Being a 40+ year old with health that is, shall we say, not ideal, I am at a point in my life where I have to really watch what and where I eat.  Working in the IT field, I have developed many, many bad habits:  lots of caffeine, little exercise, long periods of time in front of a screen and keyboard and almost no sunshine.  All of these things lead to trouble.  The worst habit, though, is the eating out at lunch or dinner, for that matter.  While I have curtailed the lunch time habit a bit, I still eat prepared foods.  There is a Quizno’s in my building and I often get lunch from there.  The food is better, but I can only take it but so much, so I will  venture to Wendy’s or one of the other restaurants near my building.  On the weekends or during the week, I still have a bad habit of picking up something on the way home, thus extending my bad habit to my family. What to do…

Well, eating out does not have to mean eating junk food or bad-for-you foods.  In fact, there are several fast food restaurants that actually have food that is good or, at least, better for you than the standard fare.  And, yes, Wendy’s and McDonald’s are included, as it Taco Bell. 

McDonald’s actually has a pretty decent menu, if you skip several things like soda and fries.  The grilled chicken sandwiches, with lettuce and tomato, are a good choice.  The grilled chicken wrap, the salads (with light dressing) are also good choices.  The Egg McMuffin is an excellent breakfast sandwich that won’t add too much to your waistline.  Those potato cake things, well, just leave them there.  Oh, for desert, you can get a yogurt parfait.

Wendy’s is another good choice and they also have a pretty decent menu, again, if you skip the fries and soda.  They also have a great selection of replacement sides for those fries.  You can get a side salad, baked potato or chilli.  They also have mandarin oranges and bottled water.  While the grilled chicken choices are best, you don’t have to give up that burger just yet.  The jr burgers weigh in around 300 calories.  The burger and a side salad or plain baked potato will give you a filling lunch while coming in less than one hamburger all the way.  They also have a great selection of prepared salads, but, keep in mind, these are large portions.  Still they do not cost all that much, so you can still have a tasty salad and limit your portion while not wasting money.  Throwing away a part of that salad or saving it another meal is a prudent thing to do.  Portion control is key here and every where.

Taco Bell is probably the last place you’d think of when it comes to semi-healthy eating, yet you can do OK there.  Forget the tastier items on the menu, though.  They are either way too much-calorie wise-or are just bad for you.  Those large grilled burritos…forget them…BAD.  But the crunchy taco’s, regular burritos and other similar items-eaten in moderation-are not that bad for you.  And, remember what you heard about beans and your heart!

Along with the good places, though, you have the ones that you should just avoid.  Like Hardee’s (Carl’s Jr in some areas.)  While some of the food is tasty, and splurging ONCE IN A WHILE is OK, the menu at Hardee’s is chock full of bad-for-you stuff and almost nothing that is good for you.  They have, or had, one hamburger that contained 1900 calories.  It was many patties high, had lots of bacon and cheese.  Just thinking about this monster makes me ill.  Even the breakfast menu is loaded with badness.  They have an omlette biscuit that cannot be good for you.  I don’t know what nutritional value it has, but it is quite large and…well, you have to see this thing.  KFC is another place that has very little to offer that is not fried.  The grilled chicken sandwich-plain-isn’t bad, but the grilled chicken wrap, while tasty, has a sauce that is not quite low fat.  Get it without the sauce.  Most of the menu is, though, full of fatty or fried foods.  Burger King is also another restaurant that has more bad than good things.  The baconator and that quad patty burger are but two examples of things to stay away from.

My favorite fast food joints are Quizno’s and Subway.  I like Subway a bit more, but the big Q is right there as well.  Both offer a ton of choices and can be as good for you or as bad for you as you want.  Both have vegetarian only selections and both have a great selection of low fat offerings as well.  Subway is experimenting with non sandwich dishes like personal pizza’s.  I’ve not had them yet, but son tells me they are good.  The portions are small, so they should not be all that bad.  One day I will have to investigate them a bit more.

Lastly, ditch the soda.  I am a sodaholic, but have had to radically alter my soda intake over the last few years.  I’ve cut out the sugary soda all together, but still drink the Splenda sweetened soda.  But, even that has been curtailed.  I drink more and more water and enjoy good hot-teas in the afternoon.  These teas have little or no caffeine, are usually herbal and are relaxing.  Sobe has a few good sugar free drinks and there’s always fruit juices.

While I have not cut out all of the bad stuff, I am learning how to eat better.  I still eat too much pasta and really enjoy a good deep dish or thin crust pizza.  Eating a bit better and just getting off of my lazy butt and taking a nice stroll once in a while is paying off.  I’ve lost a few pounds and have the cholesterol under better control.  Living with such insidious things like diabetes is really hard, and when I was told I had it, it was pretty shocking.  But, it is not the end of the world and there are lots of things you can still eat and enjoy.  And going out to have lunch or dinner does not have to stop.  You just have to know a little bit about what you are eating.  And say no.  A lot. 

OK, so Microsoft is trying a new tact at revamping its image and fighting Apple: use ‘real’ people in ads that show how expensive Macs are.  Apparently, the first person is an actress.  Whatever.  I don’t care if she is or is not.  Heck, I would be surprised if she were NOT actress. 

Anyway, much has been written about this particular ad.  Specifically, those who defend Apple at all costs (I’ll refer to them as ‘haters’, as that is what they would label me) gleefully point to the “I’m not cool enough for a Mac” line in the ad.  On the surface, this probably seems like a good thing to them.  I would point out, though, that it is probably sarcasm.  I would probably say something a bit more snarky than that, but she was making an ad, I am not.  The point is that Macs, for no other reason than Apple chooses to, are far more expensive than most Windows based computers. 

My computer is way more powerful than anything Apple sells for under $1500.  My computer was about $630(US).  It is a quad core machine with 8gb of RAM and a 750gb hdd.  In fact, a quick trip to the online Apple store reveals that I’d have to buy a Mac Pro-which starts at $2,499, to get anything close to what is in my machine.  And, yeah, my machine does not have the Apple ‘flair’, but, from the photos on the site, I’m glad.  That Mac Pro is one of the ugliest computers I’ve seen, this side of Packard Bell.  Oh, that 2,499 dollars got you a machine with just 3gb of RAM.  Huh?  Why not four?  Why three?  Weird.

So, back to that ad.  I think it is on target.  What would have been better is if they had actually gone in the Apple store and shot part of the ad there.  Of course, that would not have happened, and if it had, I’m sure Apple’s legal department would be all over it.  And those store personnel would be going to Best Buy looking for jobs.

It never ceases to amaze me as to what lengths Apple fans will defend the company and its products.  The haters are trying to use this ad as another reason why Apple is so cool and everyone else is not.  The haters will point to Vista and all of its alleged problems while totally glossing over the problems with Leopard (which many of them will discuss amongst themselves, but no one else, lest the luster of Apple be tarnished.)  The haters will point out the nasty malware that infects a Windows machine at the very moment you touch it.  Why, they get malware without even being turned on.  While the fruit eating kitty cat machines will never, ever get anything close to malware, they never ever crash, they never ever have to be restarted after changing or updating anything and kitty cat owners are oh, so cool and smart and never ever worry about what they click on while surfing the net.  We poor, uneducated, uncultured, unsophisticated (did I spell it right?) Windows user have to live in fear, wasting our time fixing our machines and never, ever being productive.

