I started writing this as a blog post however as it continued in length it started to sound more like an article so here goes.... For doing IT support at work we had to learn Windows Vista and while we haven't had much interest yet it is inevitable that something will go wrong for us to fix. The majority of other reviews I've read online have not been particularly positive with many people commenting on the DRM restrictions and lack of anything ground breaking.
I wanted to see for myself and of course share it with the wonderful ImAFish fans. To save reinstalling I opted to use Virtual PC 2007, it made sense as it meant I could do XP and Vista support from one computer though it made it hard to see the performance differences. My rig is an Athlon 64 3000+ with 2GB Memory, I gave Virtual PC 1gig of memory and used Vista Business Upgrade. Installation seemed to take forever and wasn't helped by the fact I had to install XP first then install Vista. Three hours later and a couple of restarts I had a Vista desktop. At this point Vista was painfully slow to do anything , I managed to slowly install the Virtual PC additions and reboot the system. This vastly improved things however I tweaked the performance settings a bit more to give maximum performance. At this point i'm sure your all gagging for a screen shot so here we go Windows Vista... (click to enlarge) 
As you can see from removing all of the high performance settings you get what looks like Windows 2000! This unfortunately made me lose the "wow" factor so I enabled "Use visual styles on windows and buttons" from the performance options.
This made Vista look like....
You probably recognise this from many of the other Vista screen shots. It's hard not to like the new theme, even without Aero its a lot more polished, smart and has an almost calming effect on what you do. Also in the screen shot is the new start menu, finally they have discarded those annoying nested menus that required pin-point mouse accuracy to follow. Start menu items now simply display below the folder title, more like files in Explorer view. Once you start doing anything you will notice lots of confirmation windows popping up, these tend to be incredibly annoying, I got 3 pop-up boxes just when trying to install Flash Player in IE7. 
Fortunately these can be turned off in Control Panel > User Accounts > Turn User Account Control on or off. It will ask you to reboot but its well worth it. You will also need to turn off alerts in the Windows Security Centre to stop Vista from constantly reminding you that account control is disabled.
I tried a couple of common applications, Firefox and SmartFTP both worked fine and didn't look too misplaced within Vista, in fact IE7 looks more out of place with its annoying interface. The majority of Vista can be customised like XP and as you can see from my first screen shot its not hard to pull away the glossy interface though as I said before it is nice.
Most of your favourite tools will be in the same place such as msconfig and the command prompt though incidentally these are now run from the start search box. This can also be used for launching applications, if I was to type in 'Internet' it would launch Internet Explorer, or if I type in 'ass' it launched Remote Assistance. Search has been deeply improved, instead of it taking three minutes to search your hard drive its takes three seconds. Microsoft have redesigned control panel again but give you the option to go back to the classic view.
The majority of items within control panel are unchanged, though there are a few new additions such as the option to upgrade your copy of Vista online. The networking section has the most changes and is now branded under the Network and Sharing Center (even though I set my language to English they still cant spell centre right). At first this is a little confusing however it ends up being a nice way of organising various connections. The system tray now only shows one network icon for all your connections making it easier to forget if you keep a VPN connected by accident. The network map is also a nice tool as it shows other Vista computers and how they are connected. Useful stats such as IP address and computer name are also displayed.
Here you can see many more of the tools common in XP have not changed greatly for Vista. I could fill another four pages with Vista comments but its not really worth it, on the surface Vista is not hugely different. It's stable, has working applications and looks nice. If I brought a new PC having Vista would not put me off however I wouldn't upgrade my current desktop. Vista might be a lot different deep down but on the surface its not and for the price of
Many of you reading this are already seasoned or at least have heard of the Roulette game that is popular in casinos, both online and land-based. A good number of these establishments have come to realize that with the rise of the game’s popularity comes the inevitable increase in competition for this large market base. Many of them have seen to it that they woe in potential members with membership-based bonuses. The bonuses are numerous and vary from place to place; I will give you the breakdown of the best roulette bonuses in casinos out there.
Many people will opt for the European Online roulette, since it only has a single zero, which means a favorably low house edge. There are notably two bonuses that a lot of sites have employed. Firstly, there is the Cashable roulette bonus. This simply means that after placing a wager and meeting the wager requirements, you can keep the bonuses of the bet. The other and clearly quite opposite one, is the Non-cashable (or “sticky”) bonuses, this means that after winning a wager the player can take the winnings but not the bonuses of the particular wager.
I will look into a number of online roulette casino that have presumably the best bonuses around. To begin with, there is the Noble Casino which offers arguably the best deposit bonus for players. For new players, they are given a 100% first deposit bonus. Clearing bonuses in subsequent wagers can be done by wagering at least two hundred times the bonus amount at the table hosting the game. The second online establishment on my list is the Prime Casino. It offers a chance for new players to clear their welcome bonus while playing roulette. They offer starter bonuses of a 100% for the first three deposits made. The maximum amounts are fifty, hundred and one-fifty sterling pounds for the three deposits respectively.
