Vote for Hillary!
Plus, as an added bonus we get Bill back! Woot!
Hillary for President and Bill for First Lady
Vote for Hillary!
Plus, as an added bonus we get Bill back! Woot!
Microsoft Zune 30 gig
Well Microsoft missed reading a study from the 70s that indicated that BROWN and GREEN were the two most negative colors for consumers.
So, as Microsoft evidently has a lot of unsold BROWN Zunes, they were on sale on Black Friday for as low as $79, which you have to admit is a pretty good deal. In their infinite wisdom, Microsoft is going to replace the BROWN Zunes with GREEN ones. Doh!
Like when you are working out or whatever, who cares what color your Zune, iPod or any other MP3 player is? Really! Although we have every single model of iPod here at home, I bought one of the brown Zunes to see how it compared to the iPod.
Well the Zune software is different to say the least. In some areas it's easier to use in others it's not. It is definitely flashier than the iTunes software, but it also offers fewer songs in its marketplace.
The Zune is ok if it is your first MP3 player or if like me you have used others over the years and just want to check it out from a technical standpoint.
January 2008: After owning the Zune for a while, I think one of its most outstanding features is the built-in FM radio for those of us who lack massive MP3 collections of music. The worst feature is the PC software for the Zune. Apple's iTunes software simply is superior to the Zune software and I don't find iTunes that intuitive to begin with....
So, as Microsoft evidently has a lot of unsold BROWN Zunes, they were on sale on Black Friday for as low as $79, which you have to admit is a pretty good deal. In their infinite wisdom, Microsoft is going to replace the BROWN Zunes with GREEN ones. Doh!
Like when you are working out or whatever, who cares what color your Zune, iPod or any other MP3 player is? Really! Although we have every single model of iPod here at home, I bought one of the brown Zunes to see how it compared to the iPod.
Well the Zune software is different to say the least. In some areas it's easier to use in others it's not. It is definitely flashier than the iTunes software, but it also offers fewer songs in its marketplace.
The Zune is ok if it is your first MP3 player or if like me you have used others over the years and just want to check it out from a technical standpoint.
January 2008: After owning the Zune for a while, I think one of its most outstanding features is the built-in FM radio for those of us who lack massive MP3 collections of music. The worst feature is the PC software for the Zune. Apple's iTunes software simply is superior to the Zune software and I don't find iTunes that intuitive to begin with....
Toshiba HD-A3 DVD player
As one of the bits of Black Friday swag, my daughter got a Toshiba HD-A3 DVD player from Amazon.com for $175. While we don't have actual HD programming via satellite or cable yet, playing an HD DVD was STUNNING to say the least! In the box was 300 and The Bourne Identity. If you purchase an HD DVD player, go to www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com where you can print a page that entitles you to five free HDs.
Even watching non-HD DVDs was a whole new experience as "up-verting" by the Toshiba was absolutely amazing!
Hey! I'm not anti-Blu-Ray, but Blu-Ray DVD players are still much higher in price than the HD players. I could see ending up with both formats until the high definition DVD war has a winner.
In the meantime, if you find a reasonably priced HD DVD player, buy one!
By the way, use HDMI cables to connect your HD player to your HD TV, and buy the cables off of the Internet for $5 or more instead of purchasing HDMI cables at Best Buy, Fry's or Circuit City for outrageous amounts like $50 or higher. There's only two states with an HDMI cable: It works or it doesn't work. End of story!
Even watching non-HD DVDs was a whole new experience as "up-verting" by the Toshiba was absolutely amazing!
Hey! I'm not anti-Blu-Ray, but Blu-Ray DVD players are still much higher in price than the HD players. I could see ending up with both formats until the high definition DVD war has a winner.
In the meantime, if you find a reasonably priced HD DVD player, buy one!
By the way, use HDMI cables to connect your HD player to your HD TV, and buy the cables off of the Internet for $5 or more instead of purchasing HDMI cables at Best Buy, Fry's or Circuit City for outrageous amounts like $50 or higher. There's only two states with an HDMI cable: It works or it doesn't work. End of story!
