Surviving Windows Vista #1: User Account Control

I spent some time the past weekend upgrading and tuning up my home workstation. Added some RAM, a new Ethernet card and upgraded to Vista Business, after an overdue hard drive back-up and clean up. Probably that helped a lot, but I have to admit that Vista doesn't suck as much as I thought. However, the first and greatest annoyance I found was this thing they call 'user account control.'

I always considered having to confirm frequent operations the they are on Windows XP a "necessary evil," but they way Vista is set up by default is just unbearable. So, I went online looking for a solution and the tips I found were even more confusing and/or based on older or different versions of the operating system.

Here is how to deal with it on Vista Business:

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Click on User Accounts.
3. Click on User Accounts (yes, again)
4. Click on Turn User Account Control on or off.
5. Uncheck the box and click on the OK button.

That's it. After restarting the system, those evil modal alert boxes should be gone for good.

AIR Developer Derby (for Mac people?)

Need motivation to make the switch from PC to Mac? What about a Mac Pro 8Core with 4Gb RAM and 1.5Tb of storage? Of course, if you win the first prize it doesn't really matter, as $100k in traveling expenses would make for a nice vacation, no matter what kind of hardware you prefer.

Continuing with the news this week, Adobe announced the Adobe AIR Developer Derby, where five talented developers will receive the "Ultimate Development Environment" from Adobe, consisting of:

* A Mac Pro 8Core with 4 gigs ram, 1.5 TB (2x75) of storage.
* (2) Dell 2707WFP 27" widescreen monitors.
* (1) one Sony Playstation 3.
* (1) $200 gift certificate to Amazon.com.
* (1) Herman Miller Aeron chair.
* (1) Bose Quiet Comfort 3 noise canceling headphones.
* (1) copy of Adobe Flex

Flash Player 9.0.60.120

Tinic Uro gives details on the Flash Player update.

Three Betas in One Night!

That's right, tonight Adobe is releasing not one, but three public betas! Right now you can head to the Labs to start downloading the public beta version of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), Adobe's cross-platform runtime until today known as "Apollo". Also in Labs, the first public release of Flex 3 (codenamed "Moxie"), and an update to the Flash Player 9.