And Don't forget my Pinball blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lotsa games on this one.. and many more coming.. All of 'em PINBALL!
and no popups, ads or bloat.. just pinball..

YES! I want to play pinball!

Move it on over....

Gonna be moving all my tech posts over to the 'tech' blog ..(HERE) woncha come visit me there.. i mesn hey, if even one
of ya goes there I'll have instantly DOUBLED my readership...

As soon as my new hardrive gets here i'll be able to get back to music..
2 Terrabytes oughta do it, at least for the moment.. I can't seriously consider moving all my data from the other drives  right now, not at usb 1.1 speeds (!)..
Last time i tried, it said 656 hours to completion (of ONE drive)..
and i've got 8...

Wow.. i .. well ..

I simply cant believe it.. i simply can't..
..
I mean.. I had a computer repair biz for ten years.. I've had all sorts of OS's on my computer , that I know inside out..
I JUST can't believe it..
Just HOW gulllible are the population anyways?

I've had several months to use Vista now.. and i'll admit it's got a pretty interface..
But under that pretty face is the biggest pile of dog sh*t it's been my misfortune to EVER have to use..
.. I DON'T hate windows....
And all in all, using the 32 bit version of Vista wasn't that bad of an experience.. once I accepted it's limitations..
and realized that, basically, it was a rush job to get out .. after five years of trying and failing to get Longhorn ready for the public, they succumbed to pressure to get SOMETHING out.. and by disabling or removing most of the advanced features of Longhorn, that were SUPPOSED to be in it, they released it, as what we now know as Vista.. true.. it's file recognition, and  secuuity improvements were so poorly implemented that they had to rely on cludges like the 'UAC'  which doesnt succeed in protecting the computer against anything except the hapless user..  (and  the super duper cludge of making all the files and folders read only by Default!.. which is why vista never keeps saving your settings (have you noticed?)..
It's a surprisingly effective  deterrent against viruses however, as thet can't write to disk if the properties keep reverting to read-only..

But the 64 bit version of Vista is much worse...much..much.. WORSE

I mean ..on a pristine install.. from the word go..
NOTHING WORKS.,. i mean NO THING..
basic functions you take for granted in any modern OS.. just dont exist. in it..
Oh the settings are there.. the functions are all there, the preference boxes are all there.. but no matter how you set them.. they just dont work..
I've got to go for now, but here's a simple test..
Change the icon for any program..
and watch what happens.. the application will either have that new icon.. as well as ANY OTHER FILE WITH THE SAME NAME.. for ever and ever.. try changing it back now ;-)
you got a blank icon..didnt you..
And suddenly all your icons for the same file type are blank..
And there is NOTHING you can do to fix it.. deleting the icon cache will strip all your files of their associations, so you don't want to do that..
Once windows vista 64 bit loses it's file type associations, you'll never get them back..
Of course you could use a sledgehammer..

you'll notice , for examnple, that the option to open text files with , say, a fictional program like 'textreader' is greyed out, or you can select it in the dialog but it won't show etcetc..
One of the most annoying things is that any time the system errs a dialog pops up suggesting that PEBKAC..and offering suggestions on how to fix what YOU did wrong..
The system can't err !

..i am amazed how many people REALLY believe this, and in today's highly technolological society this type of rabid blind belief in the infallibility of "the machine" is disturbing..especially in today's world of  diminishing civil liberties..
I watched with fear and loathing as americans tripped over themselves to dismantle their constitutional rights and freedoms after 9-11.. all in the name of 'security' by a nanny state..

Living in a true Nanny state as i do, i can tell you you DON"T wanna be there..
The tradeoff for the perception of security from cradle to grave is the loss of civil liberties and freedoms, as well as a complete lack of opportunity to suceed.. if the government regulates EVERYTHING, and controls what you buy and sell, and what you pay for everything, you have high prices and no opportunity.. see , here there's one internet provider, one cable TV provider, one land telephone provider, one insurance provider, one health provider (nanny!) .. the government regulates rent eggs milk etc etc..
If you offend someone here you're taken before a tribunal that is accountable to no-one.. while you have no right to representation.. because your 'not being arrested' .. how? ..people got apathetic and just ....let ...this kind of thing happen , and now it's here..
.. i kid you not...
One of our most respected periodicals with over a hundred years of publishing history got dragged through the mud and lost tens  of thousands of dollars in legal fees, because somebody wrote something in it that 'offended' someone..
 Excuse my digression, but the point being ,made, is it's a small step from the current state of affairs, to allowing machines, alone, to arbitrate.. and THAT is a big concern of mine...
More 2 come.........
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OK .. as i was saying , Vista is a F****g DISGRACE.. after foisting this crap on an unsuspecting public, they shoud be *giving away* any upgrade that fixes the problem.. not ask for a hundred MORE bux..
OK lets put it this way..

