Eric’s Stories

I just went and took the Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.4 Exam ( since 10.5 isn’t out yet ) and PASSED! So I’m now officially an Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist, and on my way to being a Certified Desktop and Portable Technician!

My first impressions of iTunes 7 are great. Getting deeper into it I have to say that it is the buggiest piece of software ever to be released by Apple. Though I have not experienced as bad of problems as some other users have, like loosing all of your purchased music, have an iPod never successfully upgrading firmware, etc. I have found many flaws with the new release.

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

I have been using Windows Vista RC1 since the day it came out and I have some pretty strong opinions of it. I have a lot of likes, and even more dislikes. I installed Windows Vista Ultimate edition the day it was released online. I decided to try it out now because I figured that the major bugs were most likely fixed, and only had small bugs left to filter out. That was my first error in judgment. Since when has Microsoft filtered all the bugs out of any of its software? I change of heart came easily, because I have access to a MSDN account, and I figured “what the heck, it ain’t going to blow up my computer”. No, this post isn’t about how Vista blew up my computer, because luckily… it didn’t.

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.

About a year ago, before Apple released their new Intel macs, I made guess that windows and mac would become closer then ever, and that windows based apps, would be available for mac users, mainly “games”. I have stuck by it, and as the year has roled around, I figured I was right the whole time. Apple since that post has moved to Intel chips, released bootcamp, and now the talk about “Cider”. “Cider” is a

“…portability engine for Intel-based Macs, offering game developers and publishers the ability to deploy Windows-based games on new Macs quickly and easily, without the need for traditional arduous porting.”

It looks like I was right. Things are starting to slowly merge and close the gap. Don’t get me wrong though, Windows and Mac with never be the same.

So now for another prediction! With all the talk about next week and Apple’s WWDC 2006, I’m going to make my predictions as to what Apple will unleash.

1) Power Mac will be replaced by a new Intel Xeon Processor, and a availble Intel Core Duo processor.

2) Mac OS X 10.5 (of course) but here are the features im guess at will be added.

a) tabbed browsing inside Finder.

b) new iChat features (possible to sync to iPod)

3) New…..er MacBook and MacBook Pro.

I’m betting some updates to some of things they have been having issues with, and maybe a new processor.

4) New iPod!

a) Wifi, Bluetooth capabilities

b) ya, it will be a phone. (thats my guess anyways)

5) New iPod Nano colors. This is probelly my only guess that I don’t really think will happen, but it could.

Anyways, I just had to go and make some predictions because everyone else is. I can’t wait to get this next week over with so I can sell my PC and by my MacBook, that is, if they release a new…er MacBook.

It’s back to worring about the content of this site again. I seem to have a bit of a unbalanced site. I work really hard on content for months, and then I work on the design. Well, its time again to work extra hard on getting good content on here again, and slowly making it a 50/50 even amount of work on content and the site design. I really need to layoff the changing my template, I just never seem to satisfied with the design.
I got a couple of “How To” posts coming out. I’m also looking into having a Eric-Taylor.com birthday. It’s coming up on May 7th. It will be good trust me. *Cough* Maybe release of K2 Reloaded V2, and Tarski Reloaded V1?! You’ll just have to come and see.

Things have been pretty crazy in my life. I have been so busy lately, with work, school, friends, and I keep getting people asking me to do site-redesigns. I haven’t posted for awhile, so I thought now would be a good time to let you in on a couple of things.

I have finally got bored enough with my site that I am going to be changing the template soon, I hope you guys will like it, I know I like it. I have given a clue in the site right now, giving you a hint of what the next template will consist of. You will have to find the clue on your own, but I’ll give you some help. Delete your cookies, cache, and history in your browser, and reload the page. You may not notice the clue, but that makes it fun.

I’m still looking for someone to take over development of K2 Reloaded. I plan on working side-by-side with the new guy, so that we can get everything working, I just need someone to actually work on it. So if you interested, and I have recieved many emails asking me about it but nobody seems to get back to me, drop a line and let me know.

Tarski Reloaded is almost ready too, but again, I need someone to finish it.

I have one last thing to make you aware of. I am currently making a theme for people to download and use, that will be completely made from scratch. It will not be a “reloaded” theme.

So there you have it.