Let’s start off with saying that I haven’t even tried out 10% of Windows 7. Part of that might be because I don’t know about it, or I haven’t had time to really “use” my computer. Another thing that I want to start off with saying is that my task bar is at the top of the screen because I’ve found it easier to use (different I know). So, here goes my short “review”.
One thing that is a huge difference is the task bar. What’s so different about it you may ask, well honestly a bunch of things. Here’s a screenshot of it: 
I know that the image may be hard to see, you can click on it (I think) to make it appear bigger. As you can see it’s a huge change from Windows Vista. The taskbar no longer has the names of the programs, but it has their icons displayed big. Another thing that has changed, is how it now displays that you have more than one window open of a program. For instances in this picture I have two windows open in Google Chrome, MSN Messenger, and Microsoft Outlook 2010. Can you tell how I know that? Because it has what looks like one square on top of another. This helps a lot when you have more than one window open of a lot of programs and you’re a multi-tasker like me. Did your
icons on the right of your taskbar ever get to much like this image –—>? Well on Win7 they have made it easier to customize which icons actually appear. Whenever you click on the arrow to
“Show hidden icons” you’re now displayed with a window that has an option to “Customize…”. Like this one to the right. I think that this is a really nice feature because getting too many icons over there can be a pain. And I just now figured out how to only make the ones that you want to appear be there. One more thing thing that is different is the “live preview”. This first came out with Vista, and on Win7 they have made it much, much, much better! Not only can you have a live preview of one screen, but now you see both screens of the same opened program. Here’s a link to a video that I took of my screen because I couldn’t get a screenshot of it. I didn’t know how to work the video part of the screen, so bare with me there 
. http://screencast.com/t/OkJwMk08
There are many and may of new features of the taskbar that I didn’t cover because I didn’t realize how long I was going… So here’s the other part that I was going to do.
You know how with Windows Vista it came out with the 3D switching between windows? That’s still here with Win7, but I honestly don’t like it because it is too much of a memory lover. Well, I really like how on Mac computers you can have the open windows tile when you (I think) go across the top right of the screen. So, I searched the internet for a program like that and luckily found one that did exactly what I wanted it to do. It’s called “Switcher” and very simple to set up. Here are two screenshots. One of the windows advanced (memory lover) switcher and the second is the program called “Switcher”.
I think that the Windows one looks pretty cool as far as eye candy is, but like I said before it’s a huge memory lover and just eats it right up. The program called “Switcher” isn’t as nice looking as far as eye candy goes, but it’s not really a memory lover like the Windows one is. There are different ways that you can set up how you want to view the open windows. I personally like it like the picture above, but there are two other options. A gird option (which shows them in evenly ordered rows and columns) and then there’s dock, which is pretty cool cause it has smooth animations and shows the open windows a different way. The numbers on the screens are what you can push on your keyboard so you don’t have to do any mouse clicking. Pretty awesome application if you ask me.
One last thing before I go. Win7 is very fast compared to Vista!!! I was completely surprised, because honestly I thought it was going to be slower. I totally recommend someone to either buy this when it comes out or wait to buy a new computer with this already on it. Hope you enjoyed this LONG (yet short cause i didn’t get to hardly any features) blog post. I will hopefully be posting another one later on this week and then one or two next week. One I know this week will be about what’s happening this weekend, and thus one next week will be about what happened over the weekend (and what’s gonna happen on Wednesday the 23rd). Looking forward to more writing and looking forward to you reading!
God Bless,
Bradley Hilton
