Last Vista Rant - Maybe

My Vista trials and tribulations continue. I'm borrowing a laptop for the next three weeks that has a nice clean copy of Windows XP so that I can prepare for the ITC conference in St. Pete. I am making several presentations there and absolutely don't feel that I can rely on making Vista do what I need it to do during these presentations.

Tom Hoffman has given me even more reason to consider ditching Vista altogether and retreating to XP for the foreseeable future. If Windows XP is going to be supported until 2014, maybe I'll take the opportunity to completely skip the hell that is Vista - except of course for the past two months of increased gray hair and blood pressure.


Some day maybe I'll be brave enough to make the move off of Windows altogether. However, I do use several programs that currently do not have alternatives in the Linux world, but not many.

In closing, I'm hoping to make this my last Vista rant. Even I have no interest in reading this blog if it becomes just another one of the "Vista Sucks Out Loud" diatribes that are scattered all over the net - even though those are the truest words I've ever spoken.

Microsoft Windows Vista SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS!!! There, now I'm done.

More Vista Angst

So I'm shooting some personal video over the weekend (here's the result). Just messing around but using the same techniques that I would if I were making a video for work or some other serious project.

I shoot the video using my Sony DV camcorder and then try to transfer the video to my Vista-"powered" (quotes intentional) laptop for editing purposes. Well guess what? Vista doesn't recognize this very popular (and not-too-old) camcorder. So I try to find an appropriate driver at the Sony website. There isn't one.

I spend the next two hours reading various websites about how I might possibly get the camera and computer to talk to each other - but the end result is a no-go. Just another example of something that worked flawlessly (well, almost) with my previous XP-driven laptop, yet there seems to be no chance of getting it to work on this new one. Apparently the only solution is for me to buy a new digital video camera. Keep this in mind when you get stuck with Vista - you will pay for all kinds of things because software and hardware will no longer work for you the way you expect them to.

In the end I used my four-year old home computer to transfer the video, edit it in Windows Movie Maker, and upload it to YouTube. My new laptop sat in the corner with a dunce cap while I got my tasks done without it.

Vista is pathetic.

My First Vista Rant

This is Bill Gates thinking about the hundreds of thousands of suckers who spend good money on lousy operating systems. I have a new notebook computer and I decided to go ahead with Vista since I wanted to get a good feel for what issues we would face when our whole campus goes to it (IF we do).

There are a few things that I like about it, and many other things that I am just starting to figure out. However, the painful things are easy to spot and quick to frustrate.

The first thing that really ticked me off was this. After using a flash drive to transfer some files, the OS could no longer locate the optical drive (CD/DVD burner) which had previously been drive letter E. Apparently the flash drive stole that letter and then didn't give it back, or something along those lines.

Turns out that this (or other things very similar to it) has been happening all along with Vista. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have probably been affected by it. The Microsoft website advised that I install the proper driver for the DVD drive. Buggar off!! The driver is installed and always has been!! I had to get my advice for a fix from a user's website. Since that time I have found several other sites where the fix is also explained - but never by Microsoft. The site that I used currently has 451 comments in the thread of people who have had similar problems, dating back to April, 2007. The solution is to do a regedit and delete some lines of code from Vista. There's a great idea, let's expect the common people to go in edit their registry - because nothing could possibly go wrong with that - right???

This problem has been around since Vista was introduced and Microsoft has done nothing about it! Can't wait to see what I find next. Ick!!!!! (Double ick, actually)

CC Flickr photo by Domain Barnyard

Blog Recap for 2007

During the past year, I made 154 posts to this blog. Blog visitors mainly arrived here via Internet Explorer (59%) and Firefox (33%). The busiest month of the year was October with 1,567 unique visitors.

Many people find the blog via search engines. The Google search engine was used 96% of the time. The three most commonly used search phrases that people used to find my blog include:

1. Stupid signs (or funny signs) = 1,007 times
   
2. Club Penguin (or club peng) = 876
3. Turnitin sucks (and similar) = 320

Three most visited single posts were:

1. Club Penguin Primer
   
2. Turnitin Sucks
   
3. Famous Chinese Artist
   

My favorite five posts:

1. Minnesota Smoking Ban
   
2. This is Amazing
   
3. 24 Hours (in Tra Vinh, Vietnam)
   
4. Day Two in Tianjin
   
5. More Insanity from NWA