I would like to congratulate Sen. Sherrod Brown and Sen. George Voinovich on growing a spine and voting down the immigration bill today.

2 Comments »

Cool. Tamron has a video podcast page in their learning center.

No Comments »

Heh. Looks like Ubuntu made it onto the Windows Marketplace website, albeit briefly.

Personally, I think they’d have been better off leaving it. It definitely would have give the air of non-biasness.

No Comments »

Areview of Windows Vista, as told by a Linux user. A warning, though, while much of what he says is true, it smacks of biasness and he takes every opportunity to take digs at Microsoft.

What I find funny is the difference in expectations. For example, the author diggs on Microsoft for not including more bundled applications:

In all, I had to download about 200 meg of software just to make Vista usable - and a word processor wasn’t among the lot. No, you need to get in AdAware, Spybot, WinZip (or WinRar), Adobe Reader, a Torrent client, an SCP client (I could only find a trial version), QuickTime player, VLC media player and a few browsers. Vista had no drivers for my monitor (a 22-inch flat screen) or my printer (a Samsung SCX-4200).

This is exactly the kind of thing Microsoft tried to do and got belted by the velvet gloves of an anti-trust committee. Granted, the way Microsoft tried to do it was very evil, but these people who gloat about how much software is available for Linux right out of the box are the very same that lynch Microsoft when they try to expand the baseline software offerings in the OS. In this type of situation, there’s not hope for Microsoft to ever come out on top. They lose either way. A bit on the hypocritical side, I think.

He also digs on Microsoft for not improving on IE7. A very valid point, however, he targets their implementation of tabs as the source of his gripe:

IE7 has tabs - about three years and more after Firefox made them popular - but the furniture has been moved around in a meaningless way. In both IE7 and the entire layout of Vista I was reminded of one thing - the way my wife often re-arranges our old furniture to provide the illusion that something has changed.

So, should they not have included tabs simply because Firefox already has them? Here’s a hint, Opera had them first. I’m not sure what he means with his furniture analogy. The very few times I’ve used IE7, I’ve not had any problems with it or with finding anything. IE7 is vastly underwhelming in terms of what Microsoft could have done with it and when compared to the flexibility of Firefox, but it’s by no means confusing. Rigid, yes, but not confusing.

And what would a review be without taking a swipe at 64-bit processing?

It is really difficult to find genuine 64-bit drivers and applications; Vista has the necessary libraries for 32-bit apps and I noticed that most of what I installed were the x86 versions. So much for 64-bit computing. BTW, I’ve been running the 64-bit port of Debian for the AMD since March 2006.

Let’s ignore for a second that the home desktop and most of the corporate market isn’t ready for 64-bit processing just yet for just a moment. If he’s trying to imitate the average user’s computing experience, this point is irrelevant. Average home users bother themselves not with what bit size their OS is, but instead with whether the OS works for them. There’s plenty to dig on Vista about without tossing something as irrelevant as 64-bit processing. If his review were based around an audio, video or graphic designer’s experience, he would have a point, but not in this case.

Also, I’ve tried 64-bit processing with Ubuntu. It’s not all there unless you feel like hamstringing your online experience (no 64-bit flash). In many cases you still have to load the 32-bit libraries in tandem with the 64-bit ones to get all your apps working. I will say that it’s much, much closer than Apple’s or Microsoft’s endeavors into the 64-bit realm, though. It’s just not important to most people and not at all to the average home user.

It’s hard to find fault with the review, though, since he’s mostly spot on. However, there’s plenty to rip on Vista about without taking the biased and predictive swipes and Microsoft that seem to have become oh so popular.

2 Comments »

Retardedness abound on the Obama tour. I wonder when these guys are gonna realize that the best way to deal with bloggers is not to. (vi Instapundit)

Deltus:

Actually, the question is: do bloggers want to be considered press, or don’t they? If you’re not there primarily to get blog material, don’t introduce yourself as a blogger.

Touche. I’m not quote sure how to respond to that. I mean, I’m certain that many in the blogsphere want to be considered press, but it’s obviously dangerous to paint all bloggers with the “Press” brush. Not everyone in the sphere considers themselves press or wants to be one, but, like you said, they rarely introduce themselves as bloggers. I think the blogsphere works much more like a “citizens’ press” than the real press anyway. Sort of like a watchdog group.

I still hold that once congress critters realize that bloggers can’t be regulated and that they can work in their favor, this problem will just dissapear. With the internet and blogging so wildly popular, any citizen can be a reporter and Congress just needs to realize that they live in the spotlight no matter what they do. Best to just roll with it, I say.

1 Comment »

Ouch: Worse than HMOs. It’s well-earned. Nonetheless, this is troubling, and not just for the Democrats, who are only doing somewhat worse than the GOP Congress did. How long can we have a free and successful nation with such an unpopular — and deservedly so — political class.

Problem is, to fix this, it would require people to stand up and take responsibility for electing the congress they’re so unhappy with and then do something about it. A huge step would be forcing term limits on congress-critters to prevent incumbencies. Another would be to actually contact your representative instead of just bitching about them. I’ve already told Sharrod Brown I’m giving him the boot next election.

No Comments »

Imagine that, selling customers a product that doesn’t make them feel like a criminal and the sales go up.

Hmm…Treat your customers like customers and they reward you with sales and loyalty. Brilliant! If only someone would have thought of this sooner…

1 Comment »

My question is, if they’re being conducted secretly, how do you find out about it to put a stop to it? Seems like a bit of a paradox to me.

1 Comment »

Glad to see I’m not the only one cynical of the government. Maybe if more were cynical AND vocal, something would get done. It’s not likely, but I can’t be cynical ALL the time.

1 Comment »

If you’re not that impressed with Dell’s offering of Linux desktops, try system76. The seem to have a fairly wide variety of Ubuntu-powered laptops, desktops and even servers.

2 Comments »