Sorry you haven't heard from me for a couple of days. As I mentioned in the last episode, I went to a photographic seminar in Seattle on Wednesday night. I stayed overnight as the seminar didn't end until 10:30 PM. On my way back home Thursday afternoon, I was stopped dead in my tracks on Interstate 90 by an avalanche that occurred a few minutes before I got to the area near mile post 45.
After sitting in my van for an hour in a very heavy snowstorm, the State Patrol finally directed us to an offramp and back toward Seattle. With no idea how long the road would be closed, I called Susan on my cell phone and had her book me another hotel on Hotwire.com. This time I stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Bellevue for $54. I came home on Friday and am glad to be here. I may have gotten some really great deals on hotel rooms, but there is nothing like sleeping in one's own bed.
In today's news, Microsoft has released it's latest beta test version of the new Windows Vista operating system. This software is the successor to Windows XP and is scheduled to be released late this year. According to early reviews, this release is "feature-complete", meaning that all of the fundamental capabilities that Vista will eventually offer are now included.
The early reviews show this new build to be responsive and highly usable, though still far from bullet-proof (as is to be expected for beta software). Aside from some of the predictable problems with hardware-device support and still-buggy features, one particular problem was that Windows Explorer crashes frequently. To Microsoft's credit, these crashes were hardly dramatic, since Explorer managed to restart itself and resume each time.
If you would like a preview of the new Vista, here are a couple of Web sites you might like to check out. First, E-week magazine has put together an extensive slide show of screen shots of the new product so you can see many of the features. Second, the folks at CNET have put together a 2 1/2 minute video you might be interested in seeing.
Now that I am back home, I am extensively studying all the new photographic products being shown this weekend at the Photo Marketing Association annual trade show in Orlando, FL. This is the biggest photographic show of its kind and my next blog will feature some of the great new products that I am seeing.
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