So everyone’s been talking about the hype of Windows 7 ever since the beta release dropped this past year. And then people really went crazy when Microsoft released it for real. And then university students discovered you could get Windows 7 for very cheap or even free! (Cockrell School of Engineering students, check out this link).

This is how my install went… If you just want the screenshots, scroll to the bottom :)

I decided I’d go ahead with a reformat and install Windows 7. My Sony Vaio 645P came installed with Windows XP, so I held off installing until I was totally sure I wanted Windows 7. It’s running 2 Ghz Intel processor, 2 Gb RAM, 160 Gb hard disk space. I’m really into customization of my desktop, and XP was much better for that than Vista. Upon running the install, I discovered that the installer actually saves my old “Program Files” and “Documents and Settings” folders. This is pretty nifty for saving all the music, pictures, fonts, program configurations, etc. I backed those up on an external anyway. Total install time took about 30 minutes.

First thing people will tell you about Windows 7 is that it boots up very fast. I’m used to the three minute wait on XP, but I could definitely get used to booting up in about 45 seconds. The aero theme is one of my favorites, and I always tried to emulate it with WindowBlinds on XP. The user interface is pretty much the same, just a lot prettier. But dig deeper and you’ll realize that Windows 7 has a lot of improvements in how it runs files too.

I had to pause the honeymoon for a moment because I had to install my drivers. Most people will find that Windows 7 does a very good job of discovering what drivers are needed and automatically searches the Internet for them. Sony Vaio drivers, however… You’ll need nerves, patience, tenacity, and determination. But hey, that’s the whole reason you got a Vaio, right? With my Vaio, I have a wireless switch, a Memory Stick reader, video card switch, Fn keys, and two macro buttons. Time to hit up the Vaio support site and get those drivers. Well, first things first, I had to install the latest nVidia driver for my GeForce 8400M GS. Latest one, check. Restart, Windows doesn’t detect it correctly so Aero is still disabled. Wtf? I search Google for a fix, I find out I have to install a modified nVidia driver. So, download, unzip, install, repeat. I finally find one that works. Aero graphics activated. Suite. In the process I had also downloaded and installed a utility driver update from the Vaio support page that makes all my hardware stuff work. I restart, everything is gravy. Until I check my wireless and it’s disabled. What… the fuck. No matter what I do, I can’t re-enable it. I download a ton more drivers, uninstall some random crap but I just don’t know what to do. Well, I do, there’s only one choice left. Full format of the drive. At this point I could care less about all those fonts I didn’t back up or the config files for some programs. I have all my music and pictures backed up, who gives a shit. Five o’ clock in the morning, I’m getting hella tired. Move my wires and stuff to the nightstand, put in Windows 7 disk and reformat the entire drive. Sleep.

Wake up. Okay Windows 7 is back and so is the wifi. Drivers are all gone, so let’s go again. At this point, I didn’t realize it was the utilities driver messing it all up. Vaio has a program that works with the wireless switch to enable 2 Ghz, 5 Ghz, and Bluetooth functionality. I think it got set to 5 Ghz somewhere along the way and I got owned. So I install utilities again and my wireless works fine. Oh well. Pop up. Battery is detected as not correctly inserted? Wtf. It’s in there good. One of the utilities is the battery light. Uhhh this pop up won’t go away. Choices are “Restart” or “Restart.” I try to hide it to try and find a fix but it just re-focuses itself every 15 seconds. Okay! Shut down, check battery connection, everything is fine. Boot up, battery problem again. Oh carp.

Where’s that Windows 7 disk… Full reformat, again. This time not installing utilities driver. So now my battery light doesn’t light up, bluetooth is always on and my S1 S2 buttons don’t work. Not like I used them or anything. Now, I get that video driver installed and aero enabled.

So right now I’m itching for some Team Fortress 2. Haven’t played in like… two days. I have all the files backed up on a drive, get it installed. Run. Everything boots up perfect, until I spawn and I get a ton of lag. I’ll save you the bloody details but I was just being a dumbass and not disabling Aero graphics. I get all the essentials installed: Photoshop, Winamp, Chrome, Office, Digsby, and uTorrent. At this point I’m itching for some customization. Windows 7 does has a really cool feature that allows it to change the background every now and then. For someone who changes their background way too often, this is perfect for me. I look online for some visual styles. I install a bunch.

