And indeed back to Vista – just had to try it out on my new machine. And am glad to report an Experience Index of 5.7! Vista feels rather quick, and works really fast, without any performance tweaks etc. I have installed the x86 version, foregoing the 64 bit for the time being (due to the lack of driver/app support for that platform).

Each day brings new revelations about the new setup, for instance Realtek HD Audio panel pops up as soon as one plugs in a connector, allowing one to correctly identify and setup the device. I am rather impressed by this feature. In addition, I noticed that the native resolution of the TFTs works fine, without my having to tweak the DPI setting (as was always the case with the older setup). So, I am operating at 1680×1050 for both TFTs with 96 DPI. The new GFX card can handle it all, without any shadows or pixel discoloration. I cannot emphasize enough how pleased I am with this.

Earlier this day the need arose, to connect via VPN to the OU mail server. The solution couldn’t be straightforward owing to the fact that I rely on the 24×7 availability of my local network for file server access. I cannot afford to disconnect either computer from the local network to access the OU VPN. I hit upon the alternate solution almost immediately. The answer – Virtual PC. With perfect support on Vista, this solution would indeed work well from within the Vista environs, once the Virtual Machine gets its own IP (not NAT). As of this moment, I am installing XP in a Virtual Space on my server machine.

Back to the real world, an intensely busy week looms ahead next week, for which I will have to prepare well in advance. It seems the three working days remaining this week, shall be spent bringing my affairs to order, and collecting literature/resources for the weeks ahead. On a related note, I am pleased to report that the first proposal review was rather glowing in its evaluation, and the reviewer has recommended that the proposal be accepted “as-is” without any alterations/modifications! What an honor. Though I must admit that I personally was not very pleased with the lack of cohesion and the structure of the same, so I have spent the past two days, correcting, updating and altering the proposal to bring it more in tune with my personal expectations of such a document. Let’s see what the Supervisors think.

And with those thoughts, I head back to work… Updates on the VPC setup a bit later.