Oh the Irony!

Okay random reader, here’s the deal. I’ve sort of lost my taste for this blog. Unfortunately this last weekend she up and left me and my son. So the whole premise of this blog is kind of blown. I was really hoping to keep my blogging going, just not in this sort of context. I sort of think right now that this blog is one of those things that I want to shove in a drawer for a while and forget about like all those pictures and crap. Part of me wants to destroy it completely and take the whole thing down. Sort of like what I did when I rearranged the furnature in the bedroom and in the sunroom. I really need to move on and my best method is to pack up all the memories and put them away for awhile while I start picking up the pieces and filling in the gaps.

So basically I just can’t bring myself to be able to add to a blog where I’d have to scroll through pages of memories I want to keep locked up right now. So I’ve come to the decision of starting a new blog. I haven’t thought it completely out yet but I’ll keep this one around for awhile and post the new one when I’ve officially created it. I’m still in sort of a mourning period so I’m not feeling all that creative lately but I’ll come around eventually. Especially when I reveal my deep dark secret… dumb… dumb… dumb….

I’ll give you a hint… “3.0″ That’s the only hint. Maybe by the time I get around to writing about it it will be obsolete. Oh well. I’ll just have to plunk down another $10 and upgrade to the next and write about that. I guess we’ll see. And just remember one thing… don’t get married at 20.

What’s that Apple? You’re 15 minutes are up?

Okay. Not that I’m a big Palm guy or anything. In fact, I hate Palm. I’ve always hated Palm. I’ve always thought they were clunky and ugly. Especially since they were all monochrome at the time. I sorta put them into that category with pocket organizers that were all the rage in the mid 90’s. And by all the rage I mean totally sucked and took more time to use than was worth it. But then, this isn’t about me.

It seems that Apple might have been mismatched with service partner AT&T. Now I’ve always thought that AT&T did a pretty decent job with my home phone and my Internet service (Yes I’m a DSL holdout.) Apparently they don’t do such a fine job with their cellular service. I for one was starting to become a fan of the iPhone and all those wonderful Apps available for it. But I do have an generation 2 iPod Touch which runs all those same apps over wifi which I have. 

When I was on vacation last week I met my friend and a bunch of his IT work friends. They all had smart-phones. What was their phone of choice? A Treo. Oh yes. The Treo is not dead. Sure there were a couple iPhones in the group. However there was some buyer’s remorse. Not over the phone itself. No, over the lousy service and customer support they were getting from their carrier. The only carrier that supports the iPhone.

It seems like more and more people I talk to are shying away from Apple’s phone and finding alternatives for their application needs. Included in this was a netbook running linux that couple emulate Palm OS. People are getting creative and alternatives are getting better.  Apple’s proved our need for handheld gimmicks that are actually useful and now Palm thinks they have one that truly works. Though I’m a bit late in saying this. Let the showdown begin.

Yo Della! The softer side of Dell.

Okay, I’m not Dell’s biggest fan. I do have to admit that they have some definate Pro’s on the Pro’s/Cons List. For one, their machines are geared for very middle of the road users. That includes the business segment as well. They have nice asthetic value as well as decent performance and functionality. Not that I would ever be caught dead buying one, but I have been known from time to time to acquire a used one and find some purpose for it. Also, I still have a Dell DJ/Jukebox MP3 player that holds 20GB of my MP3’s. If only I had that many. Even that is sleek looking and quite durable. Too bad they don’t make those anymore.

Any-who… Despite my meaningless ramblings, I actually wanted to talk about a new Dell marketing ploy that my wife pointed out to me. She caught wind of it via this MSN Article. This article claims that Dell’s new Della product page is sexist and stereotypes women. I for one beg to differ. Here is a direct quote from Suzanne Choney, the articles author;

“Want to market netbooks as a fashion statement? Fine. Just don’t create a silo for women in a Web site like Della, that depicts females as poolside-lounging, latte-sipping ladies with little else to do than decide how to match their outfits to a computer.”