Don't give to the Salvation Army this holiday season
This religious organization spends more than $300 MILLION on "Administrative Costs" in the US alone. Kind of makes one wonder what high level quality of life is being financed for the leaders of this organization by your donations.
No need to discuss their dogma of being anti-homosexual or encouraging the breeding of large families. Maybe they can out breed the Mormons and Catholics.
I'd rather hand my charitible donations directly to a homeless person or to a locally managed shelter or hospice.
Avoid charities and religious groups this holiday season that have massive administration overheads or that just don't actually move their cause forward.
No need to discuss their dogma of being anti-homosexual or encouraging the breeding of large families. Maybe they can out breed the Mormons and Catholics.
I'd rather hand my charitible donations directly to a homeless person or to a locally managed shelter or hospice.
Avoid charities and religious groups this holiday season that have massive administration overheads or that just don't actually move their cause forward.
Vista Service Pack Release Candidate 1 is OK
The ONE thing that makes the first of what I expect will be many, service packs for Windows Vista is that for us unfortunate users (retail beta testers?) of Vista Ultimate is that now one's Internet connection is established immediately instead of five minutes after Vista Ultimate has booted up.
Performance? HA! My startup time is SLOWER now, but I'm confident that Microsoft will label that as being "more secure" by using some new mystery code that we don't see while the PC boots up.
Performance? HA! My startup time is SLOWER now, but I'm confident that Microsoft will label that as being "more secure" by using some new mystery code that we don't see while the PC boots up.
Windows Live OneCare failure
Well, Windows Live OneCare is finally off of the last system in my home. My wife had been using it under Windows XP. Recently OneCare downloaded an "update" that made it totally unuseable. Using Microsoft's OneCare repair tools (kind of says something about the product when they have repair tools, eh?) and doing a total uninstall and reinstall could not get OneCare back in operation.
So, I installed Symantec's Norton 360, which offers everything that OneCare does. Norton 360 also has many additional features over and above OneCare, such as regularly tuning up your PC.
I use Norton 360 on three of my PCs and find it to be an excellent for securing and protecting your PC, especially if you are a heavy Internet user.
So, I installed Symantec's Norton 360, which offers everything that OneCare does. Norton 360 also has many additional features over and above OneCare, such as regularly tuning up your PC.
I use Norton 360 on three of my PCs and find it to be an excellent for securing and protecting your PC, especially if you are a heavy Internet user.
Windows Live Messenger is risky to use
I logged in to Windows Live Messenger this morning to find that all of the people on my Coworkers group (a group that is built into Windows Live Messenger) had disappeared!
At first I thought possibly that I had been fired, but fortunately that is not the case.
Microsoft simply lost all of my data. This shouldn't surprise me because as I contractor I had to reconstruct all of the MSN internal InfoPath help desk forms from screen shots because they somehow managed to lose that data.
The lesson learned here is to keep a seperate copy of all your IM contacts on your local PC. You will need that list if Microsoft loses your IM data, as Microsoft obviously has lost for me.
At first I thought possibly that I had been fired, but fortunately that is not the case.
Microsoft simply lost all of my data. This shouldn't surprise me because as I contractor I had to reconstruct all of the MSN internal InfoPath help desk forms from screen shots because they somehow managed to lose that data.
The lesson learned here is to keep a seperate copy of all your IM contacts on your local PC. You will need that list if Microsoft loses your IM data, as Microsoft obviously has lost for me.
Best HD TVs as of October 2007
The Panasonic 42” Plasma HDTV (Model number is TH-42PX75U) is currently the best 720p on the market.
The best 1080p HDTV out there is the Westinghouse LVM-42w2. This is a true 1080p that has beaten out Sony and JVC in testing.
The best 1080p HDTV out there is the Westinghouse LVM-42w2. This is a true 1080p that has beaten out Sony and JVC in testing.
HP Pavilion a6152n
Currently the best priced desktop with a Quad Core processor. Amazon, Fry's, Circuit City and many other retailers sell this PC for $800-$1000. It uses an ASUS IPIBL-LA motherboard. Comes with 3GB of RAM (2 1GB and 2 512MB. 32 bit OS like Windows XP and Vista don't recognize RAM beyond 3 GB so this is optimal unless you "upgrade" to a 64 bit version of Windows, and if you do that, all I can say is good luck finding device drivers!)