Let's say that I manufacture a microwave oven.. and sell it for , say, a hundred bux.. the oven promptly shorts out everyones house circuits, burns their food, or turns them a deep shade brown ( ok it aint all bad ;-)..
Anyways, natch i'm gonna start getting complaints, right?
So what do I do? Give a refund? or A free repair to solve the problems (never mind that in some american states you can get sued into the poor house for messin around with folks lives that way.. and hey, mebbe sued a bit more  in Georgia for the deep brown thing ;-)

so those would be the proper consumer responses, right?
Now.. suppose, instead, i offered only a weak apology and instead said I'll fix it by SELLING YOU ANOTHER for a hundred bucks MORE...
No shit.. ya think it would wash?
No???

Well folks just swallowed up that response when M$ did it with vista.. for a hundred more they can get windows 7...
Get it now?

In this terrible time of tears.....

すべての私の日本の兄弟姉妹大きなトラブルのこの時期にして私のお悔やみ..私は言葉では言い表せない嘆いた午前

Aero on a mac? at least with Chrome...

OK this is *seriously* funky, y'all..take a look at this screenshot..

Only works on the Google Chrome browser though..
......now that the no theming apps run on OSX Snow Leopard it's hard to find GUI mods anymore..so now any little thing helps..

As i saw a ' typical 19 year old apple user type' say on a you tube video "Macs aren't really that cool to theme and all compared to Windows'


Steve are you listening? what have you done?  I think the mac guy with the jeans went and joined the army (now).... (oh god now that status quo thing's running through my head..'in the army... now')

----------
Oh pps if you wanna give it a go (i dont know if the one guy that visits this blog uses a mac, actually)
it's here

What does Snow Leopard REALLY cost?

So it's being sold for 29 bucks as an upgrade .. i don't know what a retail copy goes for, as i got a new retail copy with my mac.. as opposed to the around 120  bucks that OSX usually STARTS at.. on and up to 400 some odd bucks
But i can tell you what it REALLY costs...
Having to replace all the apps either bought and paid for that no longer work, or available as freeware..and don't have a comparable free 10.6 version...

I added up all the apps ..which were mostly either audio editing, or interface (theming) or icon utilities (such as 'finder icon' which i used fort years)..
I haven't come up with a final total yet, but it's running well over 600$..
For someone on a pension.. that's unacceptable..

Hah! People keep saying how 'inexpensive' Snow Leopard is..
I hate reinstalls.. but i better do it now.. i still have the 10.5.2 system disks for my Imac ..as  I understand that a lot of things still worked in plain ole Leopard ....

Theming theming theming

Well, while waiting for all my audio files to be transferred to a new hard drive ( on USB 1.1 !) which will likely take the rest of the week and week-end, i've been taking my new iMac thu it's paces..
I have a dual boot setup.. with Vista on one drive and Snow leopard on the other..
 first impressions..
Vista is buggy, but that's not news.. that it's blindingly fast on my system IS, at least to me. Safari runs better on vista than it's ever run on the Mac OS, and it seems faster than chrome or opera too...

Snow leopard, though, comparatively, is sloooow..
it can take upwards of ten seconds to load or start up an app.. sometimes i got to check that i did dbl click the icon, but i know i have because of the spinning beach ball that goes forever..
The apps are slow... except for the windows ones inside of a virtual box (for win2K or XP) or shapeshifter (for OS9) window..
I've never seen emulation run this fast lemme tell ya..
And OS9  in Shapeshifter emulation is waaaay faster than it is natively on my G4 mirror door..
I bought the G4 originally because i had a lot of classixc apps and games that couldn't be replaced with OSX versions - they just never ported them.. and it runs os9 at a decent clip.. but nothing NEAR what  OS9 runs in emulation on the iMac..
Used to be.. emulation was SLOWER than native...!

and Snow Leopard is darned DRAB..

