One of the great things about living at the bottom of the world here in New Zealand, is our time zone. We’re ahead of pretty much everybody else, with the exception of a few small pacific islands, so while it’s 7.30am on Tuesday October 22nd here it’s 7.30pm on Monday in the UK and 11.30am Monday in California!

So with that said, and today being October 22nd (well here at least) it’s Windows 7 release day! This actually doesn’t mean much to me as I’ve been running Windows 7 on all three of my machines since the first beta’s (and it’s been incredibly stable).

I’ve read both good and bad reviews in the mainstream non-tech media over the past couple of weeks but I can tell you right here, right now: Window’s 7 is quite simply the best Windows yet… and, unlike so many it seems, I never had a problem with Vista! (don’t even get me started on all the Vista FUD BS).

Windows 7 is more of an evolution over Vista than a completely new OS. To most users it will look and feel very familier but there are heaps of small and not so small changes to both the user experience and under the hood that make this a BIG evolution.

Things I’m lovin’ about Windows 7:

• Desktop Slideshows
  7 has native support for desktop background slide shows. Great when you have kids and you just can’t decide which picture of your favourite little person(s) to plaster all over your computer desktop.
• Window Snapping
  Simply drag your windows to the left or right of the screen to create perfectly tiled windows, or to the top of the screen to maximise. You can also use the Windows key and the arrow keys to cycle through the snapped positions for the active window.
• Taskbar Pinning
  Rather than the QuickLaunch toolbar from XP/Vista (that is still available if you want it) 7 uses taskbar pinning. Every application that is running will show up on the new taskbar but you can selectivle “Pin” applications so they remain available in the taskbar when not running. Applications can be pinned from anywhere, Start menu, Windows Explorer etc. and draged around to order on the taskbar itself. Active applications are highlighted and, depending on your settings will expand to show the applications label/name.
• Taskbar Jump Lists
  Right click an icon on the taskbar, running or not, and you are presented with a list of actions/recent files etc. that relate to that application.
• Start Menu Search
  When you open the start menu simply start typing the name of the application you want to run and the list filters and shows only what your after, then hit enter and it launches.
• Windows Explorer
  A heavily improved local search system and new “Libraries” make for far simpler organisation and finding everything is a breeze.

Of course I can’t possibly do all the new or improved features in Windows 7 justice, so if you have the time and fancy an in depth read on what’s hot and what’s not with Windows 7 rock on over to the Win Super Site and read Paul Thurott’s 12 part Windows 7 Review… without spoiling the suprise he sums it up perfectly in part 12:

“Windows 7 is so good, in fact, that users are clamoring for it. Individuals want it at home, and they are asking for it at work. And after a half decade of putting the brakes on OS upgrades, businesses seem to be rallying around Windows 7 as well…”

“…Microsoft has an OS in Windows 7 that is simply better than anything Apple offers. And a more relevant (and true) correlation between the Mac and Windows worlds is that the vast majority of Mac users also run Windows, either in dual boot or virtualized. And the percentage of Mac users who do run Windows–already north of 80 percent–will only increase with Windows 7.”

“Wrapping up, it looks to me like the future just got a whole lot brighter. Rejoice, PC users. Windows 7 is here.”

So I’m loving Windows 7 and you should too!

At WordCamp NZ a couple months ago we were lucky enough to have a Town Hall style Q&A with Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress. During the Q&A I got to ask a couple of questions one of which was about WordPress, and by extension Automattic’s, asperations in the social networking space and whether they saw themselves ultimately competing in some fashion with FaceBook and MySpace via their “Social Network in a Box” BuddyPress project. Having watched some of the other Q&A’s Matt’s been doing at subsiquent WordCamps and have noticed that the social line of questioning keeps coming up.

Matt’s jokes aside I very much believe that the direction WordPress is heading in will naturally make it’s .com arm a competitor of sorts, if not directly, to the MySpaces and Facebooks of the world as the single user and multi-user codebases merge and BuddyPress matures.

There are already a growing number of alternative WordPress driven offerings to AutoMattic’s WordPress.com springing up such as incsub’s blogs.mu and wp.mu which allows users to set up there own branded multi-user WordPress offerings without having to deal with installation and configuration of WordPress mu on their own server. I think we are also going to see an explosion of smaller independant, and potentially connected, niche social networks built on the WordPress/BuddyPress platform due to the unprecidented level of flexability, accessability and control and with far greater customisation potential via Plugins and Themes than any of the current solutions out there such as Ning and Virb.

Gravatar, already used extensivly across the various WordPress properties, and other AutoMattic offerings such as Intense Debate and PollDaddy will also likely be key elements in the social evolution of WordPress.

With over 5 million WordPress.com blogs and 5.5 million wordpress 2.8 downloads (and counting) simply connecting all those blogs together makes for a pretty sizable social network right off the bat… it’s no Facebook for sure but it’s going to interesting to watch over the coming months.

I’ll be watching with great interest to see what WordPress 2.9, 3.0 and beyond do in the social space… I see a bright, fun filled and SOCIAL future for WordPress!

BuddyPress 1.1 has just been released. Having been watching TRAC with great interest I can safely say that A LOT of bugs have been fixed, code refactored and enhancements added over the past couple months, including a completely re-written parent theme architecture and one-click bbPress forum integration.

I’ve been so busy on other projects for the past couple of months that I haven’t been able to be as involved with the BuddyPress community as I would have liked but with this milestone I’m itching to get back in there and try out all the new stuff and finally get BabbleLounge up an running! The only thing I would like to have seen in this release would be the inclusion of the Photo Albums feature that has been slated for late 2009 (and there isn’t much “late” left).

To find out all the cool new features of BuddyPress 1.1 go read the release announcement, try the demo site or download it for yourself.

Well done Andy and all the contributors for this awesome platform!