You ever had one of those days when you want to eat some pop*tarts, but you accidentally spilled a bunch of cat food everywhere so you do your best to pick it up by hand to avoid getting hair and dead bugs and other stuff mixed in with it but you don't really want to sit there for hours picking it up piece by piece so you end up sweeping up and throwing away most of it and then decide to get dressed afterward to finish getting those Christmas lights working but you can't because it's still raining after three days of rain? Well, that's pretty much been my day so far.

Alright, haven't done a blog post in a while, so enjoy. :)

Today is the eve of the Windows 7 official release. I'm going to give you my opinion of the OS as I've been using the release candidate for a little over a week now. Some good things about this OS:

-Faster, Safer, and Less of a Resource Hog.
-Stable
-Microsoft Listened to the Community Feedback (this time around)

Alright, there it is. Nice and simple. Now lets have a little chat about Windows 7. You know, I've been a Windows user all my life. That's not to say that I can't imagine a life without Windows, but it is still probably my first choice in operating system (that's not to say I wouldn't use OS X if I could use it on my own hardware...but that's a different story). I know Microsoft is a huge company, and they operate as such, but I think I can go as far to say that Windows 7 is a good update to Windows Vista.

Now what am I trying to say here?

Well, I feel that Windows 7 is what I was looking for in a service pack for Windows Vista. It fixes a lot of problems, and adds some cute features to go along with the fixes. I think that gives me the liberty to say that Windows 7 is nothing more than an upgrade. I feel that Microsoft saw the opportunity to make even more money by coming out with an entirely new operating system.



Now I'm not trying to discriminate them for this move. Windows Vista has a bad rap. I'm sure even if they did some really cool feature upgrades to Vista that they still wouldn't be selling the OS any better. Of course, all the Vista mess could have been prevented if they had taken the same steps they did in the Windows 7 release. They listened to the millions of beta testers and are actually releasing a very stable operating system. I mean hey, if one were to find something that can only run in XP versus Windows 7, it has a virtualized XP that can take care of the problem.

I think I'm going to wait a bit before I go out and buy an upgrade disc (after all I still have the RC1). Until then, I think Vista will suffice. Enjoy those launch parties! :P

Gah, I haven't been keeping up.

Let's make this entry nice a short. Sound good?

Well, I think WWDC was last week (or was it the week before?). Anyway, that means folks were excited to see what Apple would bring to the table (hoping for news on a new iPhone and Snow Leopard mostly I assume). To everyone's great surprise, that's exactly what came from it: the new iPhone 3G S, some new looks at Snow Leopard, and the new MacBook Pro line (basically the new MacBooks re-hashed with some pretty good upgrade options [and firewire :D]). What I thought was the most interesting during Apple's press conference was a very small bit stuck right in the middle. While they were talking about the new Snow Leopard (and explaining that it wasn't going to be a very big step up from Leopard, because everyone likes Leopard) they had to talk about Windows 7. They reassured everyone that Windows 7 is really just Vista again. No big deal right? I mean, Apple's always been trying to change market opinion by putting Microsoft down, right? Well, to some, it may seem that way. How did I interpret this seemingly insignificant bit of info?

I take it that Apple may actually be afraid this time. Putting out essentially the same OS with some upgrades. Just like Windows 7 one could say. All I'm saying is that Apple sure went out of their way to put down something that hasn't been released yet (probably because of the thumbs up from those in the tech community running RC1) and it's up to you to decide weather this is important or not. Personally, I could still care less which product line is better, because in the end, they both have their own set of pros and cons, and I would go as far to say that both of these new operating systems are just streamlined versions of their predicessors with a few new features.

Okay, so I got home from my trip on Monday, it is now Thursday. So what have I been up to? Well not much really. I figured it was about time to put up a blog though, and I also need to put up another on after that sometime this week. So what is today's topic of discussion? Which movie you should see in theaters -Star Trek or Angels and Daemons?

I'm not very good at writing movie reviews, so I'll just give you my flat out opinion. Star Trek > Angels and Daemons. While Star Trek wasn't a Tom Hanks movie, it had a lot more fun action, and I must say that if you're a fan of Star Wars, but were never a fan of Star Trek, this movie is probably a good step for you into the Trekkie's universe. As for Angels and Daemons, it's a movie that might hold your attention, but it's mediocre at best. It was hard for me to stay awake the entire movie, and that's really saying something since anything that moves can attract my attention.



So go see Star Trek now while it's on the big screen, and rent Angels and Daemons when it comes out on Blu-Ray/DVD.

I've been pretty quiet this week huh? Well that's because I'm visiting friends in El Paso, TX that I haven't seen in a couple of years. That means I'm too busy to write 2-3 blog posts this week (and apparently too busy to take pictures or make record of the happenings on this trip). I am however not busy right now. I'm actually very not busy, so I decided to use my friend's computer to write this. Of course that means I should probably write something tomorrow to get to the minimal 2 posts this week. Why am I still writing stuff? I don't exactly know. I don't really have anything to write about...

