Windows Vista: ~~~Ready~~Steady~~Go~~~

Literal Meaning of Vista: 1 A view, a prospect, esp. one seen through an avenue of trees or other long narrow opening. 2 A long narrow opening, esp. one created deliberately in a wood etc., through which a view may be obtained, or in itself affording a pleasant prospect; an avenue, a glade. 3 An open corridor or long passage in or through a large building; an interior portion of a building affording a continuous view. 4 A broad prospect or vision presented to the imagination; a mental view, in prospect or retrospect, of an extensive period of time or series of events, experiences, etc. 5 vista-dome US a high glass-sided railway carriage enabling passengers to look at the view from above the normal level of the train.
I wonder what literal meaning Bill Gates assumed while naming it Vista
Vista System Requirements: For an expected life time of 3 year the minimum requirements of hardware are quite high. Almost 95% of us will be required to scrap off our current desktop and replace with a newer model or upgrade the existing computer. Minimum hardware requirements would be 2GHz or above CPU, 1GB or above RAM, 80GB or above hard disk (MS recommends Serial ATA drives which are further costlier than the regular ones) out of which around 10-15GB will be eaten up by Vista depending upon which version of Vista is taken. There are 4 flavors available. DVD is a must. 2GB of shared VRAM or 1GB separate Graphics Card is required, and even all graphic cards will not work, you have to ensure that it has to be supporting fast dual-channel memory. DirectX9 will do but preferred is Directx10.
Ready to use features: there is a dashboard to support all your main mobile issues be it Mobile PC, battery level (if it is on a Lappy), wireless network connectivity, handheld syncs, external displays (TV, LCD, Plasma etc.). Power Control is marvelous, when you close the notebook cover, it goes to Sleep mode or full Hibernate mode depending on your settings. There is a new concept of ReadyBoost which means that you can hook a pen drive (or thumb drive) and use it as additional RAM instead of using it as a routine storage device. When you plug-in your thumb drive in the system, in options instead of choosing ‘Open folder to view files’ you click on ‘Speed up my system’ and wow! You instantly get an additional RAM for your system. The simple ratio is 1:1, that means if you are having 1GB RAM, you must plug-in 1GB thumb drive. This will definitely boost up your applications seeking more space (especially multimedia). There is a Network Projector wizard which can access a projector on Local Area Network (wired or wireless). Sync Centre is there to sync in with your any handheld devices.
A rework for Spammers and Phishers: These guys are having a tough time. Vista not only controls all existing spamware, malicious worms but also phising stuff to force through it! So now these buggers have to rewrite and recompose their codes to beat up Vista. And this is actually not difficult for them to intrude and threaten Vista too as a whole lot of community is dedicated to this task to write “Vista complaint Malware” and they are already on the job.
Bill Gates, Vista and Security: Like last year this year too (rather 3rd year in the row) Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation is the keynote speaker at this week's RSA security conference in San Francisco (this year another keynote speaker is Oracle Chief), and will definitely announce what Microsoft is going to pull out of the bag in 2007 and years ahead. Last year in his opening speech, Gates told the RSA conference that “Microsoft would continue to offer leadership to the IT industry on security and promised that Vista would be strongly secure, stating: “security is the area that jumps out as the thing we have spent the most time on”. Microsoft’s new Vista operating system uses encryption technology extensively, mainly for managing digital rights, with BitLocker and Trusted Computing Module chip that is now being built into most PC motherboards. BitLocker mobile security technology control user access, removes malicious codes and locks down the devices when they are lost or stolen.
Vista and 3rd Party Security Software Vendors: Infact the security features in Vista have started threatening third party security vendors are shaken with its strong features and are clear that their monopoly is in danger (Mcaffee, Norton et al). Ofcourse MS knows that till now security was its biggest weakness and hence started focusing on it since last 5 years almost (with a separate huge security department and spending plenty of bucks on R&D) and above all what is the harm in capturing the market that was so far under the control of 3rd parties. Actually it was in January 2002, when Bill Gates issued an internal memo in the organization for a thrust to this initiative after a strong criticism from almost all corners of the world about the lack of security in MS products. That is the reason that Longhorn (Vista’s earlier name) project was halted in between and its release was postponed time and again. It is assumed that within next 3 years Microsoft, Symantec an McAfee will have an equal market share in security which means either the small companies will either merge or will shut off.
OneCare: This is the service from Microsoft started recently by MS that provides Vista customers with all of the usual anti-malware, antivirus, anti-spyware, antispam and firewall functionality and that too with no additional charges. It is bundled with Vista. This move will definitely force major security players to cut-off the prices of their products if they really want to stay in the international market.