For a time today (Jan 31, 2009) it appeared as if the entire internet was malware.  At least, that is what you would have seen had you tried to use Google to look for a site.  The error was not intentional and was for a worthy cause: to prevent people from visiting bad sites.  Unfortunately, because of a very simple human error, the results were quite unexpected.

Google partners with StopBadware.org to help with blocking malware.  They use a list of sites to determine, along with other human factors, which sites are good and which are not.  Simply put, when Google got the list today, someone made a simple mistake, using a url of ‘/’ as a value on the list.  A ‘/’ expands all sites. Thus, everything was bad, until the error was corrected.

A simple little mistake.  BUT..and this is a big, huge but, it does point out how much we rely on Google and that one small mistake on their part can have much bigger implications.  Now, lets not blow this out of proportion:  it was, after all, just a search.  But, again, there is a larger issue here.  Anyone who relies one particular ‘cloud’ service for more critical things like email, spreadsheets, documents, etc., a problem such at this that could potentially block access could have far more reaching implications and affect business.  For me, it is one more reason to rely on my desktop applications for critical things and leave the ‘cloud’ to lesser things like web search.

• Apple DRM upgrade goes ala carte.  During MacWorld, Apple announced it’s DRM free catalog.  When the upgrade went into affect, you had the option of upgrading tunes you already purchased.  Problem was that it did not give you a choice: it was all or nothing.  Depending on the number of tunes to upgrade, that could get quite costly.  Well, after weeks of complaints, Apple has now ‘done the right thing.’  And, as usual, they have placated critics and are, once again, off the hook.  Another free pass.
• The EU still hates Microsoft and wants them to bundle other crappy browsers like Chrome with Windows.  Apparently, the fact that OEM’s can add whatever they want, the EU wants Microsoft to bundle browsers like Firefox and the Chrome browsers—both of which seem to be full of security holes.  I’ve an idea, what not force them to bundle Safari as well.  I’m sure Apple would love that.
• Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been impeached.  By a house vote of 114-1, and a senate vote of 59-0, the governor was impeached because of the corruption charges leveled against him. He has been removed from his office and barred from holding any public office in Illinois.  Guilty or not, the process used to impeach him was not only wrong, but very unfair.  Anytime a person has little or no chance to defend him or herself, another part of our liberty goes away.
• Sony game division posts decline in revenue and game sales.  The third quarter was particularly bad for the company.  Across all of it’s game platforms, sales were down.  Even the hardened PS2 suffered a somewhat steep decline.  The PSP and PS3, of course, were also down.  The division suffered a 32.2 percent decline in revenue over the same period in 2007.  Given Sony’s other woes, one has to wonder just how long they will maintain three platforms.  They should kill the PS2 now and focus on the PS3.  PSP does ok,  but they really need to concentrate on PS3 if they really want it to go ten years.  Frankly, I just don’t see that happening.
• Amazon is supposedly set to announce the Kindle 2.  On February 9, they will hold a press-conference in New York City.  Among the new features of the device, an e-ink screen that can update more quickly, smaller buttons and a new shell.
• Internet Explorer 8 RC1 formally released.  On Monday, Microsoft unleashed it’s more standards-compliant browser.  Early tests have shown that it is not much faster than previous browsers, but does adhere, better anyway, to web standards…which, ironically, can break sites that have been coded for Internet Explorer compatibility.  There’s just no winning here.

Well, maybe the Digital TV transition postponement may not happen after all.  When the Senate passed the bill, unanimously, it was pretty much a given that the House would follow suit and pass it as well.  Not so fast there, bub!  Today, the House voted the postponement down.   The vote was actually passed by 258 congresscritters, but the House rules stipulate a 2/3 majority, which did not happen. 

It is still possible that the bill could pass.  After another round of debate, it is possible that House could vote for the bill and the date change.  For now, though, it will happen on Feb. 17.

An alternative bill, backed by Joe Barton (R-TX) is pushing for the Feb. 17 date, but with emergency funding for the coupon program.

A very nice Twitter client has been released by the wizards of thirteen23.  Called chirp, the client is Vista only (probably works in 7)  and looks fantastic.  The client was developed using WPF, Vista’s uber cool graphics/presentation layer.  Very pretty.  I’m still trying it out, but it has all of Twitter’s features and maintains the Tweets in a scrolling tape-like fashion.  You can set things like update interval, transparency and more.  You can download the app here.