I got one awhile back, and while the LightScribe/Roxio software won't burn a LightScribe label, everything else works fine and it's good PC. I did stick an EVGA DX10 compatible PCI-E board and a wireless-n board in it as well.
It also has an HP Pocket Media Drive bay, but as I already carry around a pocket USB drive, I haven't used that feature yet. No need to buy another drive at this time point anyway.
I got one awhile back, and while the LightScribe/Roxio software won't burn a LightScribe label, everything else works fine and it's good PC. I did stick an EVGA DX10 compatible PCI-E board and a wireless-n board in it as well.
It also has an HP Pocket Media Drive bay, but as I already carry around a pocket USB drive, I haven't used that feature yet. No need to buy another drive at this time point anyway.
Vista Ultimate versus Vista Business versus Vista Home Premium
OK, go for the weirdest situation created by Microsoft to date.
Vista Business (installed on one of my notebooks) works fairly normal. I installed it for the scanning and fax capability that comes with Vista Business. The Microsoft scanning software won't work with my older scanner, but that's OK, as the old scanner software will allow me to scan documents onto my notebook. The only good news here is that the Microsoft Fax software does function. God only knows what scanners will work with the Microsoft Scan software.
I recently bought an HP (made by Asus!) Pavilion with a Quad Core processor. The PC came with Vista Home Premium installed. This version of Vista worked pretty well. I had also recently "upgraded" my daughter's PC from Vista Home Basic to Vista Home Premium. Basically Home Premium seems to work much better than Home Basic.
Now I recently had to "upgrade" my new PC to Vista Ultimate in order to run Virtual PC 2007 for my work. Talk about a step backwards! As opposed to Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate takes several minutes after booting up the PC to connect to the Internet. Very annoying. In addition, Ultimate forced me to create a static IP address for this PC as it couldn't seem to handle accepting or working with an automatic IP address from the router. Oddly enough, Vista Home Premium had no problem connecting to the Internet instantly and receiving an automatic IP address.
As one wag put it, "Windows Vista users are the largest beta testing group in the world."
Vista Business (installed on one of my notebooks) works fairly normal. I installed it for the scanning and fax capability that comes with Vista Business. The Microsoft scanning software won't work with my older scanner, but that's OK, as the old scanner software will allow me to scan documents onto my notebook. The only good news here is that the Microsoft Fax software does function. God only knows what scanners will work with the Microsoft Scan software.
I recently bought an HP (made by Asus!) Pavilion with a Quad Core processor. The PC came with Vista Home Premium installed. This version of Vista worked pretty well. I had also recently "upgraded" my daughter's PC from Vista Home Basic to Vista Home Premium. Basically Home Premium seems to work much better than Home Basic.
Now I recently had to "upgrade" my new PC to Vista Ultimate in order to run Virtual PC 2007 for my work. Talk about a step backwards! As opposed to Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate takes several minutes after booting up the PC to connect to the Internet. Very annoying. In addition, Ultimate forced me to create a static IP address for this PC as it couldn't seem to handle accepting or working with an automatic IP address from the router. Oddly enough, Vista Home Premium had no problem connecting to the Internet instantly and receiving an automatic IP address.
As one wag put it, "Windows Vista users are the largest beta testing group in the world."
Windows Live OneCare is the spawn of Satan!
One has to wonder if the people behind Windows Live OneCare even have any computer programming experience!
Amongst the many stupid things committed by Windows Live OneCare are:
1. Automatically downloading Internet Explorer 7 onto a notebook that already had IE 7 on it, thus corrupting the registry and knocking the browser back to IE 6! This cannot be undone, believe me!
2. Randomly shutting down Windows Vista to install updates without any warning.
3. After practically any update, Windows Mobile Center is knocked out, thus requiring that one totally reinstall the Windows Mobile Center configuration with the Windows Firewall.
Well, there's more but those are just the high points of this crappy program.
