State of the British economy

Granddad + nail painting != fashion statement

Ok, so my sister asked my Granddad if he wanted his nails painted, but him being stubborn would not refuse the challenge, here are the results (he did only allow one hand to be painted though :( )

I will email this one to all the family

 

Hmmm Guinness

Up, running, and not noticing a thing!

While this title may seem like I am dissing Windows Seven it is actually one of the biggest products I can make.  The thing Just works!  I have had no problems at all and I am enjoying some of the features, but there is a cool desktop background!

 

I have the disk…

To my surprise I have just received and unpackaged the Windows Seven box, I took some photos along the way for your benifit.  There isn’t too much that can be said, it seems quite bare, they have made the box in the odd curved shape again but it opens in the traditional manor.  It would seem that Microsoft weren’t sure them selves about the release nature of Windows Seven in Europe as the disk box itself is in a card sleeve that looks like it was designed for easy changing.  Also there is little literature inside, but I have the full version (by sheer luck) and all for £50.  There was only a small A5 booklet in the form of reading material.  Also, as promised, the package includes both 32 and 64 bit versions of the OS.  I know which I will be installing!

It is worth noting that I won’t be rushing to install it as I might as well continue with my very stable 7100 install with all the goodies from Ultimate.  Not that functionally there will be any difference to me as a user I feel that it is worth my while just to let time go by for a while until I install 7600, I have been holding off installing things like Visual Studio and Expression studio while I was waiting until the release but now I feel I will install it when I decide I need a full  version of VS installed too, this could almost wait until VS 2010, which will be no doubt be released just after Server 2008 R2 (released with Windows Seven, so a General Availability date of Thursday October 22, 2009 – 3 days from now.)

So I am syced that I could be one of the first to show the box and do an undoing of a disk ;) for you, so, with out further ado, here are the photos…

 

      

As Always,

graymalkin

Fail…

Windows Seven

3 more days – OMG!

Windows Seven

Windows Seven in 5 days

Woot!  5 days until general availability.  Unfortunately for me, I have to wait a few extra days for delivery.  How I wish I spent more money for next day delivery:(

As Always,

graymalkin

Windows Seven Countdown Continues

Only 9 days left now guys!

Photoshop

Ok, so we all know that photoshop is a challenging program to use but who could make such a hash of this!?

Now she is a freak dood!!!

Image from Daily mail

As Always

graymalkin

Apple iPod touch 3.1.2

I have recently updated to 3.0, I was admittedly a late adopter and waited until early October, but this is a joke. I update to 3.0 and download that only for iTunes to tell me to download 3.1.1, so I do that and now they want me to download yet another update, what is this?  See if Apple can get me stung even more by the damn fair use policy.  As it is from 4PM – Midnight I get 56K, that is bloody dial up, just without the cool noise.

As Always

graymalkin

Windows Seven is nearly here

I am completely psychopathic with excitement, Windows Seven build 7600 will be in the house on the 22nd, just 10 days to wait!

I am looking forward to doing an unboxing but it will be my first so could be quite shaky

.

As always,

graymalkin

And the countdown begins..

11 day until Windows Seven General Availability!

Clean Windows Seven Install

I have just gone through the painful task of re-installing Windows Seven, but now I have… IT IS SO FAST!!

Zune 4.0 and the Zune HD

Now, I may or may not have posted about Zune before, frankly I can’t remember.  But I have been using Zune occasionally when I want to see some WPF porn, now though it is not an occaision.  The guys over at Zune have made an evolutionary update to the loved software making it more compelling than ever before.  iTunes is a mess.  Originaly it was fast and indeed one of the best media players around, but Apple in their infinite wisdom decided to make it look like their OS, this was not only a down fall for Quick Time (a mess in it’s own right) but also a mistake they carried forward to iTunes, making it slow and unresponsive.

Zune is different.  It is built entirely on WPF and looks, what can only be described as, the most sexy application that Windows has to offer (baring some of thirteen23’s creations)  This mass market application uses all sorts of nifty animations and is a wonderful thing to use.  It is instantaneously responsive due to the way WPF is DirectX based, so is almost processed in hardware rather than through many abstraction layers *cough WinForms*

While WPF does have issues, like the perquisite for the rather hefty .NET 3.0 (and above) framework, it is almost perfect.  The UI is very much modelled on the Hardware devices that Zune make, notably the latest Zune HD – Microsoft’s answer to the iPod touch.  While a Zune device has tempted me in the past this one seems a very very attractive offering from the company.

