Category Rant

With Windows 7 RTM hitting official Microsoft channels, I figured I’d load up the final version of Windows 7 and check it out.  I’ve commented in the past about being completely unimpressed with 7 and for the most part, that is holding true, with some added hatred for the big-wigs over at Microsoft for arbitrarily deciding what I should be allowed to run on MY machine.

I upgraded from Vista Home Premium to 7 Home Premium.  The upgrade process itslef took around 3 hours, but it did go off with out a hitch.  I was happy for the most part, until I went to fire up one of my virtual machines in Virtual PC 2007.

This is when my joy turned to pure black hatred for 7 and all it represents.  It is a step backwards in technology.  It is Big Brother watching over your every single move tell you what you can an can not do.

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No, this post is not about my Fuze.  My Fuze has actually been a very good phone.  It has yet to really piss me off, especially like the 8525 did on a daily basis to me.

Today I got the urge to play with some different Windows Mobile builds, and since I have had my 8525 laying around not doing anything, I figured it would be the perfect little test platform.

As a side note; from what I saw from Windows Mobile 6.5 I didn’t care for it.  I like what HTC is doing with their TouchFlo interface MUCH better then the stock WM 6.5 scrolly interface.

Aside from that the OS seemed fine… but the hardware…. oh how the hardware pissed me off so badly I wanted to throw it against the wall again and again.  With in the hour I played with it, the phone randomly locked up on me… and when I reset it, the device acted like it was a HARD reset.  All the stuff I had done (thankfully not much really) was gone?!  WTF?!

I am thoroughly convinced this was not a ROM issue as there are hundreds of other people using this ROM with out issue.  I am positive that this is a hardware issue.  I believe that there is something very wrong in the land of the 8525.  Who knows what it is… I want to blame it on the Samsung processor and accompanying chipset, but I have absolutely zero proof to back that up… it’s just a theory.

The 8125, which I loved, had a Texas Instruments processor.  The 8525 had a Samsung, and my Fuze has a Qualcomm.  I have also seen other Windows Mobile (Verizon) phones with Qualcomms, and they always felt so much faster then the Samsung and even TI counterparts.  I think that the Fuze is really benefitting from the Qualcomm as it always feels snappy, and can go for a week or more with out a reboot.  That is iPhone-stability-level right there.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this.  I am just posting up some experiences I had today which further push me to believe that the 8525 line of HTC devices had a lot more problems then just underpowered hardware.

I’m thinking of a fitting way to destroy the 8525.  Perhaps some shotgun blasts?  God forsaken hardware…

Well, I played around with the Windows 7 beta a while back, but not too much.

Recently the Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 came out, so I decided to pop it in and see what is new, and what I’ve found is painfully disappointing in most cases.

Microsoft is continuing in their tradition of dumbing-down their operating systems to the lowest common denominator, making power users such as myself feeling…  well… feeling like Micorsoft is calling us dumb.

Case and point; first thing I do to any machine I own running Vista (or Win 7 now) is to disable Windows Defender, and Windows Firewall.  These are 2 services I have never ever once found useful, and ALWAYS end up being a pain in the ass at some point, and they generally slow down your computer.  So, I went ahead and axed both of these services as usual by first disabling them in the control panel, then disabling their actual service from starting up.

So, a while after I did that I was getting stuff set up, and went to enable Remote Desktop, and what do I see when I try and enable it…

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Acer, quite possible the shittiest, yet most popular, cheap ass computer company out there.  Why are they so popular?  Because their systems are dirt cheap.  Unfortunately you do get what you pay for.  You pay for shit, you get shit.  Acer shits on it’s customers all day long.
I’m pretty sure that e-machines put out better garbage then Acer’s crappy computers.
From the amount of Acer systems I have seen fail, I believe that it isn’t a matter of if your system will fail, it’s simply a matter of when. 1 year? 2 years? 3 years? Who knows…  I’d be willing to guess your Acer computer will fail with in the first 3 years.
I recently wrote about how OEM preinstalled software needs to stop, and Acer was the driving force behind that post.

Today, I bring you another reason why you should never buy anything from Acer.

