Things that suck
- Companies that make you call them to cancel something you signed up for online.
- Napster – I’m looking at you. (and MSN, Xbox Live, and anyone else who pulls this trick)
- Companies with modern products that don’t have 64-bit drivers.
- Netgear, you suck. And the completely non-sense explanation about what 64-bit is and why you’re too lazy to support it is a total crock. Dual CPUs? Give me a break. Let technical people write your technical articles from now on please. Making an x64 driver isn’t nearly as hard as they make it sound. In fact, it’s harder for video drivers but Nvidia, ATI, and Intel have done fine there. USB network adapter? Cake.
- Vista is out. x64 adoption is going to go up very, very fast. Every new machine with 4GB of memory is going to need it, and OEMs are going to be pushing the mid/high-end above 2GB very soon. There’s no excuse anymore.
- Forgetting what number 3 was.
Apple releases BootCamp for Vista
At last, no more scheduled task to restart my mouse driver everytime I resume from sleep =)
The updated driver installer works great on Vista, and installs all the little utilities I hadn’t enabled like the brightness/volume controls. Supposedly there’s some application for controlling start-up options, but I haven’t found it.
Oh, and sound works better now (for some reason, lots of system sounds frequently wouldn’t play on the old driver), as do the idle timers for sleep / screensaver.
It seems like they’ve fixed all the rough edges, except for one thing. For some reason, whenever the Macbook comes out of sleep, it chooses a random state for the NumLock key – but the light on the key itself doesn’t light if it decides to be on. This means that 50% of the time I end up typing an invalid password (because the right half the keyboard becomes a number pad).
All in all, that’s a pretty darn minor gripe compared to the plethora of issues that my Toshiba laptop had.
Start++ 0.4.6
Another new version is up. Users of the last version should get prompted for the update the next time they restart the app (or click the check for updates option).
I know, I know… the Wiki just went up a few days ago. Well, rather than let people get too used to that, I decided to go ahead and set up a real website for Start++ and any other little tools I end up throwing together (I mean, diligently coding to the highest standard of quality!) later on down the road.
It’s just up and stumbling on Community Server, which seems to be working out pretty well so far.
Start++ 0.4.5
I posted another update tonight.
Please post bug reports and feature suggestions on the Start++ Forum.
If you have mirrored Start++ somewhere (against my wishes), please update your copy to this version, as it now supports update notification. So at least if the copy you’re mirroring gets out of date, users who download it will be alerted that a newer build is available.
New Start++ update
Start++ 0.4.2 is now up on the download page. Mostly bug fixes, and only one new feature which is pretty specific to a friend who wanted CTRL+Backspace functionality (to delete the preceding word) in the Start menu. So Start++ will now add that functionality as long as it’s running.
Fixes include more reliable start menu hooking, better performance, a new icon (thanks Chris!) and fixes for a few crashes.
Note that in this release, the installer will not launch the program automatically, so you’ll want to go launch it yourself (unless you only run in the old-school “passive” mode).
By the way, last week Start++ exceeded 10,000 downloads! Nice!
New Wiki for Start++
Tonight I created a wiki site for Start++. That will be the preferred place to link to for users who want to learn about Start++. It’s also set up so that you can post bugs, feature suggestions, and share your startlet files with other users. That last part is slightly more cumbersome than it probably need be… but I think this is only a temporary solution for that anyway.
Nevermind, from now on Start++ lives at BrandonTools.com
Follow-up on Mossberg interaction
Following up on my last post, Walt Mossberg himself decided to drop by my comments section to justify his position. As I said in another comment answering his, I believe his explanation that the 50% difference in cost includes the price of an add-on WiFi adapter to be quite reasonable. However, the article makes no mention of that and in my mind it’s just as reasonable for any reader to believe that figure is in error.
What’s more, I still believe his response to my initial e-mail was uncalled for, and that his suggestion that I should apologize to him is rather absurd. However, I’ve been wrong before. So rather than arguing any further, I’ll simply the share the e-mails in question and let you decide who overreacted.
