So, by now you have hopefully heard about Microsoft’s new OS that’s now in beta. It’s what Windows Vista should have been. It. Is. Windows 7.

Now, if you know me, you know I love Apple. I love OS X. Basically anything that is Apple, I probably love it. It’s the reason I am an Apple shareholder. But now, I am proud to say that I am a Microsoft shareholder and have been for some time.

Windows 7 takes flashiness and style and brings substance to it. Yes, it looks a hell of a lot like Vista. Some may confused it (minus the Start-bar) with Windows Vista on first glance. Now, small disclaimer: I never really used Vista for more than 15 minutes, so a lot of this may be in Vista. Excuse my ignorance. I never wanted to use Vista, but Microsoft has gone and done something right with their PR: they’ve spun Windows 7 into their most hyped product in this decade, and for good reason.

I installed it on my MacBook Pro on 1/14/08 and have used it primarily instead of OS X Leopard. In the past 72 hours or so, I have used OS X for about 5 hours while Windows 7 was on for the other 67 hours. Why? Perhaps it’s because it’s something new and I want to use it. Perhaps it’s because I enjoy shiny things (which Windows 7 definitely has a lot of shininess going for it). But also the fact that I enjoy using Windows.

I never really enjoyed using any version of Windows, namely XP. I never really enjoyed using Linux. Yes, I do enjoy using OS X immensely, but Windows 7 is actually somewhat close in that range of enjoyment I have in using my computer.

Microsoft rates that my Windows Experience about 4.9 out of 7.9. Well, in that case, my experience of using OS X is about a 7.5 and using Windows 7 is about a 6.0. There are a few subtle nuances like Dashboard (Gadgets is no comparison), Expose, and Spaces that I just love about OS X Leopard. Granted, there are third-party option replacements for Expose and Spaces, but they just don’t integrate like Apple is king at doing.

The Aero interface is updated a little in Windows 7, namely in the taskbar. Now, if you really want the old style, you can choose small icons and have each group separate by window, but Windows 7 does window management a little differently. Let’s say you have 5 Firefox windows open. Instead of having a separate buttons for each Window, you just hover over the programs icon and you can choose from there which window you want.

There are a lot of things that I’m impressed with in Windows 7, but if I wrote about all of them, it would take two days to completely write about them. This is only part one of the series, so expect more posts. Just a word: if you want to install Windows 7 on your own, you can download it here, but don’t use it as your primary OS. If you do decide to do so, nobody is responsible for any downtime or problems you may run into with data loss except yourself.

And in case you wanted to know, I wrote this entire article in Windows Live Writer: part of the key Windows Live series that I’ll divulge into more later.

One major thing I am seeing included is the ability to post images. For instance, here’s a screenshot: Oh wait, never mind. You can’t post images in certain parts of your posts. All the images will default to the bottom. Feature request number 1.

Since I got my iPod touch, it has really changed my mind on how I think of the future of mobility. I was one of the CrackBerry addicts, and for that matter still am. Now that I have an iPod touch (with the 2.0 firmware, mind you), I absolutely see this as the platform of the future. The iPhone architecture is a very robust one since it is built off of OS X.

Honestly, who doesn’t want a full featured Internet experience in your pocket wherever you go? You can argue that you can with Opera Mini on various devices or HTML on Windows Mobile and soon to be BlackBerry, but from what I’ve experienced, none of them render pages and emails so elegantly and true to the desktop experience as the iPhone.

You may call me a fanboy, but I disagree. There are faults with the iPhone software and I still love my BlackBerry for communication needs, including email, texting, and even Twitter. iPhone 2.0 has many flaws in it’s software and it’s buggy as hell. I once crashed MobileSafari 5 times in one day. That’s pretty sad for reliability.

But the best part of 2.0 is the App Store. Otherwise I wouldn’t be typing this on my iPod tout, unless I submitted it through email, but that’s a pain.

The App Store is essentially a candy store for iPhone and iPod touch users with all of the apps that are available online. You’ve got tons and tons of games, including the super-hyped Super Monkey Ball, an AOL Instant Messenger app, Twitterrific among at least two other Twitter apps, and just so many useful and fun apps. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t apps that suck; there are plenty of those. But if you generally stick with the well known and most downloaded apps, you’ll be good.

So while this post has been a bit random, so is my mind at the moment. Overall, here’s a summary: WordPress App = good for version 1.0. iPhone 2.0 = well worth it. There are a few other things I’d like to mention, but that will have to come at a time when my brain isn’t going in 50,000 directions. Look forward to that one… Whenever I get around to it.

Honestly, who doesn’t want to be a part of a world record? It’s one of the coolest things you can do. So why not do one that will take minimal effort?

The fine folks over at Firefox have decided to dedicated June 17th, 2008 as “Download Day” where the goal is to have a world-record amount of downloads of Firefox 3. There isn’t much to talk about (almost 1.5 million people, including myself, have pledged to download Firefox 3) so just click the banner above for more info on what it’s all about.