Thanks to Long Zheng for pointing this out, via Twitter.

In yet another colossal waste of Congressional time, New York Representative Pete King has reintroduced a bill that would require all camera equipped cell phones to make a noise that is ‘audible within a reasonable radius’ and also not be disabled.  At all.  Think about that.  Mr. King wants your camera phone to be loud and noisy when you take a photo.  The bill, called ‘Camera Phone Predator Alert Act’, is yet another proposed law that is being proposed under the guise of safety.  It is already bad enough that people can be arrested or kicked out of places for taking pictures of buildings or of their children, now this Congressman wants to make taking a picture a loud, obnoxious act.  Never mind that New York, and the country, has far more important problems, he wants to make sure this non-issue gets its due attention.

Funny, the bill says nothing about digital cameras making a mandatory sound and even less about said camera phone from being obnoxious when you take VIDEO with the device.

The bill was originally introduced in 2007 and went nowhere. Let’s hope it’s fate is the same this time too.

Incredible.  For years now, we’ve been told that the digital television transition would take place on February 17, 2009.  Only, it won’t.  President Obama and his administration suggested that we have a nice, four month delay until June 12.  Presumably, it is to give procrastinators more time to get and use those $40 coupons.  It also gives the government more time to fund that program. In actuality, all it is going to do is further confuse those who are either easily confused already or those who just chose to be confused and not bother to find out what it’s about. It’s not like the broadcast stations have not already explained. Over and over. And over. And, yet again, over.  I can’t fault the new President too much.  He has to accomplish much in his first 100 days, and this was an easy target. 

This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve seen the government do since they mandated the transition…TEN PLUS YEARS AGO.  It’s not like no one knew this was happening. Well, maybe Mr. Obama missed it.  Or one of his advisors.  The last administration did it’s level best to postpone it…and did so, several times.  The coupon program was fully funded.  That it was not administered all that well is no reason to postpone this again.  So what if a few people get ‘blindsided’?  If they do not know by now, then so be it.  Those converter boxes are not expensive.  The only reason they cost as much as they do is because of the coupon program.  The Venturer box that I purchased was worth about ten to twenty dollars.  I paid seven, using the coupon.  If that funding went away, I will bet you those boxes come down ten to twenty dollars from what they cost now.

This is absurd.  The mere fact that the Senate today even took this up is absurd.  They made the damn law years ago.  Stick with it.  This is your tax dollars doing great work.

One of my favorite pastimes, during the season anyway, is taking my son to the amusement parks.  Two of those parks, Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Hard Rock Park, are both facing uncertain futures.  Hard Rock Park filed for bankruptcy back in September of 2008 and InBev purchased Busch, which owns Busch Gardens.  InBev has already stated that they intend to part with all non-core business.  This past week, the Busch Entertainment company was formally put up for sale.  They own the two Busch Gardens parks (Williamsburg and Tampa) as well as the SeaWorld chain.  Among the companies that are, supposedly, interested are Disney, Merlin Entertainment and Universal.  The parks would be a great fit for Disney.  With Disney’s attention to detail and family orientation, that would pretty much guarantee that the parks would maintain the high quality they now enjoy.  I’m sure Merlin and Universal would do a fine job, but it would be pretty certain about Disney doing so.  And it would get Disney into markets where they have no presence now.  On a related note, Disney attempted to build a theme park here in Virginia, but, the knuckleheaded locals in the western part of the state decided they would rather stay backward than to have Disney come in, provided badly needed jobs an income to the area as well as improve the local infrastructure.  Simply Amazing.

Hard Rock, the mother ship, has now tried to distance itself from the failed park.  They have removed all vestiges of the park from the Hard Rock web site.  They also say that there are several potential suitors for the park.  They are just waiting to ‘swoop in’ and steal the park for much less than the $35 million starting bid for the now failed auction.  One potential problem is that most of the large rides have liens on them as well.  What a mess.  All because the largest backer of the park got cold feet. That place could be a winner.  They just picked a REALLY, REALLY bad time to open.  And, sadly, it appears that few people will have enjoyed the oddity called ‘Nights in White Satin’ the ride.  What a trip.  

The good news is that there is less than two months now before the season starts.  I’m sure it will have it’s ups and downs.

Mac Trojan

As inconceivable as it may sound, a Mac Trojan is in the wild.  It is embedded in a bootleg copy of  iWorks ‘09 that is available via BitTorrent or downloads from questionable sites.  When the package is installed, the Trojan service installs itself as a startup service.  The actual iWorks ‘09 that is delivered this way is not affected.  The best way to avoid this is to buy a legit copy of the package.

