Well having spent a few days using it, it’s time to give my thoughts on what is probably the biggest change in Windows since it launched over two decades ago.

With home computing changing quicker than the tide in recent years, with alot more emphesis on media consumption rather than production, Microsoft needed to re-think its flagship product that has server some many hundreds of millions well, and it needed to move fast.

Enter Metro, Microsoft’s new interface design which is being employed across all of the companies platforms (Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox 360). With all the swish fancy user interfaces around its actually a pleasure to see a company go a little more simple and cleaner. Metro is essentially a flat boxes type design with big buttons and bright colours.

With Windows 8 Microsoft has gone with throwing you right in the deep end with Metro by replacing what we would currently know as the start menu with a full screen, Metro launch screen with big Live tiles (Think large icons that constantly update with new information about that app, like weather has the latest weather info or latest emails etc). From here you can either launch these apps or search for others installed on the system. Its pretty simple and a very elegant way of displaying alot of information to the user without ever feeling over the top.

The classic desktop that we’re all used to is now relegated to an app and is displayed as a live tile on your Metro start screen. It would be possible to unpin the desktop tile and never know it was part of the system, while it works almost identically to the Windows 7 desktop (there are some great new additions that actually make it better), it is completely disconnected from the Metro side of the OS. In some ways this makes sense as Windows 8 has been designed to be as at home on your desktop as it would a small tablet. This can get a little frustrating though as you can’t switch to apps running on the desktop from Metro.

As I just mention, Windows 8 is designed for Touch as well as keyboard and mouse, which generally don’t go well together. However, the developers at Microsoft have found some clever way round this, for instance, the Windows button along with system search, settings and and new share button are hidden on a panel on the right hand side of the screen. With a tablet you run your finger in from the right of the screen to bring this panel up, with a mouse you use “hot corners”, so you move your mouse to the bottom right and up pops the same panel. It’s a clever design as hitting the corners of your screen with a mouse is a very easy and intuative thing to do. A click in the bottom left corner brings up the Metro start screen and point the mouse in the top left and click and you will switch between the last Metro apps you used (you still have to use Alt-Tab while on the desktop). Swipe down from this corner and you get a thumbnail of all currently running apps that you can click on to restore. All very simple, only after a few minutes with the OS and these commands feel very natural.

Apps

The make or break point of any OS now are apps and the OS’s app store, with Windows 8, comes the new Windows Store where you can buy and download apps from within the Metro interface. The consumer preview came with a number of preview apps installed, including an email app, photo app, music app and video app among others. Whilst these are no where near finished apps, they do give a feel for how a metro app would work. Take Email for example, you get quick access to all your emails where you and read and reply easily. This is the idea behind most of the apps. Nothing full featured like Office just basic apps to get the tasks most people want to do quickly.

Boot

I feel I should make a big point here, Windows 8 is by far the fastest booting OS I’ve ever used. From a cold boot to loging in out paces my iPad or Galaxy S2 startup times (We’re talking from cold here, not locked, although from lockeds not much different!). Very impressive from a full blown OS and clearly there is room for Microsoft to make it even faster.

Install

Installing Windows 8 is also one of the most pleasurable install experiences I’ve had too. Setup asks the same few basic questions as Windows 7 but install on a clean drive only takes 10 – 15 minutes at most. Of course this is an area that most users will never see as they’ll be getting Win 8 preinstalled on their new PC, laptop or tablet but it’s still nice to see the extra effort put in by Microsoft.

Conclusion

So does it work? This is one of the big questions. I’ve seen alot of commentary and discussion anround the internet about who Windows 8 is aimed at, and a big question over whether it works on a desktop with mouse and keyboard. Well after a weeks use I can say Microsoft have got usability spot on for both mouse and keyboard and touch screens. At the very minimum, Metro is just a very large start menu (For those that prefer the desktop). But I persoanlly believe the full blown desktop in the home is nearing it’s end. There are those powere users out there still (like me) that won’t ever be able to abandon the desktop but for most people, being able to check your email and browse the net is all they really want. Wundows 8 caters for everyone as best it can and the idea of having the same OS running pretty much on every platform kepy nicely in sync via skydrive is a mouth watering prospect. If you’re brave (or know what you’re doing) you can download a copy of the Consumer Preview now from

Of course Windows 8 is still around 8 months from it’s rumoured release date so theres still plenty of changes to come.