This ad was spot on and I hope they only get better. C’mon Ballmer, put more teeth in them.

Today I received an email from the Spore team informing me about some new things coming up for Wii, PC and the DS Lite.  A version or derivative of the original game.  As I was reading, it dawned on me that I had not installed it on the new computer nor had I even played the thing for quite a while now.  Even though I bought the Creature parts pack during Circuit City’s liquidation sale several weeks ago, I had not thought about Spore all that much.

Well, tonight I decided to install the game and the Creature pack.  I was a bit worried that it would not let me install the game since I had already installed three different times.  I installed it twice on the old PC and once on my laptop-only to find it would not work.  I did uninstall it from the laptop, but could not remember if I had done so on the old PC.  Fortunately, the draconian DRM either kept track of the uninstall or it is not quite as draconian as previously thought.  I don’t really care at this point:  it reinstalled fine.

To my dismay, however, it took a LONG time to install both packages.  Nearly an hour.  I thought something was wrong.  So, after the install was complete, I start the game…AFTER figuring out HOW.  I forgot that EA actually uses Vista’s Game Explorer: that was the only place I found an icon to start the game.  Also, I did not have the issues I had the first couple of times I installed the game.  This time, it just worked.  BUT…you KNEW there was one, right? once the game started, it told me there was an update and did I want to download and install it.  So I did.  Another fifteen minutes later, I was able to actually START playing.

I completely forgot just how much this game is and how involved you can get.  I don’t think I was as enamored with it when I first got the game.  It is a pretty good game and Wil Wright deserves kudos for coming up with this fantastic game.  As much as I enjoyed the game, however, I could not help but to think that the Creature pack is a complete rip off.  Yes, you get new parts, but this is something that should have been a free download and NOT retail box.  I only paid a few dollars, three or four, I don’t recall.  However, it retails for twenty dollars(US).  Twenty dollars for this is twenty-five too much.  EA, you should be ashamed.  As much as the core game costs, this add on package should either be included with the game or available as a free download. 

The new games, though, look very interesting.  There is something called ‘Spore Galactic Adventures’ that will be available for PC or Mac and there is a Spore game coming to the Wii.  Spore Hero  is an adventure game focusing on creativity and evolution. The game will take full advantage of Wii’s motion controls.  The DS is getting Spore Hero Arena.  Arena is a sequel of sorts to the Spore Creatures game already out on the DS.

If you enjoy simulation and ‘god’ games, Spore is a must. 

My son loves to play games.  He has since he was able to understand what a game is…needless to say, that covers pretty much his whole life.  There really isn’t any one type of game that he prefers over another, but he does seem to lean toward the simulation genre more than any other type. Over the years, he has gone through various phases…rollercoaster games, RPG’s of the Nintendo flavor, sports games, back to rollercoaster sims and, lately, city building.  Yep, he has discovered Sim City.    So now he is on a quest to play all Sim City games.  He is on a roll having played the original (courtesy the web and the Nintendo Virtual Console) and the more recent entries including Sim City 3000, Sim City 4 and Societies.  He even has the abomination called Sim City Snap City and the older Sim Town.  But, the one version he had not played happens to be my favorite:  Sim City 2000.

Well, I remembered that I had an old copy of it, from like 1996 or so.  The game is OLD.  I finally found and proceeded to install…er, attempt to install the game on my Vista 64 bit machine.  Well, the installer choked.  I tried all of the tricks I knew to get it to run, but it just refused.  I even tried to install it in my Windows 95 virtual machine, but, as often happened back then, the installation died a very dishonorable death.  Well, the edition I have happens to have a DOS version, a Windows 3.1 version and the Windows 95 version.  Of course, none of the would install.  So…I turn to the web.  I rediscovered a nifty little emulator called DOSBOX.  I knew it existed and had even used it, but it had not occurred to me to try it for this particular game.

I downloaded the most recent version of DOSBOX and installed it.  It runs just fine under Vista 64, so I got really encouraged that this might work.  Unfortunately, I had problems reading the cd.  So, I just copied the whole disk to my hard drive and mounted that directory under DOSBOX.  Not only did that work, it worked very, very well.  I got the game installed and was able to play.  There are, however, a few things that worked a little goofy.  For instance, you cannot start the game in full screen.  You have to start it windowed, then, once the game is running-that is, once you seen the terrain-you can ALT-TAB to go full screen.  So…the game works just fine. Now, to install it on my son’s laptop.

Now, his laptop is an HP 17 inch entertainment laptop.  It has Vista Home Premium 64 bit, 4gb ram, pretty decent ATI graphics, etc.  I expected everything to run as it did on my machine-also an HP.  Well, for reasons I don’t understand, his keyboard maps differently under DOSBOX.  Bringing up the key mapper fixed that problem, but it was a goofy issue nonetheless.  So, I copied the SC2000 directory from my computer to his computer and then gave it a try.  Of course, the game ran just fine.  However, starting DOSBOX, mapping a drive and the starting the game was more than I wanted him to have to remember.  He is, after all, only eleven years old-and, yes, it is a fancy laptop for him, but it will have to last several years so we went a bit overboard.  Anyway, you can create an ‘autoexec.bat’ type of script for DOSBOX.  It goes in the config file under the Autoexec section.  After setting that up, I put an icon on his desktop and explained how to switch to full screen once the game starts.  He can remember ALT-TAB, he has used it on other things.

Here's the [Autoexec] section I put in his config file for DOSBOX:

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c c:\sc2000
C:
cd sc2000
cs sc2000
sc2k

The config file can be found in the C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox-0.72 if you are running 64 bit Windows, or in C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.72  if you are running 32 bit Windows.  The file name is dosbox.conf.  Remember to change 'sc2000' to the directory where you installed the game.

While Vista’s compatibility with older software is excellent, there are apps that it just will not handle.  Most old DOS games have various problems and DOSBOX seems to do the trick.  I have a small collection of older games that I want to try now. 

And for those of you who do not use Windows, DOSBOX is available for Linux and Mac OS X.  It is a great way to play those old gems.

Download DOSBOX here.

UGH.  I think that sums up my feelings on patent trolls.  It is yet another week and another lawsuit thrown Apple’s way.  This week, though, Apple got slapped with TWO of the buggers.  The first lawsuit contends that iPhone/iPod Touch infringe on three patents owned by Affinity Labs.  The patents cover IDEAS such as a method for sending information wirelessly to a portable device, including for browsing and downloading online content like music or voice mail that could be transferred (either by copying or streaming) that content to a handheld device via a wireless network.  They also cover docking the portable device to a boom box or a car stereo.  Lastly, they contend that the App Store also infringes, unfairly, on those patents.

