As of today it is exactly one month to the launch day of Windows 7 ! Currently i have Windows XP installed and did not bother to upgrade to Windows Vista as i did not see any benefit from it, however that is not the case with Windows 7, i have actually purchased a copy of it. This is the first time i have ever bought an operating system.

I hope that by upgrading to Windows 7 that i might get some extra performance out of my computer, it is not likely i will get a lot, i expect it to be in and around the current performance but it would be nice to get something out of the upgrade apart from the new OS look and feel and layout!

I will be installing the OS as a clean install, as far i know that is the only way to install it in Europe, there is no upgrade version being offered. I usually manage to get the bulk of the work done in the first day, i will definitely have the old OS wiped and all the data formatted, and then i will also have Windows 7 installed.

After that it is just loading on all programs that i used to have and getting down to finding out what is good, bad, new and different about Windows 7 .

For the past week i have had no work . It was great, usually when i have time off work, it would go past really fast. But for some reason this past week that i was off went slow. It seems like such a long time since i was at work!

Although i have not made a lot of posts during this past week, i only actually made one, i still have been online doing a few things. I have being working on a few bits for other sites i own.

A site i am trying to get launched for next year about tv-shows, i have been working on how i am going to go about adding content as well as sorting out a decent design, which i think i have finally settled on.

Also this week i have been working on building a website for a local electrician, this is my second site that i have built for someone other than myself. Now i have clients! .

A few months ago i was going to get a move on with changing a music video / entertainment site that i was working on, The Entertainment Clam, I made a start then soon lost interest with it.

The site did receive a fair bit of traffic, but working with that site is fairly awkward. This week i found out that a new version of the site’s software has been released, so i have now begun to get more interest in the site again and i am thinking of upgrading to the new software.

It would be great to find an open source alternative instead of paying for this software, i have found one or two of interest but i current hosting company does not support all the requirement, so i might look around and send off some e-mails to other hosting companies to see if they can or will host it , it is worth the try anyway.

I would like to get hosting here in Ireland, i have been looking at a few hosting providers and they are actually very competitive with American hosting company’s, on such company is Blacknight.

I have also been working on a new layout for this blog, it seems like i am always changing it but i am not 100% happy with it just yet, the next version will be much much brighter, i have already settled on a layout, but there are a lot of tweaks to sort out with it.

Over the next few days i will have a few reviews of some products i bought recently including a netbook amongst other things.

There are a lot of different things on this blog that i do  like however there is also a lot i do not like. I think it is mainly leaning in the direction of things that i do not like.

A few months ago i revamped this blog completely; it was to show that i have more interest in this blog and by changing everything and having a nice new logo it was a mark on when i started to take a keen interest in blogging on a more regular basis.

Now i feel that there are a lot of changes that need to happen and that i have started to look into. First off i really want to add a little more light to the design, so i am on the lookout for a really nice theme, wordpress of course, that with a little modifying would suit this site.

Looking around for themes is really difficult as the majority of them are far too cluttered, what i am looking for is a nice bright and simple theme, and i want one that is really quick at loading. I know plugins take time to load and that is what really slows down a site but also so can a theme.

That is onto my second point, any slow plugins will have to go and will be getting replaced with lighter ones. The twitter updates that i currently have in my sidebar really slows down the page load, so i am going to do away with that in my next theme when i get it sorted out.

Last night i finally got around to ordering myself a copy of Windows 7. I have used Windows 7 before, i tested it out when the first set of beta tests were offered, since then i have not had the chance to use it as i removed it from my computer because i wanted to wait until the final version became available.

I know i could download the final working version now, but it will expire next year anyway and i would just end up buying a copy of Windows 7. From what i experienced with the beta version, it has definitly become a lot faster in its performance compared to that of Windows Vista.

A while back when you could start to Pre-Order Windows 7 a lot of sites started to offer the Pre-Order, the cheapest of them all had to be Amazon.co.uk, £44.97. By the time i went to pre-order it for that price it had gone up! Not to the full retail price but not as cheap.

now i have decided to just go ahead and pre-order it anyway because i will not get any cheaper and soon enough it will go up in price. I had to pay £64.99 which is still not too bad, £20 more but at least i did not have to pay the full RRP of £149.99! So by pre-ordering it now i got a discount of 57%.

So in total including shipping to Ireland it cost me £74.71 or €85.47. I have never purchased a copy of Windows before, i have installed and re-installed various copy’s of Windows for myself and others but this will be my first time actually deciding to buy a copy of it.

Usually i would only have Windows would be because i got it pre-installed on my comuputer when i bought it from Dell. It is a little over a month now to the release of Windows 7 (October 22,2009).

Also to note originally here in the EU Windows was not going to be allowed to be shipped with an internet browser, there had been war over Microsofts Internet Explorer being pre-installed, forcing the majority of customers to use that browser and not getting to experience other Internet Browser’s.

Now however all versions being shipped will include Microsofts Internet Explorer, i am not sure how they managed to get away with it. I think it would of being a great idea to have a splash screen come up during the first setup of Windows 7 offering the user the choice of all the different browsers.

To get the 57% discount on windows 7 go to amazon to buy it, i am not sure how long more that amazon are actually offering the discount for, but i know there is no chance of getting windows 7 for any cheaper on amazon now, here is the link to windows 7: Windows 7 from amazon

I am really looking forward to being off work next week. For the past few weeks i have been working very hectic days in work. So having a week off will be great .

The reason i am off next week is actually my winter holidays, it may seem a very early time to take a weeks holidays but because i work in a retail store the final 2 months of the year are very hectic since Christmas stock will be arriving and will be out on sale as of November.

So no staff are allowed to take any week long holidays because they cannot afford to have less staff during the busy holiday season.

Something that really gets on your nerves when working in a large retail store, and i am sure if you ever worked in dunnes like me then by the time Christmas comes along and everyone else is happy to be putting up their decorations, you usually hate the sight of them since you would of seen them for the past 2 months.

So looking forward to my week off next week, it will be my last week off this year before next spring .