Granted that not all women are buying their computers as fashion statements, but having worked in retail computer sales myself, I can vouch for Dell on this one. Surely not all women are going to find this site appealing or the software suites available on this computer as useful as Dell makes them out to be. However, Dell never states any of this. They have simply discovered a customer base out there of young, fashion conscious women who care about their health and are tired of having the usual options of Black or White for their computer colors. While I’m not trying to be sexist myself, I have to say that in my experience, women don’t care about all of the tech features available in a particular computer. They are more conscious of how that computer can benefit their needs and they want it to be visually appealing as well. It’s the same sort of reasoning as to why my wife had the final decisions on what colors to paint our house. Did I really care that my kitchen had flowery wall paper in it when we bought the place? Not so much. Did my wife… oh yeah! She hated it and she would be incredibly difficult to live with if I hadn’t allowed her to make the kitchen visually appealing to her.

So all I can say to Suzanne is lighten the F$#@ up. As I would say with any other product or marketing campaign out there, if you don’t like it, don’t freaking buy it. Don’t try to spoil it for everyone else because you have hang ups with the way it’s being presented. There are probably plenty of girlie girls out there that are plenty interested in having a fashionable yet useful Net-book or Laptop. It’s the same reason why we accessorize everything else in our lives, especially girly girls. To visually express ourselves. My wife buys an iPod and what’s the next thing she buys? A fashionable carrying case for it. If there wasn’t some kind of evidence that there were women out there interested in this very sort of site (Della) Dell wouldn’t have put it out there. Just like I would suspect there aren’t a whole lot of girlie girls out there who would casually browse and shop the very utilitarian and man orientated site Newegg as me and my male tech geek friends do. So Miss Choney, get over yourself and let girls be girls and get off Dell’s back for trying to relate to them to market what I feel is a decent product. My own wife has expressed interested in acquiring a Net-book for the same purposes that Dell is marketing them for. And I know for sure that if she were to acquire one she would be thrilled if it were accessorised to her liking. Nough said.

I finally got it! Well… Almost.

Just a quick post to exclaim my excitement over the fact that I finally coughed up the dough and ordered an AMD Phenom II 940. No more messing around. This is the best proc AMD has to offer end users like me. Four cores times 3.0GHz! I couldn’t turn down the killer deal that Newegg was offering and I didn’t want to miss out. I picked it up for $189.99 shipped! Just a couple months ago these were listed for $220 + shipping. Not a bad discount. Thank you once again Newegg for helping me afford my habit!

Still Lovin It!

After two months of use I’m still loving it. Infact I am loving it more than I ever loved Windows XP (Blasphemy!). Infact I’m so used to everything Vista that now when I am at work and trying to explain something to someone, I have to stop and think oh wait, their still in XP. As far as my experience with Operating Systems goes, or software in general, Vista Ultimate is the cats meow.

So yeah, my performance rating isn’t the highest it could be, but that’s because my processor only scored a 5.3. I got 5.9’s on everything else. I am running fairly beefy system which helps. My only critism is that things seem to take just a bit longer to execute games for instance taking a full minute to load. Though I have noticed that this only seems to happen with a certain type of game. Some of them still load almost instantly. Also I’ve noticed some hesitation pulling up file structures and browsing folders. It seems to take longer for the file indexing service to process these activities.

Other than that, the interface is gorgeous and almost completely customizable. I love that you can finally set your start bar to match your background or make it translucent. On top of that, the new search engine is amazing. Sometimes, it late at night, or I’m in a hurry and I just have a hell of a time tracking down a program in my start menu. With the new search engine, all you have to do is hit the windows key and start typing the name of the program and it finds it for you. If you’re close enough to the name all you have to do is hit enter and it will open right there. You can do that for any program or file on the computer. Ever try to find a picture to show someone and gotten stuck digging through folder after folder trying to remember how you categorized it? Now all you gotta do is type in what you named it and bam it’s there! SO much nicer than the old XP search that would take minutes to dig through 300 possibilities.

Also, my next favorite feature… the mouse over preview windows. They allow the program to run in the preview window. So if you’re playing WoW or Secondlife and you need to check out a web page real quick, you can keep track of your activities just by mousing over the program on your start bar. It works awesome if you have a bunch of program windows open and want to quickly bounce from one to the other.