These patents seem like they could cover a whole host of devices from small laptops, so called ‘ultra mobile pc’ devices, netbooks, Smartphone's and pdas. The ‘method’ for the browsing and downloading of content seems that it could also cover web browsers and that, to this writer, seems like prior art.  These patents are relatively recent as well with two of them granted in the last nine months or so.

The second lawsuit deals with an imaging sensor in the camera portion of the iPhone camera.  Accolade Systems claims that because Apple is using this sensor, they are contributing to the violation of the patent.  The patent covers a method for detecting a camera’s sensor intensity saturation by producing three CMOS image sensors. 

Accolade started out just by suing Aptina and Micron.  Apparently, Accolade amended it’s lawsuit to cover Apple’s use of the chip.

These lawsuits, especially the first, just go to prove how broken our patent system truly is, and it needs to be fixed.  I don’t know what the answer is, but it needs fixing.  The patents awarded to Affinity Labs seem pretty obvious, that is, many people had the same idea and there are only so many ways to implement them.  I would also argue that there is prior art with the web browser, HOT SYNC by Palm (though that was wired) and even the old fashioned cell phones had browse and purchase features.  My old LG handset that I got in 2003 allowed me to browse a ‘store’ and buy content.  I know, I bought a couple of games. 

The notion of having a business model based solely on patents is just ridiculous.  It reminds me of SCO, and look at what happened to them.  Admittedly, I don’t know anything about the two companies involved, but this strikes me as a grasping at straws measure.  And, I also cannot believe I am saying this but…Go get ‘em APPLE!

The so-called ‘getting things done’ methodology is something that I’ve never been able to fully grasp.  I am probably very opposite of that and am in a state of constant disarray.  Probably not the best way to live, but I think I am doing OK.  Problem is, though, that I cannot remember many things and needed a way to ‘organize’ the more important aspects of my life.  The death of my father in law nearly two years ago drove home the need to have certain things in order and make certain information available to both myself, my wife and my son.  Should something happen to us, there would be one place for him to go. Likewise, if something happened to my wife, I would know all of the information about our life.  Same for her.  So, how to accomplish this?  Do I write something, I am, after all, a developer. But, I don’t wish to reinvent the wheel. 

One day, while laid up with a back injury, I started playing with Microsoft OneNote.  Whoa…this is it.  So, I set up a personal notebook, created sections for each of us and we began to populate it. We were amazed at how much information that we knew individually, but not collectively.  It was quite an eye opener.  We keep everything in there now, including medical information and prescription history.  I have a central copy of the notebook that all of the PC’s access.  Each PC has a local replica of the notebook as well.  Since I have a Windows Mobile Smartphone, I run the mobile version of OneNote and keep medical information there.  When I go to my doctor, I can pull up all of the medication I have to take, and any other pertinent data.  When I take my son to his doctor, I have his information as well.   OneNote made it really simple.

Enter my professional life.  I am a developer for a fortune 500 company.  I deal with many aspects of my company and work on many projects at the same time.  I wanted to use OneNote at work, unfortunately OneNote is not free and I ran out of licenses to install it on my workstation.  I began searching for an inexpensive alternative.

I found several potential alternatives to OneNote, but only one really stood out:  Evernote.  I downloaded the free version and liked it.  It was very, very close to OneNote.  I liked it so much that I spent the $40 and bought the application.  Not long afterward, I discover that there was also a mobile version of the application.  Great!  I setup up my ‘tape’, which is like OneNote’s notebook.  I was pretty happy with Evernote.  I could create templates, which was a tremendous feature, to record things like meeting notes, work schedules, script snippets and other important information.  I could even replicate the databases.  Wonderful.  I even got several free upgrades.  Even better.  Then, Evernote went the wrong way with the upgrades.

Evernote 3.0 is a radical change from 2.2.  Evernote 2.2 was versatile and very robust.  You could do just about anything with it.  It even had OCR in it:  it would recognize text in photos.  This was very useful:  I could photograph a white board and then index it.  Pretty darn cool.  Unfortunately, that and most of what made Evernote 2.2 truly useful, went away in favor of Mac OS X and web features.  The Windows version of Evernote was gutted.  The mobile version was replaced with a lame read only version and the application lost much of its usefulness…and it’s loyal supporters.  All along, the Evernote team maintained that the features-most of them-would eventually be restored.  So far, I don’t think many of them have been.  The character recognition, I believe, is the only one that has been restored.  I am going to be wholly unfair now.  I have not checked out the latest releases.  After being fed a bunch of crap through the user forums and seeing little progress, I have pretty much given up on Evernote 3.  I still use Evernote 2.2 at work, but we’ve recently gone to Office 2007 so I will be pushing for OneNote. 

It’s too bad that Evernote took a big step backward. It is not often that a great product takes such a huge step backward, but Evernote did.  Still, Evernote has value.  For people who have never used the older versions, Evernote 3 is a useful application.  You can synchronize with the web and access your ‘tape’ anywhere that you have internet access.  There is an iPhone version that looks great.  Clearly, Evernote was more concerned with having something that was more web centric and they were not worried about losing what installed base that they had because they knew they could make up the loss with people who are easily impressed with form over function and a ‘clean’ user interface.  For me, this is unacceptable and LOSING functionality in favor of the web piece was step backward. 

OneNote is superior to all of its counterparts.  Hands down.  Why Microsoft does not promote this product more is beyond me.  The versatility of OneNote is, hands down, unsurpassed by any other similar application.  Though it was originally designed for tablet computing, and still has tools built in for that, it works very well for mouse and keyboard.  It also has indexing of text, images, video and sound. 

For me, OneNote and Evernote have been a godsend.  I am a bit more organized and feel more comfortable that important information will be easily accessed for my family, if need be.   (You can password protect your databases as well.)  Both applications are worth a look.  OneNote is the industrial strength, get it done application while Evernote, in it’s 3.0 incarnation, is the warm and fuzzy, form over function application.  If you use a Mac, Evernote is your only choice.  OneNote is, for some strange reason only Microsoft knows, Windows only.  And that is too bad.  It is a terrific application and should not be a Windows only tool.  Microsoft should not only put out a Mac version, but they also should let the whole damn world know about this marvelous product.

Links:

• Evernote – Free to $45 a year for online storage; free version is advertiser supported
• OneNote - $79 to $99 standalone; included in the Home and Student Edition of Office 2007 ($99-$149)

A few days ago I decided to, once again, give Internet Explorer 8 a try.  I thought it might work better on a fresh system.  Fortunately, it has.  So far, nothing goofy has befallen my system.  Web pages seem to render properly and, overall, the browser seems fairly solid.

That does not mean, thought, that all is bliss in browser land.  While the browser than the last two betas were, it still ‘feels’ like it is in beta.  It lacks a certain amount of polish, I think.  Some sites, ones that were pretty snappy in IE 7, seem more sluggish while others pop right up.  I suspect it is the javascript that is slowing it down.  I don’t know it would be different, but it seems like it is.  Also, when opening new tabs, they sometimes hang.  The tab will get created, a blank page-sometimes-show, but no content is rendered.  Sometimes, just creating an empty tab causes the whole browser to just stop.  The entire browser window will ‘wash out’ and the '(not responding)’ popped up in the title bar.  Bringing up the task manager and killing the four or so IE processes solved the problem.  Restarting the browser, I was prompted with the ‘do you want to restore your previous setting’ dialog.  I said yes and the browser dutifully opened all of the sites I had opened in the previous session, plus it opened that blank tab.  Impressive, if only for a second.