President Obama’s staff is forced to use old Windows computers

Apparently, during the transition from President Bush to President Obama, no one bothered to inspect the IT aspect of the White House.  It was quite a shock to some of the President’s staff that the computers were old and had Microsoft Office 2003 installed as well.  Oh, the horror!  There seems to be some restrictions on the web sites that they can use.  Facebook will not be one of them.  Blame the records retention policies that must be enforced, even for the President.

It also seems that the President will get to keep his Blackberry for personal use and use a butt ugly, heavily encrypted and soul-less Windows Mobile phone.  Called the Sectra Edge, the phone is the only one that is certified by the NSA.

Macintosh celebrates a birthday

The Mac was introduced twenty-five years ago this month.  I remember the first time I saw a Lisa.  I was WOWed. The only people who were impressed was the guy demonstrating the computer and myself.  The others, mostly ham radio guys, saw it as an expensive toy.  So did the public at large.  When the Macintosh came out, the attitudes of many of the Lisa detractors changed.  Here was a nicely packaged little computer with that ‘mouse’ thing.  The computer just oozed with goodness.  I wanted one for a long time.  Instead, I got a PC clone with DR-DOS.  I tried to code the GUI from the Mac using a freebie version Microsoft Basic.  Needless to say, my lame attempts did not cool my desire for this nifty little computer.  Fast forward twenty or so years and I finally got my Mac.  It was a Mac Classic, I think.  128mb of RAM and 20mb hard disk.  The Mac had Hypercard and a really weird version of Basic.  I kept it for a year or so.  I gave it to some kid at a ham-fest I had attended.  The kid, about 12, was so damned excited.  Even though it was old then, that Mac was perfect for the kid. It was easy to setup, easy to use and small.  I kind of wish I had kept it.  Today’s Macintosh’s just don’t have the same kind of charm that the original had.  It was a stroke of genius at the time.  

A recent discovery in my ‘archive’ uncovered a ‘PC Accelerator’ Magazine that has a cover date of January 1999.  In it, there was a short article on building the best gaming rig, one that will last you all the way to January of 2000…a whole year.  I get it, the idea was to stay ahead of the technology.

To put things into perspective…The internet was just starting to come into its own. The “dot-com” bubble was starting to expand.  Bill Clinton was the President. Still.  There was no Wii, XBOX or PS 2.  The Sega Dreamcast was the latest console.  There was still a ‘World Trade Center’ in New York.  Bob Dole’s wife was the leading Republican…for President.  Al Gore was starting to distance himself from his boss.  Star Trek was still a weekly series on UPN.  Remember them?

The article begins with the motherboard and they suggested Asus, Abit and FIC, among others.  They advise a Pentium II board with an Intel BX chipset.  Stay away from those dying dinosaurs from AMD. The CPU of choice was the Pentium II 450 since it was, naturally, the fastest processor ‘as of this writing.'   However, if you are on a budget and can upgrade to that Pentium later, then get the Celeron A since it was fast (remember, the Celeron had little or no cache.) 

RAM was something else.  I had forgotten about the multitude of RAM sticks over the years.  Then, the PC100 was the hot stuff.  “Get as much as you can afford.’  Get a minimum of 64mb, but spring for 128mb since RAM is so cheap now.  Ignore the EDO crap as it is only 83mhz and PC 100 is, well, 100mhz…soooo much faster.

Get that Voodoo 2 video card.  A ‘surefire winner.’  For maximum performance, go SLI. Hmm…haven’t I heard this recently too?

Since 3d sound is EVERYWHERE, spring for that Creative Lab’s SoundBlaster Live!  Quality stuff.  These newfangled A3D boards are the bomb.  The sound is oh so realistic.

For all of the really hot games, you’ll need lots of space.  Go as big as you can.  What, with games as large as 200mb, you’ll need lots of space. Five, seven, even TEN GIGABYTES will be taken up before you know it.

Of course, no hot gaming rig would be complete without the most advanced operating system running it.  Naturally, that means Windows 98.  AGP and USB support are top notch, you know.  Oh, the new troubleshooting tools(!) are tops, for a Microsoft OS.  Of course, Windows 2000 is right around the corner and is THE future of computing.