When OSX first came out everyone raved aboot the 'lickable' interface.. 

with it's tastefully designed interface , and it's semi translucent look to the finder .. slowly as each version came

out it got more of a metal look

and with snow leopard it's just bland grey

All these shots are from Nathan's Toasty tech Gui Gallery, Highly recommended to visit there, I've been visiting his site for ten years now.. and you've just gotta  love his "IE is EVIL' theme music..

So unfortunately for me now, all the theming apps that used to run on OSX are broken.. not even shapeshifter (the theming app, not the OS9 emulator) has been updated for snow leopard. Considering that  Snow Leopard is already 2 years old and STILL there isn't a SINGLE theming app for it, and only ONE installable  theme (crystal clear) that at least for me, is barely usable as it slows the system down awfully bad.. i think that the days are over.. at least I've got a clear menu bar.. i had to do the hack myself as crystal clear simply couldn't do it (but at least it stayed then after i uninstalled CC) CC was able to add a white font to the menus, which i havent been able to do without it...(sigh)

Well... here's an improvement.. why is nothing ever easy though?

and below we have proof that windows is justr soo much easier to tweak.. if the folks over at Apple aren't paying attention to the ball, they're gonna drop it.. for the first time ,, well.. ever.. i have to say.. and i would never have said this 15 years ago.. the Windows OS wins out.. it'MUCH faster, more attractive, more tweakable, has more options, and it's stable.. and i have not had a single virus issue..in over a month.. not ONE.. despite being on line for HOURS all over..natch i've got an AV but even so...

O...OK ..update..

I did say just above  about windows and ...er... stable.. well, scratch that part.. 64Bit vista is buggy as hell.. It IS fast though.. compared to snow leopard.. 3 times as responsive..

on an Apple computer, Windows runs faster

Really.. so let the guy in jeans and loafers

chew on that..

So, what's the difference between an intel core 2 duo PC with nVidea graphics and 20" monitor, running windows, and an apple intel core 2 duo with identical nVidea graphics and 20' monitor, running windows..

really?

well, that apple has 20,000 colors maximum.. although you's never hear the company admit it. because 'it looks fine, so what's the difference'

And besides, the card is set to millions of colors, so even if the monitor on the imac can't display it, nobody'll notice..

......................................................................................................................................................................bollocks

Anyone know how to get OSX menus transparent?

Here's what i've got so far.. part of it is a theme called crystal clear.. but it's now time linmited shareware and has lost a LOT of features since it was free (!).. (mostly because APPLE made them impossible)
I managed to reinteghrate the full finder transparency without using the buggy slow 'alpha' method of CC, and got the mebnubar clear (one of those dropped features).. but i Can't seem t0o get the drop down menus clear like it used to be possible.. the screen shot makes it QUITE clear (pun intended!)..
Any ideas?

Grrrrrr i havent been this angry since i had to use red hat 3

Everything just works?? An attractive OS ..
Whatta pile of unqualified BULLSHIT..

IMHO

If you're a mac user Avoid Snow Leopard like the frikkin PLAGUE..
God wudda piece of useless unfriendly and everything broken innit JUNK...

IMHO

I never thought the day would arrive.. but it has..
and Apple KNEW it..all the time..
It's (Snow Leopard) their way of sayingh we dont give a shit about you desktop users anymore.. unless you get one of out mobile devices you don't count..

IMHO

Don't believe me?
Well.. how's about this..
First is the unprecedented 80% drop in price .. can you imagine what a message M$ would be sending if their new windows was 30 bucks instead of 200$..

OK so Apple 's saying that there's no new features in this version of the Mac OS..
So why release it at all?
..oh i see.. so folks can get used to the fact that nothing works anymore and buy all new apps..
to make it easier on Apple for the release of "Lion"

OK so was it a good deal?
Nope.. (IMHO)
at least not to all the developers that were left out in the cold..
I had NO IDEA that HUNDREDS of developers that had written new apps for Leopard had been locked out.. making their BRAND NEW and necessary applications, ones that REPLACED all the "not compatible with intel" apps that everybody had used before.. but making them obsolete imnmediately..
I can't believe how many developers have closed their doors due to snow leopard..
I'm too angry to list them now but they're there.. try to find a theming app for 10.6 and you'll notice all the sites are down

more later....
----------------

later.....
ya know what..? i'm just gonna sell my copy and revert to 10.5.8

I hate reinstalls but better suffer short term pain hthan...

Anybody wanna copy of SL? ;-)