Also Alt+Tab has a new look. It also shows your programs in a preview window so you can Alt+Tab much more precisely to the right window. And now, even cooler if your PC can handle it, the Windows+Tab key brings up the Aero 3D program browser. Thus allowing you to see all of your programs running three dimensional stacked view where you can either cycle through them by continuing to hold the Windows key and tapping the Tab key or by clicking on which one you want with your mouse. It’s very much a frill feature where you don’t really use it unless you think about it but it’s pretty cool so you’ll try to find a way to work it in.

3D gaming performance is the bees knees with DirectX10.1. Of course my video card is what really makes this possible but you miss out on a lot of effects and detail without it. 16X AA shows you the game the way it was meant to be played. Fire looks and burns like fire instead of an under detailed orange blob. It totally made paying $250 for a video card worth it.

So I guess that’s pretty much my review of Vista. Everything I ran in Windows XP still runs in Vista. My printer prints fine, all my devices are reconized. Everything I have needed thus far has been Vista compatible. Even for my 64Bit version which requires 64bit drivers for everything.

So I give Vista Ultimate very high marks. I definately feel that it was a worthwhile platform and I hope they continue to support it after Windows 7 releases. I’ve heard Windows 7 is really just a new spin on Vista and not actually a new OS so why not be able to support both? I wonder if that means Windows 7 is going to turn out to be another Windows ME. I guess we’ll see. I’ve hedged my bet.

All Hail Windows XP!

Isn’t Windows XP great? Not that I am trying to say anything against Windows Vista. Windows Vista is a great new product with a lot of cool features. Well, if you buy the right version anyway. Windows XP also requires that you have the professional edition for it to be fully functional, but lets assume that you know this already.

Why does Windows XP rock? Here’s my thought on it. Earlier today I was working on a pair of computers for a customer of mine. Both of these computers were purchased brand new with P4 2.0Ghz and 512MB of ram with Riva TNT 2 64MB models. That alone dates the hard back to the year 2002 at best. I remember running a TNT 2 back in 2000. But I don’t recall exactly when P4’s debuted. I’m thinking it was 2001 or 2002. What else can be dated back to 2001? Windows XP. That’s right. And I’ve been running Windows XP Pro since the month it debuted. I wish I could say the day but it was shipped and you have to account for that time frame.

So my point is that this month Windows XP is 7 years old. 7 years is 2 and a half lifetimes for a computer. It’s probably 14 generations of computer hardware. Think of where mainstream computing has gone in the last 7 years. The progression of technology since 2001 has been absolutely astounding. We went from Pentium 3’s and AMD Athlons in a slot form running at 1GHz tops to socketed Quad Core processors running up to 3.0GHz per core. That’s almost 12GHz of processing power compared to 1GHz. Ram capacity has gone from 1 to 2GB tops to 16 – 128GB tops. Video processors have gone from a few hundred megahertz to a few gigahertz with amounts of ram that were considered highend in computers of the 01′ era. 

The point of all this? What has seen it all and run it all? Windows XP. Windows XP continues to be the operating system of choice in the business world. Why? Because it’s stable and it’s proven itself. I think many people forget that the only reason it’s been so successful is because it’s use was practically forced on us and people were forced to make it work. For some reason people don’t want to go through that process again with Vista. Personally I’d love to purchase a copy of Vista and upgrade if I had the funds.

However, since I don’t, and I’m stuck with XP, like the old song says “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with.” Actually it’s more than that for me. I am just astonished at how well XP is holding up for new technologies and how it will continue to grow and encompass tech that hasn’t even come out yet. What other software do you own that is 7 years old that you still use every single day? I can’t name a single one. That my friends, is why Windows XP rocks.

Rocking Out!

So my parents came out here to visit us during the week of Memorial Day this year. My birthday happens to be May 29th. That means some years it is on Memorial Day. This year it was not but it did occur during the week that my parents were here.

For my birthday this year, aside from taking my wife and I out to dinner, my parents took me to Best Buy and allowed me to pick out my own present. Talk about tough decisions. The process was actually completely miserable for me. How do you pick out only one thing at Best Buy? It was like nearly impossible for me to decide. I dragged my wife around the entire store and literally looked at everything. Obviously my parents aren’t rich so the price limit on my gift was reasonable, but harder yet it wasn’t a set limit. After an hour of picking through the entire store and eyeballing several reasonable things, I finally landed in the Wii section.

