The first number below was stock Vista HE with all the bloat-ware.  The next was after some cleanup
and removal of junk.  The final is from today and the Windows7 HE update (32bit).

When you see how a dual core Intel iMac fares, you see that since this is a single core, it was about half
as good, so that makes sense.

All in all, Win7 seems to be the good choice and time will tell how things improve.

Enjoy.

Upon checking my bank statement today and noticing the withdrawal I thought heck, I don’t need that site anymore… it is one of the worst designed/user experience websites out there anyway, so I canceled the account… or so I thought. It seems if you read the fine print, they say you can quit anytime you want, but don’t go looking for a refund:

3. Refund Policy. All fees relating to Subscription Services, including the initial fees and any subsequent automatic renewal fees (as further described below), are non-refundable.

4. Automatic Renewal Program. Upon your acceptance of an offer for Subscription Services, you will be enrolled in Classmates’ automatic renewal program to help ensure that there is no interruption of your Gold member privileges. Under this program, you authorize Classmates to automatically renew your subscription at the end of the term of the subscription you purchased, and each subsequent term, for the same term length of the subscription you initially purchased (unless otherwise stated in the offer you accepted). Unless you take the necessary steps to remove yourself from Classmates’ automatic renewal program, at the time of each such renewal you authorize Classmates to charge your credit card (or other payment method) at the then-current, non-promotional price for the renewal of your Subscription Services. If you no longer want to be enrolled in Classmates’ automatic renewal program, you can change your renewal status at any time by logging on to Your Account, clicking on “Membership Information”, and changing your renewal option from “automatic” to “manual”. Please note that changing your renewal option in this way will only stop future automatic renewals of your subscription and will not impact any automatic renewals that occurred prior to the date of your status change.

Bogus, lame and any other term you can throw at this doggy doo doo Ts and Cs. Account came up for renewal on Nov. 9th, and I tried to cancel on Nov. 10th… no go schmo! You just bump down to the free account, but they will keep the $39.00 thank you very much.

Must be some mafia backed group that runs this shite site and once you join the family, you ain’t leaving, capiche?

I think I have finally found my netbook/notebook!!!  After two attempts, this setup seems to be the real deal for me.

After trying two different netbook configurations, the MSI Wind and the Dell Mini 10, I found the Acer Aspire 1410 and feel that my search has come to an end… and here’s why.

The Atom processor that the first two had, while great for what it is, just couldn’t keep up with, to me, basic web usge demands.  I am a power user I admit and will demand all I can get out of any computer I use, but the Atom just couldn’t deliver but the basics.  Even with 2gigs as the MSI had, it would get hung on streaming video sites and the shrunken keyboard on the MSI was not usable to me.

The Dell was much better overall, higher screen resolution and wonderful keyboard, but with 1gig of NON UPGRADABLE ram, that was just not enough to keep the thing moving along smoothly either.  Both of these had Atom processors, so that is what I sought out to fix.

The Acer has a Intel Core2 Solo processor, and with Vista Home Edition and 4gigs of ram, yes, it is upgradable to 4gigs, it runs so smooth and fast I am blown away.  I have my copy of Windows7 on the way which is included for free and can only image how fast this will go once that gets loaded… oh, and if you are wondering, Photoshop CS4 purrs like a kitten as does Nikon Control Pro2 and everything else I have right now.

So, the lesson is, no mater what you read out there, it may take some trial and error to find a system that works for you and what you want, no matter what the ads or other people say.

No one system will work for everyone, but you will get close enough to be able to work with it and not worry about what it CAN’T do, and that is all anyone can expect.

Wow, was this every eye opening.  Great read and something all Facebook people should read and try to understand…. people are making money every time you poke,pinch and all the other silly stuff that FB allows you to do.

I know that I have been able to post Tweets with hashmarks to drive people to check out my site on Flickr, but this time I didn’t do anything and when I checked out the numbers Sunday night I was blown away.

It seems most were interested in my pics of my camera rig, at least by the images that were viewed, so maybe somebody posted a link or embeded one on a blog/website?

Anyway, I need to find a way to generate some income from that sort of traffic so I can retire before I am 80! : ]

Those of you who use Photoshop know that the minimum screen resolution is 1280 x 768, so, you would always have to guess or tab in ACR the last three selections cuz they didn’t show, even at full screen.

Anyway, I have moved on to a Dell Mini 10. Now while some are out there crying about how it only has 1gig of ram and no possible way to upgrade, that and the GMA 500 video card which will not run OSX, one has to come to a point where they say will it do what you want and then not worry about the rest.

They keyboard on the Mini 10 is perfect, fits my hands great and no problem typing at all. I have decided to leave it as a PC (gasp, blasphemy…) and see how maybe Windows 7 will run on it or maybe move to Ubuntu… we shall see.

This machine runs PSCS4 just fine as well as Nikon Camera Control Pro2, iTunes and Flock and… you get the idea. What I need it to run it does.

I decided to spit out some wallpapers for this and other netbooks with the HD screens, resolutions of 1366 x 768. Here is the first and more will follow, but at least those that want some hockey wallpaper can enjoy.

This video helps put that into prospective, and also makes me worry about the future.

UPDATE. Final tally after the weekend of posting to Twitter via Flickr – 902 visits!!! That is a 900% increase from before starting the test. Can you say Oh My Marketing God! Come on, jump in. The water is just fine!

UPDATE. At the end of the day, 702 hits to my Flickr page, up from 96 the day before = 700% increase in traffic!

Here are the results of two things.

1. Now that Flickr can post right to your Twitter account, I have started posting a link to one of my iphone/ipod touch wallpapers with a hash mark of #iphone and the numbers to my Flickr pages, well, look above and see. Amazing results in a few days at the huge traffic growth as a result.

2. Using Flickr groups. I found a few iphone groups and joined and uploaded my wallpapers. Instant hit in traffic.

This is just another example of how Social Media ties people to people and can be leveraged to drive traffic to a website. Nuff said!