For those who have never heard of OLED displays, basically, with a standard LCD display you have a single back light responsible for lighting the display. With OLED, each pixel is self lit, therefore, a single pixel can be completely switched off for black while the one next to it can be fully lit for white. Essentially giving a perfect contrast ratio.  This is most notable on the GS2 when browsing the menu’s with their black backgrounds and white text.  Colours on the display also pop, it truly is stunning and you really have to see it to believe it. I honestly think there is other display on the market that can match it, and that includes your TV’s!

In general use, the Galaxy S II flies, the dual core CPU is really used to its max to make flicking through screens and loading apps fast and smooth.  I can get a whole day out of the phone easily too, which includes a couple of hours of music listening, internet browsing, game playing and texting (oh and the occasional phone call!).  So Samsung has really done a remarkable job on their power management with this phone.

The phone is made of a light plastic which does give the phone a slight cheap feel over devices like the iPhone 4 and most recent HTC phones, but for that, the GS2 is only 8.8 mm thick at the point you hold it and is very light. Quite a feat given the phone’s extensive spec sheet.  The screen is also covered by the almost indestructible Gorilla Glass.

Onboard, the phone runs Android 2.3.3 out of the box, although I’ve seen mentions of 2.3.4 being available, I’ve not seen an update yet.  However, Samsung employ’s it’s now well established TouchWiz interface, adding the usual bells and whistles, with a few extra features like being able to hold two fingers on the screen in the browser and move your hand back and forward to zoom in and out.  Something I’ve found very hand when holding the phone with two hands.  Theres also a few included Samsung Hubs to be found, covering, Music, Social, and Games but none are particularly that useful. The Music hub does include access to 7digitals online store so there’s a pretty impressive list of music to choose from.

On the back is the 8 mpx camera with a (very bright) flash, picture quality I’ve found to be pretty decent in good light, but don’t think you’ll be taking many night pictures with this phone as anything out of the reach of the flash is a no go.  Whilst away on a recent holiday I attempted to try to get photo of out hotel lit up and night-time. The best I got the from the phone was some faint lights in the distance. The camera does have some great little extras though, like smile detection and an awesome panorama mode where you press the shutter button one, move the phone round in an arc and the phone does the rest stitching together upto 8 photo’s.

 

This panorama would have been perfect had it not been for the couple on the right....

Conclusion

I’ll go more in-depth on Android in a later article. But for the Samsung Galaxy S II? Well it is by far the best phone I’ve had, and that’s saying something as I’m massive Windows Phone fan. It’s the snappy responsiveness, incredible screen and all round complete package you get from GS2 that really does set it apart.  Samsung seems to be going down the road of having their Galaxy S phones showcase the best of tech, so I can’t wait to see what they’ve put together for the Galaxy S III.

There’s very little not to like about the GS2, if you’re not wanting an iPhone then I don’t really see any other device on the market in the UK that’s a better alternative. It gets a massive thumbs up from me!

Smartphone OS
Windows Phone 7
Having spent 10 months with a Microsofts latest mobile OS, it still amazes me that there hasn’t been a much bigger uptake.  WP7 has possibly the best ever user interface, it’s fast, uncluttered but enjoyable to use and stunning.  The Metro UI as Microsoft calls it, is carried across into most third party apps, making the whole OS feel very fluid and unified.  The Marketplace (think App Store) is doing pretty well too with more and more exclusive WP7 games appearing every week. Oh, and lets not forget fully integrated Zune and Xbox Live.  With the imminent arrive of the Mango update and the new link up with Nokia, hopefully Windows Phone 7 can start clawing back market share from both Apple and Google.

PC OS
Windows 7
Annother win for Microsoft here.  Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve only used Mac OSX briefly, and yes it is a very pretty Operating system, however, the versatility and openess of Windows 7 really set’s it on a different level.  There must be millions of apps for the OS, majority free. It’s by far the biggest gaming platform of the three major desktop OS camps too. Plus its the OS of choice for every PC on the market excluding a few Linux powered devices. Of course Mac OSX devices are only available from Apple, so it would be interesting to see what uptake OSX would get if it was avaialble to other OEM’s.

Yes Windows has its criticisms, like vulnerability to viruses and malware etc, and it’s tendancy to crash at the wrong time. But, really, Windows 7 fixed these issues and the OS is extremely stable, and as said above, Windows has to cater for an infinite amount of configurations of PC, where as OSX runs on specifically chosen hardware, so leaves alot more room for problems to occure. I gues, if you’re going to target a group of people with viruses, you’d hit the hundreds of millions of Windows users (400m Windows 7 licenses sold to date).

