Of PCs, Vista, and Office 2007

Our local elementary school PTA needed a new computer and I got picked to buy it and get it working.

Even though I've purchased two other PCs in about the past 18 months I was surprised by how much things have changed. For example, you can't buy 15" LCD monitors anymore and 17" LCDs are getting scarce (and cost as much as 19" monitors).

The monitor issue was a surprise and a problem because the PTA has very little room in which to cram the monitor and a printer. An awful lot of the 19" monitors were widescreen models, which were too wide for our space! So we ended up spending a relatively obscene amount of money for a 17" standard ratio LCD.

Another thing that surprised me was the size of disk drives. Only the very cheapest PCs have less than 320GB drives, which is about three times bigger than we really need for this application.

Another problem is that I was trying to buy in the middle of the performance range because I didn't know when the PTA would have budget again. But prices seemed to jump from $350 for a wimpy computer (which would probably be just fine right now) to $700 and more for just a tiny increment in performance (but a much bigger disk).

And Intel based boxes are expensive! I did my homework and I knew which Intel cpus were comparable to which AMD cpus. But virtually every system I found in my price range had an AMD processor. I have no problem with AMD — quite the opposite, actually; every PC I own has an AMD processor in it. But this time I thought I might actually get one with an Intel chip. I was wrong.

I was starting to think I'd be better off going the white box route.

Then I finally found a decent machine for a decent price. $400 for an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+, 1GB memory, $250GB disk, dual-layer DVD+/-RW.

Vista Home Premium

The new PC has Microsoft's Vista Home Premium installed on it. Of course it was loaded with bloatware and eye candy. It took over an hour to ferret it all out and remove it. But I was struck during the process by how pervasive the internet has become. This PC will not be on a network (but was during my configuration) because the school won't let us connect to their network and doesn't offer any external internet connections. It is amazing how many programs have options to automatically check the internet for updates or supplemental information of some sort.

When I first started, I was also rather shocked by how long start-up and shut-down were compared to Windows XP. It made waiting in line for a driver's license seem speedy by comparison! Fortunately, as I succeeded in turning off all the junk loaded by the PC manufacturer the process got significantly faster. The PTA PC now boots and shuts down much faster than XP. Well, I also turned off a bunch of "helpful" Vista stuff, too.

Office 2007

One of the PTA requirements was for Microsoft's Office Suite. Did you know that there are 4376 versions of the Office 2007 Suite? Well, it seemed that way. I don't know if you can find them all in the stores, but there seem to be way more versions than are necessary. And when you try to compare versions using the Microsoft web site the feature comparison didn't list programs — it listed "features". What kind of BS is that? No, don't answer. I already know.

We finally found a page comparing the programs included in each of the packages and ended up buying Office 2007 Professional.

I was concerned because I've read many times that the user interface has changed a lot in Office 2007 and the implication was that it was changed for the sake of change.

So I was dreading what it would be like when I first fired it up. But you know what? I think I like the new UI! It will probably take a bit of getting used to, but at first glance it seemed really nice and pretty easy to use.

The biggest problem, and hardly big after the first 60 seconds, was that the File menu has been replaced by the "Office Button". No big whoop. I even figured out how to add a "print preview" button at the top of the screen (my wife likes that button).

I may change my tune after trying to actually use Office 2007, but since I still have older versions on the PCs I actually use (this one isn't mine) I'll have to wait a while for that experience.

EOB