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November 01 Windows 7 not half bad ?I recently had a quick play with windows 7 and unlike the detested vista, I have to admit that it isn't all ugliness and loathsome disgust.
I can't help but notice on the actual screens that windows 7 feels very similar to XP with a little of vista mixed in but I still think that microsoft are going to do it hard for no other reason than what happened when vista came out.
People are consumers and despite rumours saying otherwise, consumers do not forget and they seldom forgive.
A prime example of this is Sony and the PS3. They trashed the european market and overcharged everything and had the audacity to remove features that were promised on release while pandering to the japanese and american markets.
They even went public with a head up the arse statement saying that they would not lower the price in euopean territories because they had tomake a set profit on each unit and europe was the one chosen to carry the financial burden because even though it is a smaller market, it has more gamers per capita than any other market in the world.
Now the developers have turned on sony saying that their userbase is so small, it really isn't worth the cost to publish games on their console.
Sony have in a desperate effort to expand their userbase have released the PSP Go - based on the iPod touch and dropped the prices of PS3 by making cheaper units.
This hasn't worked of course - the user base is growing but they are still hated and they will never see the profits from people that have iPhones etc or who sensibly went out and got an XboX instead.
I suspect that microsoft however are going to have a hard time of getting people to switch to windows 7 because lets face it - XP is just to easy to use and it gives alot of options at the word go.
Options are very important and nothing proves this like windows media player.
In windows media player 10, there was an option to right click on any song in your library and add it to your burn list.
This option does not exist in windows media player 11 so many have opted to stay with WMP 10.
The same problem arose when apple launched itunes 9.
They left out some radio streams, they cut off a few options.
What resulted was a massive backlash in their forums and a resetting to version 8.2 again by users who were desperate to keep their systems as best for options.
I guess one hard and fast rule is that if you're going to upgrade something, make damn sure it can do absolutly everything the old version can do, with more options.
Sadly though, many companies like microsoft do get things horribly wrong from time to time and the worst aspect of microsoft is that they have yet to learn the rule that if there's nothing wrong with a product, don't try to mess with it.
July 19 I met deathLast night I was very very very happy with just a little help from a beer or two, something I hardly engage in really but hey, you only live once right ?
At three thirty this morning, I woke up in shock, I couldn't breath at all.
I was on my feet in momemts, desperatly trying to draw breath, wondering what the hell was wrong, terrified and unsure as my whole head started to get the pins and needles sensation from oxygen depravation.
I stumbled and fell about looking for the ventolin that I had knocked off my bedside table in the hopes that would do some good but how do you get such medication into your lungs when you have no air ?
I heard a high pitched whine starting to build up in my ears and I became dizzier every second as I grabbed the ventolin inhaler and started to pump its entire contents into my mouth in the hope that I would get at least one lung full of air.
I was on the cusp of dying and the only thing on my mind was the word "fuck".
That can't be right, surely you're supposed to have some insight, your whole life flashing before your eyes and shit, right ?
Obviously, the ventolin worked and after what feels like an eternity, I did eventually start to draw breath again.
Slowly at first, hard rasping and shallow but enough that I knew this would not be he day I died, not just yet.
Each intake was loud and difficult but over the next 15 minutes or so, my breathing returned although I wasn't able to speak, the strain had just been too great on my vocal chords as I had obviously also been drawing air into my stomach in my desperation.
I started to burp more than I have ever done in my known history.
That all happened almost 12 hours ago, I am still finding it hard to speak, my voice is cracked and my throat is sore.
I have a massive headache that has very little to do with the beer ... it isn't just a hangover but the after effect of O2 Deprevation.
Death is my worst fear in the world but I thought that there was always going to be something else about it.
Some insight, some kind of life flashback, some deeper meaning revealed or that stupid light at the end of the tunnel thing.
Yeah, well, I brushed shoulders with death last night and it was nothing but dark and terrorfying and lonely.
The only thing is, I'm still saying "fuck" in my head, I just can't shake it.
Hmmm. July 18 MakoIt's kind of a sad thing when you grow attached to someones work and then you find out that they have died.