There are very few week points to pick with Windows 7, it has a great look, is probably the fastest Windows OS to date, extremely stable and a joy to use.

Tablet
Apple iPad 2
The first Apple product to appear on this list. The iPad has pretty much set the standard for the tablet market. It is the perfect size and weight, has some great apps and an incredible 9.7 inch screen. It isn’t without it’s pitfulls though, most notable, iOS.  Now iOS is a great OS for mobile platforms, but it feels like it holds the iPad so far back. It would be nice to see Apple launch an iPad specific OS, based on iOS that gives the device a much more desktop feel whilst maintaining it touch friendliness.  For example a centralised file system, so apps can share files, support for keyboards and mice so the iPad could be used as a desktop linked to say a monitor.

The iPad 2 is a great device, but has so much more potential than Apple is currently giving it.

Portable Music Player
Apple iPod Touch
Theres no doubt, the iPod changed the music scene forever. It put peoples entire music collections in their pockets and at the their fingure tips. The iPod Touch is the most recent addition to the family and is currently in it’s third generation. The Touch runs iOS so includes all the best features of the iPhone, with the price tag of an MP3 player.  So you get access to Apple’s massive App store with hundreds of thousands of apps and games, enough space for thousands of songs as well as a pretty decent internet browser.

Media Centre PC
Apple TV 2
Getting media to your TV is actually still one of the toughest jobs around.  Other than the Boxee Box there is still no real does all media centre on the market, of course without building an actual Media Center PC running Windows, but these aren’t the easiest to navigate from your sofa. Enter the  Apple TV 2.  The ATV2 has wonderful, easy to use interface and sync’s perfectly with your iTunes library. But theres a much more awesome feature, it’s an iOS device, which means it can be jailbroken. So what does jailbreaking the Apple TV 2 get you? XBMC!  With XBMC and Apple TV 2 you get an easy to use, full featured media centre PC that is tiny and uses about as much juice as your phone. And at £99 is a steal.

eBook Reader
Amazon Kindle
Yes I’ve already said the iPad is the best tablet on the market, but when it comes to reading a book, nothing touches the Kindle.  It strips away all the distracting bells and whistles and just lets you read your back as if it was a book. No glare in the sunshine, no recharging at night time. The Kindle has done for books, what the iPod did for music. And again, at just £111 for the wifi model, it really isn’t going to break the bank!

So thats my list so far, I will update in the future as new devices arrive and I think of some other sections.  Do you agree with my choices? Chuck us a comment!

There are plenty of NAS boxes on the market now, from basic storage devices to feature rich servers, all coming with relativly high price tags. (A Qnap server with dual core atom processor are upwards of £400).  So finally I took a look at Microsofts Windows Home Server 2011.

WHS is Microsofts attempt at bringing the corporate servers into the home, stripping out the extras and making them simple to use. 2011 is the second edition codenamed “Vail”. WHS is actually based on Microsofts much more expensive Windows Server 2008, something used by thousands of businesses around the world. Gone is Active Directory to be replaced by a simple user system.

As WHS is still a Windows system, it has all the advantages of it’s bigger brothers meaning the options for hardware simply endless.  I went for an i3 – 2100 Sandy Bridge cpu, 4GB RAM an ASUS ITX motherboard and a 2 TB Samsung F4 hard drive.  All bought for around £280, pretty decent spec for the price and a massive upgrade on my Qnap NAS. I’ve seen some peoples specs including top of the range Xeon CPU’s and up to 48TB’s of storage! It should be noted here that unlike Windows Server  2008, WHS 2011 is limited to a single CPU (can be multi core) and 8GB RAM, plus theres a limit of 2TB for backup files. MS has definitely aimed this at the home market not corporate.

Install is identical to most other Windows OS’s, you get a few more questions for server name etc, then theres a 30 minute setup process after that the installer runs through automatically. MS designed WHS so that you would never need to remote on it or attach a monitor. Of course, if you are self installing, you need a monitor for setup but otherwise everything is managed by a piece of connector software that you install on your PC.

The connector software gives quick access to various tasks like setting up client backups, accessing the Remote Access website and accessing the Dashboard.