Then I discover all those themes just look like crap and the only theme that has everything I want is the original Windows theme. It takes me a whole week of tweaking and configuring to discover that.

Now that you got past the tl;dr part, here are some screenshots for your viewing pleasure!

Son Dambi

Just really useful

Aero Peek allows you to hover and thumbnail that window. It’s so simple yet so entertaining. Photoshop is minimized in the last picture, but if I hover the Photoshop button on the taskbar, it will show Photoshop’s original position and hide the other windows:

I also discovered a way to make the taskbar even smaller than when having the option “Use small icons” is checked. It looks a lot like the old taskbar from Windows XP. I was fiddling around in the appearance window, and I found that “Caption Buttons” not only controls the size of the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons on a window but the size of the taskbar also. So to make your taskbar even smaller: right click your desktop > Personalize > Window Color > Advance appearance settings… Then change the “Caption Buttons” size accordingly. 17 pixels is the smallest it will go, any smaller won’t make the taskbar smaller, just the action buttons on your windows. Only downside is that your system tray icons are really tiny.

Left: small taskbar. Right: original taskbar

While all this was happening, I found Nujabes’s new compilation album, “Mellow Beats, Friends & Lovers.” At first, I thought it sucked. And then I listened to it again. And I found this song. Reformatting and installing Windows isn’t so bad when this song is stuck in your head. Granted, there are a bunch of good songs, and there’s something for every kind of Nujabes fan. Great driving music.

No.9 – After It
http://limelinx.com/files/d87f211d54ffe62f8daf25004815d2bd

Summer is officially over tomorrow, with the first day of fall classes at the University of Texas. Pat and I moved out of Duren last Tuesday morning. I moved into my new dorm at Moore-Hill on Sunday. These past two days have been hectic as hell, according to an official UT document, with the “masses coming in.” And yeah, campus is alive now. Summer was really mellow, not that many people, but now upperclassmen are here, the fall freshmen are here, people I haven’t seen in years are here.

My last final was calculus on Monday night, August 18th. Pat and I decided to move out the next morning at 8. When I finished my final, we started packing up and we were thinking, “What if we left Austin right now?” It was 10 pm when we got the crazy idea. We finished packing the car around 1:30, and did a final sweep and left Duren around 1:50 am. I was hyped for driving, getting the most out of my official summer break. On the way down the elevator, coming up to the second floor where we lived we saw Gee-Wey! We hadn’t seen him since CYC 05, and a couple reunions after that! It was surreal, 2 am and of all the people coming up the elevator was Gee-Wey! we drove and got to Houston around 4:30 am, Pat ended up getting home around 5 am. The week went by way too fast, just catching up with old friends. I also hit up Westheimer with Jonathan Saturday night before the Sunday I move back to Austin.

The last Saturday night before school started, everyone showed out, but cops were smart about it and swooped in early. They kicked everyone out of the parking lot, and of course we just went to another parking lot but they kept following us. Everyone was at the Burlington Coat Factory on Highway 6, and two cop cars actually blocked off Westheimer so people could get out of the parking lot. People just trying to go home from a night on the town were blocked up. It was funny, video coming soon, as soon as Jonathan figures out how to “rip” the video. Yeah, I purposely used quotation marks there.

I had an engineering meeting for the people who fulfilled the summer contract on Monday, and it was exciting. I looked at my degree plans and wow I am so glad I took summer because I only have to take 14 hours this semester instead of 16. Every semester I will be taking 16, but I’m already a step ahead because I took calc and chem in the summer. In the fall, I’ll be taking intro to aerospace engineering, intro to comp sci for engineering, intro to philosophy, calc II, and physics for engineering. Should be a nice workload. I’ve mulled it over while I was showering in the Moore-Hill community baths, and I’ve decided I really want to work hard in college. I always hear from people that I had so much potential in high school, and I could have been top 10 if I tried. And you know what, these next four years, I’m gonna try.

