Before I started writing I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what I was talking about when it comes to this receptor. But, the more I read to get the facts precise, the more I realize it’s so much more complicated than I ever believed. And thus, I get more confused so I have to read more to understand what I don’t understand.

But on a different note, we managed to get a download of Windows 7. Naturally we didn’t put it on one of our main rigs, but still one that would get enough to use to find out how well it works — my laptop. Luckily it’s not laid out much differently than Vista. It’s similar to experiencing Office 2007 when you’re used to Office 2003 in terms of XP to 7. The hiding all open windows features is nice. And with the themes it rotates through a stack of pictures for the background (which for someone who likes to change backgrounds often (i.e. me) it’s nice). Oh yeah, and the jumplists! /smile

Well I’ve wasted enough time here, back to re-reading what I’ve written to expand upon it further.

Well, to start off, Katie on the other hand has been busy almost every waking moment with her research.  Her animal studies have been completed, she is working on her final target compound, and is nearing the finish line with her computer modeling.  Only thing left is that gigantic paper she has to write.  It has become clear that she won’t be officially graduating until May, but she should be able to defend her thesis come January and after that she can get a job.  She just won’t have that piece of paper that makes everything official.

Me on the other hand, I’ve basically been working and then relaxing on my evenings and days off.  I have found time to finally get a decent file server setup at the house.  It has a 1-TB RAID-5 array, which should be plenty for us.  We’ve currently only filled up 23% (approx. 230 GB), but that frees a lot of stuff off our of computer drives.  The best part is that I have it setup to backup to Carbonite, that way if anything happens all of Katie’s important research and all our pictures are safe.  I highly recommend it to everyone.  I have also spent time cleaning out the spare bedroom and slowly getting rid of the stuff in there.  We donated our old waterbed frame to Goodwill and gave MJ a lot of stuff too.  It feels nice to have an almost fully functional spare room again.

We are still going to most of the Virginia Tech football games.  I’ve have been currently working on finishing up both Ladder Ball (a.k.a Tailgate Golf or Redneck Golf) and Cornhole.  I’ve just hit the lazy part with them and don’t feel like painting.  I know for a fact Cornhole will be done by the next game against Duke on the 21st.  If the weather stays in the 60s or so I can probably finish Ladder Ball too.

The dogs are still doing fine.  Gizmo is goofy as always and Teddy is shy as always.  The other day I was using the unfinished Cornhole piece to block of the door because I was staining some picture frames and didn’t want the dogs running around getting all wood colored and what does Gizmo do?  Shoves his head through the 6″ opening and almost gets stuck.  See for yourself!

I was such a nice husband to Katie.  To help alleviate some of her stress, I got her a cute furry little friend.  It wasn’t the cheapest hamster, but it sure is the nicest.  I had to buy everything too, cage, food, bedding, etc.  Her name is Kobito and she is a female Robovski hamster.  We bought this type of hamster because the lady at the pet store recommended them as the friendliest.  They don’t bite and can be picked up fairly easily, but she is fast so she can’t get loose or it’s the end of her.  Teddy seems to have taken a liking to her and is very protective of her when Gizmo comes close.  Katie took a picture of her, but it’s all blurry.  I’ll post it anyway though.

I said that I was a nice husband above, well then I guess the next piece of news will make me an awesome husband.  I bought Katie a new car.  Yes, yes I did.  The 2000 Eclipse she was driving had started to become a problem in these colds months.  The heater core is clogged and we have been quoted $1800+ to fix it.  Just not worth it for that car.  So, I got her a 2009 Imperial Blue Metallic Chevrolet Cobalt.  I could go in to detail describing it, but if you click on the picture below it will take you to the gallery.

I have also been recording out Dungeons and Dragons sessions.  I plan on posting the highlights when CERTAIN PEOPLE send me the time codes of the best moments of the evening.  It isn’t conducive to my bandwidth to allow anyone who can access this site to download 250+ MB, 5+ hours long MP3’s.  So, when I get those time codes, I’ll start creating the highlight reel. . .err MP3.

Also, if it matters to anyone, I got the software for the blog (WordPress) and the photo gallery (gallery2) fully updated.  It was amazing. . .it’s the first time it worked without anything blowing up.

Anyway, I’ll see what I can do about getting Katie to post and to force myself to post more often.

I’m stating a new project at home.  Going to write a program to keep track of our vehicles.  Installed Options, mileage, MPG,  maintance, after market parts, and probably much more will be stored by this program.  I have a begun thinking about it.  I know it will be written in C# with a SQL database attached to it.  I’m thinking of using SQLExpress since it is free and I can tie it into the install program.

When I have the design written up, I will post them.  I have a feeling it is going to take a bit of drawing in Word to come up with the design documentation and some mock ups of the screen layout.   After that, I will post up the Alpha, Beta, and release versions of the software as they come in.  At this point I am not sure of which license to use, but I know it will be one that allows for the software to be freely distributed.

On the other side of things, I need to learn Lua because I am in need of a specific type of add-on for WoW.  I think I can just modify one of the other add-ons to get the information.  Shouldn’t be too hard.

I have been running Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) on the server for a while and it runs flawlessly. I really didn’t have high expectations when installing it on the laptop, but I was impressed. Everything, except for adjusting the screen brightness worked out of the box. The screen brightness was just a quick python script install and then that worked too. I decided to make it look and partially function like Mac OS X to a degree and I am very satisfied with the results.

For starters, the visual effects seem to run flawlessly on this machine. Really fast and not using many resources. Good job on the Compiz team in creating an excellent piece of software. I enjoy eye candy, so having my windows fold up into airplanes and fly away when I close them is fun.

