I’ve been running Windows Vista Beta 1 under Parallels on my Mac. Works great, and I was planning to buy Vista when it came out. But today, Vista B1 suddenly stopped working. I can boot in non-network Safe Mode, but not in Normal Mode and not in Safe Mode if networking is enabled.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but is it merely a coincidence that this happened on the day Vista (retail) was officially released? Could the system be hanging during a phone-home event, and without notice? (The boot screen just freezes at about the point the splash screen would normally appear.) Would Microsoft disable beta copies without notice and with no diagnostic messages on the day the final version shipped (ie, with no grace period)? I find it hard to believe they’d do something like that, but then what else explains this problem?

Update: 24 hours later, Vista now boots and runs under Parallels as before.

Paul Figgiani just posted an interview I did with Bruce Sharpe, the genius behind The Levelator, over on the Podcast Academy channel. If you want to know about the history of The Levelator, how it really works or how best to use it, listen in.

Now that the new edition of The Levelator has been released — you *did* download your free copy, didn’t you? — the GigaVox Media team is hard at work on the next free software for podcasters and we need your help.

We’ve just posted a (new) very short survey, and your answers will have a significant impact on our future development direction. This is a not a repeat of the survey we posted in November. This one is all new, so please complete it even if you helped us out before. It will take less than a minute. Promise!

Rob Walsh has posted an audio interview he did with me and my co-founder and CEO, Michael Geoghegan. It’s about The Levelator and much more.