Well yesterday I decided it was time to treat myself to a new Driver (1 Wood). Of to GolfTown I went with the intention of getting myself one of 3 drivers I had picked out. My short list as I went into the store was the Nike Sumo from 2007, The Callaway X460 from 2007 and the Ping G5 from 2007. I get to the store and ask my favorite dealer ( yes I said dealer, golfing is my drug and GolfTown in my dealer ) to help me select the right driver for my swing.

We head through the isles of 2007 model drivers grabbing all kinds of them. I am choosing 2007 models as they retail for around $200 instead of paying over $400 for this years model. Well after a few minutes of feeling like a kid in a candy store we head over to the launch monitor with 6 drivers in hand:

Callaway Big Bertha
Callaway X460
Cleveland HiBore S Flex
Cleveland HiBore R Flex
Cobra Speed 460
Used Titleist 905R

There was no Nike Sumo or Ping G5 in stock so I didn’t bother looking at them.

At the launch monitor.
I begin to swing away with the drivers getting into my groove and getting my average swing speed etc. With an average swing speed of 85MPH topping at 95MPH I decided that the R flex shaft was more consistent and matched to my average swing speed. Most of the drivers were giving me a ball speed of approx 128-130MPH with 3500RPM of spin on the ball. I was now ready to put these drivers through their paces.

Callaway: Both the X460 and the Big Bertha felt much like my current Adams RPM Redline driver with a big 460cc head in the traditional round Volkswagen on the end of a stick feel. Swing speed stayed the same but the consistency of my drives and distances was weak at best. I felt like I was watering the lawn when I look at all the launch paths. These clubs really did not do anything for my striking, when I did feel a miss hit the ball flight was way off center. I was also finding that the launch angle on these clubs was inconsistent for my swing and level of skill ranging from 9″ to 16″ and not really having many consistent drives.

Down to 4

Cleveland: Ok so all my irons are Cleveland TA7, My Wedges are Cleveland reg.588, My fairway wood is Cleveland Launcher steel head 17″ so why not try the Cleveland Driver and my sales guy recommended it so lets try them out. The head on this club is very different and felt smaller than the big head drivers. The design is very aerodynamic and pleasing to the eye. My launch angle was consistently hitting 14″ with 3500-3800 spin and more often than not the ball was in the fairway. I tested both the R flex and S flex shafts but quickly put the S flex away it was not as consistent for my swing as the R. Well this is a shocker I never thought about the HiBore as being in my dwindling list of possible drivers, guess I am a little brain washed by the media for golf.

Cobra Speed: Great reviews, wonderful ad campaign  and promises of longer straighter drives, I figured this was going to be a winner. I pick up the driver and OMG this is the weirdest feeling thing I have ever held. The head on the club is massive and somewhat flattened in comparison to the Callaway’s. Resembling something like a B2 Bomber I take a few swings. Ugh I feel like I can’t control the club head its massive, the sound is a dull thud and I feel totally uncomfortable swinging this mammoth. When I look at the launch monitor it says it all. Terrible across the board, in the NO WAY list you go. Sorry Cobra this is just not the driver for me.

Down to 2

Titelist 905r: This is another of the fat headed drivers that I am a little uncomfortable with but I swing it away anyway to compare with the HiBore R Flex. What a nice club to swing the 905r is, under normal swinging speeds the club is very similar to the HiBore in feel but at impact it still feels much like the Callaway’s and for my swing it does impede the follow through a little. With that said though I could be happy with this club.

Still at 2

Conclusion:
As most purchases do it came down to price, I know the 905r is a “better” driver with a “better” name but a used 905r was over $200 and the Cleveland HiBore Brand new was $188.00 and honestly felt better in my hands. I Grabbed the HiBore and heading to the till. After getting home and unwrapping my new driver I was itching to try it out on the course. I had also just bought my daughter a new set of clubs  so she itching to play as well. Of to the little nine hole course up the road we go  it has  2  par 4’s that  use driver on so why not.  Each of these par 4’s are 265 one is straight and one is uphill. It was a windy day so once the players ahead where on the green I figured I could hit as I have never driven onto the green there before (hit the fringe a few times) I swing a nice smooth average swing, I feel a slight bump as the club head touches the ground slightly but a solid contact and the ball is off. Well half way through the ball flight I am contemplating yelling FORE its climbing and heading right for the green. It was windy and colder and the ground was wet so the ball ended up landing 10 yards short of the green. Chip and Putt for Birdy. Similar experience on the next hole. I love this new Cleveland HiBore thanks Golf Town.

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Well as I began using the Windows Vista SP1 update and putting it through its paces on my laptop. Some major concerns have come up which have now caused me to uninstall the service pack and wait till Microsoft gets it right before I install it again.

