VISTA and other thoughts

Out of pure curiosity, and because it was free, I upgraded my computer to VISTA Pro. I have a very powerful, new computer, which was made to handle all of VISTA’s memory and graphics requirements. I know that VISTA just came out and I should wait six months before I installed it, but I just wanted to see what Microsoft spent five years building. Here is my quick review: the install was easy and only took about an hour. After using it for a week, the new features seem to be mostly aesthetic. There are fades and transparencies, and new interfaces; however, I turned off most of the superfluous animations and effects because it slows the computer down (in the same way the XP did). Besides that, nothing seems better or faster, which is what I really wanted. There are a few small glitches, like the color scheme changes from the one I choose to the VISTA default when I’m in a program. A few nice things include better search (more like Copernic, which I love) and a nice little sidebar with fun gadgets. However, I have come across one major problem, which is that neither of my network printers work. I tried to update the drivers, but it crashed the printers in a never ending stream of spooler errors (which won’t let me delete the printers and start over). Also, VISTA does not have Outlook Express, which I have used for years to get my hotmail. Outlook Express is great and it allows me to keep my personal email separate from my regular outlook. There is a replacement called Live Mail Desktop, but it’s not the same and it is designed with the absolutely horrible light blue skin that Microsoft seems to be using for everything. The old colors were not a sexy, but they made the product better. These last two very inconvenient issues basically make the entire upgrade have a negative impact.

Glen, how to you shut off the warning that VISTA gives me every time I do something. Man, the Apple commercials pegged that crappy feature. If I didn't want to make that change, I wouldn't have hit the button.

I heard on BBC world news that male circumcision reduces the chances of getting HIV by 60% according to legitimate clinical studies. How come this isn’t bigger news? 40,000,000 people worldwide have HIV.

Are you telling me there isn’t one US Senator or Congressman pushing for impeachment through the public media?

Gas is almost back to $3/gallon. I expect it to keep going up over the next two years. The problems in the Middle East are going to get worse and Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are going to want more money to protect themselves from instability emitted by the Iraq civil war. The US plan to withdraw troops next year is better than the current strategy; however, it is still a bad one. Here would be my strategy in a nutshell. 1) Ban all guns, grenades, and explosives. And buy them back from the people at prices they can’t resist. You can’t have peace when everyone is pisses off AND has an AK-47 on their nightstand, 2) Start replacing troops (who are trained to kill) with police (who are trained to protect), and engineers (demand that China and India to send engineers too), 3) Make the provision of full time electricity a top priority. However, I feel the only real long-term solution may be the dissolution of Iraq into a separate Kurdish country, a Shi’ite county (which we can call mini-Iran), and a Sunni province, which the US would need to invest a lot of money in and perhaps turn it into another country like Jordan or Egypt.

I keep having very vivid dreams, which I call HD dreams. However, they are very boring. What a waste.