Yesterday I was able to get my new computer. At this time I have mixed feelings about it. First off, it's not a good thing when the computer is in a box which says "made in China" and is in another box to help conceal that fact. You might ask what I bought. We'll I took a chance on a company called iBuypower, found it on Tiger Direct, the same place I got my last PC. The internal components seem good, but the case is total shit. Before getting the whole thing all set up, I opened it up and added 2GB more RAM, bringing it up to 4GB. Then after I made sure it worked, I began canibalizing my old PC for it's favorable components. I had hoped to put my 2 hard drives from the old computer into the new one, but that plan backfired bigtime. After removing both, and already mounting one, I realized that the new computer doesn't have any EIDE interfaces free except for 1 connector in the area where the larger drive bays are. So yeah, it's hard to mount a 3.5" drive in a 5.5" drive bay without an adapter. The HD in the new PC has a new interface on it, I believe it's called SATA, but I've been out of the computer hobby so long I just don't know for sure.

Now to complain about Windows Vista. What can I say about this OS that hasn't been said? Probably nothing. Before I bash it I want to say what I do like about it. It's got a rudimentary DVD authoring software which significantly surpasses results I have gotten from more complicated programs. And though I have not used it yet, I have heard good things about the Vista version of Windows Movie Maker. This is good because despite the fact that Adobe Premiere Pro has a windows media encoder, it has never worked right in the past, and I always had to use Windows Movie Maker to produce high resolution WMV files. The OS is graphicly stunning, no doubt because like all other Windows OSs, it stole design elements from Apple.

Now for what I don't like. Many control panel options have been convoluted in a manner that no longer makes it intuitive for the user. For some reason after I believed I had opened the system up enough to access my network, the computer can access my other XP machines, but they cannot access the Vista machine. I have no idea how to fix that problem, but as long as I can use one PC to access another, I can still basically do everything I need to do.

Vista, despite being a 32bit OS like XP has blatently refused to install some of my XP software. What logic did Microsoft have when they decided to restrict compatibility? This has lead to a HUGE problem for me. The OS refused to run the Pinnacle Studio software that I need to run my capture device. This is forcing me to use my old PC to capture, then migrate the file(s) to the new PC for editing. It's a pain in the ass because a whole movie is about 30-35GB in DV AVI 720x480 format! Buying the newest (vista compatible) version of Pinnacle Studio could remedy the problem, but that's a big investment for an even bigger maybe. Or I could replace the capture device, and hope that like my current device it ignores Macrovision (dvd copyprotection). I'm not knowlegeable in the ways of DVD ripping, but if anyone out there knows of some quality (I can't stress that enough) software which can rip a DVD into a raw AVI file, please let me know.

Anyway, despite have the crappiest computer case I have ever seen, the new computer is working as best as it can, and better than I expected given all the complaints I've hear about Vista. Basically I am happy. Inevitably I am going to have to buy a new hard drive (external 1TB should do nicely.), and maybe a new capture device. Other than that, I'm hoping I won't need to replace it for another 4 years.

Now I find myself wondering what to edit because we have a pathetic DVD library to choose from. If anyone out there has any suggestions for a video, I'm listening.