Amongst the many stupid things committed by Windows Live OneCare are:
1. Automatically downloading Internet Explorer 7 onto a notebook that already had IE 7 on it, thus corrupting the registry and knocking the browser back to IE 6! This cannot be undone, believe me!
2. Randomly shutting down Windows Vista to install updates without any warning.
3. After practically any update, Windows Mobile Center is knocked out, thus requiring that one totally reinstall the Windows Mobile Center configuration with the Windows Firewall.
Well, there's more but those are just the high points of this crappy program.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie
Absolutely the worst Harry Potter film to date!
Yes it is as true to the book as filming time could allow
(Running time is 2 hours and 15 minutes)
but it is Very S-L-O-W and BORING!
Wait for it to come out on DVD.
Yes it is as true to the book as filming time could allow
(Running time is 2 hours and 15 minutes)
but it is Very S-L-O-W and BORING!
Wait for it to come out on DVD.
Sicko
Michael Moore's new film, Sicko is his best work to date.
It is an incredible film and every American should see it.
Now I want to move to France, Canada or the UK! (You'll understand after you see the film.)
It is an incredible film and every American should see it.
Now I want to move to France, Canada or the UK! (You'll understand after you see the film.)
Vista reboots without warning
At least once a month on my PC, Vista will reboot without warning!
No dialog box, no warning box, just all of a sudden everything begins to shut down and then Vista reboots. A search on Google and Microsoft's site has turned up nothing that discusses or addresses this behavior.
I could attribute this behavior to Windows Update which as a rule updates on Tuesdays, but today is Saturday, it is 8 in the morning and once again Vista did an auto reboot.
Even stranger is that I had been working on the PC for at least 30 minutes.
Well once again this just serves as an example of the lack of thoughtful design and professional programming practices that should have been in Vista, especially after 7 years of development.
No dialog box, no warning box, just all of a sudden everything begins to shut down and then Vista reboots. A search on Google and Microsoft's site has turned up nothing that discusses or addresses this behavior.
I could attribute this behavior to Windows Update which as a rule updates on Tuesdays, but today is Saturday, it is 8 in the morning and once again Vista did an auto reboot.
Even stranger is that I had been working on the PC for at least 30 minutes.
Well once again this just serves as an example of the lack of thoughtful design and professional programming practices that should have been in Vista, especially after 7 years of development.
BlogHer 2007
COST:
$205.93 for two days of networking with other women bloggers, etc.
LOCATION:
End of the Navy Pier, Chicago.
I may be attending, difficult to predict at this point.
$205.93 for two days of networking with other women bloggers, etc.
LOCATION:
End of the Navy Pier, Chicago.
I may be attending, difficult to predict at this point.
Window Vista and Bluetooth
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
As of this writing, there are NO (as in ZERO) Windows Vista certified Bluetooth products on the market.
I recently spent the day with a new USB Bluetooth adapter vainly attempting to get it to work with Vista. Hours later after much research it appears that Vista isn't very well behaved with Bluetooth.
I plugged the same USB Bluetooth adapter into an XP PC. Wham! Worked flawlessly!
So what else is broken in this shoddy OS? Did Microsoft outsource the entire Windows Vista project to a bunch of losers from India or what?
As of this writing, there are NO (as in ZERO) Windows Vista certified Bluetooth products on the market.
I recently spent the day with a new USB Bluetooth adapter vainly attempting to get it to work with Vista. Hours later after much research it appears that Vista isn't very well behaved with Bluetooth.
I plugged the same USB Bluetooth adapter into an XP PC. Wham! Worked flawlessly!
So what else is broken in this shoddy OS? Did Microsoft outsource the entire Windows Vista project to a bunch of losers from India or what?
Windows Vista - Wireless Issues
My daughter's Vista PC has a new Linksys adapter in it.
Recently her PC stopped connecting to the Internet!
It shows her as connected, but in reality (as opposed to the fantasy world of Windows Vista) she isn't connected.
We removed and reinstalled the drivers.
Ran a diagnostic on the network card.
Dropped the firewall and anti-virus on the off chance they impeded connectivity.
All the other PCs in the household connect without problem including the other PC that runs Vista.
The daughter wants me to remove Vista and install XP as she needs to be on the Internet.
