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After some testing on my own to see what I could do to fix the problem I have come to the conclusion that there is some interference from the bluetooth connection and my Airport connection. After disabling my airport and using the wired connection for hours I have had no problems.

Apple, please get this issue resolved soon. I don’t like being all tangled up in wires.

UPDATE: Just wanted to give everyone an update on how I fixed the issue. I found that I have a new wireless network in my area now, which I believe was set to the same channel as my router. I went into my router settings and changed my wireless channel from 6 to 9 and applied the change. I haven’t had a problem since. Apple suggested that I buy a Airport basestation because it supports more then the 2.4GHz spectrum. This would also fix my problem, but for $200.

The main thing to me is this new view in iTunes 7 called album view. In which a user can graphically scroll through album art to the chosen album and find your music. It is very sleek and sexy. The problem I encountered was that if you have a soundtrack that has multiple artists songs in the album, you get the same album over and over in they view only because iTunes recognizes that they have different artists. Come on APPLE! It is one album, I’m sorting by albums, SHOW ME THE ONE ALBUM. NOT 11 OF THE SAME STINKING ALBUM!

Now that I got that out of they way, gapless playback. I love this idea for gapless playback, its great to listen to songs with no gap and get the real feel the artist was going for.

I have also noticed, with other users, that when you login or off MSN, or you lose your internet connection, you music playing in the background suddenly stops, and a minute later resumes.

My last nudge with the release is when I play videos. When I play my TV shows (The Office for example) in a small window on my desktop, I lag out. The video is all stuttery and slow and the refresh rates are horrible. When I change over to full screen all is well. This has never happened before, why start now?

UPDATE: After reading some other bloggers post about there experiences (problems) with iTunes 7, I have come to realize that iTunes is using more memmory then it did in version 6. In version six I got about 20,000 K – 40,000 K Memm Usage, and now I get 144,000 K Memm Usage.

Here are some links to other bloggers issues.
-iTunes Memmory Hog
-Huge Problems with iTunes 7
-iTunes 7 Bug Discovery

So first things first, the install. So the install was easy, nice, simple, cleaner then previous versions of Windows where the wizard would nag with all these questions while you were eating your sandwich in the other room, only to find a half an hour later that you install isn’t done because it’s asking you a question. All in all much better then what it has been, but I think they could still improve.

After about an hour long install later (keep in mind I was putting this on a minimum requirement system, to see how well it works) I was in the GUI and feeling refreshed with this new, for Microsoft, eye candy feel. What I mean by that is that I feel the number one change from XP to Vista is the GUI, but all it is coping old Mac style.

Once logged in I saw so new features.

One, the “gadgets” bar. A sidebar that is modeled from Mac’s widgets idea, the only difference is that it is not as good as widgets, and it’s on a sidebar.

Two, menu bar has changed slightly, adding some new features to easily access different functions. I don’t really care to much for this “improvement”. I feel they are just moving things around to make it seem different, when it really isn’t. The address bar on the other hand I really do feel is an improvement. The basically changed it from a simple address location, to a tree. You still can enter addresses in the old way.

Three, the start menu is slightly setup better. I feel that access programs is a lot better now, because instead of hovering over the programs menu and getting a pop out menu, it replaces quick link area with the programs. So, if you’re running XP right now, open up your start menu and you see (depending on how you setup your start menu) 5 quick links of the programs you most use. When you hover over programs in Vista, that list is replaced with the list of programs. A well need improvement. The last thing in the start menu is that they added the search right to the menu, and again they changed searching over to the indexed system (again, building on old Mac technologies).

If you are a parent with children, and want better parental controls, I have to say, Vista does a fantastic job at the parental controls. You can use when users are able to log on to the computer. Meaning, if you don’t want “Timmy” (your twelve year old son) playing video games, or searching the internet at 2:00AM while you’re in bed, just disallow “Timmy” login at 2:00AM, etc. You can also change ratings for games, and disallow games to be played that have no rating. You can make it so “Timmy” can play “T” rated games, and “Sarah” (six years old) “E” rated games.

Overall these are the main features in my opinion that stood out to me. There is so much more, but I really don’t feel like typing about all of it. So let me sum up my feel on Vista.

Overall Vista is better then XP, when it’s finally released. The beta is still screwed up and I would say not to bother with it yet. Vista in my opinion is still XP, just some “new” stuff added on. All Microsoft has done is implemented old Mac technologies. Apple is pushing out everything new and Microsoft copies to the best of its abilities. Mac OS X put out spotlight, the indexed search, Microsoft added indexed search. Mac gave us widgets, Microsoft makes “gadgets”. Mac gave us the eye candy we all know and love, Microsoft tries to give us eye candy. Mac gives us security, Vista doesn’t.

