Samsung have announced they are going to ship SSD drives with 256gb capacity.

In today’s market you are lucky if you get either 32gb or 64gb.

So the one thing holding the technology back is the overall capacity. The next thing is the cost premium you pay for SSD.

SSD drives are unique in that they don’t have moving parts and are fast and run cool. Ideal for laptops.

Interested in SSD? Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

Yesterday I posted about Outlook 2007 search on Windows XP.

At some point I ended up checking out Microsoft’s Outlook Team Blog I have to say I was really impressed with the amount of good quality  posts and tips.

The page does take some time to load as its choc full of images and it does seem to have a bias towards Outlook 2007 (the latest version) however its well worth checking out.

Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/default.aspx

I received a call from a client last week. We both use Dell XPS M1210 Laptops (and love them).

His M1210 was playing up a bit so I offered to give him mine (they don’t make M1210 anymore).

The short version of this story is after 15 months of being a Windows Vista user I am back on Windows XP (on new hardware).

I use Windows XP everyday anyway but going back to it on my main machine has highlighted how much better Desktop Search has been integrated into Vista.

One feature of search I can’t live without is a fully indexed Outlook 2007. I have 7000 things in my inbox (Yes I know!).

The first time I opened Outlook 2007 on my Windows XP machine I was prompted to download Desktop Search. I did this because I know without it trying to find anything in my e-mail will be near impossible (this is specific to Outlook 2007 earlier versions like Outlook 2003 are unaffected).

Tip: Once you have Desktop Search installed leave it running with Outlook 2007 open so it can quickly build the new search index.

One painful thing is the performance of Desktop Search on XP / Office 2007. When I receive a new e-mail Desktop Search kicks in and adds the new e-mail to the index, this is painfully slow.

Example: I can see a simple 1 line e-mail come in but it might take 15 seconds before I can open it because desktop search is doing its thing.

Other Observations

Actually “Search” is about the only thing I miss going back to XP. Wired and Wireless networking is less convoluted on XP, but nothing major really.

As it turns out I didn’t need to swap my main laptop after all. So I have it back and weighing it all up I would rather be on Windows Vista SP1. I am going to finish the week using XP but its back to Windows Vista for me simply because of its implementation and performance of search.

What this does highlight: if you are a Windows XP / Outlook 2003 user (which had pretty good inbuilt search) you’re really not missing much.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was pelted with eggs in Hungary.

The unhappy chappy with the projectile dairy product was protesting the license agreement Microsoft has with the Hungarian government.

A couple of things strike me.

1) Does Ballmer not have security? He is one of the richest men in America ($15.2b).

2) The chap with the eggs was wearing a shirt that said in large letters “Microsoft = Corruption”.

Bad day the office…

Some users with AMD CPU’s have been having a bad time upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 3.

They end up in with a PC that is stuck in a error > reboot > error > reboot cycle.

This is caused by the way their version of Windows was originally installed by the OEM/Supplier.

The link below delves deeper into this issue and some other SP3 specific problem areas.

Link: http://msinfluentials.com/blogs/jesper/archive/2008/05/08/does-your-amd-based-computer-boot-after-installing-xp-sp3.aspx

ZD Net also have a good article about taking steps to minimise any potential pitfalls with SP3.

Link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1819

Remember Microsoft offer free technical support for SP3 issues.

Link: http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&prid=11273&gprid=522131