journals

So I’ve Just Come Into the Posession of a New Monitor

By Liam, November 11, 2008

And it’s been quite illuminating. Before I go on, however, I should note that this post contains images, and that if you’re using dial-up you should take a moment to remember that you are accessing the internet using the telephone line, which although may have sufficed in a bygone era, is a preposterous thought in this day and age. You should then go get something to drink because this page will take a while to load, what with you calling it up and asking it what it looks like instead of using broadband like civilized people.

Ahem.

For starters, I found a minor display bug in iTunes.

I wonder if Apple has any large displays laying around their offices.... Eh, probably not.

I also found that glossy displays are better than matte. All matte advocates are hereby committed to a mental institute for their choice, which is wrong by virtue of differing from my choice.

What’s on the screen? What’s in the room? Hours of fun for the whole family!

Lastly, I’ve found that the mobile web is more fun the larger the display gets.

Who needs line wrapping?

The interesting thing that I’ve noticed is that, despite coming from…
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So, um, Windows 7

By Liam, October 28, 2008

There really isn’t any other way I can think of to introduce an entry where I talk about Windows 7.

So, after seeing a run-down of the new taskbar in 7, I have to say that I’m cautiously optimistic. On one hand, there was the somewhat bad decision to eliminate separation of open applications and shortcuts in the taskbar, as well as remove the titles from view. On the other hand, some of the other enhancements, such as the Jump Lists, the pinning applications in position, and the Peek slab sounds like a useful feature in theory, though it hasn’t yet been implemented. This is one situation where Microsoft’s position on deprecating old features can be appreciated, as it appears the current style can be chosen over the new one. I do like the direction Microsoft has taken with the system tray, which will, by default, suppress all third-party icons and notifications.

Aero Snaps could actually catch on like hot corners have on other operating systems. I can see myself making use of the left and right edges often, though I do wonder how it’ll handle dual-monitor situations. Gadgets should have retained the sidebar as I preferred them that way,…
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Note to Apple: Vista is fixed.

By UnnDunn, October 21, 2008

Apple’s relentless anti-Vista smear campaign continues, with its latest round of “Mac vs. PC” commercials accusing Microsoft of spending money on marketing that it could be spending to “fix Vista.”

Here’s a note to Apple: Vista is fixed. It’s called Service Pack 1, a release that, by all accounts, addresses the vast majority of issues Vista had at launch. Windows Vista with SP1 is fast, stable and highly capable, and despite Apple’s relentless smear campaign, people are gradually beginning to realize that Vista isn’t as bad as they’d been led to believe.

It’s time for Apple to stop the smearing and go back to focusing on the positive aspects of Mac OS X.

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Tomorrow is Wednesday, and You Know What That Means

By Liam, October 21, 2008

Yes, that’s right, a new Zero Punctuation episode is released. Remember class, it’s okay to Laugh Out Loud as you young people say, just remember to take notes because there will be a test on it tomorrow. It’s recommended that you review previous editions in the archives to help prepare yourself for the test.

In other news, I went on a nostalgia trip this week when I found my old Rollercoaster Tycoon disc. It actually installed, and then showed me why 2D isometric perspective could not have died sooner. Imagine trying to line up two sections of path in three dimensions, except you have no depth perception at all and you have to stand 20 feet away from whatever it is you’re constructing. Yeah.

I’m not the guy to go to for old school gaming, let me tell you.

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Just For The Record

By Liam, October 20, 2008

Since over the years it has become increasingly clear that Apple’s developers cannot for the life of them write Windows applications with any sort of the attention to detail for which they are known, and since it is also an arduous task to educate those who have not personally experienced the cavalcade of mediocrity that is anything made by Apple with the extension .exe, I want to array out just how oddly inconsistent and sometimes frustrating these applications are. Rather than start right in with the evisceration, however, I want to go over the sole Apple application that actually took Being a Windows Application 1-2: Software Update, for some mysterious reason.

Apple Software Update

Ignoring the obvious aberration that under no circumstances should bug fixes necessitate a 75MB download, Software Update by and large is the best application of the four. It’s consistent with the visual theme of the system rather than foisting it’s own look upon everyone, it (mostly) uses Windows design conventions (except for one big one: Tools>Options is the preferred way, not Edit>Preferences. An entire menu in the menubar could have been eliminated by following this simple paradigm.)