CyberArtisans Newsletter Vol 6, Number 1

Welcome to the January 2007 issue of the CyberArtisans monthly newsletter!

Our goal is to present information that will be useful to you as a website owner and as a user of the web. If these newsletters are useful, please forward this to a friend. To unsubscribe, follow the directions at the bottom of this email.

This Month's Topics
Windows Vista
Daylight Savings Time

Windows Vista

You've seen the hype. Windows Vista for home and small business users was released yesterday. Corporate users got theirs in November. Here's a summary of what the gurus are telling us.

Is it better than XP? Microsoft released an enormous number of Beta copies and they have been out there for quite a while, so this time the gurus have had time to really beat it up. The general consensus is that this is a good solid version of Windows, with some real improvements, but nothing that should make anyone rush out and buy an upgrade.

How many versions does it come in? At the moment there are five versions, but only 2 of them are useful to most of us. The five versions, along with the guru opinions, are:

• Home Basic -- Useless, don't even think about it
• Home Premium -- Roughly equivalent to XP Home
• Business -- Roughly equivalent to XP Pro
• Enterprise -- Only available to volume license customers
• Ultimate -- Supposedly will have all the features of Home Premium and Business along with a number of as yet unreleased features. Advice: Save your money.

Is Vista better protected than XP? Yes, it is, but the gurus are cautioning that it is better protected against past threats. Whether it's better protected against new threats remains to be seen.

Should you run out and buy a copy? Remember that every piece of software is released with bugs no matter how hard the builder works at finding them. The worst bugs will undoubtedly be found soon after release. If you're the cautious type, consider waiting until Microsoft releases the first Service Pack (scheduled for the second half of 2007).

Can you install Vista on your current computer? Maybe, but for most people the answer will be no, at least not without some serious hardware upgrades.

More information. The official Vista home page is here. But some more digestable information is at this FAQ.

Daylight Savings Time

Daylight Saving Time comes early this year -- March 11th this year instead of April 1st. If you have Windows XP and have installed SP2 you are all set. Unless you are running Outlook 2003, that is.

Microsoft has a page here that covers it in detail, but here's the summary:

• Windows XP SP2 -- will update automatically
• Windows XP SP1 -- not supported
• Windows 2000 -- use the tzedit.exe utility
• Outlook 2003 -- Tool will be available "soon" at the Microsoft Download Center

Thanks for joining us this month. See you next month.

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Jonathan Spencer
CyberArtisans Web Developers

http://www.cyberartisans.com/
617-987-0514