 

Being a bit of a Microsoft fan boy it pains me to say that the iPod touch is an extremely good device, and it is as Apple say a Pocket Computer not to mention a great mini games console.

The Zune HD however is not designed with Apps as one of the core features.  The Zune HD is a pure lump of music playing genius, no pun intended, with a great UI and such similarity to the PC software you would struggle to find a fault with it.

So, for some screen shots…  obviously you can find many pictures of the Zune HD itself on http://zune.net, there are few screen shots of the fabulous software.  So without further ado, here is Zune 4.0

Here comes the big cat…

So this message is being sent from Windows 7, soon to become Microsoft's biggest selling operating system. On Saturday I have the opportunity to visit the Apple Store, meaning I can buy a fully legal copy of

OS X Leopard 10.4.7. I am looking forward to installing it on my 17 inch laptop, creating the HacBook Pro. My hard drive is VERY full at the moment, with dozens of Visual Studio products and 1000s of photos. I am trying to save as much data as I can, I shall create a FAT32 partition for the photos so I can use iPhoto with them. More challenging is the Music collection. I have 10 or more GB of music and 8/9 of podcasts that I have accumulated since I bought my iPod Touch 8 months ago. This will have to be stored on a portable HDD while I begin making the transition.
Needless to say that Recycle bin will be used an awful lot.
Next Update coming soon...

OSX Introduction

As always,
graymalkin

Windows Seven E Editions

  

As you may or may not be aware the EU has decided in their infinite wisdom to stop Microsoft providing a browser in their OS.  They have been proceeding with legal actions over anti-trust issues on Microsoft due to the bundling of IE (Internet Explorer) in Windows.  Microsoft have paid the fines for XP and Vista and finaly have raised their hands and given up.  This means that now when you buy Windows Seven you CAN NOT upgrade due to the odd upgrade process that Microsoft can not currently support that removes IE from Vista or XP.  Instead you have to perform a clean install and re-download all your programs off of disk or the internet.  This isn’t so bad until you need to download Acrobat or iTunes, at which point things get tricky.  With out the browser how can you download anything? I can’t see my grandparents using command line FTP to watch a YouTube video, it is painful enough for them to use Firefox! 

On Microsoft’s website where you can review the “upgrade” options (upgrade is in quotes because you have to do a clean install)  they have this at the bottom in small print

This means that you have to have read this or have eyes like a hawk to notice then remember to put Chrome (or some other browser, there is another?!) onto a memory stick and install it after the “upgrade”

 

Microsoft have even made E Edition branding for the latest update to their OS,  this is a serious thing that Microsoft seem all to prepared to do, essentially Microsoft are showing the EU that their ridiculous policies are fraught with problems, how can a browser market be fair if the worlds leading OS doesn’t have the ability to easily download another browser?!  Although I won’t be downloading any .exe files for the upgrade I shall make a .bat to download the chrome browser.  This is the end of the EU’s antitrust policies on Software Vendors.

Finaly I have to talk about pricing, at the moment the price is £49.99 for the Home edition of windows Seven and £99.99 for the Professional edition, Microsoft don’t actively seem to be advertising Ultimate, one can assume they are trying to phase it out, I am slightly worried that people wil be mythed if they have bought Vista Ultimate then only got the Dreascene perk and will soon find them selves loosing that to an edition that Microsoft are beginning to eradicate, as Microsoft are offering Version to Version upgrades, ie, Ultimate to Ultimate. This means that not only do they lose the one and only Vista Ultimate perk but they have to pay full price, no pre-order discounts, for the OS update.  Whilst I’d highly recommend Windows Seven over Windows Vista there is a price to pay for the early Ultimate adopters

As always,

graymalkin

Windows Seven pricing

The Windows Seven pricing itself is not too amazing, but what is are the pre-order prices, they haven't been released to the UK yet but in America the pre-order upgrade is JUST $49.99!!!  This is insanely cheap, I am very pleased with Microsoft for this, by making the interest ENORMOUS they have guaranteed themselves huge revenues whilst they sell out of the preorders then with the 8% lower price on Windows Seven after preorders people are likely to continue following the buzz and upgrade like crazy.  After such a long dead period (from XP) and machines at last being able to handle the specs and drivers available for all Vista driver models Windows Seven promises to be what we all wished Vista was.  Millions will definitely make the release of Windows Seven something to remember.

As always,

graymalkin

Arduino info

From www.arduino.cc :

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language(based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, you are free to adapt them to your needs.

As always,

graymalkin