Problems:

I predominantly use Firefox as my browser but after installing SP1 Firefox began hanging when loading pages, especially during tabbed browsing sessions. I tried to recreate this problem in IE7 but I could not recreate the problem. The router and modem are working fine and tested well on other computers in the network. After uninstalling add-ons and trying an upgrade to Beta 5 of firefox I still found the same problems occurring. Therefore I concluded that this is a conflict between Firefox and SP1, where does the blame lie? I would put the blame on Microsoft myself considering that Firefox was working fine before the update.

When shutting down the laptop the system would hang at “Shutting Down” at one point I left the system to see how long it would hang but after 45mins I decided it was time to hit the power button. After fixing some registry entries the main one being this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control] On the right panel look for the “WaitToKillServiceTimeout” string and change it value to 5000 by right clicking the string and selecting Modify…

Default Value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=20000

Modified value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=5000

This sped up the shutdown time a little but it would still hang on some shutdowns. With these to issues I have had enough of SP1, a service pack is supposed to enhance the usability of a system not cripple regularly used programs. At this time I am going to wait until the update is available through windows update. [NOTE] On my x64 VIsta system in the office I have not seen these problems, all though on that machine the update came through windows update. The x64 system is also a desktop and built with newer components.

Thats it for now, I patiently await a REAL service pack from Microsoft for Vista.

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Well its here and ready to install, Windows Vista SP1. I grabbed the install from the downloads because its not available for Windows Update until April18, 2008.

The Review
This install took approximately a 1/2 Hr. and was uneventful, this installation was on my Fujitsu 6025 Lifebook. Reboot worked without out fail and there it was. Some of the first things that I noticed was that the delay in file transfer estimation was gone as I transferred some large files from one partition to another. The file transfer rate on the 5400RPM laptop drive was approx. 5-6MB/Sec but the update bar is more consistent than it is in the non SP1 setup.

When using FireFox and trying to open html links from within applications like Mail there is an error that pops up saying that the page cannot be found but then FireFox loads the page anyway. It is more of a minor inconvenience than a major problem. There is a driver compatibility problem with SP1 and the Fujitsu shock sensor. A quick check on the Fujitsu site netted me an updated driver that seems to be working properly.

I am still finding that the network detection tools are still weak, often when clicking network my router is not in the list so to log-in to the router I have to go in via http. Other times the router appears and the standard Right Click>View Device Web-page is available. Network access is quicker when navigating through shared folder on the XP machine in the network.

Display adapters
There was supposed to be fixes in this Service Pack for display adapters running multiple displays from a notebook. I have not yet seen the fix I was looking for, when I plug my plasma T.V. into the laptop via VGA I can use it as a second monitor but when I unplug it from the laptop the task/start menu bar goes invisible with a thin outline of where it is supposed to be. In order to get it back I have to stop the dwm.exe (Desktop Window Manager) from the task manager and let it restart the service for the start menu to appear again. Still no fix for this error in the new SP1.

So far I have seen one of the fixes that I was looking for in HDD file transfer and Network access but other than that there is not much of a change to the general functionality of Vista.

Well that is my first glance, I will make updates to the post as I delve into the update a little more.

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Yet again I logged into my blog admin to find another update is available for Wordpress. Usually these updates are just security fixes to the Wordpress code or fixes to remove vulnerabilities exploited by hackers hell bent on making out lives a hassle.

So I did the deed downloaded the update and installed it, first thought was hmmm its making Database changes. There must be some serious changes in the latest version. After a few seconds I was told that the database was upgraded and I could view the site. No changes to the site thank god, login into admin and WOW that is some major changes.

Wordpress has made a complete overhaul of the admin control panel and I have to say it is for the better. The sidebar editor is way easier to use than previous releases, the layout on the control panel is very web 2.0 looking and easier to read. Frequently used tabs are prevalent in the dashboard area ’settings Plugins Users’ are smaller links on the right side but always there for a quick click. The overall UI has been made extremely easy to navigate and is much more friendly than it was on the previous release. I also had no problems with my highly custom theme on this site.

The greatest add on for me in this version is the one click plugin updates no more downloading new plugin delete old install new rinse and repeat. With one click you can simply update whatever plugin has an updated version. This saves SOOOO much time when running mulitple blogs.

Overall I have to say GREAT JOB Wordpress 2.5 is an absolute mush have for anyone using an older version of this powerful blogging tool. Two thumbs up and keep up the great work!

Some of my other Reviews.
Esoteric Agenda Movie ( Government Conspiracy Theories )
Primeval Television series
Windows Vista x64
Webserve.ca web hosting review
Surface Season 2
Linksys NAS200 Network storage Drive

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