Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the Queen! :) She is 29 today. :)

This post is brought to you by the letters Y, S, F, B, and the number 29.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Vista?

So... M$ releases a new OS at the end of last year and so far, in nearly a year since the release, they haven't solved some simple compatibility issues with software that's LESS than a year old. In fact, software that's been released since the new OS was released doesn't work with it because of OS issues. M$ says there are issues with it's memory management which is at the root of a bunch of problems. Yes, I'm talking mostly about games (and the demos).

The argument can be made that it's the game manufacturers' responsibility to make their software compatible with the OS, but it also means that the OS manufacturer needs to make the OS able to deal with NEW software and give the game manufacturers USEFUL tools and specs (that aren't out of date immediately and/or changed every 2 months) to use to develop their games. I don't think M$ has lived up to their responsibility, especially since their OS costs so much more than it should.

If you compare the features that Vista offers, to the other OSes out there that offer comparable features (notably nearly any version of UNIX, any distro of Linux, or release of MacOS), you'll find that Vista is over-priced by a factor of 10! MacOS X for instance costs about $40 and Apple is still making money on each copy they sell. If Vista cost only $40 a copy, I think we could more easily swallow its flaws. As it is, $400 a pop should buy me an OS that was ready for the main stream and has all the tools that was promised. This thing is reminding me of what happened with Windows ME (and even M$ admits that ME was a failure).

This may or may not happen with this OS, but I'm only partially impressed with the OS. It has NOT lived up to the hype so far. Sure, you can perform word processing, web browsing, and other mundane things in this new OS, but you can't play the graphically intensive games people want to play. There are 3 versions of Battlefield, for instance, that you can't play on a Vista box. There are a number of other games that perform significantly WORSE on Vista than on any other OS. This was after making adjustments for Vista's memory issues.

Oh, by the way, WoW seems to work fine, but then again, this machine is so much faster than the other machine I was using that I wouldn't be able to notice any performance issues Vista did or did not introduce because the rest of the equipment is so much better.

I think I'll have to dual boot my machine in order to run the apps I'd like. Currently, it looks like I should get a second hard drive and install XP Pro on it. That way, I can have my gaming setup on one drive and everything else on another.

This post was brought to you by the letters X, P, and the number 2.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

At home

So Last Night, my walking pneumonia decided it wanted to kick my ass again and the net result is I wake up with a 101 degree fever, pretty hefty lower back pain, sweating through my shirt, and no sleep for my trouble. What gives? I felt OK yesterday and have been on the Doctor's meds for a few days now.

The fever broke less than an hour ago so I decided to get dressed and imitate a human for a bit. :) I guess it's time to remote into work and get some things done.

This post was brought to you by the letters T, E, M, P, and the number 101.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Finally

Hello all. It's finally happened. Last week, I was allowed to order my laptop. I got the rep to expedite it and it arrived yesterday. I'm using it right now! :) Of course, the Queen isn't happy with me at the moment because I've installed WoW on it and I'm waiting for the updates to download. :)

I'm so far really happy with my new laptop. It's a Dell Inspiron 1720 and it's pretty much maxed out. I'm stoked! I just have to finish installing the rest of my software. That'll take the better part of the rest of the week.

I've been diagnosed with mycoplasma (walking pneumonia) and I'm on meds to clear it up. I'll be better in a few days.

This post was brought to you by the letters U, D, I, S, and the number 8.