Shuffle This!

Apple has just released another "color revision" to the iPod line. I'm an avid iPod fanatic, using both the 4GB Nano (original, black) and the 30GB Video (white)... I love the concept of colors, having the ability to choose which color suits my personality best is quite delightful. And the original iPod, with its white head phones that screamed: "I'M AN IPOD USER! HEAR ME ROAR!" -- was actually originally just for uniformity... White iPod, white headphones. Nothing special, until after the digital music revolution, sparked by the iPod. So, seeing as how we have half a dozen colors of iPods, why not have matching headphones? Maybe it's a bit too much... Maybe the white headphones are still as much as a trade mark as the glowing Apple logo on the MacBooks are.

But each time Apple does one of these color series, I can't help but think just how cool it would be to have all five! And why five colors? Both the nano and shuffle have have colors, but the nano doesn't have orange whereas the shuffle doesn't have black. Hmmm, it makes me wonder what the goal of Apple's marketing team is for the colors series...

Back when the iMac was just getting off the floor, there were two revisions of the iMac 5-Colors series, revisions C and D... Both with colors like "Blueberry" and "Tangerine" -- then a following series -- not specifically "five" this time, however there were five colors, just not released at the same time. This time, the colors were a little more sophisticated, such as "Indigo" and "Ruby." Followed up by further "additional" colors, such as Graphite and White -- each indicating a change in a small feature here or there. Then came the insanity of the "special colors" (if you can call them that) of "Blue Dalmatian" and "Flower Power" -- but, aside from ascetic changes to these Macs, there wasn't much of a serious over-hauling of the hardware or the software no matter which color one purchased. The point in going so crazy with colors seemed almost a "Collect All 5" thought pattern... In other words, "let's make more money!"

Over Hauled

It's finally happened, Microsoft has officially released Windows Vista. Computers are now coming with Vista preinstalled, and the IT industry is about to go through a transitional period from Windows XP to Windows Vista (always a painful experience, but usually, it's for the better).

Unlike previous editions of Windows, which were released as server series, sometimes with a business client included with that release (such as with Windows 2000 Server with it's business client Windows 2000 Professional) or in more of a home user series, such as Windows Server 2003 with its client, Windows XP Professional being released two years prior with XP Home; Vista is completely different. From my resources, Vista is the complete package, Vista Enterprise being the "server" series, only coming pre-installed on Microsoft approved servers. To keep current network administrators happy though, there is a version of Windows Vista that functions as a server that can be bought and installed on any compatible hardware (just without the added assurances from Microsoft that it won't crash), called Windows Vista Business (designed for small businesses). At this time, I haven't been able to confirm if Vista Enterprise and Business editions are designed to replace Windows Server 2003 or just supplement it.

Moving right along with this confusing array of software versions, Microsoft has also broken down the home user version of Vista into three groups now instead of the usual two, however, this time, there is no clear "business client" version, such as XP Home and XP Pro. This time, we've got Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate. Each with more features than the previous. Vista Home Basic is designed for the general home user with limited multimedia experience, such as just web and email functions -- this probably will only be seen rarely, most commonly in systems designed for very basic "Internet and Word processing" boxes. Home Premium has more features, and is the most likely candidate to be used in the average home system... But as with all previous versions of Windows, I can't help but wonder if there can be some over-rides applied to add functionality.

With the cost of Vista Home Basic Upgrade starting at around US$100 and Vista Ultimate Upgrade upwards of US$270, the question of "which version is right for me" will suddenly take on a new financial concept, seeing as how there is $170 difference! Also, notice the "upgrade" appendage to each, requiring a version of Windows to be pre-installed before upgrading. This is not the same ol' installing the OS with having an old CD-copy of Windows and it's associated CD-Key. Now, it has to be fully installed. Weather it can be older operating systems (such as 2000 -- which don't require activation) is as yet unknown to me.

And, for the first time that I'm aware of, Microsoft is now releasing it's OS via a "digital locker" (courtesy of Circuit City). The price is approximately the same, but it is yet unclear to me as to how this works (is it a burnable CD? an upgrade .exe file?).

There is much to this operating system that will take much more time to adjust to. Things are definitively going to be interesting in the industry for the next few months.


In protest of all of Microsoft's difficult to understand and highly intrusive software licencing, all of this was proudly written on a Macintosh.

Avoiding Microsoft and in search of Open Source Software?
openSUSE | Ubuntu

Xerox of Snow

Work can be stressful at times, especially with the many computers that just don't work right. The same is true for all sorts of devices, including stupid Xerox machines. We've had one in our office for ages now... One day, I found it outside the office, just sitting by the back door. The boss obviously got annoyed by it taking up space in the office and just sat it outside to get it out of the way...

It's January in Michigan.

oddity...

I just got this mailer-deamon failure message in my email:

Notice the received date: 19 January 2007 at 4 AM
Notice the actual sent date: 3 March 2005.

I sent this message nearly two years ago! In all honesty though, it seems to have something to do with my instructor (at that time) -- it looks like he's now switching from Ameritech to Comcast. But it's still quite odd, and that would be horribly annoying if this stuff was going out to everyone in his address book!

But even odder yet... It was an actual message from me that got bounced, not a notification of address change, and I even have the copy of the original message at my gmail account, including his response! Crazy.

~sigh, Macworld

Well, if that wasn't the most disappointing Macworld I've seen in ages. Nothing seriously significant really happened, there wasn't any new changes to the Macintosh PC line-up, the biggest news was Apple TV and iPhone, both don't have much of an impact for the average home computing user that was waiting for the newest innovations in design from Apple.

Granted, the Apple TV is dang sweet, and I'd love to have one myself, and the iPhone is really something that I'd love to tinker with for a day or ten, but it just isn't the same without a major overhaul of the Mac line up... especially when I was hearing rumors of a larger iMac screen and quad-core processors in the Mac server line-up.

One thing is interesting though, with Apple Computer, Inc. changing it's name to Apple, Inc. -- that was interesting. Also, there is to be some upcoming news regarding the iPhone (Cisco lawsuit). I wonder how things will turn out, for this rather uneventful Macworld.

Mac WORLD!

Hahah, I love that video...
But, in all seriousness, MacWorld is today (2006.01.09) -- time to see what crazy things Apple will be coming out with here soon! I can't wait! And I just got my Blue and White G3 tower (the MacBench) up and running at work! It makes me happy.

Dumb Error Messages

From QuickTime 7.1.3, in Mac OS X 10.4.8


On Sunday, January 7, at 1 AM.
Grrr.

The Evils of Automatic Update Utilities

Damn software update utilities! I've never liked any of them Windows Update will update anything and then requests a restart. Selecting "restart later" only causes the prompt to close for a few minutes before prompting again, and most of the updates seem like they shouldn't require the system to be restarted anyway!

Apple's Software Update is just as bad, but it executes far less frequently, which make's it not so bad… But today, I got an encryption update for iChat… After applying it, I was prompted to either "Shutdown" or "Restart" -- I didn't even have the option of doing anything else. I decided to risk it by just force quitting the application -- the next time my MacBook (now named 「アキラ」"Akira") truly requires a restart, the update will be applied…

SUSE's YOU (YaST Online Update) is nicer about the restarts, but one has to be really careful, YOU keeps notifying me that my Firefox is out of date and needs to be upgraded to such-and-such a version of Firefox 1.5.x.y -- However, I have long since manually updated to the 2.0 series of Firefox… If I'm not very careful on exactly that I select in YOU, it'll downgrade my Firefox (and in the process make me really grumpy).