I have written in the past about the things I do not like about Vista, but the Windows UAC (User Account Control) prompt is not one of them.

You may be surprised about that, since most people will list this as their #1 annoyance. I don’t because I know it is only temporary.

Many people mistakenly think that its purpose is to thwart Spyware, Viruses, Etc. I could tell the minute I started using Vista with UAC enabled it had nothing to do with directly (Yes it does indirectly) stopping bad programs from running on your computer.

Its primary purpose was to change the behavior of programmers. It was a way to force them to start writing their applications so they work properly in a limited user environment. I can tell you right now, as a developer I wanted to do everything I could to avoid the UAC prompt from showing when my applications ran. I can bet other developers feel the same. (Side note…we are still working on getting all of our apps to not require admin access in Vista :) )

This means that during the initial release of Vista the UAC prompt would be popping up for almost every application. Why? Because the majority of applications were written to require administrative access. Over time if applications are updated to the new model…the UAC prompts for the user will be reduced over time.

That is the second phase of this process. Once a majority of applications are updated, the number of times the UAC prompt will be shown will be very small. In this second phase is where the benefit is finally reaches the user.

When we are in that environment (Where most applications have been updated to handle a limited user account)…The user will expect that 99% of the applications will not require administrative access. If they do see the prompt, they will think long and hard before clicking that continue prompt.

Until then we will be barraged by prompts while working in Vista. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I would much rather be the one to make the decision to take an administrative action, instead of an unknown software vendor making that decision for me.

There is an excellent article over at Microsoft that describes what I am talking about in detail. It is worth the read:

The long term impact of user account control

Changing Windows Vista’s Welcome Picture is an easy task but making the picture default and making it stay in the list so another ballgame. Because when you change your default Welcome picture with a picture that is not in the Vista default list it just overwrite your previous Picture and not add it to the list. What we need to do is add pictures that you like to list and delete the default pictures that you never use.

1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Go to User Accounts
4. Click Change Your Picture

The Default Picture list is located on this folder

• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

Just delete the pictures that you don’t want to use and copy the pictures you want to use on that folder, and remember that it has to be in .bmp format and 128×128 resolution

Your current picture, is stored in this folder

• C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp\.tmp.bmp

The flower picture which is the default is located on this folder

• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user.bmp

On Monday, Nick and I flew out to San Francisco to attend AMD’s Premiere Event announcing their quad-core Opteron processor. With Intel’s quad-core hardware and now AMD moving full speed ahead - the era of quad-core processing is here!

Prior to the event, we met up with Featured Community members Michael Reyes, John Obeto, and Carlos Echenique to attend a blogger meet-up with some folks from AMD. Michael is from the website HardwareGeeks , John owns and runs the website SmallBizVista, and Carlos runs the website PlanetAMD64. I also had the huge pleasure of meeting Alessandro Perilli from the website Virtualization.info. Alessandro is one of the leading bloggers in blogging on virtualization technology on the web.

At the blogger meet-up, we were all surprised by a visit from AMD’s CEO Hector Ruiz.

At the Herbst International Exhibit Hall, AMD had several demo stations set up for folks to play with quad-core PCs. Nick had a chance to play Midway’s upcoming game Stranglehold powered by AMD’s Phenom quad-core processor. AMD had several different demo stations including one demoing some very impressive video-editing capabilities.

Later, we were all bused over to the Letterman Digital Arts Center for the launch event. The Letterman Digital Arts Center was created by George Lucas and LucasFilm on the grounds of the Presidio. The Letterman Digital Arts Center houses many of the LucasFilm divisions (such as ILM) and is a state-of-the-art digital entertainment facility. When arriving, we knew right away we were at a LucasFilm facility as we were greeted by some familiar faces:

We then made our way into the Letterman Digital Arts Center where we were directed into their 298-seat, state-of-the-art, THX-certified screening room equipped for digital projection. It was a very impressive theater room. The event kicked off with AMD’s Hector Ruiz announcing the Opteron quad-core processor and then introducing LucasFilm producer Rick McCallum to talk about LucasFilm’s partnership with AMD.

Rick showcased a really neat video of the special effects ILM did for the movie Transformers. Take a look at the video:

Video: AMD Barcelona Launch: ILM Video

Overall, I shot over 9GB of HD video footage from the event. Using Windows Movie Maker, I spliced the video into segments and uploaded the special effects video above to Soapbox. If I had a quad-core processor, editing and rendering video such as my HD footage would be quite a bit faster and more efficient. Quad-core processors will offer quite a bit of advantage to Windows Vista users as they hit the market as they will enable the user to do much more with digital video, sound, and even games.

Special thanks to AMD for having us out for the event.

On Monday, Nick and I flew out to San Francisco to attend AMD’s Premiere Event announcing their quad-core Opteron processor. With Intel’s quad-core hardware and now AMD moving full speed ahead - the era of quad-core processing is here! Prior to the event, Read More……(read more)

Well the wait is over for Halo 3, the ad that is. Named “Diorama”, it features a theoretical but ‘real’ monument created in the year 2607, on exhibit in the (imaginary) Museum of Humanity. Crafted by historians (artists) to pay tribute (make an ad) to the greatest of heroes, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117. I’ll just leave the figurines to do the talking. Check out the Flash version below or the original HD version.

Oh yes, how freaking cool is that. And yes, that is a real miniature model crafted by real people. I’m not sure how they can achieve the flame or smoke effects, but it’s pretty much one of the most detailed models I’ve seen. You can explore it in much more detail on the site, as well as see the following (fake) “making-of“.

The creative strategy is very unique, but is the result better than Gears of War’s award-winning “Mad World“? I don’t speak for everybody, but definitely a contender.

Maxconsole.net received an e-mail from a person named Choi Wang who reveals that a Norwegian game shop called Expert today sold at least two copies of Halo 3 to the public, he added the following picture as proof. In the past, premature street date breaks have resulted in competitors following suit, if this occurs, we could all be purchasing Halo 3 a lot earlier than we thought.

News Source: www.maxconsole.net