Since I have been using Windows 7 for a bit now, I was already used to IE 8’s features.  The in-private browsing works, though I don’t really get why it is needed.  I, know, to cover up ones tracks.  Whatever.  The colored tabs are far more useful.  It helps me keep track  of what tabs are related.  Why is this important?  Well, I tend to forget my ‘trail’, so to speak.  Having same colored tabs at least helps me keep up with my thought train. 

Web slices, a potentially cool feature, are, so far, useless.  I have not seen any sites that use them.  The accelerators are handy. 

So far, as I said, I’ve not run into any compatibility issues.  But, then again, I have not really looked for any.  Since NO site is 100% compliant and NO browser is 100% compliant with everything else, how would I know anyway?  I’m used to things not looking right in Firefox, Safari, Chrome and, of course, IE.  I think the whole ‘standards compliant’ bit is a load of crap anyway.  As long no browser is 100% standards compliant AND the whole bloody internet is not compliant, it is just marketing talk anyway.

All in all, IE 8 is better than the betas and at least as good as IE 7.  I cannot say it is the best browser out there, but it is far from the worst.  It beats Chrome, is as decent as Firefox…no, it’s better.   Microsoft needs to keep an eye on the competition though.  Apple and Mozilla are nipping away at them.  There are a lot of people who are convinced that Chrome is the better of all them all.  I really just don’t understand that.  While the latest version is better than that first horrid release, it still has quite a way to go.    IE 8 is a good start for Microsoft. 

In an article entitled ‘Why no iPhone support for Firefox mobile beta?’, Matt Asay of C|Net’s ‘The Open Road’ asks why Mozilla is, essentially, wasting it’s time developing a mobile version of Firefox anything other than the iPhone.  He notes that Mozilla is only targeting the Nokia N810 tablet.  True enough, the only compiled version that they have made available is that version.  Like Mr. Asay, I have to wonder why they picked that particular platform.  However, the browser is open source and can be compiled for any platform-at least, in theory.

Mr. Asay also points out that they initially started with Windows Mobile, but that makes it even more irrelevant.  What?  Windows Mobile certainly has more phones and users than iPhone.  It is the third biggest platform, way ahead of iPhone. 

My favorite line from his article is: “Seriously, while the rest of the world is experimenting first on the iPhone, why is Mozilla futzing around with a niche platform like Nokia’s N810?”  The emphasis is mine.  My response to that is ‘Seriously?’   There are, believe it or not, at least three more platforms that have more users and devices AND developers than the iPhone.  While iPhone is the fastest GROWING platform, it is still a pretty minor player.  Even so, it does seem to get the lions share of press-at least in the United States.

While Mr. Asay sort of acknowledges that Apple would not allow Firefox on the phone, he fails to point out the whys.  Well, lets look at the whys…

When the SDK was announced last year, Apple laid down some rules.  Among those rules were:

• No products that would compete with the in-built functionality (Safari, in this case)
• No products that contained any kind of interpreter
• No products that could harm the carrier’s network

So, the first restriction alone prohibits a mobile Firefox on the phone.  The second, while not prohibiting a browser out right, would severely limit the functionality.  That last point is probably worded wrong, but could, nonetheless hamper the browser.  I’m not sure it still applies either.  I did not take the time to research it further since the first two restrictions would kill off a competing browser anyway.

I’m sure the iPhone fanpeople will argue that only Apple could provide a great user experience (after all, just look at the desktop version of Firefox…it’s a usability nightmare) and that only Apple can guarantee that the application would not kill battery life or spawn one of those nasty life-sucking thread processes.  They might also argue that Apple knows best when it put out those rules to protect them.  After all, non-Apple developers just are not as good as the in-house developers, who know how to write such applications.  Poppycock.  I counter all of that drivel with this:  Apple is afraid that a competing product will be better than the one they spoon fed iPhone users.  They loose a bit of control.  Frankly, I am a bit surprised that they actually released the SDK.  I should not be, since the barriers to entry in the App Store are relatively high.  They claim a 96% acceptance rate.  I find that a bit high.  I also find the ‘800 million apps downloaded’ claim to be false, or, at least, exaggerated.   They have SHIPPED 17 million phones.  800 million just seems unrealistic.  Even it were remotely correct, how many of those apps are really used?  Just how many times would you use the fart application anyway?  Really?

Back to Mr. Asay’s article, he concludes it by saying that iPhone users shouldn’t have to ‘slum it’ with Apple’s iPhone enabled version of Safari.  He then suggests that pressure be put on Mozilla.  Huh.  Pressure Mozilla to get a FREE product on the iPhone.  Why?  What motivation is there for Mozilla to do this anyway?  If you really want a mediocre browser on the iPhone, then download the source, compile it for the iPhone and then jailbreak your device.  And if you wish to blame anyone for having to it that way, blame Apple. They developed the device and the operating system and they allow you to use the device (after all, you don’t really own it.  Just try to do something with it that Apple has not approved and you’ll get slapped with a DCMA notice to stop.)

Yesterday, Safari was taken out in mere second.  Today, a researcher named ‘Nils’ performed a drive-by download attack against Internet Explorer 8 running in Windows 7 on a Sony Vaio laptop.  Nils won $5000 (US) and got the laptop as well.  He was able to take advantage of a ‘brilliant IE8 bug’.  Details of the bug have been withheld.

Microsoft had a security response team at the contest and witnessed the drive-by first hand.

Nils also managed to hit Safari and then, later, exploited a zero-day flaw in Firefox to score the triple run.

This contest proves that no matter how much a developer tries-and these three browsers were developed by three of the top organizations on the planet-you cannot be 100% secure.

The contest ends on Friday, March 20.

• Victory Junction Gang Camp bear in space.  Aboard the space shuttle this week is a stuffed bear from the Victory Junction Gang Camp.  The bears are always given to the children who visit the camp.  They are all made for the camp by volunteers and each is unique. 
• Apple announces upgrades and enhancements to iPhone.  Among the announcements are cut/copy/paste, stereo Bluetooth support, app-wide search and landscape keyboard in all applications.  They also announced support for in-application stores, another means for both Apple and app developers to make more money.  Most of the ‘enhancements’ and upgrades are things that should have already been there, like the copy/paste thing.  Apple also confirmed that the long overdue ‘push’ feature would finally debut.  They still won’t have anything to do with the ‘battery draining’ background processes…even though iPhone is full of them (how else would it allow a call to come through while you are using an application…or how would that push work without a background process? Just sayin…
• Microsoft made further revelations about Windows 7 public…by now, it doesn’t matter.  Release the damn thing!  Most of the new stuff is cosmetic, tweaks to the interface, etc.
• Microsoft also announced Silverlight 3 at Mix09.  They also showed off new versions of Expression.
• Like last year, Safari on Mac OS X was hacked…this time in 10 seconds.  TippingPoint has again sponsored the Pwn2Own contest.  Charlie Miller used a Macbook running the latest release of Mac OS X, was able to use a security hole he discovered last year to hack the browser. 
• Google released another beta of Chrome that is supposed to be even faster.  Yawn.
• IBM wants some SUNshine to liven its portfolio.  Yes, Big Blue wants to purchase Sun Microsystems. Such a purchase, which IBM values at 6.5 billion dollars(US), makes some sense.  The server market that Sun enjoys would be a very nice addition to IBM’s bottom line.  Makes sense to me.