So is Vista a buy or upgrade when it is finally released? Well the thing is that the only “good” version of Vista is to go all the way and get Ultimate, all the other editions are crappy and lacking key features. The key to all of it is purchase price. I simply say that if you have access to a genuine serial number of Vista Ultimate, upgrade, if you don’t, do not waste your money, stay with XP until you upgrade your machine and then get Vista, or at lease until you finally figure out Mac OS X is better.

Two, I can’t fully forget Windows. My job requires me to know everything there is to know about all OS’s. I couldn’t possibly imagine not keeping up-to-date in Windows world.

I have changed my mind however. I have seen the signs, and I read them right. I had a feeling Apple would switch over to Intel, and soon I feel AMD will come into the picture too. There were signs that Apple was working on getting .exe’s and Windows working on there machines and its true, Windows works on the Intel macs, and they even put this out.

Windows on a Mac? Introducing the Boot Camp Public Beta

The next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, will included a new feature called Boot Camp, which lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on Intel-based Macs, like the new Mac mini and iMac. To experience this today, download the free Boot Camp Public Beta. Switching was never such an easy choice.

With the move to intel boards, it is my feeling that more and more of the good games, will come to the Mac. I also feel that Apple will soon put out something to match, even beat ActiveX.

With all of this, I have decided today that I am going to be ditching my PC, and I’m going to by a MacBook Pro. I don’t plan on buying it for two to three more months, and hopefully they will have Rev. 2 of the MacBook Pro out by then.

More people should follow in my steps

Do not fret though my fellow windows zombies, there is a tool that windows has added that is very secret. I have no clue why it is secret, cuz everyone should know this. Maybe its not a secret, but more of just not talked about, but anyways its called “taskkiller”.

The consecpt is easy enough, good into taskmanager, find the name of the task that won’t quit, and write it down. Then open up Notepad and type something like this

@echo off
taskkill/im NAMEOFTASK.exe /f

and save as a .bat (Batch file)
In place of the NAMEOFTASK type in what you wrote down earlier, and run the batch file, and ta da! Instant end of the task.

Hopes this helps some of you techs out there that have been emailing me

P.S. Incase you are wondering a breakdown of the code to get the meaning, here it is.

taskkill= the .exe that runs to kill the task
/im= the image name of the task to be killed
/f= to force the kill

http://eric-taylor.com/forums

Yes, these means now that I will start work on releasing the Audio Plugin, and I will release it in K2 Reloaded when it is done.

Thank you to everyone who has helped out!

Check it out at http://eric-taylor.com/k2reloaded

Take support questions here in the comments, or at http://eric-taylor.com/forums

So here are some really easy things to do on your computer help protect your computer.

1-Changing your boot sequence, and setting BIOS password.

A person can easily still all the data on your hard drive by sticking in a live CD, like Knoppix, loading it up, and taking anything they want. They do this by putting in the CD to the drive, restarting your computer, changing the boot sequence to CD first, and booting their CD. When the user is in, they can take you SAM.SAM file (Windows Password File), crack it, and know your passwords.

It is really easy to fix this problem, but keep in mind, this will only discourage the hacker, or make slow him down, but it is not impossible to get around… like any other type of security.

Restart your computer and wait until the boot diagnostic screen tells you that you can enter the CMOS Config. To enter the CMOS config, hold down the key your boot diagnostic screen says, it will most likely be the DEL, F2, or F12 key.
Once you have entered CMOS, get to your boot loader page (all CMOS Configs are different, so I can’t really say where you will find it on your CMOS) Once located, change the setup to: FIRST= Hard Drive, SECOND= Floppy Drive, THIRD= CD Drive.
Now go in CMOS and find your “Set Supervisor Password” and password protect CMOS so a hacker can not change your boot sequence.
Save all changes

It is as easy as that, but remember the CMOS password will only slow down the hacker, or discourages him, if he really wants to get into the CMOS, he must pull the battery from the motherboard, or reset the CMOS by using the jumper on the motherboard.

2-Saving only NT Hash passwords

Microsoft for some reason saves two password hash files when you save a password to say… your user. You get a LM hash file, and a NT hash file. The difference is that NT hash is newer, and more secure, and LM hash has been used since Windows 3.1.

The funny thing is that you DO NOT need the LM hash at all! Your computer will run perfectly fine with out it, making your computer more secure.

So let’s get rid of that nasty LM hash

Log in as an Administrator
Go to the “Start” menu and click on “Run”
In the “Open:” text box type in “regedit” and click okay.
On the left hand side of the window you will see a tree menu, click on the folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Then click on SYSTEM, then CurrentControlSet, then Control, and then Lsa.
On the right side you will see the register file called “nolmhash”, double click and open that.
Change the “Value data:” to 0, and hit OK.

That wasn’t so bad now was it?

