 8 it's not funny. I installed Classic Shell 3.6.8, a freeware package of Windows enhancements, which goes back to the Vista days. Among other things, Windows 8 users can restore a desktop Start menu, and disable the Start screen.
The g6 is a 64-bit computer, so I kicked plain-old Firefox to the curb to try Waterfox, the 64-bit variant of Firefox. It's supposed to be way faster -- it's certainly not slower. I'm considering installing the Windows version of Banshee, an opensource audio player, which was once the default audio player included in Ubuntu, but for Ubuntu 12.04 was replaced with RhythmBox, which I don't really like. Banshee, which I do like, is built partly using the Mono development framework, which implements components of Microsoft's .NET development framework, and is thus controversial within the opensource community. I assumed the point of Mono was so Banshee code would be easily cross-platform for both Linux and Windows, yet the Windows version of Banshee is an alpha preview, and two versions behind the Ubuntu version! I installed the portable Windows version of Audacious, which is a very lean music player I use in Ubuntu. I'm not planning to install iTunes.
A wallpaper to tide me over. It's rougher than I intended, and there's a typo. Click on the image to see the 1366 x 768 pixel image.[/caption]I've put the Pavilion dv6000 in my storage locker, so I can "bond" with the Pavilion g6 -- same size, but half the weight, and twice the hardware specs of the dv6000. It doesn't feel twice as powerful, but it smoothly plays any HD video I can throw at it., and it's USB read/write is much faster. However, compared to the three or four earlier Pavilions I've played with, the g6 looks, and feels cheaper; the case actually creaks a bit. The real issue though, is Windows 8. Since my previous post on the same subject, I've done a few more things:
Turned off the lock screen
This is the doorstep Windows 8 drops you on when it finishes booting up. In principal it's supposed to be a dashboard the user can customize with live notifications, and stuff. By default, it's just an illustration of the Seattle Space Needle which is between you and the log-in screen. The function of both screens could be rolled into one, thus eliminating a step, but this would appear to go against Windows 8's "journey of a thousand steps" approach. The lock screen can be turned off several ways. I chose the easiest, a Registry hack, neatly packaged as two little apps -- one on, one off, courtesy of How-To-Geek.
Pinned a folder on the Taskbar
Pinning is one of the ways Windows allows users to customize how they access the contents of their harddrive. The Taskbar is always visible along the bottom of the desktop, so I think it's a good place to "pin" frequently accessed applications, or directories, aka. folders. Apps can be pinned to the Taskbar from the right-click menu, but not folders. You have to make a shortcut, and in the right-click menu > Properties, add "explorer" at the beginning of the Target field. The instructions are here, scroll down to step 5. Under Properties I applied the basic User icon from the C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll directory.
Turned off the Start screen
Boot screen > Lock screen > Login screen > Start screen > desktop screen; Windows 8 opens the way the Control headquarters opened in the credits of the 1960s TV series Get Smart, except in Windows 8 it's not funny. I installed Classic Shell 3.6.8, a freeware package of Windows enhancements, which goes back to the Vista days. Among other things, Windows 8 users can restore a desktop Start menu, and disable the Start screen.
Installed more software
The g6 is a 64-bit computer, so I kicked plain-old Firefox to the curb to try Waterfox, the 64-bit variant of Firefox. It's supposed to be way faster -- it's certainly not slower. I'm considering installing the Windows version of Banshee, an opensource audio player, which was once the default audio player included in Ubuntu, but for Ubuntu 12.04 was replaced with RhythmBox, which I don't really like. Banshee, which I do like, is built partly using the Mono development framework, which implements components of Microsoft's .NET development framework, and is thus controversial within the opensource community. I assumed the point of Mono was so Banshee code would be easily cross-platform for both Linux and Windows, yet the Windows version of Banshee is an alpha preview, and two versions behind the Ubuntu version! I installed the portable Windows version of Audacious, which is a very lean music player I use in Ubuntu. I'm not planning to install iTunes.
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