Seems like a reasonable request to me as it becomes more and more obvious that Vista is the worst OS ever released by Microsoft.
Recently her PC stopped connecting to the Internet!
It shows her as connected, but in reality (as opposed to the fantasy world of Windows Vista) she isn't connected.
We removed and reinstalled the drivers.
Ran a diagnostic on the network card.
Dropped the firewall and anti-virus on the off chance they impeded connectivity.
All the other PCs in the household connect without problem including the other PC that runs Vista.
The daughter wants me to remove Vista and install XP as she needs to be on the Internet.
Seems like a reasonable request to me as it becomes more and more obvious that Vista is the worst OS ever released by Microsoft.
Hotel Internet issues
Man, it seems like every hotel in the US seems to be too cheap to upgrade their routers beyond the "b" standard to supporting "g" or even the "n" specification.
I recently stayed at a Microtel in Tampa which as usual had "b" and amazingly had a T1 line! This is a very small hotel with even fewer guests using the Internet. I gave the hotel manager who was quite interested a mini-speech on the advantage of upgrading to at least "g" and preferably "n". Come on, at least for small hotels, routers are cheap!
The nice thing at the Microtel was that you had wireless in your room, which unfortunately doesn't seem to work well in other hotels.
Currently I am in Chicago and while my hotel offers free wireless internet in the lobby, it is $10 a night in the room and to top it off it's wired in the room, not wireless. No biggie, as I always carry a network wire just for those odd occasions, but I can see if you weren't traveling alone where there could be an issue, as there is only the single Internet port in the room. Maybe people traveling as a couple might be wise to pack along a router just in case.
I sure wish more hotels would upgrade to at least "g" if not "n"!
I recently stayed at a Microtel in Tampa which as usual had "b" and amazingly had a T1 line! This is a very small hotel with even fewer guests using the Internet. I gave the hotel manager who was quite interested a mini-speech on the advantage of upgrading to at least "g" and preferably "n". Come on, at least for small hotels, routers are cheap!
The nice thing at the Microtel was that you had wireless in your room, which unfortunately doesn't seem to work well in other hotels.
Currently I am in Chicago and while my hotel offers free wireless internet in the lobby, it is $10 a night in the room and to top it off it's wired in the room, not wireless. No biggie, as I always carry a network wire just for those odd occasions, but I can see if you weren't traveling alone where there could be an issue, as there is only the single Internet port in the room. Maybe people traveling as a couple might be wise to pack along a router just in case.
I sure wish more hotels would upgrade to at least "g" if not "n"!
Windows Vista - Microphone
I foolishly attempted to try to use my microphone under Vista for the first time.
My microphone worked fine in the past with Windows XP.
No such luck with Vista. Checking the Creative site to see if there were new drivers for my SoundBlaster Live! sound card brought me the news that Creative would not be writing any Vista drivers for this older card.
So, I did a bit of research and bought a Creative Xtremegamer sound card.
The sound is much improved, but attempting to use the microphone (which took a lot of research and fooling around with to enable) is still a no go. At least I can see some movement on the audio bar while attempting to "train" the microphone, but it still isn't usable for gaming, Windows Speech Recognition, navigation or any other function.
Looks like my new research project is to find a decent microphone with some kind of a volume boost.
As usual there is NO HELP on the Microsoft site. Vista still sucks and it is not a product that Microsoft should be proud of.
My microphone worked fine in the past with Windows XP.
No such luck with Vista. Checking the Creative site to see if there were new drivers for my SoundBlaster Live! sound card brought me the news that Creative would not be writing any Vista drivers for this older card.
So, I did a bit of research and bought a Creative Xtremegamer sound card.
The sound is much improved, but attempting to use the microphone (which took a lot of research and fooling around with to enable) is still a no go. At least I can see some movement on the audio bar while attempting to "train" the microphone, but it still isn't usable for gaming, Windows Speech Recognition, navigation or any other function.
Looks like my new research project is to find a decent microphone with some kind of a volume boost.
As usual there is NO HELP on the Microsoft site. Vista still sucks and it is not a product that Microsoft should be proud of.
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