I know typing that title is going to make my Mac fans gasp in horror but at the very least I can proclaim that last night I was a PC. It was last night that we celebrated all things geeky with a Microsoft sanctioned Windows 7 House Party.
Our party was a happy hour.
Now I know that visions of nerdy types with pocket protectors drooling around a laptop in a dimly lit room instantly come to mind when one thinks of a party celebrating a computer operating system, but this wasn’t the case at all. Thursday night Earl and I planned out a relatively nice menu for the event that was pulled off well. The only problem with the food was the vegetable tray; apparently the catering service we ordered it from had new help or something because the broccoli was frozen broccoli that had been cooked and was turning brown. It was arranged quite nicely but it looked, tasted and smelled awful. The ranch dip was bleu cheese and the tomatoes looked like they had already hit a politician. So we skipped the veggie plate but the rest was quite nice. Beverages flowed, conversation ensued and fun was seemingly had by all.
The actual Windows 7 part of the party went on a little longer than I anticipated. I set up my Lenovo desktop computer in the living room and used our 42-inch plasma television as a monitor, which was great for the presentation. There were several themes that you could pick from for your party and I chose to focus on the media capabilities of Windows 7 and the User Interface enhancements. I went into instructor mode and kind of lost myself in the demonstration a little bit in that I was really enjoying it; Earl said he never realised that I could show computer stuff like that because usually I shove him aside and hastily click click click my way through his latest technological problem. I told him that I would remember that conversation and in the future be kinder when he needed help from me.
At the end of the night I gave away some Windows 7 swag; everyone got enviro-friendly shopping bags with the Windows 7 logo on them and I had some drawing for door prizes, including a puzzle and a deck of cards. The grand prize was a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Edition. I think that was well received.
All in all the party was a great success. I have to admit that spending yesterday finalizing ideas of what I was going to show off during the little presentation really made me appreciate Microsoft’s efforts to make the Windows 7 experience simpler for their users. Last night I made constant comparisons between Windows 7 and it’s older siblings and it’s biggest competitor OS X. It is obvious that Microsoft was inspired by Apple on some of the new User Interface elements of Windows 7 (the Dock-like taskbar being one of them), but as I said last night, I have used every version of Windows since Windows/286 and this is clearly the best version of Windows I have ever used. It looks good, it feels solid and it behaves itself. And ironically, the company doesn’t feel as Draconian as Apple these days.
I have pretty much made Windows 7 my main operating system of choice. So I guess it’s true, I’m a PC once again.