Oh, I know! I could write a review for the movies I've seen thus far on my trip (Angels & Demons/Star Trek). Well that's for another entry. See you tomorrow (maybe, unless I find myself ridiculously busy and decide not to).

I saw this cool google meme from Johnny Durham's blog and decided it was a good idea to follow along. Here's my resulting collage:



Here's the info if you decide to do it yourself and are too lazy to check the links. If you think this is cool, be sure to post links to yours in the comments.

DIRECTIONS:

- Go to Google image search.
- Type in your answer to each question.
- Choose a picture from the first page.
- Use this website (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php) to make your collage.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe yourself?
10. How are you feeling right now?
11. What do you love most in the world?
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?

You know, there are several things that truly bother me about the whole Mac vs PC argument, so I've decided to blog about it.

In recent advertisement campaigns, Microsoft has given "real people" money to go out and choose a laptop that suits them (I guess they aren't really interested in selling a desktop computers or their operating system *shrugs). The people in these commercial look at some laptops that run windows, then proceed to look at the price points and specks on the Macs, and then head back over and buy a Windows machine based on price point. A couple days ago, Apple took a jab back at Microsoft with their own add basically stating that consumers want a computer that's reliable and doesn't get viruses (or "crash," I assume they mean BSOD because I've seen a Mac freeze up before).



Now I'm a ride the fence kind of guy when it comes to computers. My motto is "if it suits your needs best, it's what you need." I don't buy into this whole Mac vs PC argument because frankly, a Macintosh is a Personal Computer (PC) when it all comes down to it right? I mean wasn't that the whole idea when Apple started off, to make a personal computer for regular people? Now I'm not hating on Apple for kicking up dust on itself, nor am I saying that Microsoft has it just right yet.

From my standpoint, yes I'm currently a Windows user running on an HP machine, the first thing I consider is my budget. Then I consider what I can get for my budget. Being the teenager that I am (at least for the next 9 months or so) my budget isn't quite over the $1000 price point just yet, so I ended up getting a computer while it was on sale during the summer of 2007. During that time, sure I could have gotten a Mac mini, but I was looking for a powerful (enough) desktop that could get me through the start of college pursuing a Computer Science degree (I am now wishing I had saved the money and gotten a nice laptop, possibly a MacBook...-anyway). So yes, the new Microsoft commercials do have some truth to them when it comes to price point, but is that really a selling point for Microsoft? I thought they sold operating systems and software that run on several platforms all over the world. I must say, it sure can't be streamlined to run on specific hardware, like Mac OS X. However, OS X is only intended to run on Apple hardware, so where is the competition here? Apple sells hardware to push it's software sales. Microsoft mostly sells software to PC manufacturers and those that already have the hardware to push it's sales (and I know I'm not even talking about the Zune, iPod, or the Xbox but I really don't see the need to address this yet). Okay, I need to cut this short before I get too ranty.

I guess my point is:

-that Microsoft shouldn't be trying to sell PCs because it has it's operating system to worry about. Vista has a bad rap, and while it may be improved, most people are still using XP (they need to do something like the Mojave experiment again and focus on selling the OS, even though I know they're waiting on Windows 7 which is getting a thumbs up from people all over)

-that Apple needs some better arguments:
*A Mac is a PC
*Windows Vista doesn't crash as much anymore and the consumer can just get antivirus software (there is some good free stuff out there).

Bottom Line:
If you're really concerned about quality build, stability, and price point all at once, build a PC and load up you're favorite Linux distro on it. Then when things go haywire you can only blame yourself for building a crappy computer and not fixing the bugs in the software yourself. As for me, I'll stick with my crappy PC (usually running the worst os ever windows vista, sometimes some form of Linux) and might buy a crappy, expensive Mac just because I'm really curious and haven't used one since the days of PowerPC.

Well now, time to revise the direction of this site since I apparently never did continue posting about video games. Since 2006, I've mostly lost interest in video games because they are expensive and I don't have that much time to go through and play a full game. I'd rather just sit and watch a movie or look at something online.

So what's the new direction if I actually decide to start posting to my blog?

Well if you must know, I plan to post at least a couple entries per week about something I did or something I find interesting. I'd like to think that I'm a technology enthusiast because of my interest in the direction of electronics and modern technological advances, but I probably don't spend enough time with these new technologies so I'll just say sometimes I'm a gadget consumer and I like my gadgets. Other than that, I'm sure I'll have something to talk about that's going on at school now that I'm a college student. Maybe I'll talk about video games or some movies or whatever form of media that I'm interested in at the time, but writing good reviews is time consuming so they'll probably be really short reviews if I do any.

I also hope to use this blog to tie in all my online projects since I don't really have a website to call my own yet (maybe after I have a good job and can pay for a domain and some server space).

For now, enjoy this post (and that post I did a long time ago) until I come up with something good to talk about. Until then, have a good day, and if this sounds interesting, start following me. :)