By this time my wife and I were starving. It was 7:30pm and neither of us had eatten lunch or much of anything that day. We were expecting this to be a quick trip and to head straight out to our selected restuarant. Finally, with a wife about to kill me, a rumbling and painfully empty stomach, I settled on Guitar Hero 3. I know what your thinking. Finally. No I didn’t already have it yet. $90 is a lot for me to spend on one Wii game out of my own budget. As a gift it was definately looking a lot more reasonable.

So to bring a getting very long story to a quicker ending, I’ll just menion that I’ve played Guitar Hero 2 at a friends house on a PS2 only once before. It was a lot of fun. Little did I realize just how much fun it could be the second, third, fourth, etc time on. That game has gotten a lot of play around here. My wife was the first to finish it on easy mode. But only because I did the last guitar battle for her when she paused it to answer the phone. I finished it shortly thereafter but I set for myself a much more complicated goal of achieving 5 stars in every single song on easy before I move on to medium. I’ve actually gotten pretty decent at it in easy mode. I am only two songs short of my goal.

Overall I give this game a 10. 10 what? I don’t know. I don’t really have a numbered rating system. The only thing I can really say about it is that I made the right choice. A birthday present is supposed to be something special that you enjoy. Well that can surely be said about Guitar Hero 3. Any game that gets my wife to play the Wii is definately a winner. Also it’s just highly addictive to sit there through some of your favorite classic songs and feel like you are a part of them. Also it’s a lot of fun to get exposure to a lot of songs that maybe you’ve never heard before. They are all classics by their own rights, some newer than others.

Bottom line, if you like listening to music this game is for you. If you like feeling like a part of the game physically, this game is for you. For absolute beginners, don’t expect to finish your first few songs. It takes a bit of getting used to. Once you are used to it you will strive to get better. That’s what makes this game so strong. With plenty upon plenty of unlockables you have plenty of motivation to play every single song as well as advance through the different difficulty levels so that you can earn more money and either unlock items by purchasing them or by discovering them.

My opinion is that everyone with a Wii should have this game. Just beware. I have lost two entire weekends to this game. Well, not quite that bad, you can pause it and come back to it just as easily as any other game out there. So definately, if you haven’t picked it up yet, stop by the demo station at just about any store that sells video games and pick up that guitar. It doesn’t matter which system you demo it on cause the controls are all the same for either of the consoles though the Wii version incorporates motion for activating your star power. Once again, a definate must have title. Just make sure you have plenty of time to play and rest your fingers often. They will get fatigued.

 

 

Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2: Performance vs Fanboyism…

I was offended the other day when a friend of mine built a new computer using an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. He called me a fan boy. After watching him stomp me in benchmark after benchmark and watching his games load and run faster and better (higher settings etc…) I realized that he was right. I am a fan boy.

AMD – I LOVE YOU!!!

 Okay, now that I’ve got that out of the way here’s the deal. Yes his Intel C2D E6600 stomped all over my AMD X2 4400 in super pi mod… But does that make his similarly clocked processor necessarily better than mine? I would have to say yes. Does that mean I should dump my love for AMD and go out and buy an Intel mainboard and Core 2 Duo? Maybe… but I couldn’t afford it right now if I wanted to. The answer I gave to him was… “I’m not a fanboy… I just wait for AMD to build a better chip that Intel’s offerings and I buy that.” Sure, in the meantime I am a bit slower. Does that really make a lot of difference for the moment? Not really.

More Wii

Okay okay… it’s not a PC but it’s very PC like isn’t it? I mean it has built-in wireless and a web browser. Actually I am posting this to rave about the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Yes, now I have had a fair chance to play it and I have to say it is amazing. The first hour or so is basic tutorial stuff; walking around, practice weapons, control learning… and even that basic stuff is fun to get into. After that it rocks the shazbott completely.

 Now bear with me. I’m not all the way through it yet. I took a long break and rented a couple other games to check those out and actually sat down at my computer for awhile for a few days. But I must say this game looks amazing, feels amazing, and plays amazingly… I am looking forward to sitting down and finishing it out. I never knew Nintendo had a masterpiece in them like this but man they really pulled it off. For alittle perspective… between December of 06 and May of 07 Game Informer Magazine rated only one game with a perfect score of 10 out of 10… I’m sure you can guess…