The history of television is one of my favorite subjects.  I have written several posts on this blog about mechanical television and color television.  I thought it might be interesting to go back even more, to the very beginning of television. 

Television, as we know it today, pretty much began in 1946 with the DuMont Network in the United States.  The late 1940’s and early 1950’s saw the rise of state and commercial television around the planet.  I’m not considering anything prior to 1946 as the start of television as we know it because it was still mostly experimental.  Indeed, the BBC had television service going back to the 1920’s.   NBC and RCA had a ‘network’ of transmitters in the 1930’s, but, again, it was experimental.  But, this is not the subject of this post.  No, I want to go back even further than John Logie Baird’s mechanical sets and Philo Farnsworth’s electronic sets. 

The earliest recorded mentions of distance vision-the pre-television term-go back to the 1800’s.  Indeed, the earliest known transmission, over wires, of a picture occurred in 1862.  Abbe Giovanna Caselli invented a device called the pantelegraph.  The pantelegraph transmits still images over wires. The device, something akin to the modern fax machine, used a special ink on an electroplated object-a document-and transmitted it over telegraph wires. The device was pendulum, which from the point of origin read the electroplated document with a stylus on each swing.  The receiver, a duplicate device with a printing device to reproduce the image.  Both pendulums had to be in sync or it would not work.  The synchronization was accomplished by an electrical pulse that adjusted by electromagnets at both ends.  The device was employed by the French government in 1865 and discontinued in 1870.  While the images were still, this device is the very crude beginning of television: it employed a scanning device on the transmitting side and a similar device on the receiving side that reproduced the image.  Remarkable, considering the technology employed.  There were other devices invented during the period, but this one was the first that was employed commercially.  It is actually a modified version of a similar device that was invented nearly twenty prior, in 1843 by Alexander Bain.  For more on the early fax machines, you can go here.  It’s pretty fascinating stuff and is all a precursor to television.

The 1870’s saw many discoveries and advancements that would lead to television.  Many famous people, such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, had grandiose visions of developing practical ‘distance vision’.  The term ‘television’ was not coined for another thirty years.  Bell proposed the photophone, a device that used light to transmit sound, be used to transmit images.  A scientist named George Carey built a simple system that used light-sensitive cells.  Sheldon Bidwell experimented with the photophone.  The real advancement, however, came in 1884.

1884 was the year that Paul Nipkow sent images over wires with his rotating disk.  The disk contained a spiral pattern of holes, with each hole containing a lens.  As the disc spun, light would pass through the holes, striking one of the light-sensitive cells that Carey had performed his experiments.  The cells would send out an electrical pulse. On the receiving end, another disc, spinning in sync, would have a light that flickered in sync with the electrical pulse.  As the light flickered through holes, an image would form on a screen on the other side of the disk.  A crude, 18 line picture at that. But, it worked. He called the device an ‘electric telescope.’

The term ‘television’ was first used in the year 1900 by a Russian scientist named Constantin Perskyi.  Huh…I guess the Russians really did invent television.

In 1906, American Lee DeForest invented the Audion tube, which was an amplifier tube, it would become a key component in television development.  Also in 1906, another Russian was experimenting with a television system that combined the Nipkow disc and the cathode ray tube.  The system would use a mechanical camera to scan the image.  The CRT would then display the scanned image.  Boris Rosing filed a patent for his system-in Germany-in 1907.  He also patented an improved system in 1911.  That system was demonstrated the same year.  Sadly, Mr. Rosing was died of a brain hemorrhage in 1933. He had been exiled two years earlier.

Another more widely known Russian, Vladimir Zworykin, invented tube called the iconoscope.  The iconoscope was the electronic equivalent of the Nipkow disc.  While no moving parts were involved, the principle is similar.  Zworykin had emigrated to the United States and went to work for RCA, where he led the development of RCA’s all electronic television.

Mechanical television development continued into the 1930’s.  John Logie Baird of Scotland, and Charles Jenkins of the United States, each independently developed mechanical television systems. Baird was first to transmit moving images using the mechanical system.  This happened in 1925.  The following year, Baird achieved a resolution of thirty lines at five frames per second-hardly the high definition we enjoy today.

Color television remained elusive until the 1950's.  Zworykin patented a color television system in 1925, but it never worked well.  Other color television systems were developed-as early as 1904-but none were successful.  John Logie Baird, however, did have a real, working color television system, but it was all mechanical.  While Baird eventually gave up on his mechanical television, his color system did not die.  CBS television used Baird’s system as the basis for its color standard.  That standard became THE standard in October of 1950.  The system employed a color wheel that synced to a signal that was broadcast over the air. The system worked very well, but it was not compatible with the black and white standard of the day.  Resolution was also less: 405 lines versus the 525 line system in use at the time.  The standard was short lived and, eventually, a modified version of the RCA standard was used.

No history of television would be complete without mention of Philo Farnsworth.  Farnsworth held many patents on electronic television in the United States.  He fought the behemoth named RCA and won.  Sadly, his contributions to television are often overlooked due to exaggerated histories put forth by RCA, Zworykin and others.  Also, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that television development was taking place all over the planet at the same time.  Japan, Germany and Russia, in addition the United States and Great Britain, were all developing television.  Germany was probably further along in the late 1930’s.  The German government employed public television to spread it’s word.  They used projection television so that many citizens could view the pictures.  Like the development of the computer, many of the early contributors are often overlooked.  Television is no different.  There were many Japanese scientists, German inventors and Russian scientists who contributed greatly to the advancement of television. 

I can only imagine the excitement that Caselli or Nipkow must have felt.  That they were able to do as much as they did during what was, essentially, the caveman era of technology is remarkable.  Imagine an image that was broken down, mechanically, sent over a distance and reassembled by another mechanical means…in the 1800’s..amazing.  Just amazing.

I’m a patient person.  Sometimes, a bit too patient.  I will wait in line while some nitwit is trying to decide what to order, even though they have been standing there for twenty minutes yapping away on the phone only to decide what they want when asked.  I am pretty patient when it comes to technology as well.  To a point, that is.  Being a programmer myself, I understand what goes into many things.  I can overlook a lot. 