Really!?  It’s always fun to unearth treasures such as these.  Reading the reviews, how to articles and other such stuff.  I probably read this very same article, thinking ‘you won’t need all of that!’  I was wrong, of course, but had convinced myself otherwise.  Money was not the issue, I was just cheap and wanted to believe that I had already made sound decisions.  The article is written in a very condescending manner.  They could probably get by with it then, but, then again, it could be one reason why this magazine did not last very long.  Hell, I had forgotten it until I unearthed it. 

It is interesting to see the march of technology in the last decade.  That ‘hot system’ is not as powerful as my kids video game console…the last gen console, I mean.  The GameCube, which came out only two years later, has more graphical and computing power than the hot system that would get you through the year.  I suppose true ‘hard core’ gamers update their systems every few months.  Not me.  The computer I’m writing this on is nearly three years old now.  It still feels as snappy is it did…this morning.  The march of technology.  Amazing.

The Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick is a USB television tuner device.  It features both an ATSC tuner for digital broadcasts and the soon to be obsolete NTSC analog tuner.  The package contains the stick, a quick start guide, software, USB extension cable and a mini-antenna. 

The device is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7.  In fact, I plugged the device into a USB 2.0 jack on the Windows 7 laptop and, within ten seconds, Windows 7 had detected it and began to install a driver.  Mind you, I had not yet put the included software CD in the laptop.  After a few seconds, Windows reported that the device was ready to use.  So, I fired up Media Center.  I went through the tuner setup wizard and, save for an update error, the tuner was ready.  The update error was for something called ‘PlayReady’.  Sounds like it is either another layer of DRM or has to do with extenders.  Not sure.

Windows 7 Media Center works great with the device.  It detected both analog and digital stations.  I don’t care about the analog channels but the digital channels were all there and look great.  You really can tell the difference between the cable version of local digital stations and the over the air versions.  Night and day.

I did install the Pinnacle TV Center software on the Windows 7 machine.  Apparently, there is an incompatibility between the way it draws and Windows 7.  Every time I tried to use the software, it would crash.  I don’t really care, I will be using Media Center anyway. The only thing the included software did that Media Center does not do is create iPod and PSP compatible video files.  Not interested.

Overall, the stick works well and that it works under Windows 7 is a major plus. It is available now and is priced at $69.95.

PCTV HD Stick Product Page

I’ve been using the public beta for a week now and, with one exception, it’s been working flawlessly.   The one exception being that I had installed Microsoft’s wonderful World Wide Telescope application and ran it.  I had it running, ‘exploring’ the galactic nursery.  Well, I minimized it, brought up IE 8 and starting surfing.  Before I realized it, I had about nine tabs open.  Of course, I walked away from it at some point and just forgot.  Hours later, the laptop was completely unresponsive.  After some furious CTRL-ALT-DEL action, I got the task manager to appear, but that is it.  The CPU was pegged at a 100%.  I guess task manager was the ‘straw’ that broke it’s back.  I let it sit for awhile, but it never regained any usefulness.  I had to power down and back up.

Aside from that little issue-which I am sure was a memory leak in one of the two, or both, applications-Windows 7 has been pretty danged solid.  I have tried to break it and have not.  Well, save for the situation above.  That was, by the way, only the second reboot.  The first was due to an update (already) I got via Windows update.

Paint, by the way, under Windows 7 is a very adept little application.  While it has few new features, it ‘feels’ far more robust than ever.  I am not sure if it is the new Ribbon UI or because it was re-written, but it just ‘feels’ better.

Overall, Windows 7 seems pretty solid and ready for prime time.  In many ways, it beats Vista hands down and totally obliterates XP.  But, then again, obliterating XP probably would not take too much.  I am, however, still a bit mystified as to why some things were removed and why, WHY were parental controls neutered like that?  Seriously.  What the hell?

What do you think?  Have you been using the beta?  Let us know!

This one hits at home.  I am a native Richmonder and have lived in the area all of my life.  I have friends who work or have worked for the company.  It’s HQ was here.  Carmax started here (Carmax was owned by Circuit City, but was spun off years ago.)  Circuit City is probably one of last national retailers to have called Richmond home.  Best Products closed up many years ago.  Thalhimer’s and Miller and Rhodes-not quite national, but they had stores in several other states, were bought up and are no longer around.

Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection back in November of 2008.  The holiday buying season did not do much for Circuit City’s bottom line.  The remaining 567 stores will be liquidated and thirty thousand people will lose their jobs.  The company had hoped that a buyer would be found for the company, but none came forward.

