Today I got an email from Microsoft Connect that I was accepted in the Windows 7 International Beta Program (Norwegian). The information in the Win 7 Beta documentation suggests that the RC is soon to arrive. Over on the WinSupersite Paul Thurrott just posted that 6.1.7100.0.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700 is arriving soon (just a teaser post – as is this one ;-).

Will report as soon as I am able to start downloading the bits. My guess – sometime Friday…;-)

Last night I set my laptop to sleep, packed it into my computer backpack and went to bed. Today I brought it with me to work (as usual) and set it up on the desk, hit the power button and went to fetch a cup of coffee. When I returned to my office I was dismayed to find that the screen was black – pitch black. I moved the mouse… nothing happened, hmmm.. I used the touchpad… nothing happened… What the… I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL… still nothing… Okay, probably Bill Gates at work, so I held down the power button for 4 seconds and the machine powered down. I hit it again and waited for the usual HP logo screen… NOTHING!? and then… a long beep, and then two short ones. NOOOOOO… The videocard has died, and since this is embedded on the motherboard the whole thing needs to be replaced.

I contacted HP customer support, but since the warranty expired a long time ago, I mean – I bought this machine October 2006 – no immediate luck there. But, Norwegian consumer laws to the rescue. Under law I have 5 years in which I can complain and have the machine fixed. So I submitted my claim to HP and are now waiting their response, which I should have sometime tomorrow. (Wish me luck)

Being impatient I went to some online stores to see if there were any laptops I could think of purchasing if it comes to that. Microsoft has been running a lot of ads centering on the fact that Apple machines are way to expensive compared to PCs that are available. Well, are they?

Living in Norway, I went to Apples online store and was shocked to see the prices there:

For a 13 inch MacBook with and 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive they wanted a whooping kr 11.000,- (approximately 1500 US dollars). No way…

Then I went to komplett.no, one of Norway’s largest online computer shops and found this beauty;

A HP (yes, again) Pavilion dv5-1190 15,4 inch laptop, with a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 GB RAM and  a 320 GB Hard drive for kr 7500 (approximately 1100 US dollars).

So, in other words a much larger screen, double the amount of RAM and double the amount of storage for kr 3500 less? Maybe my taste is awful, but I do think that the HP is every bit as appealing to the eye as the MacBook, so why the difference in price? It must be the silhouette of that one bite Golden Delicious on the front…

Conclusion;

None so far, other than the fact that a snowball would survive in hell before I buy a Mac (or their prices have to drop significantly).

For now I am waiting for HPs response, and hopefully a repair of my laptop. You know, I really like my HP dv9074ea. It was purchased 2 1/2 years ago, which is a long time when it comes to computers, but it’s specs can still hold up, and it ran (hopefully runs) Windows 7 beautifully!

Wish me and my laptop luck! 🙂

Microsoft published this page today clearly stating that Windows 7 RC will be publicly available starting May 5, 2009. As a TechNet member I have gone to my downloads page, but alas, it is not yet available. Will update this post as soon as it goes live there.

Good times…

And oh by the way; if it is made available before May on TechNet and MSDN I think that Paul Thurrott actually got it (mostly) right in his predictions… 😉