I’ve seen some people walking around with Cockrell Engineering shirts on, and they look like the top 10 type from Bellaire; where are the ladies? I want to meet people who aren’t just all about studying and know to have some fun. That’s my biggest worry, but everyone who went through the summer contract is totally cool, they all better stay in engineering.

I got my grades from summer, C in chemistry, B in calculus, and A in American studies, that puts my GPA up to 3.0. But American studies doesn’t count towards my engineering degree, if only I had known, I would have taken mythology over the summer. My social studies credit has been fulfilled through the American History AP, I just need to do Texas history before I graduate. I’m optimistic about the fall semester, with 400 people classes, I’m sure there will be someone who can help me with physics. I’m going to have to learn to love physics because I will be taking many more semesters of it.

Today I did an interview with Longhorn Confidential, which is the UT blogging program. They interviewed me about my interests and personal life. Blogging for UT will be a fun experience, but the only down side is that I don’t get to design my own page. We’ll see what the masta can whip up ;). The blogs get to be featured on the front page of the UT website, so I guess that’s kind of special. I just need to be more active around campus, and we’ll see what happens.

It’s been blistering in Austin these past couple days, mixed with rain. I walked a bit today for the interview and to catch lunch with some old friends, I was drenched in sweat. I look out my window and I see a light drizzle. Strange. Good luck with school, everyone!

The University of Texas does a pretty good job of digitizing the entire college system. Everything revolves around their UT Direct website, which a lot of us were exposed to back in physics with Ghosh. The reality is that I’ll be doing those UT homeworks soon for not just physics, but for other classes too. The only downside to the website is the terrible layout. You can’t get anywhere you need to by direct links, you have to do a search using their search engine.

Registration for my alpha category opened this morning at 10 am. I got out of the shower and sat in my underwear in front of the computer waiting for registration to open. I signed up for classes in the air conditioned dorm while everyone else stood out in a long line under the hot sun. I wanted to take Intro to Visual Art, but that’s only for Art History majors… And I’m undeclared, so I had to change that around. I’m signed up for philosophy in place of that class.

A couple months back, I got a contract with Cockrell Engineering; if I get a 2.5 overall GPA, get an A or B in my math class, and log 8 – 10 credit hours in the summer, I’ll be admitted in the fall. Pretty sweet deal right? Since I took Calculus AB my senior year, and AP scores haven’t come out yet, I’m taking Calc AB again in the summer. I’m also taking Chemistry and Intro to American Studies this summer. I want to get into Aerospace Engineering at Cockrell, and it only requires students to take one semester of chemistry. Which is great because chemistry is my worst subject. In the fall, I’ll be in Calculus BC, physics, philosophy, and intro to society. So what does this all this mean? It means that everyone who worked their asses off in high school trying to get that A in every class got boned. The top 10% who got into UT and got into engineering got boned. I graduated top 31%, I’ve gotten my share of C’s (and D’s… and F’s). And I’ll be starting fall ahead or just par with them. Summer program is a small price to pay for having (below) average grades in four years of high school. Those of you reading this who are still in high school, don’t give up! There is still hope! All you really need is a good SAT math score, which is what got me into this contract.

I’m excited about summer classes starting on Monday because it means I’ll be that much closer to getting into engineering. At the end of summer, I should have accumulated 10 semester hours. Along with AP credits and that accounting class I took at HCC, I think I just might be a second year by the time winter break rolls around.

College life is just fun. It’s great to be away from parents, and I can do what I want when I want. Doing laundry can get a bit tedious as the machines take a while, they aren’t as heavy duty as the ones from home. Just bring the laptop downstairs for some wifi, haha. The parents are visiting tomorrow, however. I guess they miss me. I miss my swimming trunks, so they’ll be bringing me that. The Gregory Gym outdoor pool just looks awesome.

Pat’s taken two more pictures of me with food. I’m feeling kind of awkward now that I have five total pics of my mouth wide open ready for some food shoveling. I need to get out and use my camera more often, it’s just sitting idle on my desk day after day.