Windows 7 Is Finally Here!!!
My preordered copy of Windows 7 Home Premium arrived on Thursday, October 22 which was the Windows 7 launch day. Thanks Newegg!!!
So far I’m really liking it but I have had a few problems. I’m getting quite a few minor errors and warning in Event Viewer.
The nVidia driver sucks. I’m getting a lot of DNS errors. If I leave my iPod Touch plugged in when I restart I get a USB driver error. I have had explorer.exe crash. The personalize window freeze. Windows Live Essentials wouldn’t uninstall so I had to keep them.
Twitter: The Growing Giant
Twitter is already huge. Biggger than most would have thought even 6 months ago and it’s still growing. Being the geek-type myself I listen to quite a few podcasts and hear many of my fellow four eyed friends talking about how much they want something new. They want the next big thing. The reason? Too many “average” people are uisng Twitter. I understand the feeling since I have been using Twitter long before any of my friends or family, or strangers that constantly talk about it everyday on the television, radio or while walking their dogs. What was once the playground for the tech elite is now just another website full of average people.
In this case though, unlike YouTube, MySpace, and yes even the golden one Facebook, Twitter doesn’t seem to be full of morons. Sure you have the people who tweet every night at 6pm alerting their followers to what they ate but the majority of Twitter users seem to be more mature. Adults are actually using a social networking site. The only reason I can think of is that teens don’t want to sit at a computer screen and tweet. If their cell phones had a Twitter client I think things would change but not many teenagers use an iPhone. They don’t text tweets because that uses minutes. This means that you can find some really fascinating real people on the site. Celebrities and tech God’s are the prominent ones who are followed but I urge users to take a look at some of the real people too. I’m not saying reading a tweet from Christopher Walken isn’t a great read but just take a minute to check out the average Joe’s too.
Twitter will keep on growing, even with no business model in sight. How do you make money on this thing? Ads are the only way and as soon as they insert ads in between tweets users will start dropping like fly’s. They still have their issues too to deal with, most importantly the amount of new users. I’m getting the “fail whale” more often now.
Oh, and if anyone at Twitter Inc. reads this post please help me fix that damn pop up box that asks me for my login info.
Shooting in the RAW
I have to admit, I never really used the RAW format on my camera to it’s full potential. That is until I actually took the time to delve into the many tweaks and options available in Photoshop CS3′s RAW plugin a few months ago. It was always easier to just snap a pic in JPEG mode and been done with it. With RAW, everything becomes important. White balance, color, contrast, sharpness, noise filtering, black levels and exposure. Things most people never even think about are available for you to adjust.
I used RAW mode before many times but just taking the time to properly adjust the settings produced a much better iamge than what I orignally took. If you have a RAW mode, use it. For almost anything I shoot that has importance I shoot in RAW mode. RAW rocks!
Sites That Don’t Need Search?
I was just looking at Smashing Magazine’s article(s) on web design trends in 2009 and it got me thinking about search. In particular which sites need search and which sites can get by without it. I never added a search box to any of my Justin’s Diecasts sites because I figured the “Car List” feature was enough. Besides, where would I put it?
While the drop down menu can be considered ancient I still think it has it’s place and the “Car List” uses it well. If a person comes to my site knowing what he or she is looking for they simply find the car maker in the list. If they just want to browse, it’s great for browsing. It works because I don’t have a site that contains must-have information. Instead, I provide a kind of entertainment. That might be a peculiar way to label it but that’s what it is. A site like CNN needs search. Blogs need search. But some sites do not.
As sites become leaner and are designed with more white space in might, I think the idea of “no search design” might take flight. I know I like going to a site and immediately knowing what to do and how to find the information I want. Searching is one way but so is navigation if its done properly.
Justin’s Diecasts Has A New Look!
Justin’s Diecasts has been updated with a new look and feel. It should allow for easier navigation and a better user experience. The Car List has also been updated and is faster than ever. The Links page has a bunch of new diecast and car related links.
I wanted the design to reflect the current design trend of clean white space and the top banner randomly changes the header image with each refresh.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
2.2.1 Update Weakens Wifi
I updated my iPod Touch to the newest firmware 2.2.1 last night and now my wifi signal is weak. I can’t even get full bars when my iPod Touch is sitting next to my router.
iPod Touch 2G Jailbreak
It seems as though the most awaited moment for many iPod Touch 2G owners, including myself, is about to happen in the next few days. Redsn0w has posted an image with a hex code believed to be a very important hash. It looks like the 2G jailbreak is going to happen afterall!
Update: Word on the ‘net is that the dev team will drop this on Sunday. Stay tuned to ipodtouchfans.com.
Windows 7: A failure before it even ships?
That’s right. You heard it here. Windows 7 is a failure. Well the servers it’s on are at least.
Actually I quite like it but most people can’t even download a copy right now, at least from Microsoft. Apparantly nobody at Microsoft had any clue, any hint that the Windows 7 beta might be eagerly awaited. Now, millions of geeks including me are getting impatient and we’re wondering where the keys are at. Where are the darn keys! Every MS blog says the same thing:
Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I’ll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!
At least they said something. Ten years ago Microsoft would have never even let us in on this much. Is this a marketing ploy? I doubt it. But, I do know this is good coverage for Windows 7. I mean how many times in the past has Windows interest crashed this many servers? Uh, huh. Never.
Windows 7 Public Beta Countdown
Not long before the public beta of Windows 7 is released! I must say I’m seeing a massive response to Windows 7 in general. Every forum I visit has a post about it. Ninety nine percent of the people posting in those forums are loving Windows 7. People are installing it on their laptops, desktops and netbooks. They say it runs faster and is less of a resource hog and they would be right on the money based on my experience with the new OS. It flies.
I switched back to Vista last night so I’d have all my programs and settings in place for discussing CES and I already miss Windows 7. I miss the thumbnail previews the most. I love this extension of Vista’s already handy feature. The task bar has grown to be my new favorite feature. Everything I do is there. The start menu, search, my most used programs and the most viewed documents I open in them via jump lists.
Mark you’re digital calendars and download a copy to try for yourself tomorrow, January 9. This is the biggest Windows release ever. It isn’t even that Windows 7 is a mjor step forward because it isn’t. It is however not Vista which is all the average computer user had hoped for at the end of the day anyway. Let’s not tell them it’s a new version of Vista, OK?