Take a look at this screen shot. I used an OSX theme for the windows and top gnome panel and Avant Window Navigator (AWN) to give me the bar at the bottom. AWN gives a lot of nice items to add to the bar. Like a battery meter, a quick button to access the desktop, weather, a built in terminal applet.

One of the big things OS X users love is their stacks. AWN gives you the same options with their applet. I only have one file in that folder, but I think that I will be finding it very useful. Especially when I come up with a way to sync my files between the laptop and my desktop.

I just love Ubuntu. All of the pre-installed software is great and the ability to customize forever is great. I don’t think I will ever be done setting up this laptop the way I want it. There are just too many options. In all reality if I didn’t want to play games on my desktop, I would switch it over to Ubuntu and leave Windows. At least until Windows gives me these kinds of options.

First, I went to the Virginia Auto Show.  It was good, but nothing there was that impressive.  Worth the $7 though. I forgot the camera in the car, so no pictures.  Dustin and Gareth (Gee) came along, it was a good time.

After that, we headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings in the bottom.  Justin came and joined us and we had a good time sitting around eating good food and drinking beer.  We bet Gee $7 to snort a line of salt and pepper.  Well, he did it.  The face he made almost killed all of us from laughing.  After that we played some foosball on a really crappy table.

After that I came home and have spent the past 3 hours sitting here using my computer and talking to Josh.  It’s been a good evening.  Katie and the gang are almost here now. So, I am out.

1. “Vista is a resource hog!“ — This is true when people compare it to Windows XP, but I was taught that an OS should use all available resources. Why have 2 to 3 gigs of RAM in a machine if the OS is only using a quarter of it. My desktop has 4 GB of RAM, at idle it uses around 1.5 GB if not more. This is because of the new technology Microsoft implemented called SuperFetch. Superfetch actually learns what programs are being run and when, this helps Vista run faster. It also uses RAM, but when you launch a memory intensive program, this fetched content is released.
2. “I have to buy new a new computer or upgrade my hardware to run Vista.“ — This is only the case if you are running a computer that is 3 or more years old. My father has a computer that is using 2 to 3 year old hardware and runs Vista with Aero turned on flawlessly. It has a 3.X Ghz Intel P4 (I don’t remember the exact number), 2 GB of DDR RAM (Not DDR2), and an nVidia Geforce 6600 GT. If you computer can’t run Vista, then stick with XP or buy a new one. You won’t be able to run the next version of windows (currently called Windows 7) on that machine either.
3. “Vista is Slow!“ — This relates to the above comment. Running Vista, or any OS for that matter, on sub-par hardware will cause it to run slow. Vista will run good with 1 GB of RAM, but 2+ are much better. If you have sub-par hardware run XP or Linux.  Included in this are those complaining after running it for a day.  It takes a little a few days of use for Superfetch to learn your computer use habits.
4. “Vista won’t support my XXXX (some type of out dated peripheral)“ — This is not a fault of Vista or Microsoft.  Microsoft has included a large driver base for support of older hardware, but not for everything.  Manufacturers had access to Vista almost a year prior to its release to the general public, it is their fault for not releasing drivers in a timely manner.  I tend to believe that many of them refuse to support older hardware to force customers into purchasing new hardware.
5. “UAC is annoying and intrusive” – Fair enough, it does get in the way.  I actually have it turned off on my main system.  I used to use the computer with it on, but some stuff is just too frustrating to do with it on.  I am a power user, I need to edit certain files which are protected, UAC stops me from doing this easily.  For the average user, it can be a good tool.  It does not pop up all that often, despite what people try to say (*cough* Apple *cough*).  People used to complain that Windows didn’t have any security, so Microsoft implements it and now they complain that it is too annoying with it.  A lot of it boils down to idiot programmers having applications access the wrong parts of the system.  A word of advice to programmers:  Use the users folders and registry keys to write to.  I have written an application on Vista that writes to both the registry and the hard drive and not once does UAC pop up.  I do like Ubuntu’s security model with having to enter in a password though.
6. “Vista Doesn’t run XXXX (Insert Program Here)“ — It had to happen sooner or later.  Microsoft had to drop support for legacy applications at some point.  Apple did the same thing a while ago and there was a big uproar about that too.  Update your software or get an emulator to run you old software.
7. “I am not upgrading to Vista until there is an absolute reason to.“ — This other part of this justification is because the person who said this has older hardware and sees no benefit in Vista.  He has a fair and just reasoning for not upgrading.  There is no appeal to him.  He doesn’t have a DirectX 10 card and no games that need or require DX10.  Unlike many of the people who have spit out numbers 1 through 6 who have probably never even used Vista.

There are many more reasons people give to claim that Vista is a horrible piece of software.  This rabid Apple fan-boys are the main culprits, but they are a whole other post altogether.  I will admit I have had 2 issues with Vista.  The first is that sometimes after updates it gets stuck in a configuring updates loop that I mentioned in a previous post.  This had been remedied in SP1.  The second was actually my fault.  I blue screened Vista when I unplugged the blue tooth dongle while trying to sync the keyboard to it.  That one was more related to a driver issue.

I am not just a Microsoft user though.  I have server that runs Ubuntu and it is extremely stable. My main PC runs Vista Home Premium as does Katie’s Desktop, our Laptop and the Media Center PC.  I also use Linux, XP, and OSX at work.  I have come to one single conclusion, each OS has it’s strengths and weaknesses, but boy am I sick of this stupid OSX vs. Linux vs. Windows war.  Unfortunetly most of the FUD about Vista is spread by those who warship Apple or Linux.  Me?  I use whatever OS fits my needs.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t hate Microsoft, but sometimes installing these things makes configuring programs in Linux look like child’s play.  Soon I will be posting about my pleasant experiences with Windows Vista, despite what has been said elsewhere on the Internet.  Yet, now I have to attempt install number 2 of Portfolio Server.