BUT…I have a limit to that patience.  And it has worn thin, very thin, with the Zune.  For well over a month now, I’ve had these maddening little problems like not being able to log into the Zune Marketplace, logging in but not being able to play anything, buying a song but not able to download it, etc.  For the last week, I thought my login and play problems were resolved.  Now, there’s a new issue:  I go to download a video and get:

Can’t download

This item is already in use.  Close any programs that might be using it or stop playing it and then try again.

Now, how in hell can the file be in use IF IT HAS NOT COMPLETELY DOWNLOADED!?  How can I use something I don’t have?  Very frustrating.  Of course, I click the damned help button but-as is usual-it provided zero help.

I like the Zune, I really do, but I don’t care for these problems.  I went a year with nearly trouble free usage. Now, it’s all gone to crap.  I am sure it is a compatibility issue with Vista 64, but I have zero desire to be a test bed for something that should already be a complete, functioning and relatively problem free experience. 

iPod is out of the question.  We have one and it’s experience is far worse than this.  Besides, my son has taken that over and I have no desire to purchase a new iPod.  I think I will just use up the credits I have left on the Zune, drop the Zunepass and just use it for podcasts.  That Palm PRE should be out in a few months.  I am hoping it will fill my multimedia needs.

Zune, it was nice while it lasted.

June 12, 2009 is the current date for the analog to digital television switch over in the United States.  I say current because I think the government may interfere yet again.  Call it a hunch. 

The FCC has announced new rules to govern the switch over.  Among the new rules is one that says that full power stations must disclose, publicly, the fact that they will not reach as many viewers as they did using the analog signals.  They must do this if they lose two percent or more of their viewers.  They must also disclose that they are moving from VHF to UHF if they were a VHF station.  This is something that I don’t think many people realize.  Commercial television is vacating the VHF spectrum entirely.  What once was thought to be the wasteland of television-and the kiss of death-is now the exclusive home to the same medium.  IF, that is, this transition really happens.  I’m starting to get skeptical.  Maybe I’ve listened to Dvorak too much.

Another aspect of the transition that is really suspect are the converter boxes.  The government is giving everyone who wants them, two forty dollar (US) coupons to use toward the purchase of the converter boxes.  Guess how much these things cost?  Right..$45 and up.  They are priced just high enough to where you still have to fork over some cash.  Look, these things should not cost any more than thirty dollars.  There just isn’t anything to them.  Most of these things are bare bones tuners.  They generally only have composite or s-video out.  They almost never have any special features.  They are NOT worth more than thirty dollars.  Period.  I’m betting that once the coupon program is over, you’ll see these things for twenty dollars.  Just watch. 

No matter what the final date will be, it would be advantageous of you to apply for those coupons.  They are, supposedly, easier to get now.  I don’t know how that could be, I got mine nearly a year ago now. It was brain dead simple to get them.  I really did not need them either, but I did use one to get a converter box for my mother.  Get them while you can. 

At the very least, the converter boxes can make a fair TV look pretty good.  These little boxes, overpriced or not, do a nice job with presenting the high-def digital signals look really nice on that old analog set.  The difference is striking.  My mother loves hers. 

Let’s just hope the government stays out of it now.  Let the stations do what they need to do. People will figure it all out.  And pretty quickly, too.  When they go to watch Judge Judy and see snow, they’ll get it pretty quick.

Recession? What? Where?  OK, so I may not be an economist or even remotely knowledgeable about such things, but what I do see is a very busy commercial sector.  I live in the Richmond, Virginia area.  Richmond is not a very big city.  Indeed, it is smaller than Charlotte, North Carolina, but way bigger than Mayberry.  Richmond was home to Circuit City.  Richmond is home to Philip Morris and several other significant companies-just not as many as it was just a few years ago.

Indeed, the economy has taken a big step downward.  However, for about the sixth weekend in a row, I’ve seen more retail traffic than the last two Christmas seasons combined.  Roads that are normally very busy, especially on weekends, have seen way more traffic.  Stores that would normally be dead on a Friday afternoon have been packed with people.  Local shopping centers have seen double or triple the amount of shoppers.  Three visits to Costco, spread over three consecutive weekends, have resulted in wait times of twenty to thirty five minutes just to check out.  It has been worse than any Christmas shopping season in recent memory and made ‘black Friday’ look like a walk in the park.

The shoppers just aren’t window shopping either.  They are spending real money.  Those Costco trips were very revealing:  EVERYONE wants high definition televisions and new computers.  I don’t know what the numbers say, but in Richmond, at least, televisions and computers seem to be doing very well.

Another sector that even the pessimists agree is doing well are video games.  Indeed they are.  Nintendo’s Wii is STILL selling well and even the Sony PSP is doing well.  In fact, recent numbers indicate that the Wii is selling 32% more than this time last year.  Nintendo is also releasing the DSi, the new DS Lite handheld, on April 4.  It is already available in Japan and is the latest mega hit from the big N.  Microsoft has much to crow about as well.  XBOX Live is doing well, very well, and sales of XBOX games are at a high.  Sony’s PSP is up 18% but the PS3 is down 16%.  Sony is not out yet, but they could do quite a bit to help the PS3, like killing off the PS2 and reducing the expensive console’s price.  Overall, though, the gaming sector is still red hot.

My personal observations-just that, observations-make me think that the economy is in much better shape than we are led to believe.  Personally, I don’t trust much of the media.  Delivering doom and gloom is what they do best.  I think part of the way the economy was covered, especially in the months leading up to the election, was to paint the former President in a much harsher light than necessary.  Just how bad things seemed to be really did depend on what network or newspaper you watched or read.  If you watched MSNBC, then you probably wanted to slit your wrists.  If you watched Fox News, you probably just dismissed it all to some left-wing ploy.  ABC was a bit more moderate.  CBS I just ignored.  Their credibility went south with Dan Rather.  NBC was, well, like MSNBC.  I the truth was somewhere between Fox News and NBC. 

At the end of January, shortly after Mr. Obama took office, things looked REALLY, REALLY bleak.  General Motors was on the verge of shutting down.  Circuit City began to wind down its operations.  NASCAR seemed like it was going to be black flagged.  Every major bank was on the verge of being taken over or worse.  President Obama convinced the nation that drastic measures had to be taken.   Fast forward to March.  Suddenly, General Motors no longer needs another loan.  They said the steps taken are sufficient to allow them to continue operations.  AIG is still hanging in there, though it still looks bad for them.  Other banks seem to be stable for the moment.  The President even said that the economy is probably not as bad as previously thought.  About the only really bad thing that came through was that Circuit City did, in fact, shut down. Its stores closed for good on March 8.  Its corporate operations should shut down in the next month or two. 

Before anyone tells me I’m out of touch, yes, I realize that un-employment is at a twenty-five year high.  Many businesses have shut down.  I am well aware of all of that.  However, I would say this in response: How many companies have used this crisis to simply pare back operations or ‘prune the fat’?  Apple is one of those companies.  So is Microsoft.  Many companies took advantage of these ‘economic times’ to fire staff when they probably did not need to do so.  Likewise, many companies did so because they had to do so.  GM is one such company.  Chrysler is another. 

