La vida con Vista (part 4) - “Ciao baby!”

My “Life with Vista” series ends here with a “good bye” and some helpful instructions for anyone else feeling like abandoning the Vista ship. I’ve written two how-to documents giving step by step instructions for replacing Vista with Windows XP or Ubuntu, a Linux distribution intended for desktop users. These are available at http://mairs.ca/tom/papers/VistatoXP.html and http://mairs.ca/tom/papers/VistatoUbuntu.html respectively.

This does come with a caveat or two, however. MS Vista is the current operating systems offering from Microsoft and as such they no longer support anything with Windows XP. Going back to XP means the possibility of not being able to find drivers for new hardware. It also means that the 17 year old “tech” at future shop won’t know how to help you if you ask questions because they may have never actually used it before. On the other hand, it also means faster operation, less cryptic weirdness and familiar (yet still useless) error messages.

Moving to a Linux based operating system (Ubuntu) is not for the faint of heart either. This is a community supported, open source set of packages and as a result, not everything… well, actually nothing… is guaranteed to work. What is available has been built by geeks who built their own drivers and interfaces and made them public for you to use as you see fit. This has the benefit of variety, but also there is the lack of quality assurance. For instance, there may be 5 different drivers for your video card and you will need to pick which one is best based on research. People who are used to Linux are okay with this because it only takes a few minutes to do the research and most Linux users are gear heads or programmers anyway. Ubuntu does a pretty good job of picking the best driver for your hardware, but some things are still hard to find – like the finger print reader on my Dell Studio 1735 notebook.

Which way you choose to go depends on how comfortable you are with computers. If you are a geek or wanna-be geek, then try out Ubuntu, you may be surprised at how good a Linux desktop OS can be. If you are a typical user specifically looking for MSN Messenger, Media Player, and other Microsoft specific tools, then you should probably follow the XP path. Either way, don’t dive in without being prepared.

I’ve done both routes and I personally prefer Ubuntu. My wife preferred the XP route. In either case, MS Vista got the boot – “Ciao Baby!”

I hope you get value out of the how-to documents posted here, even if it is to make the decision to keep working with Vista - someone has to keep Microsoft in business.

I left my heart in San Francisco

I recently had an opportunity to travel to San Francisco on business. Well, I flew into San Francisco Airport, but that’s about as close as I got to SF Proper. I did, however get to visit pretty much every other place between there and San Jose in three days.

If you've never been there, the San Francisco Airport (SFO) is not actually in San Francisco, it's in San Bruno - just south of the Airport's namesake. If you are planning a trip the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, I recommend a stay at the SFO Marriott Courtyard in San Bruno. It's about 5 minutes from the airport, the rooms are clean, people are nice and they serve a wicked omelet for breakfast.

I've spent quite a bit of time in Southern California in the Anaheim to San Diego area, but had not been to the Bay Area for about 30 years. It's changed since then... but then again, I was only about 10 years old. In any case, l really enjoyed my few days there.

My business meetings spanned from San Bruno to San Jose and included Redwood City, Menlo Park, Sunnyvale, and San Mateo. In fact, I covered about 9 cities in the time it normally takes me to get from home to the Calgary airport - about 40 minutes. If I had to live in Cali, I certainly would not complain about moving to any of these locations.

If you happen to be in the Bay Area and you have a hunger for a great bagel, I highly recommend hunting down a "Noah's" Bagel Shop. There is one in San Mateo on 4th that served me quite possible the best bagel I've ever tasted.

For the geeks reading this, a trip past the Oracle complex is sure to impress. This place has six towers that look ironically like old data drums placed around a huge fountain on Marine Parkway in Redwood Shores. I absolutely had to stop and take a picture or two. The Sci-Fi Museum is another must if you are at all interested in that genre of writing. As a Sci-Fi writer myself, just finding it was a thrill.

If you're looking for a quick and delicious lunch I recommend In and Out Burger. To Cali residents this comes as no surprise, but to outsiders looking for a great burger, this is a real find. They make basically two things - hamburgers and cheeseburgers - but they do it very well.

I look forward to the next trip - Maybe I'll actually make it into San Francisco next time.

Leaving Boston...

So, I’m sitting here in the Air Canada wing at Boston Logan Airport and just had to write about it. My flight was supposed to leave Boston at 6:25PM, so being the intrepid traveler that I am, I made sure I was at the airport in plenty of time. Actually my afternoon appointments cancelled so I headed to the airport a few hours early, otherwise I would just be scraping by as they loaded the plane, but in this case, I was actually early.

I’ve never been through Boston airport, so I expected it to be like any other – enter, get your ticket, find your gate then explore and find munchies. Not. On one hand the simplicity is wonderfully handy if you are prepared for it, but on the other hand, there could be at least one warning sign saying that there is virtually NOTHING past the security checkpoint going into the “wing” which cannot be more than about 2000 sq ft in total. I have friends with houses bigger than this.

I get to the airport about 3 hours early and I think, “hey, I’ll be able to explore after I find my gate.” I enter the terminal and take 5 steps to the escalator that takes me up to the second floor where ticketing is. The escalator deposits me right at the entrance to the Air Canada ticketing area – talk about convenient! So far I am blown away with the amazingly well laid out airport.
I process my ticket easily and head toward the security area so that I can enter [what I thought was] the international wing to find my gate. Security was a breeze (usually is if you know what you are doing) and I happily collected my things and carried on.

As I leave the security area, I enter what looks like one of those tiny regional airport waiting areas, but it is completely decorated in Air Canada colors, logos, flags… hey wait-a-minute….. Gate 1… Gate 2… Gate 3… that’s it.

No, really… that’s it. I turn the corner to look for more and find… a wall. There is a nice young lady standing by a till against the east wall beside a row of 2 beverage coolers with a fine selection of water, soda, fruit and either decaf or regular coffee. Period. There is a washroom (singular) and about 200 seats, which is a good thing because all 4 (yes 4) flights expected tonight are delayed and the place is wall to wall full of people.

So four and a half hours later, I am working on my 3rd coffee, 2nd muffin and have exhausted my walking options. Good time to sit and catch up on my blog.

If you do have to travel through Boston Logan Air Port heading back to Canada, don’t expect to explore the “Air Canada” wing for very long – 5 minutes should do it for you. If I had known, I would have stayed and explored downtown Boston for another 3 hours. That’s a whole other blog.