*hypf*

Introduction

Earlier this year I bought a ThinkPad R60. Upgraded to one and a half Gibibyte of RAM I was pretty sure it at least should be able to run Vista. The built-in Intel GMA 945 graphics chip isn't impressive but at least it's able to meet Vista's requirements for the Aero user interface.

So far my impressions are mixed and for people willing to upgrade it may be safer to wait for Service Pack 1 to be released (somewhen in first quarter 2008).

But aside the numerous changes and improvements in architecture and on kernel level Vista brings a whole lot of toys to play with (because kernel-level changes that aren't visible aren't really sellable to an end-user). The Aero chrome looks pleasant, although few applications currently actually use the performance improvements in drawing. Many just stick to the old GDI and thus don't necessarily perform much better since the CPU has to take care of drawing again instead of the graphics adapter. And as for that Windows Flip 3D feature: After you have seen it a few times the »Wow« just wears off and its use is rather limited. At least for me.

But there's some more which I, small child that I am sometimes, will play with and sometimes even try to abuse :-)

Speech Recognition

While dictation software has been around for quite a while there were few tools that actually let you control your computer almost fully with only using speech. The result with Vista's speech recognition is mixed in nature. First the recognition rate is sometimes quite bad though that may just be due to me being no native English speaker (I currently don't have a German version of Vista and thus speech recognition only works in English, unfortunately). Second the controlling features are kinda awkward, at least for me since they don't really catch the impression of actually talking to your computer but rather emulating a keyboard and a mouse using speech. So the actual use would be for people that either have to type massive amounts of text (and rather want to speak it) or people with disabilities that keep them from using a keyboard and/or mouse. Fun fact: The included games Solitaire and Mahjong (possibly among others) are playable using speech alone, though they tend to mess things up sometimes and previously clickable cards (or tiles) aren't clickable through speech anymore or newly appeared won't be activated. But apparently you are able to stuff enough metadata into cards on screen that speech recognition is actually able to detect "the three of spades" or "stack 5" which is nice and might help in other applications as well, especially for screen readers or similar. Not everything has to have a meaning to just one feature.

Just recently I decided to have a little fun with speech recognition by feeding it a two-part episode of Invader Zim. The result actually contains some phrases from it but messes around with almost everything else. Granted, there was music and sound in the background almost the whole time and seperating speech from noise isn't something the speech recognition is that good at. And interesting enough, music and sounds seem to yield mostly Fs or Rs when trying to interpret them as speech so they appear throughout the transscript which follows here in its whole form:

I heard him FFFFFRFF-F where or how does house staff if chief FR chief heels for all his of staff and if if if not FFFFFRFF-F while Steve Moore of the Atlanta hawks and has not have heard his home here is the reigning architects on Loris king live her and maybe a parking structure planets a house FFFFFRFF-F and one very special silver bush-based maker Intel is fairly thick, black has a tooth-him in his other a higher rate hike saying the money here with us really mean everything that have high and high in FFFFFRFF-F the right way or the Hawaii CMR and hurricanes are I'd rather use reign of her childhood and while the S. Graham is the amount the team has lied when of hurt her and her hit where do you have now had his F-IF-FMSM have heard him into her have her FFFFFRFF-F and V hicks all have FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F hurley's stark has F a hit or runs the scrolls are resolved have to FFFFFRFF-F horror stories of how her life and his F-IF-FMSM of storage garage has worked hard for it has not have durable F FF MNF F. Bennett has his heart hull his F. Hurst Decker you wouldn't allow it has not operated upon by having to think that that's what it has lots of kids minus didn't want to come out here have anything left thumb print it had its name from and while it has formed have all these conclusive evidence before finding anything is confirmed even after the flattening off-FBI F F Moon F when you're on your watch her stride is not whether flew out of Atlanta braves are happening and Howard Baldwin hills and restoring and glad all raw his F-I hit her stride FFFFFRFF-F brought him and he'll write him at SS you'd have 30 14 hours are also had an almost Asians have a mother for one simple reason that are no hands nonleague loss column has locked out hulk Hogan bottles transmissions and store operating on has had its time allows on oriole sides tried FF-white have been a hit-and-and-F-IF-FMSM have FFFFFRFF-F and hide Disneyland has FFFFFRFF-F FF-white NSFN larry's not FFFFFRFF-F FF-white hide-and got here, as I am appalled white people and has stuck in annual have held Hawaii's tracks and has no bad as the business market where skills and-white horse business users of whack whack the implants that's not important right now our kids have our origins are high because it's cool MNF his home and 1/2-FFFFFRFF-F warren vs. Authority has had a tooth-him F and her schools are FF-white act and whether and when the conquest the zone shorts and-a-FF-white have been cleared of all the things done all the life-and they have had to have a year at her and has an at-and short and have his life hangs when FF-white F-IF-FMSM FF-white FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F and he's FFFFFRFF-F has the last FFFFFRFF-F has to happen and how his and-white FF-white have FF-white her own FF-white Oreo it is our are here now is N SF Michael Orleans saints on FF-white when was that the RF crazy off on F hall F got hot and has FF-white skills and has that will save you always talk about FM Bennett has lied when her FF-white have a badly FFFFFRFF-F Hopkins FF-white our limited as string he's flying FF-white the flying MNF her MM F-FFFFFRFF-F how Israel and-MNF if FFFFFRFF-F how F-FFFFFRFF-F FF-white have R F-FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F F-FFFFFRFF-F of the house FF-white hurt have known it had FF-white MMM MMM MMM FF-white her hit her on her house chief-of-the-hip-FF-white hurt when F-FFFFFRFF-F off if F-FFFFFRFF-F life-and FFFFFRFF-F and-white-FFFFFRFF F-FFFFFRFF-F F-FFFFFRFF-F and F-FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F and high--FM, hit her as his F-FFFFFRFF-F of the F-FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F and how hip-F-FFFFFRFF-F-F-IF-FMSM and-white holding the right to all ms the FM radio F-FFFFFRFF-F her off to the final as I understand everyone in the last one and F-FFFFFRFF-F and-white-Israel MFN FFFFFRFF-F F-FFFFFRFF-F F-FFFFFRFF-F FF-white F-FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F FF-white F-FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F not MNF her B.S. him to the data binding and the level of those matters FFFFFRFF-F FF-white have FFFFFRFF-F graves are not have an F-FFFFFRFF-F FF-white his wife are FF-white FFFFFRFF-F when FF-white believe you I think I can help you what events and cleaned the other hand if you mix of life-and without a fight with child and has only been restored FFFFFRFF-F and-white her ms S.F. and-white-FFFFFRFF-F FFFFFRFF-F the roast number market has installed more, and all the repairs lives of and when it has made the scarce and my eyes are small and his M.S. F-FFFFFRFF-F

There was at least one instance of correction or selection and the cursor moved somewhere in between so the text wasn't necessarily written from start to finish in exactly that order. And just in case you'd ask: The Invader Zim episode used was »Battle of the Planets«.