Circuit City began life as Wards Company in Richmond, Virginia in 1949.  The company was founded by Samuel Wurtzel.  During the 1950’s, the company expanded and, by 1959, there were four stores in the Richmond area.  From that time through the 1980’s, the company tried many formats and operated stores under several names, including 'Wards Loading Dock, Sight N Sound and, of course, Circuit City.  The Loading Dock was the company’s first large format store.  That format was the more successful and customers also liked the Circuit City name, which became the company name in 1984 when it began trading on the stock exchange.  By 1990, the chain was a significant national chain.  It entered New York by acquiring the remnants of Lafeyette Radio. 

It entered the banking world by founding the First North American National Bank, which it sold to Chase Bank in 2004.

Circuit City’s biggest problem was, of course, Best Buy.  Circuit City really did not anticipate the emergence of Best Buy and, unfortunately, they are paying for that mistake now.  Other factors include the big box warehouse stores and the internet.  Circuit City was just too slow in trying to catch up and, sadly, never really offered anything to make them standout.  They could not compete in price and, over the years, developed a poor reputation in the customer service department.  I can remember many times where I either needed help and could not get any, was swamped by sales people when I did not need them or, get this, was made to wait or just plane ignored when the attractive woman JUST came in the area.  Happened many times. 

Admittedly, I am part of the reason they are going under.  I pretty much stopped shopping there years ago, for the very reasons mentioned above.  When Best Buy opened a store right across from the Circuit City I frequented, I was unimpressed and continued to shop the City.  However, about six months later, I went to Circuit City to buy a computer.  The service was terrible.  They made me so mad, I went across the street and bought one at Best Buy.  I’ve been shopping there since.  Oh, I still went to Circuit City, when they had a sale or had something I could not get at Best Buy.  I don’t remember the last time  I bought anything there.  Probably sometime before Christmas, but I don’t remember.

If no miracle happens, Circuit City will just be another footnote in the retail history of the nation.  While I may not have shopped there regularly over the last few years, I will miss them.  Anytime competition is diminished, the consumer will suffer.  Circuit City’s demise removes a big competitor from Best Buy and others.  I feel worse for the 30 thousand or so who will lose their jobs.  I suppose the only good thing about this is the timing.  They did at least make it through the first of the year.

A very special shout out to the other four nybbles that make up Half Byte.  Her birthday is today.

Happy Birthday to the other half of Half Byte.

Windows 7 has already shown me that it  outperforms Vista on a number of levels.  File copy is one.  One of my biggest complaints with Vista is the amount of time it takes to copy files to and from SD cards or from computer to computer.  File copy to and from SD cards is painful under Vista but, happily, not under Windows 7.  While it is not quite as fast as copying a file from directory a to directory b on the same drive, going from disk to SD card and back is now back to XP speed.  I cannot believe I just wrote that.  “Back to XP speed”.  Wow.  XP is dead as far as I am concerned, however, it did do a few things right and file handling was one.  I don’t quite understand what or why Microsoft did what they did with file handling in Vista, but Windows 7 appears to have corrected the problem.  One interesting thing I noted was in copying a file from the Windows 7 machine to one of my Vista machines over the network.  While copying, the title bar of the notification/progress window said “compressing”.  I don’t think I ever saw Vista do that.  It may very well have done that under the hood, but it never SAID it.  There seems to be more things happening, under Windows 7, to let the user know that something is happening.

After a few days, I think the task bar has grown on me…or I have gotten used to it. Not sure about that.  At any rate, the few annoyances I found with the operating system I have either gotten used to or they don’t bug me as much now.    I am almost tempted to put Windows 7 on my primary computer.  I am still a bit weary.  Maybe over the weekend…

Apple, today, announced that it’s CEO, Steve Jobs, was taking a medical leave of absence today.  His leave will be through the end of June.  In a email to employees, Mr. Jobs  said he wanted to take himself out of the limelight to focus on his health and allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering ‘extraordinary’ products.  Jobs, prior to last weeks MacWorld, put out an email that acknowledged his health issues and stated that he will remain Apple CEO.  Apparently, his problems are a bit more serious than he thought.

Tim Cook, Apple’s COO, will take over Jobs’ duties until he can return.

One interesting thing about the way the announcement was handled…trading in Apple stock was halted RIGHT BEFORE the announcement.  Trading resumed and Apple stock fell about eight percent.