From: Brandon Paddock
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 1:34 PM,
Subject: Question about Apple TV article (error?)Hi there,
I’m curious about this quote from your Apple TV article.
“But the comparable Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.”
Where does the 50% number come from? I would think the Xbox 360 with equivalent functionality would be the Core System, which is priced identically to the Apple TV box ($299). I say equivalent functionality because as far as I’m aware, the Apple TV doesn’t yet store anything on its hard drive, and its primary purpose is to stream data from an iTunes-equipped PC. As a bonus, the 360 can be equipped with a hard drive at a later date (possibly a much larger one) and play games and DVDs.
However, more concerning is that the 50% number doesn’t even make sense for the most expensive Xbox 360 system, which is priced at $399 (thus a 30% number would make more sense, or you could just be clear and say $399). Thus I have to believe the 50% number to be in error. If not, I’d be interested in a clarification of where it came from.
Thanks,
Brandon Paddock
http://brandonlive.com
From: Walt Mossberg
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 1:42 PM
To: Brandon Paddock
Cc: Katherine Boehret
Subject: Re: Question about Apple TV article (error?)Boy, you really have to read more carefully before accusing people of error. The $299 Apple TV has a 40 GB hard disk and can sync with any Mac or Windows computer, storing the media from those computers, PLUS stream from five more Mac or Windows computers and stream directly from the internet.
Next time, READ the article before emailing.
Walt
Walt insists he read my message “word-for-word” before responding. Doesn’t look that way to me, though.
I just got flamed by Walt Mossberg
This afternoon I was reading an article about the new Apple TV device written by Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret of the Wall Street Journal.
As I was reading it, this line jumped out at me:
But the comparable Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.
50% more? Where did they get 50%? The Apple TV is $299, and the most expensive Xbox 360 is $399. By my admittedly hasty calculation, that appears to be about 30% more, not 50. Curious about the origin of this figure, I clicked the “Email” link at the bottom of the page and politely inquired about it. I concluded my message, “Thus I have to believe the 50% number to be in error. If not, I’d be interested in a clarification of where it came from.”
I also suggested that a comparison between the Apple TV and the equally priced Xbox 360 model might be more appropriate than they had suggested – as the main functionality of the Apple TV doesn’t make use of its 40GB hard drive, making it of questionable advantage with the current software. Surely the Xbox’s ability to play games and DVDs (plus support any resolution including old TVs and the top-end 1080p) could help balance out that largely ethereal advantage.
I received a response within 10 minutes from Mossberg himself, which normally I’d find to be quite impressive. Unfortunately, what I got was an unprofessional flame mail that didn’t address my concern. Instead, it very rudely suggested that I was too uninformed to comment on the Apple TV. He said that if I thought there was an error, it was because I didn’t read the article “carefully” enough. He concluded his message saying, “Next time, READ the article before emailing.”
Perhaps Walt should take his own advice and READ his e-mail before flaming a concerned reader. Even if the error wasn’t in plain sight, his response was uncalled for. Who knows, maybe he’s just having a bad day. That still doesn’t excuse such an unprofessional response from someone of his supposed journalistic integrity. Walt, you need to chill out. Maybe someone needs a vacation?
How can Bush let this happen
In April, the UN is cutting food rations for families displaced by the war in northern Uganda by half. They are citing a lack of funds to continue at the current pace (which already can’t keep up with what’s needed there).
What happened to Bush’s promises of “compassionate conservatism?” David Kuo (former head of Bush’s “Faith-Based Initiative” program) frequently asks the same question. This excerpt from his fantastic (yet distressing) book, Tempting Faith seems applicable
“Forget about all that. Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money. How much money have we given them?” Bush asked.
For two years I had bitten my tongue and toed the line. I wasn’t angry now, but I was no longer willing to lie. “Sir, we’ve given them virtually nothing.”
If you haven’t read it, and have the least bit of concern about faith in politics (or just want a conservative insider’s perspective of the current administration) – do yourself a favor and pick it up.
But first, write to your congressman and senators. Or call them. Reference the article at CNN and tell them that we need to do something about this. Or help support groups working in that region, like Invisible Children or Tusubira.