Has anyone out there tried the Flock browser yet?
Finally, after much mucking with driver files, I have both audio cards working in Linux! Yay!
Why do YOU use Windows? Let me know!
Can anyone give me suggestions on C/C++ programming books for beginners?
It’s funny, I wrote an article about Windows 7 about 2 weeks ago now, and reflecting upon the article, I really do think I may have been a little hasty with some of my criticism. I mean, considering that there were a seeming myriad updates in the first week alone, I was a little quick with the harsh hack-up of the poor OS: driver issues have been (for the most part) mended, stability problems have been mostly resolved, and the OS seems better with every consecutive update.
I decided to install Windows 7 as a guinea pig on my Aspire One so that I could give it a thorough test drive while out at the coffee shop, since that’s where I do most of my writing. To my pleasant surprise, most of the hardware in my system was immediately recognized and installed – the wifi adapter, the touch pad, the Bluetooth dongle I purchased this afternoon, as well as the mouse accompanying the Bluetooth adapter. A few devices remain flagged in Device Manager, but that’s a small shortcoming for an OS as early into its beta stages as Windows is.
There are a couple of neat new little tricks that Microsoft has added, such as a rather intelligently designed Start Menu, in which the context changes, depending on what is highlighted. In the picture, I’ve moused over the Writer application (which I’m testing for this blog post), and it reveals recent entries. Pretty neat, and Writer even integrates seamlessly with WordPress. I like that.
Another thing that impresses me greatly is the astounding performance I’m seeing. Even on a netbook like the Aspire One, Windows 7 takes up a modest 65% of my resources under typical load (MSN Messenger, Writer and Internet Explorer all running simultaneously). This is leaps and bounds ahead in the way of performance vs. Windows Vista, which I tried installing on my Aspire One, and was nothing short of an absolute debacle. The result was bloated, unresponsive, and on the whole, nigh on unusable. Windows 7 seems to have corrected that – despite a much more sophisticated looking interface in my opinion, it has also slimmed down resource consumption considerably, which leads me to believe that Windows 7 will be a viable option for the UMPC market in future.
Another thing that has really impressed me is the remarkably quick boot/shutdown time of the Windows 7 beta. Now, I understand that I don’t have the machine inundated with programs that sink their teeth into the Startup folder, Services list and registry as of yet, but the stock boot time of Windows 7 on my Aspire One is 35 seconds. That, to me, is remarkable on a machine with such limited processing power and resources. The whole “Windows 7 on netbooks” vision just may be something that Microsoft will make good on.
Sadly, my affair with Windows 7 hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. One recurring thing that really isn’t getting better with time is the increasingly imposing “I know better than you do” attitude of Windows. I can understand Microsoft’s attempt to move in the direction of user-friendly computing, but there are some things that I just really don’t need Windows’ help with, such as power management. I’ve yet to find a way in Windows 7 options, to allow Windows to simply run my battery into the ground. I gotta say, if it’s there, it’s completely unintuitive as to where it would be located. I couldn’t even find it in the advanced options. Instead, Windows tries to be helpful by automatically hibernating at 5% remaining battery life with the option of sleep mode instead. You have to pick one or the other, with no option of saying, “Hey, leave it alone.” Sometimes there’s help that you didn’t ask for, and you just don’t want.
Another thing noticeably absent from Windows 7 is Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker and Photo Gallery, which are now incorporated as part of the Windows Live suite of downloadable content. I’m not sure if this is because of the flurry of antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft for their questionable (and to some, objectionable) practice of bundling Internet Explorer and Outlook Express as somewhat mandatory staples in the Windows operating environment. I can’t really say I much agree with all of the criticism that Microsoft receives for doing so, since Apple has no problem bundling Safari and iTunes, and both KDE and GNOME come with Konqueror or Firefox as part of the stock OS.
I digress.
At any rate, it’s a welcome change to see some Windows software offered on an opt-in basis, with the option of not having it loaded at all. This is surely a benefit that I can foresee making many people who just want a bare-bones operating system that they can install their own software on very happy.
So, the morning iTunes 8 was made available, I picked it up to try out this new “Genius” that all my Mac-head friends were spouting on about, since WMP doesn’t have a “recommended” feature bundled with it.
Let me tell you, this “Genius” is a moron, whoever he is.
Real smart. Thanks a lot, "Genius".
Hopefully they fix this soon…or perhaps Apple is trying to swindle me out of purchasing tracks I already have? Who knows.
So, how do I feel after owning an iPhone for more than 24 hours? I love it even more than when I first got it. There’s a whole slue of awesome third-party apps available for it, it does everything I want it to and more, and all in all, is just a really cool device.
Now I just have to put the damn thing back into the box and wait another couple of weeks until my invisibleSHIELD comes in for it. Geez, how I hate waiting. It’s like knowing what your Christmas present is, but still having to wait until Christmas to get it.