I don’t know.  Just judging from what I’ve seen, the economy can’t be as bad off as we’ve been made to think.  What about your area?  Have you seen an uptick in shopping or spending?   Write back and let us know.

I haven’t posted over the last few days, mainly because I have not been feeling well.  I’ve had a migraine-like headache for several days. Today, though, I’ve felt better so I fired up Live Writer to post something.  Problem is, I just don’t have much to say.  There have been a few things in the tech world to talk about, but, by now, they have been thoroughly covered.  I was going to write about Windows 7 and some of the discoveries made over the last few days, but between Ed Bott, Paul Thurrot and other blogs, that’s been very well covered too.  So…what to write about.

Well, I thought I would take a page from Seinfeld and just write about nothing.  Already, though, I’ve managed to write about how I’ve been over the last few days and bore you about what I WAS going to write about.  So, here we are.  Since I have your attention, why talk about movies.  I don’t do that often. So, below, are two mini-reviews of movies I watched today.

DIE HARD – ***

Man, what can you say about Die Hard.  Die Hard is THE action movie of the 1980’s.  Starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, Die Hard is about a New York policeman (Willis) who is visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles. During a Christmas party in the Nakatomi Tower, a gang of thieves takes Willis’ wife and other employees of Nakatomi hostage.  Willis was not in plain sight, of course, and gets away.  Meanwhile, lead thief (Rickman) goes about the place, talking incessantly about nothing-much like I am doing now.  Of course, Willis manages to kill several thugs and cause mayhem for Rickman.  The police and the FBI look like total morons-to make Willis look better.  Needless to say, Willis saves the day and make a desk-bound cop a hero.  Rickman’s career manages to survive despite his character’s fall.  Die Hard is my favorite eighties action movie and one of my all time favorite action flicks.  It’s over the top, corny in places, unrealistic everywhere and, best of all, it is a fun, fun movie. It is Bruce at his best.

THE ABYSS - *

I had forgotten all about this film.  I remembered it while watching Leviathan…a truly forgettable film that mixes Alien with the Poseidon Adventure.  Just awful.  Anyway, the Abyss follows the story of a group of underwater oil riggers-or something like that, some marines and creatures of the deep.  One of the marines wigs out, tries to nuke the place and ultimately implodes. Literally.  Ed Harris manages to communicate with the creatures, the creatures save the underwater platform and all is well.  Except for this movie, that is.  The special effects are good, but, alas, the story is not.  Harris’ usual overacting makes the movie somewhat enjoyable.  Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is just awful and the rest of the cast is just there.  While this film is not quite as bad as Leviathan, it is one to avoid nonetheless.  This movie was one of several movies released around the same time. Fortunately, that trend did not last long.

So there, I’m out of words now.  TTFN.

• Apple announces a new iPod Shuffle today.  The new Shuffle is small and buttonless.  In a spectacular design coup, Steve Jobs dream of a truly buttonless device is made a reality.  The new Shuffle has no visible controls on the casing.  No, in the greatest design and social move of this century, Apple has placed the device controls ON THE EARBUD wire.  Yep.  So, now if you want decent sounding earbuds, you’ll have to pay the ‘Apple tax’ and buy a pair of earbuds that have said controls.  The new Shuffle sells for eighty bucks (US) and that decent pair of earbuds is another eighty bucks (US).  So…for one hundred and sixty dollars (US) you can pay forty dollars more than a Nano with real controls (or a Zune.)   Hey, it they did bump up the storage from one to four gigs. Oh, it also talks to you.  It will attempt to tell you the track information, assuming it is there.  You all BUY your songs from iTunes, right?
• Microsoft announces the new Windows Mobile Store as well as details on how a developer can get into the action.  For $99 (US) you can join the club.  For $99 (US) you can submit your application to store.  If sold through the store, you can share 30% of the revenue with Microsoft.  This has a familiar ring…Microsoft does say that they will not erect those walls like THAT OTHER COMPANY.  Hmmm…I wonder who THAT could be?
• Palm announced the PRE way back in January, creating tremendous buzz.  Palm was/is hoping that the PRE will save the company.  The PRE certainly looks slick.  I’m waiting for it to come out as I will be right there at the Sprint store to buy one.  The problem, though, is that everyone who thought about buying a Palm phone is also waiting…which means few Palm phones are selling and that is a problem for an already cash-strapped company.  After all, this same type of thing killed Osborne computers back in the eighties.  Palm had to sell more stock to raise funds just so they can introduce the new phone.  I certainly hope they live long enough to get the thing to market.
• Olympus Imaging manager says the megapixel race is over and the consumer wins.  Well, he actually said that twelve megapixels is enough, saying the few actually print any of the photos they take and fewer will ever need higher resolution.  Really?  Well, thank you, Mr. Wannabe, er, Watanabe.  I’m so glad someone knows what I am going to do with my photos.  And, no, twelve is NOT going to be enough, thank you very much.  I didn’t realize Olympus STILL made cameras.  Who knew?
• FINALLY! The Kindle has been hacked!  Well, not really.  Someone figured out that Kindle 2 can connect to the internet via YOUR computer’s connection, bypassing Whispernet (what Amazon calls the Sprint high speed data network.)  Yeah, now you can connect to your computer’s internet connection VIA USB.  So…this three hundred dollar (US) WIRELESS, PORTABLE device can be tethered to your computer to do something that is far better on said computer.  Count me in.

Last week, Amazon released a Kindle reader application for the iPod Touch and the iPhone.  The application is meant to be used as an adjunct to the Kindle device.  Not having an iSomething, I cannot comment on how well it works, but judging from what I have read and heard, the application is OK, nothing great.  Those who have a device AND an iSomething seem to like it.  At least one review I saw, by someone who does not have the device, was generally negative. It was as if the reviewer just did not get the whole eReader thing.

Of course, the software release reKindled the whole debate over the device and whether it will succeed. Well, of course it-or another device-will succeed.  This is a burgeoning market and will, one day, be just as prevalent as mp3 players and GPS devices.  Kindle 2 appears to be the first big step. I have to ask, though, why.

What I mean by that is this: Kindle 2 is just an evolutionary step from Kindle 1.  I suspect that it is the form factor that has wowed people and not it’s functionality.  Kindle 2 does not do much more than Kindle 1 does-aside from the text to speech ability.  No, I think it is the sexiness more than anything else.  The Kindle 2 is more Apple-ish in design and I think that is why it has struck a cord, at least in the tech press.  Most of the people who are gushing over the device are Apple advocates.

Regardless of who is talking about the device, EVERYONE has to mention the price.  Yes, $359 is a lot of money for the device.  However, those same people seem to miss several key points.  The big one is that you get built in wireless access.  This is huge.  Yeah, it is there mainly to allow for the purchase of Amazon product, but you have a built in browser.  You have access to great deal of information for almost no money.  For me, this nearly makes the high price worthwhile.  Another point that seems to get lost is that this thing IS a computer.  It has memory, a CPU, an operating system and runs Java.  Granted, it is currently a closed system but so is are the iSomethings.  You cannot do anything with them without ‘jailbreaking’ them or getting your content approved and spoon fed by Apple.  I don’t really see much difference between Amazon charging a more premium price than Apple overpricing the iSomethings. 

