Book Review: The Windows Vista Book

I admit it, I’m one of the many XP users who didn’t jump to Vista when it was first announced. Stories of the interface, problems with printer compatibility, etc. made me not want to even think about changing operating systems. As a longtime PC user, having made the transition from DOS to the first Windows release years ago; I wasn’t looking forward to yet another big change in how I do my work.

Reading The Windows Vista Book gave me reason to finally make the switch to Vista. The book has 10 short chapters, easy-to-understand explanations of individual features, and a full-color screen shot highlighting the feature on each page.

It’s obvious the editor/author/publisher took care to make it simple to scan the book chapters. Each chapter has a different colored 1/2 inch border at the top of the page with the chapter title which makes it a breeze to distinguish chapters.

Want that tip on Security? Go the chapter with the purple bordered pages. How do I split clips for a movie? Go to the light green bordered pages.

I liked The Windows Vista Book since it provided a quick overview of the most helpful and exciting features in Vista, without taking up a lot of my time. The book begins with a summary of the 10 coolest features in Vista, which will get anyone moving away from XP.

The Vista photo managing features explained in Chapter 7, Getting the Most out of Your Photos, were a lifesaver for our family at a recent reunion. With a couple hundred photos shot the night before, I quickly organized, edited, and displayed a slideshow to the family the next morning.

A nice touch – tips are included throughout the chapters, at the bottom of pages, set off by a blue background box.

My only negative comment on The Windows Vista Book – the content on each page was one big paragraph, some paragraphs with more than 15 lines. It would have been an easier read to break some of the longer paragraphs into shorter paragraphs.

Title: The Windows Vista Book, first edition
Author: Matt Kloskowski and Kleber Stephenson
Publisher: Peachpit Press
ISBN: 0321509749
Date: 2008
Format: Softcover
Pages: 240
Cover Price: USD: $19.99

Volunteer Judges Needed for Website Design Contest

Last week I met with Rosemary Bauer, founder of the Michigan Council for Women in Technology Foundation. This fall MCWTF is sponsoring their high school girls website contest; a great opportunity for young women to use their website planning, design and development skills.

MCWTF is looking for volunteer judges for the first round of judging the websites as well as an instructor to teach a usability seminar on Saturday, October 4, 2008.

For the contest, teams are composed of 1-2 high school girls, with a maximum of 80 teams competing in the contest. Teams must design their websites based on the theme “My Dream Career and How I Plan to Get There”.

Contest Judges

MCWT is looking for first round judges with knowledge of the technical aspects of web design.

Websites will be reviewed on line from a secure site.
Judging will take about 6-8 hours of time total using a rubric to score sites
Judging will take place from October 22, 2008 to November 8, 2008

Usability Instructor

The usability seminar is one time only, October 4, 2008, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, at Lawrence Tech University in Southfield, Michigan. MCWT has the presentation from last year which could be modified or leveraged by the instructor. Around 20 girls are expected to attend the seminar, all high school students.

For more information about the contest, visit the Michigan Council for Women in Technology website or use their website contact form.

Refresh Detroit – August 27th, 6:30 – anytime…

We will have another casual meet up where people can discuss anything from twitter, front end development, backend development, web services, web pages, etc.

It will be Wednesday, August 27th, at 6:30pm till whenever, held at the Ann Arbor Brewing Company in downtown Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor Brewing Company
114 E Washington St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 213-1393
Get directions

Please comment if you plan on attending so that we may reserve a big enough table.