Veiwing Movies Will Never Be The Same

Technology is changing. What was an 8mm movie gave way to the VCR cassette. The VCR cassette has fell to the DVD disk. The DVD disk is giving way to Blu-ray and HDTV.

Since high speed of internet access has got many tech business people thinking of providing movies over the internet. YouTube.com is just the tip of the ice burg of what is to come.

Moving to Apple or Not

This year since Vista's launch there has been an increase move to the Apple operating system and computer. Many of those who have made the move seem to like the smoothness that Apple has to offer.

On the down side, I hear complaints about the expense is higher than expected with the replacement of software. Apple does not have all the programs that Windows has, i.e. Microsoft money. However, very few people have complained about going from a two plus button mouse to a one button mouse.

I like the look of Apple. I like the smoothness of the way Apple works. Nevertheless, Windows is still the most popular platform for computing. I still like to tweak, and customize my computers. Apple does not offer this. I have yet seen an Apple OS in a point-of-sale application.

The majority of everyday computer users still choose the Windows operating platform over Apple. My wife wants to an iMac. She will more than likely get one before the end of the year. For me, I am going to stay with Windows.

iTunes needs Quick Time

Over the weekend I was getting frustrated because I could not the updated iTunes to work on my computer. I even had gone to the point of downloading Juice and Real Player.

Mid Sunday afternoon, a light went on. I was updating iTunes, but I didn't update Quick Time. Once I installed the update of Quick Time, iTunes worked just fine. Quick Time is the media player for iTunes.

Another lesson learned. I also realized how addicted I am to the podcast feeds through iTunes.

I Hate Upgrades - Sometimes

Upgrades are nice. They make improvements on existing software and drivers. What I don't like is when that upgrade makes things worse or harder. Right now I am dealing with two upgrades that I wish didn't happen.

Itunes upgraded their media player. I downloaded it and did the install. Itunes has not worked since. I use Itunes for my podcast downloads and playing. I use certain podcast like listing to the morning news.

I have gotten so frustrated that I have had to go to another two programs to have the same results. Apple hurry up and fix your upgrade!!!

I have a couple of clients that have upgraded to Vista when they bought their new computer. Both are having issues with installing old software. They have found that they are having to get the new updated versions. One will client with 2 computers will have to spend over $3,000 before they can get back to functionality before the upgrade.

DST okay, RAM well??

It is Monday morning, we have passed into a new era of Day Light Savings Time. There has been only a couple corporate systems that had problems with the update. In the great scheme of things, the change went off fairly smooth.

What seems to be the hot topic this morning all those people that want large amounts of RAM to run Vista. I am talking at the 2 plus Gigabyte range. I read one blog posting about a guy that was up set he put in 4 Gigabytes of RAM and lost over 600 MB to the motherboard and system caps. Well he is running only a 32 bit system. He really should of have started with a 64 bit motherboard.

Cnet News reported that laptops are now out selling desktop. This I do believe. A laptop is more portable, lighter than a desktop. Laptops are more portable and just as powerful and desktops. This I do believe. When I go down to Boise State, I see almost every student having a laptop hanging from their shoulder.

The Ever Shrinking Hard Drive

When hard drives got to 1 Gigabyte, I thought that they would never be enough information on a personal computer to fill it up. When hard drives reached 10 Gigabytes, I said that was all I needed to storage space. When I installed a 80 Gigabyte hard drive, I didn't expect to need anything larger.

Well, today I am watching the amount of free space on my hard drive slowly shrinking. I have an 80 Gig. It is partitioned into a 45 (is my C drive) and 35 (is my D drive). The 45 Gigabyte partition is my operating system and programs. The 35 Gigabyte partition is used for storage of pictures, documents and other data. The 45 Gigabyte partition is 78% full and shrinking.

Over the last week or so, I have deleted files, programs from my C drive. Still it is shrinking. I am forced to re-evaluate the program that is on my C drive and delete even more. Those programs that are nice to have, but I rarely use are going to have to go.

I tell friends and clients that if their hard drive gets over 75% full it is time to upgrade. Well, I do not want to upgrade to a larger hard drive. I don't more storage space. I just have to learn to use what I have more efficiently.

Vista Popularity is Going Down

This morning I awoke, got my morning cup of coffee then went to my computer. There I began to read the morning technology news. The first two headlines from information week struck my eye. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has put a stop of their computer being upgraded to Vista. Second the Free Software Foundation is urging people to take their new computers and install Linux. The popular free operating system.

The first full week in March is starting to see a sharp decline in Vista's popularity. In the past couple of weeks I have had more customers get their computer's rebuilt or buy refurbished, so they would not have to upgrade to Vista. I have even got a phone call from a Vista user asking me to take Vista off his computer and install Windows XP.

Laptop Batteries Safe????

Yesterday, PC Magazine publish the story that Lenovo laptop computer battery packs are recalling 205,000 battery packs. It was discovered many would overheat if dropped or banged, posing a fire and consumer safety hazard.

As we left 2006, I was under the false impression that laptop batteries were fixed. I was wrong. Could this be money in technology products produce blind greed, and leave social responsibility in yesterday's trash.

It does not matter if it is hardware or software, we have seen and are still seeing the release of computer related products before they are really for the end-user market. These products may still make it through the warranty period, but fail six months later.

Laptop batteries, or Operating systems should come with a warning, "Use at your own risk!".

The Politics of Vista

In January Microsoft released Vista, it's latest and great operating system. Yes, you have to upgrade your computer, and only certain software will work smoothly. As Microsoft works out the bugs, I see more politics than in a Presidential election year.

Symantec and McAfee act like congressman in doing the ole political give and take to get the source code for Vista. Apple has launch an ad campaign to steal a big share of the PC users. There is three groups of commentators. One focuses on the positive of Vista. The other wants Microsoft to do a recall of Vista. Then there is a third that wants a choice of getting Vista or XP.

Personally, I like some of the features of Vista. They are nice eye candy. The new security features are not as user-friendly as I would like. When it comes to election time in November of 2008, I will vote for Vista.