I love the Kindle.  I really never thought I would like the device as much as I do.  My only problem is that, lately anyway, I just don’t have a lot of time to sit down and just read.  But, vacation is around the corner and, I suspect, I’ll be using it quite a bit.

For an interesting read on the Kindle, check out this article over on Gigaom.

Over the past couple of weeks, Windows 7 has shaped up even more.  Microsoft confirmed that many features in Windows 7 can be ‘removed’.  Those features include Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, DVD Maker and other bolt-ons.  Also revealed are more interface tweaks and some new photos and wallpaper.

They have made it even easier to create and apply themes, many new sound schemes have appeared and many of the applets have received new icons.  In addition, the taskbar has been tweaked so you can add more pinned items, the ‘glow’ on the taskbar icon stays ‘on’ when you mouse over a live preview, the Start Orb glow is more distinct and the ‘Send Feedback’ link is now gone.

Comments from some of the reviewers include ‘it feels even more stable and responsive’ and ‘the interface is even better.’   I suspect, though, that many ‘normal’ users will not notice-or care-about them.

It would be nice if these changes make it into the next public release-an RC-due out this month or next.  Even though the now ‘old’ beta that I am running is far more stable than any release prior to Vista, I would like to see for myself how much more it has improved-both under the hood and the coat of paint.

The one thing that still eludes concerns the so-called classic theme.  Why include this thing now?  It looks out of place and just kills many of the UI niceties that Aero and other themes contain.  The battleship grey appeal is about 15 years out of date now.  I really wish Microsoft would put the thing out of its misery.  It is the computer equivalent of a pile of dog doo.  And you can only make that look so pretty.

To put the Windows 7 ‘hype’ in perspective, I glanced through a couple of 1994 and 1995 era magazines that I still have left.  One of them, a PC World magazine from 1994, quoted a NASA IT person as saying “Chicago’s not a step forward-it’s a leap forward” and “It’s a chance to soar with the eagles.”  He was, of course, referring to Windows 95.  Windows 95 received tons of pre-release favorable press.  The interface, of course, was the biggest, most obvious change.  It was called ‘handsome’ with slick looking icons and buttons.  Well, yeah, I suppose it was then.  Now, though…ugh.  It is kind of funny to compare the press for Windows 95 and that of Windows 7.  In a way, Windows 7 is the Windows 95 of this decade.  Yeah, Vista was first and 7 is just built up from Vista. The difference, however, is that Windows 7 has more right about it at this point in its development than Vista.  Seven is a reboot of Windows, much like the new Battlestar Galactica is a reboot of the old.  In fact, Windows 7 is just like that show: the old show was fun at times and, when new, looked fantastic.  It did not hold up well.  The new incarnation is very different while reminding you of where it came from.  Windows 7 is just like that.  Oh, both the new show and Windows 7 are getting lots of good press and that always help.  The difference between 7 and Vista are striking as are the similarities of Windows 7 to Windows 95. 

My son has been sick all week.  He has strep throat and some kind of ‘flu variant’, whatever that really means. He’s been a sick boy.  His throat, naturally, is very sore and precludes a lot of foods and some drinks.  Well, one of the things he has asked for, all week, is a Slurpee or Slushie or some variant of that kind of treat.  So, on my way home from my job, I’ve stopped to get him one of these.   Since 7-11 specializes in the icey beverages, that’s where I’ve been stopping. Oh, sure, I got a ‘slush’ from Sonic Drive In once, it’s been the 7-11 variety almost exclusively.

Well, let me tell you, I now know what the single most unrealiable device that mankind has EVER devised: the Slurpee/Slush/Icee maker.  One stop almost always leads into an Indian Jones-like quest for the ice drink.  And it’s not just the 7-11 machines.  Oh, no, my friends.  It’s all of the various branded machines.  All of those bloody machines.  I am convinced, though, that this is some kind of ruthless plot by both the retailer and the manufacturer.  Has to be.  We put men on the moon.  We have more computing power on our desks-no, in our pockets, purses or on our belts-than the whole planet had in 1969, the year we went to the moon.  C’mon.  There’s no way we can consistently screw up the manufacturing process, right?  I mean, seriously.  These machines are always broken.  They are more unreliable than an XBOX 360 or your a Fiat auto.

One friend of mine suggested that they all must be powered by Windows.  While that might have been funny for a split second, the machines have been around for far longer than Windows.  No, these things have been breaking down for at least as long I’ve been around, and that is the better part of four decades.  Windows has only been around about half of that time. No, it’s not Windows.

I’m telling you, it is a conspiracy.  Get us hooked on the damned treat, then randomly yank it away in the hopes that we buy the more expensive and, perhaps, more profitable products in the store.  There has to be a ‘fail’ switch on the machines that an employee, under the guise of ‘cleaning up’, can hit just prior to you walking in the store to buy the treat.  I’m on to them now.  If the machine don’t work, I don’t buy.  Period.  I’m gonna turn around and walk out.  Really.  Crap, those donuts sure look good…

Last year, Kyle Petty and his wife Patti announced a second Victory Junction Gang Camp in Kansas City.  The new camp is scheduled to open in 2011.  Today, the new camp got a huge boost when KBS Constructors of Topeka announced that it would build, free of charge, a state of the art, 1.5 million dollar, medical facility.  KBS president Dan Foltz made the announcement during a press conference.  The new facility will provide medical assistance to campers and will house the equipment for the children who attend the camp year round. 

“We are confident that our specialized experience in critical and sensitive environments makes KBS the right fit to build The Body Shop. We are excited to make this dream come true for the Pettys, Victory Junction and the thousands of children they will serve” Mr. Foltz said.

Victory Junction Gang Camp was the culmination of the Petty’s son Adam, who died in a crash in 2000 at the New Hampshire track.  Adam had visited a Whole in the Wall camp run by one of Paul Newman’s charities.  When Adam died, Kyle and Patty decided to see Adam’s dream through and build the camp, which opened in 2004.

The camp, located in Randleman, North Carolina, allows children with physical or medical conditions to attend a camp that is specially equipped for what ever needs they may have.  These children would, more than likely, never be able to attend a camp for ‘normal’ children.  At Victory Junction, they are all ‘normal’.  There is a medical staff on site at all times and the children are accompanied by trained staff.  Some of the staff are called Crew Chiefs and supervise a small group of children.  The children get to play games, sports, climb trees, climb a rock wall, bowl and do lots of other things they may not ever get to do. 

The camps are funded solely on donations from the public, the private sector and NASCAR and it’s drivers.  Several drivers, such as Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch have donated millions of dollars while other drivers have donated time and money to keep the camp functioning and provide some fun for the children.  The private sector, including generous companies such as KBS Constructors, Wal-Mart and Coca Cola have also donated millions of dollars and provide other means of support.

That KBS Constructors committed to building the medical facility during the current climate speaks volumes for both the company and the people who run it. 

You can read more here.