Interesting article regarding Google Buzz.

via cache.gawker.com

“I am a god.”

Fantastic article… if you’re a Twitter fiend, it’s a must-read.

(via lesmy)

More tech lolz.

Interesting article… not that Apple isn’t trustworthy… right?  RIGHT?

Now that really sucks… at least he got cleared.

Windows vs. Mac OS X vs. Linux vs. who knows what else (BeOS?).  This tired argument rages on, fueled by online fandom and the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials.  But does it really matter?  Some charts atttempt to nail down what OS is right for you.  We here at Vox Bomb have spent many man hours and our 3rd quarter 2009 budget on a chart that will help you navigate the course of discussion regarding which operating system is best for your; or, simply put, should you be bashing any other operating systems and their uses, or focus on what’s best for you?  Witness the irrefutable, high-tech behemoth of the OS Wars Chart:

I’m so over you, Mac OS X.

Oh, sure, it was fun for a while.  The late-night tinkering.  The sordid downloads, the purchasing of a Mac OS X Leopard license.  The search through forums such as Insanely Mac, looking for a driver for some laptop component that wouldn’t work.  Following one of the best resources for installing Mac OS X on a Dell Inspiron 1525.  Grabbing the appropriate Kexts, installing, rebooting, black screen, wiping, reinstalling, geting it up and running, trying to upgrade to OS X 10.5.6, killing my installation, wiping, reinstalling, etc.  Eventually, I did get 10.5.6 running on my Inspiron.  Audio (speakers and jacks) worked, as did WiFi and the SD card.  Power management, battery meter, and remapping the keys worked wonderfully.  I installed my apps, and got everything up and running.  It worked great, for a while.  It worked great until I took off Mac OS and put back on… GASP!… Windows Vista.

Now, this might seem like a heap of hate getting piled on Mac OS X and Apple.  Nope, not at all.  After all, I went out of my way to get Mac OS X to work on a “non-standard” hardware.  I put myself out there in the realm of the unsupported, relying on forums to get things working.  I’m the one who decided not to pay the Apple tax and get a MacBook.

No… at the end of the day, it simply came down to this:  Mac OS X didn’t offer me anything Vista didn’t.

OS X is a great operating system.  It’s stable, elegant, looks nice, and runs well.  Guess what?  I’ve found Vista to be stable, elegant, looks nice, and runs well.  Shocking, I know, for someone to actually admit that. Vista bashing has become so commonplace that it’s just considered “cool” to do it.  Reminds me of all the Zune bashers who tell me to get an iPod because the Zune sucks, and then are never able to give me a solid reason to back up their statement.  The myth of Vista “sucking” can be rooted in the issues found early in the operating system’s life.  Lack of proper drivers from vendors (among other things) caused all kinds of issues and conflicts.  Fast-forward to now, or at least the last 18 months (as long as I’ve been using Vista), and I’ve had very few issues.  I adopted SP1 and SP2 at the times of their release with no issues.  The Aero interface looks perty and all.  The security feature (UAC) in Vista that kept popping was really annoying; I just disabled it.  My world hasn’t ended and HaX0Rs haven’t taken control of my data.

I don’t run high-end graphics software that requires Mac OS.  I don’t do 3D modeling (or any modeling, period; have you seen my picture?) or audio production.  There was nothing that required me to be running Mac OS X.  So, though it was fun to tinker, and had re-ignited a hobbyist computer interest that reminded me of my early days with computers, I had to ask myself if it was worth it.  Did I get something above and beyond from Vista?  There are some apps that I use that only run in Windows (Liquid Story Binder XE comes to mind, as does Page 2 Stage).  Can I live without these writing tools?  That’s what was important to me.

And in the end, I gave up on OS X.  Not because it (or Apple) are harbingers of doom, or because Steve Jobs let me down.  It just doesn’t offer me any advantages over Windows Vista.

So I recently wiped my Dell and went back to Vista.  Haven’t looked back since.  Horrifying, I know.

This past weekend I purchased a couple of upgrades for my computer.  My old ATI Radeon Sapphire X1550 video card wasn’t cutting it anymore (for $15, it did the job, though).  I picked up an HIS version of the Radeon 4670 with 512MB of video RAM for $99 (with a $20 rebate).  I also picked up 2GB  additional of RAM (at $13.99 per GB).  I even threw in Half-Life 2 (Episode 1) and Crysis for fun, as well as another game that I’ll be posting about later.  For pretty cheap I got a lot more performance out of my computer.  I was quite happy. :)

No problems with the install, and running Crysis with High settings has resulted in a smooth playing experience.  Though we have a Wii, I need games for more of my age set, and I’ve pretty much given up on online gaming.  Having the hardware to at least get the latest games is nice.   Hmm… Fallout 3, here I come…

Over the past few months, I’ve learned a thing or two about Tablet PCs and the TC4200. Really, I mean just a thing or two. ;) So I thought I’d share them.

• Screen vibrancy trick: I found this on the TC4200 FAQ Page. The TC4200’s screen is a bit dull and the whites come off as browns. how do you fix it? Do the following:
  
  
  
  1. Open the Intel GMA Driver Control Panel.
  
  
  2. Select the Color tab
  
  
  3. Select the color Red radio button then move the brightness slider to -18.
  
  
  4. Select the color Green radio button then move the brightness slider to -12.
  
  
  5. Select the color Blue radio button then move the brightness slider to 30.
  
  
  6. Select Apply and you’ll see a significant change. Whites will look white instead of brown.
  
  
  7. If you like it or want to save it to tinker some more click on Save as Scheme. Name the color scheme.
  
  
  
  


• If you use a dual monitor setup (like me), you’ll want to update the Intel graphics driver. The one that came with the build on my TC4200 was an older one. The problem I would have is that every time I’d undock or lock my workstation, docking or unlocking it would cause the screen to reset to a the default screen setting (which was cloning the same desktop to both the monitor and notebook screen). The latest driver apparently fixed this. But when I sent to download the latest driver from the Compaq support page, the install would tell me that this driver was “not supported on this version of Windows” (or something like that). To get around this, I found that I had to install the previous version of the driver first, and then install the latest one.


• If you use a dual monitor setup, an application like Multi-Monitor Taskbar or UltraMon is incredibly useful.


• Download and install the Microsoft Experience Pack for Tablet PC. The Snipping Tool alone is worth it.


• As I posted previously, my initial experience with my TC4200 was filled with blue screens of death, with either a “0×10000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA” error or “STOP: 0×0000007E” error, pointing to tifm21.sys. I had to ask our beloved Hardware Team for assistance. After some troubleshooting and eliminating of potential culprits, we found it to be the dock. If I booted up with the TC4200 undocked, I did not have the problem. One of the Hardware guys, Sergio, confidently stated that he knew what the problem was. He asked me to boot up in Safe Mode (no networking) with the TC4200 docked, and check the Device Manager under COM Ports. There were two instances of “Com Port 1″ listed. Right-click on each and go to Properties. Under the Details tab, look for the one whose details begins with “Root”. This one needs to be uninstalled (right-click on the COM port and select “Uninstall”). After a reboot, my problem was fixed.


• Inking within Office 2007 is easy. In the apps that I’ve tried, click on “Review” above the new-fangled Ribbon and you’ll see a large “Start Ink” button. Ink away and use that Tablet PC to its fullest. :)