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Site Updates

4/16/10

Ok so I lied. No new site for years. Do to work and graduate classes I don't have the time to invest in the site right now, so new site is coming eventually. I did however migrate to new server hardware and software 6 months ago. I also migrated to a new domain for the site as well since 'US' domains don't support private registration. More to come eventually...

New Site Coming Soon

10/25/07

I'll be rolling out a new website soon. I'll be migrating to a new server then I will update the site. More to come.

Gnome Warrior?!

2/7/07

So I took one of those goofy online surveys that tells you want you are, in this case in relation to World of Warcraft. It said I was a Gnome Warrior, the description is pretty close.

Eve of Vista

1/29/07

I was sitting here looking through Newegg.com and was reminded that tomorrow Windows Vista will be released. The long awaited (that's arguable) update to Windows. I started reading the reviews and it amazed me how technically inept some people are. For example one guy was complaining that Microsoft should update there console to be able to handle copy and paste, which in case you don't know cmd.exe, which has been around for a couple of versions of Windows now, has always supported copy and paste and in general behaves significantly more like you'd expect from bash on a UNIX/Linux machines. The amazing part is the guy knew just enough to reference CSH.

Then there is the people that rave about how amazing Vista is and how much faster then XP it is. Which begs the question are they use to slow computers? Here's why I say this. Vista's drivers at best are immature and at worst nonexistent at this stage. Drivers directly impact system performance, the more well written and optimized the driver code is the better the performance. Getting driver code to that stage takes time, but hardware manufacturer's are still finishing their drivers so performance isn't going to be anywhere near where it should be.  But the drivers alone aren't the only pieces to the Vista puzzle. Vista is a pig. It slurps up more ram then any of it's predecessors. The beta and release candidate versions I tested took 800MB idle, which is absolutely crazy. Your average Windows XP machine will hover around 200MB of RAM used with a bunch of background programs running, that means idle Vista can take as much as 4x the amount of RAM as XP. Granted RAM is getting cheaper but just like Windows XP the 32bit versions of Vista can only handle 3GB of RAM which is an architectural limitation as 32bit architectures like x86 can only address 4GB of RAM. But there is a 64bit version of Vista which can address a lot more RAM you say? Well that is true Windows Vista 64bit versions will be able to handle significantly more RAM as 64bit architectures can theoretically handle 2,048 Petabytes, though if I remember correctly Vista 64 like it's predecessor will be able to handle a max of 128GB. Surely 128GB is enough to last us for a while right? Yes it is but that's not the problem with the Vista 64bit versions the problem is the drivers, 32bit drivers for Vista are scarce at best, the 64bit drivers are practically nonexistent. Not only that but Vista 64's (I'll be calling it 'Vista 64' for a short even though there is several versions) handling of legacy 32bit code is laughable, there is currently countless compatibility issues and most 32bit games out right now will not run on Vista 64. Microsoft sure took a queue from Apple when they designed the GUI it's just a shame they didn't take a queue from Apple's universal binary system.

One person even touted Vista's security. I'm guessing he/she either works for Microsoft or in some way, shape or form receives money from Microsoft because while I agree they've improved Vista's security it is certainly no Fort Knox. In fact I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest that now that Vista is available to the masses it's quickly found out that Vista is just as easily exploited as XP and I can pretty much garneted hackers have had their hands on the beta and release candidate versions for a while now and just itching to try out an exploit on unsuspecting machines. But that should be no surprise really, Windows is the dominant O/S so of course it's going to the be the most exploited and the endless patching we've been use to in years past is not changing in Vista. The problem is however that thanks to Microsoft's 'security improvements' (read: DRM infestation and anticompetitive behavior) have rendered most if not all antivirus software less effective, ineffective or nonfunctional at all. There is a reason when major security software firms like Symantec have been up in arms about Vista.

I don't even want to get into Vista's DRM infection right now. There not enough time for that rant right now so I'll come back to it at a later date.

Now after I've ranted about all this Vista is not all bad. In fact there are plenty of new features like DirectX10 that are a step in the right direction. When you boil down to the basics Vista is pretty much Windows XP with a pretty GUI just like Windows XP was Windows 2000 with a pretty new GUI and yes I'm well aware that significant amounts of Vista's underlying code has been revamped over Windows XP's code. Vista in the end is more of an incremental update then a revolutionary update like Gates was hoping for.

So to add a purpose to my rant instead of just ranting to rant is if you are thinking about upgrading your existing computer to Vista hold off. Service Pack 1 is rumored to be scheduled for this summer I'd wait until at least then before upgrading, that way some of the bigger bugs will have been ironed out by then. If your buying a new PC don't worry about it, it will more then likely come with Vista preinstalled. Which isn't a big deal, you just need to make sure you patch your system religiously.

Alright that does it for my ranting. I'm not sure if my rant was completely coherent as I wrote it late at night but I felt like getting that off my chest.

Halloween Over

11/1/06

Halloween is over so I returned my site back to it's default look. Hardly seems like it's November already, time has just been flying. Hopeful at some point soon I will get the other sections of my sight up and running.

Halloween Theme

10/30/06

Even though it's a little late I decided to put together a simple Halloween theme for my web site.

Picture Section Up

10/9/06

I just finished setting up the picture section. I'm using Gallery to handle the dirty work of resizing and displaying all the pictures in albums. I've somewhat integrated Gallery into the website but the theme doesn't look like the rest of the site so eventually I'll have to see about creating a custom theme for Gallery. I'm planning to get the other sections of the site functional soon but in the mean time I have already uploaded some pictures so check them out here and get Gallery for your web site here.

New Site

9/13/06

This is the prototype design for my site, which has been offline for so long I lost count.  It's rather plain but for now it will do.  I should have the rest of the pages ready to go within a few days but it will take a while for me to build up the content on the site.  That's about it for now, I'll post more information later.