This sucks. 
So, on a quasi-impulse purchase, I decided to pick myself up an iPhone. Between actually getting my hands on one for an extended period of time and news of their fixes in 2.0.2, that was the impetus I needed to buy one, and Rogers’ promotional plans ending this month were what pushed me to buy one, like, now.
So, what do I think?
Nothing short of fantastic.
Full of nifty features, easy to use, easy to type with (I’m writing this post on it now), and certainly easy on the eyes, the iPhone is about everything I was expecting, and more. Lots of really cool programs are available, either free or dirt cheap, and it’s an easy device to personalize, giving you the feeling that even though you’re now one of the thousands that own one, it’s one all your own.
The only thing I’m disappointed in is the lack of push e-mail functionality out-of-box. It’s nice that they at least give a selectable interval to check for new mail, but I don’t really want my phone wasting battery life on constantly polling my POP server for updates. It seems kinda silly to me, but it’s definitely something the BlackBerry does quite well in comparison. Hopefully this gets resolved in a future firmware update, lest I be forced to set up an Exchange server at home. Be damned if I’m paying $99/year for functionality that my BB gave me at no charge, other than a data plan.
All in all, a great choice for a phone for those that want a really good, media-centred phone to take the place of two or three devices that they’d otherwise be carrying around.
The camera’s the best I’ve had on a phone personally this far, too. It ain’t no N95, granted, but it certainly gets the job done. See affixed photos.
All in all, you get a killer audio/video player, great browser, and some really handy social networking functions (twitter, wordpress, and IM clients are readily available), and everything is quick and simple. I won’t waste too much time with any more details, as they’ll simply be a rehash of hundreds of other websites out there. Just take my word for it, it’s a great investment.
-jb
So, it looks like Comcast has finally been found to be ”secretly” (this has hardly been a secret, folks. People have known about this for months now.) cheating their customers out of bandwidth by throttling connections and sending termination packets for any P2P downloads that their subscribers have been receiving, be it legitimate traffic (ie. Linux and other OSS distros are largely distributed via decentralized sources such as BitTorrent anymore) or pirated traffic such as mp3’s, warez, etc. This has long been a thorn in the side of subscribers of any larger-sized ISP (Cogeco and Bell are large culprits in the area where I live). Good luck getting anything via BitTorrent if you’re under the draconian rule of one of these corporate conglomerates. I, for one, loathe it. I’ve been trying to download a legitimate file of about 5GB for over 2 weeks now, because my internet connection is nearly unusable as soon as I fire up uTorrent. Hell, I may as well just rename the uTorrent shortcut on my desktop to “Reduce my internet speed to 14.4! Please!”
copyright George Lucas, Fox Entertainment, and me for the witty bubble content.
It’s pretty damn frustrating, really…it all started when they changed “unlimited bandwidth” in my ISP’s TOS contract to “unlimited* bandwidth”…sure, to somebody who can’t count past 5, 10GB might as well be unlimited…but please, don’t try to insult my intelligence the way you are with this “10GB = unlimited” nonsense. I’m not falling for it.
You don't have to be Einstein to figure this one out.
All I know is that I hope this new development in the US makes its way across the northern border. Until then, please help the cause. There are several non-profit groups dedicated to fighting the web-based oppression that many ISPs nowadays are trying to impose upon us. One of the ones that I belong to can be found at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2257733303&ref=ts (for those of you on Facebook).
Cheers.
Umm, pretty self-explanitory.
Ballmer and Gates unveil a couple of quick snippets of Windows 7, including the new multi-touch interface. The demo itself looks a little reminiscent of an iPhone to me, but hey, that’s alright. Nothing wrong with emulating what another product has done right.
The only problem I’m having with all this hooplah is all the doublespeak going on. Either push Vista as a solid, long-term solution that’s here to stay for at least a few years – nobody’s expecting another 8 years out of this OS – or push Windows 7 as the new beginning. Either way, you can’t, in the course of a single interview, describe Vista as the greatest version of Windows yet, and go on to sing the praises of how Windows 7 will improve upon Vista’s shortcomings. Nobody is going to buy this “Vista is great! …but Windows 7 is…GREATER!” nonsense.
Microsoft has just looked lost to me as of late – their MSN model is quickly losing money, their failed attempt at a music store to compete with the likes of Amazon and iTunes, a much-hyped MP3/4 player that came out average at best, an absolutely astronomical (and nonsensical, IMO) bid - going nearly “all in” against Yahoo, and lost – not once, but twice – and they seem quite tongue-in-cheek about ever having had the notion that they’d be able to just buy Yahoo outright that easily.
Get it together guys, or the disparaging Mac vs. PC (read:Vista) commercials will be but the tip of the iceberg.
