My family and I are presently vacationing in Spain. We are having a wonderful time here. Holidays means pictures – digital ones – and a lot of them. Since installing Vista I have been using Photo Gallery to import/sort and maintain my photo-collection. I have been very satisfied with almost every aspect of the program, the import feature being the one that I have been the least pleased with.

I installed the Windows live Photogallery some days ago, but only yesterday appreciated the improved import feature. Microsoft actually listens to its customers; the new interface is everything the old one should have been.

The steps are now as follows. First connect your digital camera and the following dialog pops up;

If you then do as I do, select the first option to review, organize and group items, the next dialog looks like this;

After naming/tagging the pictures the way you want, Windows Photo Gallery then imports the pictures. Easy as 1-2-3, and the result is just the way you wanted it. Brilliant! Too bad they didn’t get it like this with the release of Vista. Better late than never.

I will not say that the Ultimate Extras were the deciding factor for me when I chose the Ultimate version for my laptop as well as the desktop, but the promise of “all” those extras were there. As is already quite obvious there haven’t been to many extras yet; Texas Hold Em Poker and some tools for the Bitlocker application. Dreamscene was just a beta (sorry; Preview) that was dropped early on and then nothing untill yesterday when it finally was released in full.

I, as well as many others, immediately downloaded the update and the extended content pack. The latter holding a whopping total of 3 additional scenes ! (1) Another riverfall – quite nice to look at, (2) A glowing Vista orb and (3) some machinelike looking futuristic whatever….

Is that all(!) Of course in the WindowsVistablog it was pointed out that with the DeskScapes add-on from Stardock you could also play back .dreams clips, a wealth of which you could find on the Stardock WinCustomize site….

True. The Dreamscenes are appealing to the eye – but for how long? For now I have it turned on, and it remains to be seen for how long that will continue. As for the comments on how much the CPU is taxed with DreamScenes on; on my system the load when “only” having Dreamscenes going (plus all the resident programs in the taskbar as well as the sidebar with numerous gadgets) the CPU is taxed between 30-50%…

I have been waiting for something like an Ultimate Extra add-on, something useful and handy, and that is all for now? Come on Microsoft – You need to do better that that. This was disappointing.