PC backup is one of the major features of WHS, and is probably one of the most simple backup systems about.  Basically you tell WHS what folders on your PC you want to backup and when, then WHS will wake your PC from sleep/hibernation back it up and put it back to sleep.  So backups can be run at night time.  Microsft call their backup system Single Instance Backup, which means if you have multiple PC’s, WHS will do a full backup of the first PC, then go through the others and any files it finds that are identicle to the first PC it ignores and simply links to them. So for example, if you have four PC’s running Windows 7, only one copy of Windows is backed up. This makes backup’s very quick and saves a ton of disk space.

From the backups you can run full PC resotres via a USB stick that WHS creates for you, or single file restore from the Dashboard.  By default, WHS will keep six months of monthly backups (one created on the first of each month), 4 weekly backups (Created on a monday) and four daily backups. This means you could restore your PC to it’s state from six months ago. It’s a very easy but powerful system and certaily a massive plus point for WHS.

The Dashboard is basically where you access all the servers features, like creating users, share folder, monitor backups, setup Remote Access and media streaming etc. It’s expandable via Addins that could say add uTorrent access to the Dashboard or a system to manully wake your PC’s from sleep.

With Remote Access, you get a website and a .homeserver.com web address where you can access your shared folders, stream music and video’s using possible the best streaming player I’ve seen to date. The website runs from your server and again is expandable via addins. One of the unique features is the live conversion WHS does on your files so they play via Silverlight in your browser. It’s all perfect seamless and easy to use.

After a week of use and almost 24/7 running I am yet to encounter any problems or bugs which is impressive being a Windows based system, and of course being windows, you have access to the plathora of free apps floating around the internet. I have uTorrent and SABnzbd running on mine along with Air Video which converts video files to be played on my iPad.

Windows Home Server 2011 is by far the most complete home server system I have tried, specially out of the box where there is almost zero configuration to do.  A quick estimate would tell me £350 would by you the parts and OS giving you probably the best bang for your buck of any of the home server solutions about right now. Of course, prebuilt systems are a bit more expensive but spec wise are still way ahead of the competion. I really cannot find any reason not to reccommend WHS, it’s just a shame Microsoft doesn’t do a bit more to market it!

geoDefense

The idea of the game is to destroy creeps using various tower mounted weapons, from lasers to missiles.  Each level has a predefined path the creeps will follow and it’s up to you to place your weapons in the best locations, upgrade them and hopefully stop the creeps reaching your base.

geoDefense is a very fast paced game with some incredible graphics that really show what Windows Phone devices are capable of.  You have to be quick in placing your weapons and getting them upgraded as the creeps become stronger over time.  Some of the levels can be frustrating but are still enjoyable to play.

Included are the usual array of achievements and leaderboard and three different difficulty levels that should keep you playing for a while.

geoDefense is available from the Marketplace now for £2.49.

The new os takes a radically new direction incorporating the best of Windows Phone 7′s metro UI and the power of the full Windows desktop we’ve cone to love (or hate).

Launching Windows now takes you to a Start page with your installed apps represented by Live Tiles which launch full touch enabled apps. There’s integration with online media hosting sites so you can easily post a picture to your twitter from Flickr etc, all from within Windows. Full multitasking is handled by dragging your finger across the left of the screen, dragging in your last used app that can either be viewed full screen or snapped along side the app your already using.

Of course the old Windows desktop is still present allowing old apps to run just as before and the new interface has been designed around the use of both touch and keyboard and mouse input.

Also included for the first time is support for the ARM platform, so expect to see a lot of cheap low powered tablets to arrive to.

There’s no release date yet but a guess would say sometime in 2012 and of course Microsoft will be releasing more details and features over the coming months.

This looks to be a very promising start for Microsoft which will be arriving very late to the tablet party. Over to Apple and their WWDC conference starting Monday.

Video after the break!