Let me explain, one of my favourite shows on cartoon network is and was, Avatar: the last airbender. To me the show was one of the greats with its style that was influenced by animation greats like that of Mobius bati with a solid story that was much more than a simple cartoon.
One of my pet hates is the crap that passes itself off as entertainment - animated adverts for toy lines like pokemon and transformers.
Avatar isn't a toy line of course and it has suffered because of it with almost no adverising budget at all.
There are many aspects of not just humour but also angst and pain, pride and shame and loss with sadness and joy and this fleshes out the characters greatly and makes the show that much more enjoyable.
One of the reasons I loved the show was the richness of Uncle Iroh and the depth of his character as performed by Mako, Mako Iwamatsu however died of esophageal cancer at the age of 72 in the year 2006, the month of july.
He had also done much voice over work on samurai jack and was also known as the little asian wizard guy in the Conan movies alongside of arnie.
The world will be a lesser place without his talents and although he died so many years ago, I feel the loss as if it had happened today as this is the day that I found out and he will always be remembered.
It's weird, I'm actually more cut up over this than I was after hearing about Michael Jackson, Steve Irwin or anyone else with the exception of James Doohan whom I also loved to bits.
I guess it's just a matter of what impacts mostly on our lives be it for better or for worse.
In any respects, Rest in peace.
July 16 Bloody Microsoft (again)A few months ago there was a major security hack in microsofts Internet explorer, which was and is still being patched up in bits and pieces here and there, but to no avail, once the e-cat has been let out of the bag it's gone.
Microsofts once vaunted IE8 is trashed, so blindingly incompatible with so many sites that it's slower than IE7 and because the java platform is used in the hacks and both IE7 and IE8 rely so much on java, there will only be one cure which is to switch over to firefox as a browser.
The problem with firefox though is that the interface is very unintuitive and it takes ages before you get it set up in a way that pleases you.
Sadly for me, Microsofts failings don't really bug me, I have enough protection on my computer to save me from the worst viruses out there but since their updates, I haven't been able to log into my hotmail account through messenger, instead I have to first come to my profile and then go to messenger from there.
*shrugs*
In the meantime, I guess I can live with the annoyance but it is wearing thin.
In other news, starting to slap in more pictures - these are the weird and messed up pics that everyone seems to get on their computers so feel free to have a gander.
Also, I am about to load in the Meegos and winks pack which comes with its own installer. If you intend to download this pack, you may get a false positive reading from your antivirus (especially AVG) but rest assured that the pack is clean and easy to use.
As of this time, the background music on myspace is Emotion 98.3 FM from Grand Theft Auto Vice City, which is available for download from my public folders on here as well.
I am trying to arrange it so that all of the Vice City stations play in the background but to do this I require a direct streaming link to a file share site that doesn't limit its bandwidth or its upload quota.
Be assured that when I get this done, it will go up and you'll be able to listen to VCR all day anywhere you have a web connection.
Lastly, a big shout out to all of my good mates and friends, all of you make my day.
July 06 Hi there and helloWell, here we are again on spaces live.
The first question I have to ask myself is do I blog here or on myspace ?
How do I know if friends will even come here or indeed, will myspace ban me for uploading that anime dance vid ?
I guess that if I do start to blog here, it'd be alot less melodramatic and more of the digital diary kind of thing, I mean, there really isn't anyone to try to impress in here save for the ones that I already know.
In any event, it'll be more of a time will tell event.
All I can reall wish for I guess is an end to the constant bombardment of michael jackson tributes and news cast.
I know he really was the king of pop, I know he was one of the few who shone like elvis and freddy mercury or hendrix, one of the artist that can change the planet with their music but for the love of god, there must be an end to it sometime.
I want to see something else for once on the box, not just artist that will make more money in one year than I will in a lifetime even though they're dead.
Do you have any idea what it does for your ego to know that dead people are more successful than you are ?
Maybe it's just the fact that I'm ill with the flu or that my baby is also sick - thanks to the school holidays and a packed cinema of coughing kiddies.
A pox on you!
Meh, I'm off to bed. |
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