Vista Week: Day 3

Once again, I will be on my Sony Vaio laptop today. I mentioned the other day that I had three network cards, two of which were wireless. I'll go into detail as to why that is, but first, lets get some things out of the way.

I like the widgets/gadgets bar. I'm not normally amused by little gadgets that serve no purpose (At least, I'd like to think I'm not) and hog a little resources on the side. However, it is nice to pop open my laptop, boot up Vista, and find out the current predicted weather for the day. Plus, having a calendar right on my desktop is a useful addition. You can even add custom gadgets through Microsoft's dedicated gadget site. If you have a multi-monitor setup, you can move the gadget bar to the other monitor.

My laptop has a fingerprint reader that can identify me based on a swipe of a finger. This integrates *perfectly* with Windows Vista. I can easily set up my laptop such that if it were ever stolen, the contents of the drive would be encrypted and could only be decrypted by my fingerprint, through the operating system itself. The process itself is quite simple; once logged in, I create a profile for my current user. Then, I choose which finger I intend to use to log in, and a program records my fingerprint. Lastly, I can specify multiple fingers on either hand to use for log in.

This feature leads to my next discovery. Vista Business moves between Active Directory domains beautifully. Here at the college, it is more convenient to use single sign-on authentication, rather than having to re-enter my domain user name and password for every resource. If you're a corporate user and you have to move between multiple domains on a weekly basis, you'll find that Vista Business does not have to be reconfigured to join another domain. In my case, I can either swipe one finger across my fingerprint reader and log in locally, or I can swipe a different finger and log on to the domain.

One of the more exciting things Microsoft has been developing lately is a tool known as Power Shell. Power Shell can be downloaded directly through Microsoft. It is available for Windows XP and Vista, as well as the server operating systems. Power shell essentially gives you a more feature rich environment for creating scripts. More than that though, it gives you an almost Linux / unix feel. Commands such as "ls" and "man" are available through Power Shell. In reality though, these commands are simply aliases that Microsoft was nice enough to add for us Linux nuts. These aliases map to what are termed "cmdlets", which are built into Power Shell itself, rather than having to use a command interpreter. Essentially anything that can be done in CMD.exe can be done in Power Shell. Additionally, Power Shell's scripting capabilities are meant to almost completely replace VBScript. From what I've seen, it is much easier to write a script for Power Shell simply because of the level of integration between cmdlets in Power Shell and Windows itself.

If you're just getting into learning command line interfaces, then Power Shell can accelerate your learning. Not sure what that command will do? No problem, throw on a -whatif at the end of command. Assuming the cmdlet supports it (And most of the default ones in Power Shell will), this will cause the cmdlet to run your paremeters hypothetically, as if it were really performing what you had asked it to do.

For example, if you typed

PS C:\Users\JohnDoe> rm -path Music -recurse -force -filter *.mp3 -whatIf

If you are unsure what the command will do, then adding the "-whatIf" tag will assist you. In this case, if a user was attempting to remove old mp3 files after having converted them to a different format, it would be prudent to make sure that this command only removes the files with extension .mp3. So what happens when we press enter?

What if: Performing operation "Remove Directory" on Target "C:\Users\JohnDoe\Music".

Don't panic! Remember that a -whatIf command is only a fake run of the command you just typed. In other words, JohnDoe didn't just blow out his entire music collection with a simple command mistake. This is a great way to learn how to type commands without actually messing up your system.

The reason I have three network cards is rather simple. The Ubiquiti wireless card allows me to attach two external antennas. This is great for situations where I might be in range of a wireless access point, but the actual signal is too low for me to keep a stable connection. Also, it's great for site surveys and wardriving (Not that I do either one). The utilities that come with this card under Vista allow for some pretty interesting configuration options, but I won't go into detail on that. My main issue with wireless is that my internal AGN card rarely connects at 802.11n speeds. This isn't a Vista issue at all, but rather, an issue with the fact that the card is based on draft standards. However, the internal card seems to drop connections with wireless networks rather frequently. After the drop, Vista recognizes the card's existence, but fails to find any wireless networks in range. If this happens, I have to go into Device Manager and disable my card, then re-enable it, just to get it working again.

Is it Vista's fault, or Intel's fault? I'm not going to say either way, because there's no real clue. It could very well be that Intel's wireless drivers haven't matured to a point where all the bugs are ironed out on the Vista side. Wireless networks can be rather finicky about connections in general. My wireless connection seems to be fine while connected through the Ubiquiti card.

Overall Rating:

Gadgets bar - 9/10; I'm not someone who keeps track of what the date is, so it helps to have a calendar right on my desktop. Having a gadget to tell me that it's going to be cold outside is a nice addition. Kudos to Microsoft for dedicating a site for getting new gadgets online.
Biometrics - 10/10; The use of the finger print scanner allowing me to easily log in without typing a password is brilliant. This is a feature that is definitely lacking on Linux.
Domain / Log on tie in - 10/10; I don't know how much this feature gets talked about, but being able to log in to virtually any domain on the fly right from the log in screen is probably one of the most well thought out features included in Vista. I can bring my laptop to work, log in to the domain, then bring it home again without having to be considerate of any domain configurations.
Power Shell - 9/10; It's not really a part of Vista, to be fair. However, the addition of a new shell granting more command-line accessibility is a sign of understanding on Microsoft's part. Not all Windows users want to do things through a GUI, and most automation tasks require some sort of CLI experience. Power Shell is set to replace all the CMD.exe nonsense we've had to deal with, and could easily be the death of batch and VBScripts.
Wireless Network Experience - 7/10; The interface used to set up a wireless network is so simple that a child could do it. The downside? You'll feel like a child while you're doing it. Microsoft set out to hold the user's hand a little more in setting up a network. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, the network connection settings are a little burried, and sometimes your wireless card craps out on you for no reason, requiring Device Manager to disable and re-enable the card. This is more of a driver related issue than a Microsoft issue, but you would think that Intel would have better drivers by now.

Some of you are showing me new tricks in Vista that'll I'll be giving you guys credit here on the blog. Please, drop a comment sharing your Vista knowledge to some of us Vista newbies! I've already learned some interesting bluetooth integration knowledge from one of our labtechs, that I will be sharing with you soon!