Jobs’ health has the been the subject of much debate over the last few months.  His last few appearances left the press speculating that his cancer had returned or that there were other serious issues.  He always scoffed at the notion and, in fact, poked fun at it in a couple of his presentations.  You could see, though, that really pissed him off.  Rightly or wrongly, he is the face of Apple and, as such, is very highly regarded by Apple’s fans.  Having a CEO so intertwined with a company is a bit on the dangerous side for that company. Apple, though, will do fine with or with out him.  Even if he does not return to the role of CEO-and his health gets better-I don’t think he will disappear from the company. 

At any rate, I think he did the right thing for himself, his family and the company.  Now, maybe both the company AND the press can move on. 

Today, we said good bye to two outstanding actors:  Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan.  Montalban, always a stand out in anything he did, was most famous for his role on Fantasy Island.  That show ran for 1978 through 1984. Among science fiction fans, Montalban was famous for his excellent, over the top portrayal of Khan in both the original Star Trek series and in the 1982 film, Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan, arguably the best film of all of the Star Trek films. 

McGoohan portrayed ‘Six’ in the short lived, 17 episode series ‘the Prisoner’.  Initially, McGoohan starred in the 1964 series ‘Danger Man’.  That show lasted only on season, but was revived later for another three seasons.  By then, his popularity was at a high and the popularity of his ‘danger man’ character was just as high.  Not wanting to portray the same character in another TV show, he pitched his ‘Prisoner’ concept.  The show was produced, but lasted just 17 episodes.  His character was similar to ‘danger man’, but was called ‘six’ in the show.  The Prisoner is being remade as a six episode mini-series this fall on AMC. 

Montalban’s cause of death has not yet been released.  He was 88.  McGoohan died after what has been called a ‘short illness.’  He was 80.

Yesterday, I, like other bloggers and news organizations, mentioned a story about how Google impacts the Earth. (See my News Nybbles)  Well, as it turns out, the source of the story, the Times of London, was, shall we say, a bit misleading.  In the story (here) they seemingly quote a young physicist by the name Alex Wissner-Gross.  He claims that he never once claimed that ‘performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea.’  Apparently, the article alludes to him saying this, but he never did.  Well, actually, the byline does say that he said that. He says that he contacted the Times of London and they assured him that it would be corrected on Sunday.  It was not.

Regardless of the quote and who actually said it, the article is right about one thing:  Google does use energy. A lot of it. But, then again, I’m sure that the Times of London is far from ‘green’.  If they still publish a paper edition, and I’m pretty sure they do, then they use tons of paper and expensive ink.  It takes quite a bit of power to run those presses, power the computers for putting the paper together, the trucks to move the finished papers to retail and subscribers, etc.  You get the idea.

If the author of the article intended to single out Google, then I have to ask why.  I suspect it was to get eyeballs.  Was the choice of Google simply because they are the big guns?  Google is specifically mentioned through out the article.  What about Yahoo!?  Surely, it has a large foot print as well.  Microsoft?  This is the company that had to add servers to support a three gigabyte download to thousands of people so they could show off the next version of Windows. That, certainly, had more impact on the Earth than two Google searches.  I exaggerate, but, really, isn’t that what this article did as well?

If nothing else, the article DID get us talking about carbon footprints and the possible contribution to global warming all in the quest for knowledge about Brittney Spears.  After all, we MUST know this stuff.

