I have Mint installed on this site just to see what everyone is looking at. So here are some stats. Of course the number one most viewed post is Vista = Shit on a Stick followed by a post I made about getting the Red Rings of Death. The top referrers I get are from search engines with the words Vista and Shit in them. And as a side note, the most used browser used is Firefox. But stats aren’t everything.

A few weeks ago I got my first Mac. Its one of the new MacBook’s that Steve Job’s announced during his last keynote. Since I have never really used a Mac as my main system, it takes some getting use to but the learning curve is not that bad. And since I been using my MacBook I haven’t even booted my PC at all. I bring this up because of the 55 comments on the other post. To all the people that didn’t like Vista as much as me I would take a serious look at the new MacBook’s and the iMac’s.

Now I do think that Vista has gotten better snice my other post but not enought for me to keep using it. The biggest reason that I was using windows before was for gaming. But since I got a 360 I haven’t played any games on my PC. So with that reason gone I swiched to a Mac. But one thing that makes me laugh now is Windows 7 coming out next year. Its as if Microsoft themself are saying don’t but Vista because who is going to buy it now when a new version is coming out in a year.

Now that SP1 is out and I have been using Vista again for a few months it hit me. Its just bad design. Most of the time I don’t think about this but it hit me when I was using my girlfriends Mac Mini. The User Interface is like night and day and I am not talking about the fancy stuff like Expose on the Mac or Flip 3D on Windows. Its about how many clicks of the mouse will it take to get to where I need to go. To show how it is much better on a Mac I made three videos where all I wanted to do was change the time it take for the screen to shuts off.

There are two ways of doing this in Vista, at least for a normal user. The first way that most people will do is thru the start menu. So it gos as followed – Start Menu, Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Power Options and then what you need to click on is in the left hand menu.

Now the way I did it was right click on the desktop, Personalize, Screen Saver (brings up new window), Change power setting (brings up new window), and then Choose when to turn off display which is on the left side menu again.

Now lets do the same thing on a Mac. Click on the Apple logo, System Preferences (video did show me doing this, it jumped), Energy Saver. Thats it.

So what do you think? Is Mac OS X really better then Vista or am I just giving in to the marketing hype?

Now that SP1 is out and I have been using Vista again for a few months it hit me. Its just bad design. Most of the time I don’t think about this but it hit me when I was using my girlfriends Mac Mini. The User Interface is like night and day and I am not talking about the fancy stuff like Expose on the Mac or Flip 3D on Windows. Its about how many clicks of the mouse will it take to get to where I need to go. To show how it is much better on a Mac I made three videos where all I wanted to do was change the time it take for the screen to shuts off.

There are two ways of doing this in Vista, at least for a normal user. The first way that most people will do is thru the start menu. So it gos as followed – Start Menu, Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Power Options and then what you need to click on is in the left hand menu.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1183797&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

Now the way I did it was right click on the desktop, Personalize, Screen Saver (brings up new window), Change power setting (brings up new window), and then Choose when to turn off display which is on the left side menu again.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1183816&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

Now lets do the same thing on a Mac. Click on the Apple logo, System Preferences (video did show me doing this, it jumped), Energy Saver. Thats it.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1183845&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

So what do you think? Is Mac OS X really better then Vista or am I just giving in to the marketing hype?

At EETimes.com they have a story about Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, and what he found out. It seems that the problem is the graphic chip that Microsoft designed on its own. Now why would a software company design there own graphic chip? To save millions. Of course in the end it cost them a lot more then they were tring to save but what the hell, good try.

But in the end, by going cheap–hoping to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (Based on a previous report, the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI Technologies, now part of AMD.)

The best quote from Bryan Lewis is this.

When it was pointed out that Microsoft still has its own semiconductor technology group that is still designing various chips, Lewis responded, “How many ASICs per year does Microsoft design? Not many” compared to experienced ASIC/ASSIP vendors.

I still have not read about millions of PS3′s crashing.

So what you do is go to here and bookmark it. You should see a register page to win a trip to Xbox headquarters. When you fill in the info all you need is two characters for the screen name and password and put in some fake email address. Make sure the year in the DOB is before 1994. Now click submit.

On the next page it will ask for a access code. Just click on “I don’t have an access code” and it will give you one. Be sure to copy that somewhere because you will be using it a lot. Go back now and put in the access code it gave you. Below that is the crappy word verification. If you can’t read it just click below the image and get a new one. Once that is done click Lets Play.

On the next page its going to say that your not a winner but you really are. So you don’t go away mad after all that crap you have to type in they give you a 48-hour trial code. Copy it down and go back to the page that you bookmarked. Log out and go back to the bookmarked page again. Now just do it over to get another 48-hour trial code. Just change the user name and email address and keep using the access code from the first time. You can keep doing this over and over.

Ya, we get it Bungie. Halo 3 is about to be released. And like Gears of War it is going to be the best game ever. Problem is that I don’t care anymore. You have Master Chief everywhere. Its just a game. We buy it, we play it and then me more on. Look at BioShock. Pretty good game but I am done with it. Not going to play it again. Now for you multi player people this might just be the game your looking for.

And if your a Halo collecter, man you got your work cut out for you so let me help. You can get the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Headset. Its green. Maybe the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller Brute or the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller Spartan. By the way they are $20 then the normal wireless controller. Better yet you can your the Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller on your Special Edition Xbox 360™ Halo 3 Console. Its green too. And when your not using all your special Xbox 360 stuff you can use your Special Edition Halo Zune. Rock out to the sounds of Halo when reading all the Halo news with the Halo 3 RSS Reader and drinking your special Halo Mountain Dew.

Its not that I don’t want to play Halo 3 because I do. My point is that you don’t need to do all this needless ads. This is the Medal Gear Solid for Xbox. You could of cut the ads by 3/4 and still have it be the huge hit its going to be. The thing that I am looking forward to seeing is if its going to be as good as say BioShock. Its been hyped more that anything be is it going to pay off. Let me say this now, just because you sold more copy’s that any other game in no way means that it way a good game.

The part that sucks the most is that I was ready to pay the $60 for the game, something that I never do for a single player game, and nobody has it. I even went into a place I hate (Blockbuster) to see if it was there and of course it wasn’t. But the good part is that since I can’t find it I just saved $60 because now I will just wait till I can rent it for a few days and it will only cost me $5. On the other hand I am still going to spend the $60 when The Orange Box comes out.

That was fine till I started trying to get Compiz-Fusion to work. Add that its still in beta and that I have a ATI card and that theres no real easy way to install video drivers in Ubuntu and I said fuck it again. Format the drive and get out my XP cd. Now that I am back on XP I don’t see any reason to go back to Ubuntu or upgrade to Vista. I really can’t think of anything that Ubuntu or Vista have that would want to make me switch. Maybe after Service Pack 1 for Vista comes out or Ubuntu gets a little better that might change but for now XP still has everything that I need.

Ubuntu.