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I managed to get out to Dragon*Con this year, but it ended up short and unpleasant experience. Granted, my planning was poor (read: non-existent). After repeatedly asking my family about it in the past few weeks, I got a very clear and solid NO from all other family members. Not wanting to hang out alone, I decided to not go this year.

Well, last night, while reading appearances schedule and panels (just for reference, really) I changed my mind.

Too little Too late, as they say. I hung out at the famous parade, but already felt that the crowd this year was WAY beyond anything before. I couldn’t find decent spot to snap much photos, even. So I decided to beat the crowd and while parade was still going on, I hit the registration line. Well, the photo you see is about a 3rd of line that promptly formed behind me. In front of me, the line was about twice this size. In case you struggling with math (and can’t see end of this line), a 3rd means there are 2 MORE lines like this going around the building, but in fact all 4 building sides (with surrounding parking/gardens/etc) is where the line stretched.

Since the best panel I was looking forward to has almost finished, and I was still in line about an hour later (yea, it was barely moving too), I decided to pass on Con this year and save my $50.

They really ought to do something!? I do know you can pre-register for entire 4 days, but apparently many people prefer 1 or 2 days (like me), and I don’t believe they offer that as pre-purchase option!!! Furthermore, why not just have some Mobile App where you can simply pay online, and just go in second(s) to pick up your badge, and voila. They already do this very successfully with Fandango for Movies and StubHub for Sports and other Events.

Overall, trip downtown was still worth it. Still grabbed good number of photos and videos of the parade and great to see so many other fans of the genre out there. Conclusion – I will just (try to) pre-register myself next year, probably still for just one day. Hopefully they will finally figure out how to make that available for people, avoiding this fiasco of 3 hours line under Hotlanta sun.

Geek On, fellow travelers!

Despite the long title, I’ll try to keep this post short. I had two completely opposite experiences with Windows Vista today.

First, I don’t think people realize how handy Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is. And now that Microsoft made it officially free, there is absolutely no reason not to install it on your Vista!

So here is what I wanted to post, I ran into two distinct aspects with Vista today. On one end, I was able to run 2 Virtual PCs, one running Windows XP SP2, the other running Ubuntu Linux. And in addition, I ran some video playback full screen on the Vista host operating system, PLUS there was CD ripping running at the time, creating some 192 kbps MP3′s from my audio CD! And the two virtual PCs weren’t idle either, Windows XP was converting some of my video files to MP4, for my iPhone. Ubuntu was also running full speed, still installing, in fact.

So, with all that action, all activities were running quickly and without a hitch!

On the flip side, a laptop with Vista Home Basic, gone completely nuts during a simple operation of Logout. Granted, it was a bit overdue for some patches probably. Anyhow, without any special messages, all it said was "Logging Out", and that is it! It sat there on that screen, flashing Hard-Drive a lot, for a long long time. I even gave up, hard-booted it, logged back in (working ok), and then Logged out again. Same thing! Hanging and Hanging and Hanging. After about 20 minutes I gave up and left it running overnight. In the morning, it was fine, logs in fast, logs out fast, weird!!!

So, there you have it! Vista, in all it’s glory! You decide!

PS: For all the people that complained about compatibility of software with Vista, I find Windows XP inside Virtual PC to be perfect compromise. In fact, you can even run Windows 95 or Windows 98, if you so desire, in your Virtual PC. That would help those very old educational games I still have somewhere, but kids outgrew them already anyway…

PPS: I am thinking of going to DragonCon this year for the first time, any suggestions what is a must-see?

UPDATE: I was going to mention a nice Tweaks Guide on Vista, which is more of an overview of Vista annoyances and what to do with them. In retrospect, this post seems like as good time as any, plus Windows Vista blog reminded me about it today…