• Outlook Conversation View – Emails combined together in threads
• Lync Messaging Client – Enterprise messaging client
• Twitter integration – Tweets integration into people hub
• Office 365 integration – Office 365 features built-in
• Bing Vision – Scan QR, Microsoft Tags, books, CDs and DVDs
• Bing Audio – Similar to Shazam, will identify songs
• Windows Live Messenger integration – Integrated into the people hub and messaging hub
• Facebook Chat integration – Integrated into the people hub and messaging hub
• AOL Messenger integration – Integrated into the people hub and messaging hub
• Contacts grouping – Create groups of contacts to send messages to
• Xbox LIVE sync function – Sync function to likely sync settings/games across devices
• Now playing artist information on lock screen – album art on the lock screen
• Visual Voicemail support - Visual voicemail using same method as iOS/Android
• Network awareness NCSI support – improvements for switching between networks/optimization
• Internet Explorer 9 mobile – HTML5 support and hardware acceleration
• Multitasking support – switch quickly between apps
• Fast application resume – quickly resume recently used apps
• Podcast support – download podcasts via the Marketplace
• Turn-by-turn navigation in Bing Maps - voice guided directions and turn-by-turn
• SMS dictation – Microsoft tellme dictates messages
• East Asian Language keyboard support – additional language support
• Handwriting and dictionary support – support for writing Chinese characters
• Pin Outlook Folders – Pin folders as favorites inside Outlook
• SkyDrive integration – Access SkyDrive documents from Office Hub
• Kinect support for games - interact with Kinect and Xbox games from Windows Phone
• Outlook email server search – search Exchange servers from Outlook client
• Complex (alpha-numeric) password support – strong number and character password support
• Information Rights Management – support for protecting e-mails and Office documents
• Ringtone support – third party ringtone support
• App list – automatically detect list, implemented jump list and search for apps
• Marketplace search improvements – apps, podcasts, music separated for easy search
• App install improvements – progress bar install UI
• Search extras – User search actions can be connected to third-party apps
• Motion Sensor – apps to use new gyroscope hardware
• Background audio – apps can run audio in the background
• File download service – third-party apps can download files from the web
• Alarms – alarm notifications for third-party apps
• Pin app features – Users can pin live tiles of deep app features in third-party apps
• Zune Smart DJ mix – allows users to discover new music and save/create playlists
• Camera sound toggle – users can now disable the camera shutter sound
• WiFi improvements – support for hidden SSID networks

You basically play the part of a shop assistant, running round the store doing various tasks. The challenge? To keep your customers happy.  As you progress through the game, more shelves are added to your store to keep stocked as well as new characters appear such as a shoplifter, a celebrity or a mysterious hammer welding man who loves breaking the Milkshake Machine!

The game has awesome HD cartoony graphics and simple to understand gameplay that makes Supermarket Mania a real joy to play. Tasks are simple but challenging at the same time which helps keep you addicted.  There’s 80 levels to walk through and hundreds of upgrades to help you on your way as well. You constantly have to be on the lookout for lost children, kids on their scooters and shop lifters, while keeping the floors clean and even making milkshakes and baking croissants. Of course, all of this has to be done while keeping customers happy and not waiting.

While the app says it’s free on the App store, it’s actually just the trial you can download, then after 5 levels you have to purchase the full game which comes as an in app purchase of £3.99. So it’s not the cheapest app on the App Store by any stretch of the imagination but is a very fun and engaging game to play.

I have to recommend this game, simply because it is so much fun to play. It’s a shame about the cost of the app and a little deceiving that it says free in the App Store when it is in fact a £3.99 in app purchase, but still I think it’s worth the price, just!

This beg’s the question though, why the hell is Microsoft releasing such an App on iOS on the first place, and why before it’s own Windows Phone OS even get’s a sniff of it?

Bing and Bing Maps architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas had this to say on his blog:

I’m sure over the coming days and weeks we’ll be answering, over and over, the “why didn’t this ship first on Microsoft’s own phone” question.  Our approach to the design of the Photosynth app hopefully provides some evidence that we very much think of Windows Phone 7 as brethren and inspiration, not to mention proof that Microsoft can make beautiful things.  (Such a joy and a relief, after the previous generation of Windows phones!)  If we could have shipped first on these devices, we would have.  But the level of camera and low-level algorithmic hacking needed to make Photosynth work meant that, if we wanted to get this out as quickly as possible— and we surely did— we needed to do so on a platform that provided the necessary low-level device access.  Windows Phone 7 doesn’t yet allow this for apps.  It will soon.  It’s worth keeping in mind that the first several generations of iPhone device and OS wouldn’t have allowed us to build this app either.  For now, iPhone’s platform maturity— and of course the large number of people with iPhones out there— meant that it made sense for us to go for it.

At Bing we’re always interested in reaching as many people as possible, which means we’ll always develop for multiple platforms.  But over time, we’ll be doing more and more of our early innovation on the Windows Phone.

While I appreciate Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have the necessary access the Photosynth team needs to create a WP7 app at this time, you do have to wonder just how far Google or Apple would go. We are yet to see Apple release any of their apps on other devices and Google always prioritises Android first. So why aren’t Microsoft doing the same for WP7? I feel this comes down to the comment on the amount of iPhone users. How about some exclusivity for your own customers MS?