Windows 8

So old Microsoft has given us a good look at the upcoming Windows 8. If your not the reading type of person you can check out a video!

So the start menu is now a full screen series of tiles including the "Windows App Store". Of course its all just in a full screen (I'm guessing DirectX) window that shows us web pages instead of real programs. Now I've worked in those retail stores what that sell the shitpile computers from HP and DELL and what not and I see a theme here. Take a look at some pics.

Now this here is a picture of the HP Touchsmart PC. Notice the big, full screen interface that takes over everything once Windows boots. From this interface you can look at pictures, brows the web and launch programs. Of course once your program launches it minimizes this interface and you get to see your typical Windows interface. Now look at 3:05 in the video. Exact same thing.

Now whats real interesting here is that picture is from a computer released in 2008. If you head to Best Buy today you will see HP Touchsmarts without that interface and in its place a handful of touch friendly applications. The big overbearing interface was not accepted by Windows users.

Now take a look at another one, this time from DELL:

This contraption is the DELL Duo. It's a not-quite-a-netbook-not-quite-a-tablet convertible thing. When you flip around the screen to "Tablet Mode" you get that bullshit interface you see in the pic. I can tell you I've never seen one in the wild, I've never sold one and the one time I saw someone express any interest in it they asked if the tablet interface could be turned off.

I've said for years that Windows is great. That if installed from the disc on a computer you built Windows installed on a machine with even mediocre specs will outshine high dollar HP and DELL machines because of all the bloated crap they insist on putting on it. Sadly it looks like crippling bloat will now be built into Windows.

I understand the desire to build a product that works on phone, tablet, laptop and desktop alike, but I'm not sure who told Microsoft that something like this is a good idea. Who decided that a desktop with icons and a menu full of the programs you have installed was to be removed?

Lemme tell ya,

Posting everyday is harder than I thought. I don't think I'm cut out for seven posts a week. Looking back I see just how poor a job I've done just in the name of posting once a day. Well I think I'm going to dial it back a bit. Two or three posts a week is so much more than I have ever done and I think that at that level I can at least use complete sentences when I write.

Now thats not to say I won't write a little something every day. I have that expensive Microsoft Office program I've got to use for something. Hopefully I can keep doing it. The more I write the better I'll get, or at least thats what people tell me. Of course the fact remains I've got nothing really to write about. Guess that can't be helped. You have to go looking for something to write about and I don't really do that.

Guess the best thing I can write about right now is this computer giving me problems. I don't know what happened but my download speeds sunk to worthless. Laptop worked fine, a handfull of antivirus scans couldn't see an issue. Everything was slow in safe mode, too. Figured it was hardware related but every test I could throw at it came back with no failures. I've re-installed Windows and seem to have fixed the problem. My guess is it must have something to do with screwing with settings. Just when I had finally got Apache working to let me play with PHP without renting server space.

Had the problems started right when I had started with the server setup I would have blamed it right away but that wasn't the case. I watched as cascading failures relating to internet connected programs fell on me like a heavy rain. Started with streaming video, moved to Ventrillo, slowed World of Warcraft to a crawl, screwed with Ventrillo again but in a different way, then back to streaming video.

Each step of the way I would uninstall and reinstall. Return settings to default. I even changed firewall settings to only allow three programs to access the internet! I just never could track down the problem. Oh well. Solved now. Damn computers are the becoming the cause of a lot of problems around here. Routers go bad, internet goes wonky, hell I even have a hard drive in a laptop I'm going to have to replace soon.

Well at least I seem to have got things back up and working. I even learned a little about Windows 7 installation in the process. After spending an awful long time backing up documents, pictures, movies and music I found that the reinstall process saves just about everything for you. I guess its not a great idea to count on it, but there it was in 'Windows.old'. May never have noticed if it hadn't been for all the space taken up on the dive.

Learn a little something new every day I guess. Good to know that even if shit really hits the fan there MAY be a little reprive from data loss.