I have just listed two of very many online roulette casino that offer quite lucrative bonuses for members. The advantage of joining certain establishments is that they are bound to offer more bonuses depending on your membership. With monthly and weekly promotions they are always in a bid to keep their members, as more common than not, people are known to defect from certain sites to others that have better bonuses. At the end of the day, these bonuses are there to make your experience playing roulette even more fulfilling.
Making money while playing games - how many of you have thought of this as children, or even young adults? I guess many of you have dreamed of it, even if your moms used to tell you that "nobody is going to pay you for playing non-stop". Thanks to modern technology, we now have several ways to be paid for playing games. Some of them involve a career in the game development industry - but these are usually not as much fun as they sound. But there's another way to get paid to play, with no need for expertise - but only luck. It's call an online casino.
Entertainment for money
The online casino industry is the only branch of the iGaming business that relies on simple, entertaining games to make a living. And most players at the wildjackcasino.com are there not to make a buck, but to have fun in their own way. Most casino games at the Wild Jack Casino are designed to entertain first, and you need a lot of luck for them to be profitable in the long run. They are built this way - although they are completely fair, most games at the Wild Jack Casino are far too unreliable to be considered as a steady source of income. But slot machines are not the only games at the Wild Jack Casino that are fun to play. There are several others that, when played the right way, can help you round up your budget. Or even make you rich - if you are very lucky.
Games for the pros
Most casino games are completely random, but there are some that have a lower variance. Blackjack is one of them - it is considered by many the game with the most profit-making potential in the long run. Simply playing blackjack is usually not enough for success, though - it is random enough for it to be almost completely unpredictable. What makes it special, though, is that it leaves a lot of room for player decision. And taking the right decision at the blackjack table often means the difference between winning and losing.
The most widespread method of turning blackjack into a profitable game is the so-called "basic strategy". This consists of a list of recommendations about what you should do (and not do) depending on the value of your hand, and the card revealed by the dealer. It's quite easy to learn, and equally easy to use. Applying the basic strategy can improve the percentage of your winning hands significantly. Other games with a series of relatively "safe" bets are War, video poker, and Roulette. All of these can be played in a way for them to be in the player's advantage. And all of them are fun games to play, so you can play games, be entertained, and make a buck at the same time.
Google Pack is a collection of free software packaged together with one simple installer distributed by Google. The pack includes a mixture of software including some of Googles own products such as Picasa and Google Desktop, and other programs such as Adobe reader and Norton Antivirus 2005 SE. The pack revolves around the updater that acts a package manager for downloading programs and updates.
A full list of the programs available: Google Earth Google Desktop Picasa Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer Google Pack Screensaver Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbad Ad-Ware SE Personal Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition Adobe Reader 7 Google Talk Google Video Player RealPlayer GalleryPlayer HD Images When first launching Google Pack it will start downloading and installing software, you can however choose which programs you want. For instance I cancelled Google Desktop as it’s a bit intrusive on my desktop and start bar.
The Google website makes it easy to install programs as they are added to the pack.
Within the installed programs list it is easy to remove programs you don’t need.
Google Pack is a good collection of free software, it does a nice job of keeping them up to date and can integrate with your Google account. I found it especially useful when first installing a new PC as the software included with the pack is often what I find myself installing anyway.
The pack has plenty of room to expand in the future and I would like to see an audio manager, video player and maybe even an office suite such as Open Office. Currently Google Pack is Windows XP only.
Jeffrey Lee Parson of Hopkins, Minnesota has been charged with spreading the MSBlast virus that crippled thousands of computers in the past couple of months. The 18 year old is suspected of creating a variant of the virus which caused many computers to crash.
He has been charged under "intentionally causing and attempting to cause damage to a protected computer" and if found guilty could spend up to 10 years in prision and a fine of $250,000. John McKay, the public prosecutor in Seattle, said Mr Parson's arrest was a "significant step forward" in the hunt for the original culprit.
"The Department of Justice takes these crimes very seriously. We will devote all available resources to tracking down those who attack our technological infrastructure," Mr McKay told a press conference. Investigators searched Mr Parson's home on 19 August and removed seven computers for analysis.
If he is found guilty it could defer other people from releasing such virus' on the Internet. The FBI have not yet found the original writer of the virus however they are making progress on this and other similar virus'.
The virus targeted Microsoft Windows computer in a flaw in how files were transferred over the net. Once the machine was infected it looked for other vulnerable computers, with millions of Windows computers around the world the virus spread quickly. Anti-virus firm Symantec estimated that more than 500,000 computers worldwide were infected by the worm and its variants.