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This is a long one, but it is really a pet peeve of mine and I don’t know how I haven’t written about this before…

I’m sure you all know what this junk is… it’s software that comes installed already on the computer when you buy a pre-built system from companies like Acer, Lenovo, HP, Dell, etc.  The manufacturers often get paid large amounts of money to pre-install this crapware on your shiney new computer, or sometimes it is software direct from the manufacturer that they think will help you or be of some benefit.

Unfortunately this is hardly EVER the case and more often then not the software does more damage then it does good.

The 2 biggest offenders I have ran in to during my countless dealings with all of the major brands have been Lenovo and Acer.  Acer shouldn’t be that big of a surprise as they are generally a shit company.  They put out PC’s with shitty, cheap components which will fail, and even when you’re paying a premium for their gaming machine line, Acer still has to recall them all because they could potentially burn down your house, and their support is absolutely worthless.  I’ll save the Acer rant for another time though.  So really it should be no surprise when Acer installs software that will cause your machine to eventually bluescreen whenever booted normally (not in safe mode, thankfully).

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Seriously… what the hell is up with this shit Google?
I have now noticed this on all 3 machines I use on a regular basis… my desktop, my laptop, and my work computer. They all have at least 1 (if not more) GoogleUpdate.exe running on them, and it is hard to get rid of. Even if you end the process and rename the file, the next time you run a google app, like Google Earth, or Google Chrome, the program will reinsert the file on your system!
This is the kind of shit that really bugs me. Programs that feel the need to run background processes WITH OUT any obvious consent being given to them that are 100% unnecessary for day-to-day tasks.
There is absolutely NO reason why there needs to be a google update serving running in the background of every machine. This is horse shit and I’m done putting up with it. Firefox doesn’t need to do this and it stays up to date just fine.
Because of the GoogleUpdate.exe plague I have seen I will now be uninstalling any google products I have installed on any of my machines.
Good job google. First you change your iGoogle page all around and force me to leave that. Now you infect my machines with your constantly-running update service, and I remove all traces of your programs from my computer.  What next?  Your search results going to turn to shit?  Or have they already?  Maybe I should start trying out other search engines?
Good day Google. I see you’ve thrown your motto of “don’t be evil” right out the damn window, haven’t you?

Where to start with this one…

I just spent the better part of 2 hours trying to configure a dedicated TF2 server with the Beetle’s Mod admin plugin… what appears to be the only functioning admin plugin out there worth a fuck for TF2.

And you know where I’m at now?  FUCKING NO WHERE.  I have given up, deleted all the server files, and told Steam to get fucking BENT for having absolutely shit support and documentation on how to configure a fucking server.  And on top of that, an even bigger fuck you to whatever assclown pieced together that piece of shit known as Beetle’s Mod.

First off, installing the TF2 dedicated server on a plain machine with out Steam on it is a royal fuck in the ass.  Go ahead and try and figure it out with out googling and reading through other forum posts.  I dare you to.

You won’t get far.

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1) It only works with 64 bit WEP encryption. (supposedly… I never got it to)

Yup, you might as well just stick your dick in a hooker’s ass, it’s that unsafe.

2) It doesn’t work.  Period.

To even get the damn thing to do a successful connection test I had to COMPLETELY disable encryption on the router (I tried 2 different routers.  A Linksys WRT54GC running stock firmware, and a Linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT Firmware).  For 2 weeks now, every single game I have tried that supports WFC completely fails to connect.  Nintendo’s error numbers seem to be completely arbitrary as I get a different one each time and when I look them up they all mean something different or people have no clue what they mean at all.

Nintendo DS WFC is completely useless.  It simple does not work.

I’m not even going to touch on the “Friend Code” bullshit, because I think every one knows by now how horrible that works.

My Xbox360 is never ever ONCE had a single issue connecting to XBox Live.  Microsoft doesn’t seem to have any problems running a huge service for real consoles, yet Nintendo can’t seem to build a free infrastructure for handhelds?!  But maybe I hit on to something there… XBox Live costs a few bucks a month.  Maybe Microsoft actually uses that money to support Live’s infrastructure.  It is clear that Nintendo does NOT support their’s as it hasn’t worked for every day of the 2 weeks I have owned my DS.

Lucky for them I’m not a HUGE online gamer… but I would’ve at least liked to have tried the damn thing out… even if it was just once…

Back to fragging on the 360.