This is a Pentium III

 

That is all.

Oh work...

How you suck.

To surmise: Work sucks.

That is all.

Best part about knowong a little bit about computers?

When your girlfriend's parents need help digging up a septic tank and need Windows reinstalled at the same time you don't have to dig ups septic tank.

Seven days, seven posts.

A week of this and I'm still going.  Now I know I'm only talking to myself and I'm ok with that.  I figure as long as I don't start to respond to myself I'm going to be all right.  And even if I do respond to myself I should be fine as long as I agree with me.  Nothing worse than the guy in the mirror telling you why you're wrong.

Hopefully these posts will get a little longer as time goes on.  For now this is it.  I figure when I have more of a pattern down of when to sit and type they should be a little longer, a little better written and much more thought out.  As it stands most of these were made from my phone while I was waiting for something else.  I'm getting better at phone typing though, that's a plus.

Friday

Zinger night.  don't know what a zinger is?  Then you are missing out.  Zingers are fried chicken strips from a local (well, regional now that they have been bought out by "the man") restaurant.  These strips of chicken are served in a number of ways.

By them selves you get a bowl of chicken in sauce.  Hot sauce, barbacue and so on.  Going into the next configuration is the zinger melt.   Take those same zingers, coat them a blend of various cheeses, melt the cheese and cover it with sour cream and ranch.

That brings us to the holy grail of junk food, the zinger mountain melt.  Zingers on a bed of loaded cheese fries.  Topped with cheese, bacon, scallions and a side of ranch to dip it all in.

Eating the whole thing guarantees a night of moaning "Uhhh, Too many zingers."

A day.

Thats about all I can think of there. I don't know what else to say about it. Went to work, stayed late, made other people's jobs harder. Mission complete.

Routers...

They suck. Lots of suck built into a such a little package. Had to reset the modem and the router and install and uninstall and reinstall and reset and AAGGHHH!

Of course I managed to miss blogging for a day because of it. Well I'm still gonna call this Wednesday's post though. I call technical difficulties and promise to post again.

But routers, man. The hell is up with this thing? I just have a hard time understanding why it took HOURS to get this to work. I've set up many routers in my day. It was never this difficult. Put in the disc, plug in the machine like the little picture shows, let it install its software... should be easy! But it's not. But I did manage to get it done with the help of a nice online chat guy and then a frustrated call to technical support. I don't understand what I did different when the lady on the phone was instructing me, but it works now.

Now I've got a laptop that can't find it's wireless adapter to try and connect to make sure it all the features work. Well thank god for them smart phones.

I'll be back later, hopefully less frustrated.

Thought I wasn't gonna post today, didn't ya?

Its much later than my usual posts.  Guess that's part of going to bed at a decent hour.  Well I'm still here to post keeping the streak alive.

Nothing much to say today.  Typical day at a typical job.  Did manage to smoke one of those nice cigars I like.  Rocky Patel Edge.  Light wrapper with a nice flavor, real easy to smoke.  Not feeling like you're getting enough philosophical discussion in during the week?  Find a friend, buy two big, thick cigars and just let the conversation flow.   Good times.

Just barely Monday

It’s Monday.  Fact is it just turned Monday a few minutes ago.  Watching old cartoons from a time gone by.  Its odd to see what they were able to get away with back then.  Imagine a kids show these days mentioning a female character’s fetish or show an older woman trying to seduce a character, going as far as putting “Spanish Fly” into his lemonade and even appearing naked. When I was a kid I never caught this kind of stuff.  I remember the episodes but don’t remember all the ‘adult’ jokes.  Maybe I was just slow on the uptake.

It’s February 27

And I think Imma start something new.  I don’t see why I couldn’t  write a little something every day.  If I write a sentence or a paragraph (or a nasty note about how I don’t really want to write on a particular day) we won’t know until it’s over.  Only time will tell, but time I’ve got.  Back tomorrow.  Sleep for now.