3- CTRL+ALT+DEL Real User Check

Some virus are coded to automatically login and begin to execute their code, we can easily stop them but screwing up there login code by making a user push CTRL+ALT+DEL, before logging in. In addition to that, we can change the login from the click and point to a user, to typing the in the Username, hence making your computer more secure (because the hackers won’t know your username).

In addition, say you have a little kid brother, or sister, and they love to screw with your computer. By doing the Real User Check, you can make it harder for them to login.

Log in as an Administrator
Go to the “Start” menu and click on Control Panel. (You may have to type “Control Panel” in your address bar in a explorer window if you do not see it on your start menu)
Go to “User Accounts” Under “Pick a task…” click on “Change the way users log on or off”
Uncheck “Use the Welcome Screen”.

You will now be switched back to the classic login, which is more secure.

4-Make a Lock Screen Shortcut

It is just one of the many human urges we get when we see someone else’s computer, or user logged in and unattended to. One just loves to get on and dink around with another’s stuff to screw it up.

It is so easy just to log off, but we don’t want to because that means closing apps. and when logging back on we would have to load all of are startup items again. So make a handy shortcut right on your desktop that you can easily click and lock the screen allowing no one to make any changes to your computer while not having to close any apps.

Right click on the desktop and click on New> Shortcut.
A wizard will come up and ask you to “Type the location of the item:” Point it to your Windows/System32/rundll32.exe (example: C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe) Click Next
Name the shortcut something like… Lock Screen
YOU’RE DONE! That easy!

Well that was simple.

I hope you found all these tips helpful and trust me, it really does help. Questions are comments may be posted.

Soldiers tell their memories of horrific images of bodies being bulldozed into pits, gold being stolen from there teeth, human hair bundled for recycling, and shattered families. The Nazi concentration camps enslaved thousands of innocent people, being tortured and murdered. All for a good cause some say. What good could come from such horrific acts? Hitler justified his actions by saying that they could cure cancer, and when he was researching the cure, Josef Mengele stumbled upon genetics, so Hitler began to restore purity. Basically he was talking about genetics and humans. Restoring the blond haired, blue eyed, people. Any scientist that works primarily with genetics can tell you that all the research that Germans did taught us a lot about genetics. Some even say that European nations were becoming over populated, and Hitler’s killings lowered the population, hence saving Europe from what today China is beginning to see.

Littleton, Colorado, April 20,1999. Two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed twelve of their fellow students and a teacher, as well as wounding twenty-four others before committing suicide. Students that witness the massacre will now have those memories to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Families lost loved ones who were killed in the shootings. Some say that the boys are evil for what they did. But by them shooting and killing twelve students, really save thousands? After the shootings there were major debates on gun control laws and bullying. Schools began to think more about students’ safety. Some say this act helped America by learning to begin to take action against bullies and possible threats. People started to aim at things like Goth culture, social pariahs, heavy metal music, the use of anti-depressants, and violent movies/videogames. The world was sinking into a hole when it came to some of these things like violent movies/videogames, and music, it did open a lot of parents, and teens eyes to what some of the effects of these activities could have on a person.

The bible favors that good can not come from evil. When ever evil acts are shown there is always a consequence, or a sudden change in heart. The bible has two parts two it, answers to one’s life beliefs, and what good, and bad are. The biggest percentages of people on the earth are religious, and the biggest percentage of people that are religious, are Christian. Since most Christian religions base believes on the bible, and the bible teaches that good can not come from evil, then can’t one say that why the majority of people that say that good can not come from evil is because of what the bible teaches. So who decides what is good and what is bad?

The question “Can good ever come from evil?” asks whether evil intent can bring good results or not. As long as you can produce good results as a byproduct, then the evil intention you had in the beginning can be justified, right? Since right and wrong is as just as clear to use as black and white, and we make wrong and right based off of are beliefs, and the only way you can say good can come from bad is by justifying your actions, so isn’t justification the real “grey”?

“server fixs” -admin @ torelliwh.com

I will be changing hosting at the end of the month. The fact that in order to get good hosting you have to go with a major company has finally hit me, and it punched me square in my face. I guess all these little companies that think they can come in to cock fight as a chicken and win, are completely wrong. I have had the worse problems with hosts. First it was the all time worst xero-tech.net, and now torreliwh.com. I do have to say that torreliwh.com did give better support then xero-tech.net, but with all there “server fixs” and “updating security” days, I’m so fed up that I’m paying for downtime. Who pays for downtime?! Not me!

So if anyone is hosted by bluehost.com, or knows someone that is, please get in contact with me, and let me know what you think of them. The should be pretty good. I have looked up reviews and they are the fastest growing company out there right now, and got a award for best tech support. The real seller to me is wordpress.org has them on there “hosting” page. Anyways… if you have been wondering why the site has been down lately, that is why.