One Year Later…

One year ago yesterday, Microsoft released it’s latest operating system: Windows Vista, and I think it’s safe to say that it didn’t do much for personal computing. Microsoft spent years in development of Vista only to see it’s release full of widespread criticism and as a user of Windows Vista, I can say that the criticism is well deserved.
When Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and Windows 95, they revolutionised the computing industry. But as time progressed, their progress slowed down dramatically-remember Windows ME? I mean, could that have been any worse? Well that’s what Vista is to us today. Full of ridiculous, failed security measures like User Account Control that brings up a message any time you want to launch a program with no way to configure it, all the way to the still infamous Blue Screen of Death.
(And on a side, I just wanna add, how have they not fixed that yet!? It’s been like a decade!)
Microsoft says that they’ve shipped twice as many copies of Windows Vista than they did Windows XP at the time of its release, but that’s not anything to brag about. It’s not like Windows XP was this crazy revolutionary software that changed the way we look at computers today. I think Linux did that.
Vista is all eye candy. Sure they may have added some stuff, they may have made things easier to set up and browse to, and they may have even added some new useful features, but overall, it still sucks.
If you have Windows XP, do not switch over quite yet. I did and now I’m full of regret. Everything looks great-but that’s about it. It’s even less stable than XP was (and we still had to restart XP every few days just to get it going again). We’ll see if Service Pack 1 does anything for the OS but looking at the past updates, it’s not going to bring about the change that it needs.

What Else Is New?

So the IDF strikes again…
It’s not like this is brand new news. Things like this happen constantly throughout Israel and the Occupied (Yes, Occupied, not Disputed) Territories. Making it ridiculously difficult to obtain a housing permit for Palestinians, demolishing their homes, restricting their movement, and basically implementing martial law on them, are just some of the crimes committed by the Israeli government towards it’s own inhabitants. Sure there are atrocities committed on both sides, but unfortunately here in the US, we only get one side of the story thanks to large Israeli lobbies (AIPAC, for example). And it’s not just large organizations that are influencing our media, it’s our political figures as well. The US is the largest supporter of Israel by far and if you look carefully, you’ll see how much the United States as a country supports this government. Another example is the number of United Nations Security Council Resolutions that the US has vetoed that all regard that region. If you look on the world spectrum, there’s a much more balanced view of what’s actually occurring.

There’s so much more to say that I can’t just type up all in this blog. For more information, a great documentary is Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land. The whole video is in that link which is uploaded on Google Video. And there’s also a book written by former United States President Jimmy Carter called Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.

Afghanistan’s New Cash Crop: Cannabis

Now that the poppy population in Afghanistan has decreased tremendously, here comes a new problem: marijuana. But looking deeper, this isn’t really the fault of the country’s people. Considering most of them struggle just to make ends-meat, it’s quite understandable how they resort to growing and selling drugs. The cost of replanting their crops with something more on the lines of food along with the resale price of it, thereafter, just makes it infeasible. What the government (with foreign help) need to do, is not just curve the growth of drugs by going to farms and destroying the plants, but provide an actual replacement to growing these illegal substances so it permanently stops.

New Macbook Pro’s

I’ve always felt that Apple creates the best technology in its field, though I was never a huge fan of the Macintosh operating system. The OS restricts me from many things that I would like to do on Windows, all for safety and stability. And overall, it’s not that great.

However, lately I think all that’s changed. The new Mac OS X has an awesome architecture and Leopard just seems plain awesome (with the exception of the number of installation problems that’s been reported). And now in my later years, I think I would sacrifice whatever I would with Windows just to avoid that dreaded blue screen of death, Windows Explorer crashes, and just for the overall ease of use. Cracking things and customization in the craziest of ways is in my past. Plus, all of the Apple laptops are just plain awesome. They come with awesome hardware and a very slick design.

Overall, you just can’t beat Apple. They’re #1 in everything these days and they’re $180.00 stock shows it.

gOS – a.k.a. – The Closest Thing We’re Getting To A Google Operating System

gOS Linux is an operating system that uses the Linux kernel and multiple freeware/open source programs-many of which are applications directly from Google embedded into the system. Though not official or backed by the company, it does seem like a legitimate Linux OS. And it must be if it’s loaded on the Everex PC TC2502.

Everex TC2502 Specifications:
-1.5GHz, VIA C7®-D Processor
-512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM
-80GB Hard Disk Drive
-DVD-ROM/D-RW Optical Drive
-VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics
-Realtek 6-Channel Audio
-”Averages just 2 Watts of power consumption.”

I know what you’re thinking after reading those specs, but that’s the price when you go Green.

Micrsoft Surface

Is this not the coolest thing ever? Imagine the possibilities of this crazy technology. I wonder how Microsoft will screw this one up. Let’s just hope they pull another “Windows 95″ or something.

Viacom Can Go To Hell–Just Don’t Take The Daily Show With You

I can’t believe what our world is coming to! This is ridiculous! I am of course talking about Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement. My second blog was going to be in response to a video on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in which Lynne Cheney looks like a complete &!%#$! However, I wasn’t able to post the YouTube video on this website because YouTube recently took that video down. I then tried to upload the video on many other video sharing websites-all of which rejected the video. After finally getting it to one site, I couldn’t get it to properly post in my blog.

Anyways, what I mean to say is that if YouTube carries on this with this and all these “copyright infringed” videos don’t even make it a week on there, there will be hell to pay. Sooner or later, there’ll be smaller video sharing websites that start-up and just “aren’t fully capable of enforcing copyright laws” and those will begin grabbing market share from YouTube. YouTube will be like Kazaa or Napster is today.

And I’m not done—what’s with Viacom? I mean, obviously they’re acting in the most profitable way they can but this is just crazy. We should have the right to share these videos with one another. Copyright laws today are far too strict than they need to be. And because of all this crap, it’s not hard to find a lot of anti-Viacom posts online. Look at all the other companies that have their video content shared freely online and haven’t taken any action whatsoever. I don’t see any lawsuits coming from them. Maybe they realise that the sharing of their content can actually prove beneficial to them as well as to their consumers.