• Windows 7 beta released on time, almost.  Earlier in the week, Steve Ballmer had said that Microsoft would make the Windows 7 beta available, for general download, on Friday, January 9.  They did, but in either a brilliant PR stunt or misguided intentions, Microsoft was ‘overwhelmed’ by the demand and pulled the download down, well the general links, until around noon (EST). They also announced unlimited availability for the next two weeks.
• “Energy Guzzling” plasma screens may be banned in the U.K.  Yes, apparently the large screen plasma set has been deemed an enemy of the Earth and could be banned by our British friends.  They have been nicknamed the ‘four by fours’ of the living room.  A similar measure is being considered in California.  More here.
• Using Google is also bad for the Earth.  In another story from our British friends, using data from Gartner, says that doing two Google searches produces as much carbon as boiling a kettle of water.  According to the article, IT produces two percent of global emissions and it’s carbon footprint last year exceeded the airline industry for the first time.  Astounding, if accurate. 
• In the ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ segment, George the Lobster was set free.  Apparently, George was a ‘pet’ lobster at a New York restaurant.  George lived a peaceful life in a tank.  George was held captive by the mean nasty restaurant.  Or, so PETA wanted us to think anyway.  The lobster is estimated to be about 140 years old and, thus, should be let go.  Apparently, someone from PETA saw the lobster and began a campaign to have George set free.  The restaurant agreed and the lobster will be set free, in the area where it was originally caught.  So he can now swim free…and get caught again.  I suspect he will not be as fortunate next time and will end up on someone’s plate.  While I detest the boiling of these interesting creatures, I would think that PETA has bigger fish to fry, so to speak.
• Google Chrome to be released..soon…for Mac and Linux.  Huh.  I don’t care.  There are a number of good browsers for all the big (and small) platforms.  Does this really matter?  Opera has them all beat anyway.  No on cares. Nothing else to see.  Move along.
• Gillette Evernham and Petty Holdings this week announced that the two teams have merged.  As I blogged about previously, Petty Enterprises is no more.  The combined company, still unnamed, will run out of GEM’s current shop.  Reed Sorenson will drive the famed number 43 this season.  Sigh. Nothing against Reed, but I was hoping for a more seasoned driver.  Good Luck to them all.

After just a little bit of exploring, I found out (I think I knew this already, but was surprised nonetheless) that Parental Controls has been neutered.  The single biggest feature, the web filtering, is missing.  You must now download a provider for this.  Why?  Justice Department crap?  This makes little sense to me.  I don’t have an issue with allowing other providers, but is there, really, a problem with leaving what WAS already there and working perfectly in place?  Seriously?

Also, as had already been announced, Movie Maker is gone, along with the more robust photo gallery.  Of course, the LIVE Essentials version of Photo Gallery is better, why not at least put the damn link on the desktop to download it?  And Mail?  Sigh.  Something that has been included since, what, 3.1?  I know, we knew this was coming.  But, really?

One other minor annoyance I have found is that the ‘my’ is back:  My Documents, My Music, My Pictures and My Videos…all back.  Sigh.  I had just gotten used to-and LIKED-those folders without the ‘My’ prefix.  Oh well, a minor nit…but a nit nonetheless.  This might fix the problem with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 though.  So that is something.

I’ve played around with the taskbar a bit.  I don’t find the default settings as annoying as others (Paul Thurrot, I’m pointing at you!)  but I do find it a bit displeasing:  there does not seem to be a way to change the spacing of the icons.  One thing I DO like:  for grouped icons, it shows a little ‘stack’ of them.  Hover over the stack and you get a nice live preview, similar to Vista, but you see all open windows at once and you can control them from this preview.  Nice.

I’m going to dive back in. I’ll post other findings later.

After trying for most of the day on Friday, I was finally able to get the Windows 7-64 bit ISO downloaded, burned to a DVD and installed on my DV6253 HP Entertainment laptop.  Getting the product key took quite a bit longer-but I did get one. 

I must say, this beta release beats the two betas that I played with for Vista.  This one ‘feels’ like a shipping product. It’s slick, fast and looks nice.  The updates to WordPad and Paint make them useful again and the new theme manager is pretty nice.  So far, many of the UI irritants that I have with XP and Vista have been fixed, though the font viewer is STILL the bloody version that shipped waaaaaaay back in the stone age.

Speaking of themes, there is a nice background changer available that will periodically change the wallpaper.  Very nice.  The included themes are pleasant and offer nice variety.  There three basic theme types: Aero Glass with the nice pretty stuff, Aero Basic without the transparency and Classic?  What the hell?  Why put that there?  It should have died with Windows 2000.  If I want my machine to look like something I bought in 1996, I will run Windows 98.  Enough with the ‘classic.’

So far, the only application that I have installed is Evernote 3, but only because it was the first thing I saw in my backup of the laptop, so I gave it a try.  Evernote 3 is an inferior version of both Evernote 2 and Microsoft OneNote.  It is a glorified note taking application.  Useful, but limited.  I digress.  Evernote installed just fine and seems to work as designed.  I suspect everything else I have been using for the last two plus years in Vista will just work.

Windows 7, so far, has been just fine.  No real surprises. It installed in about half the time that Vista did and a fraction of what it took to install XP or Windows 2000.

I think Microsoft has a winner here.  I need to use it for a while, but, dare I say, on the surface, it seems better than Vista and way better than XP.