Windows 7 Surprising

October 22 marked the release of yet another microsoft operating system. I managed to get ahold of a free copy of Windows 7 Professional, and I've had a few days now to review it.

You should keep in mind, I don't intend for it to become my main OS. It's set up in a dual-boot configuration on my MacBook (which I love since I got my numpad back). I gave it a small partition (<20 GB) and tried it out.

To my surprise, I like it.

I've been a mac fan for as long as I can remember, but Apple's really going to have a run for their money with Windows 7. The interface is great. On most every windows install I've done since the release of XP, one of the first things I've done is set the start menu back to the 'classic' style, as I've found it more useable. No changes necessary on 7. The start menu contains everything in a tight, clean package. Most impressively, it contains a search box not unlike QuickSilver for mac; one little box, accessible with one keystroke (the super key) puts all my programs within easy reach. Don't get me wrong, it's no quicksilver, but it's 90% of what I use quicksilver for built into the OS in a really streamlined way.

I never would have thought I'd be talking about a microsoft OS like this, but I've got to be honest, they've really impressed. The media center has been great, with netflix support built right in. There's still a lot to prove for this new OS. Third party software that start to use the new system features will likely break some things and reveal imperfections, and I'm running the 32-bit version so there's a lot of potential I'm missing there. Until some software comes out built for it, there's not much to evaluate except the new interface, but it sure has been great so far. I've got to switch to windows for some programs still, but since this upgrade, I'm no longer in a hurry to reboot into OS X once a task is complete, the little company out of Redmond might just be on to something.

More is Less

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger I suppose. And if I have to do another software update I'm going to be the strongest man alive. I recently upgraded to OSX 10.6. I had a single reason for doing so: a bug in apple's openGL implementation meant my favorite program, blender, didn't work. It would crash after just a few minutes of use- every time.

10.6 fixed that error, and I must say Blender's been working excellently for me. I just can't believe it took an entire system software upgrade to fix that one little but.

I'm happy about that, but a little upset that exposé now shows me windows scaled to funny proportions. I liked this better before. A lot of people are complaining about the blue glow, that doesn't bother me in the slightest, but the weird scaling for windows in exposé greatly reduces its usefulness, for me at least. David Trang seems to have summed up most of my thoughts on the matter, so if you want to know what I honestly think of the new exposé size, see his thoughts.

The upgrade did inspire me to go hunting again for a solution to one of the worst things about the new macbooks. Namely, the absence of a numpad on the uio-jkl keys. For a lot of people it didn't matter, but for those of us who used it, that was a major cripple.

Reflexive Haiku

Reflexive Haiku
Syllable has too many
To even begin

Looking for a Decent Camera

I'll have to travel through time for this one. The camera I want is almost in my budget, I just have to wait until about 2014 when others have blown its features out of the water. Unfortunately, I don't have any non-traditional method for time travel, so I'll just have to wait it out at the standard rate of one year per year.

I know what I want. I want the full set of SLR features, including interchangeable lenses, and I want 1080p video. A great added bonus would be over-cranking at lower resolution, but that'd be just for thrills. The problem is, any camera that supports it seems like it's priced at about twice what I'm willing to pay for the thing. I've no specific budget, I'm just looking for value. I'm also quite sure that this will keep me happy for a while, even when newer, better things come out. Sometimes I just want the latest, but in this case I think I really know what I need.

I suppose I have 2 options: suck it up and shell out for a new camera now, or wait for some time to tick on by for what I want to drop in price a little. There are some alternatives (buy something reasonable now with the plan to sell and upgrade) but those aren't really appealing to me in this case.

I'd take suggestions here. I really just want a good quality camera that will last me a long time, and I want it at a value price. Are my expectations too high? I guess there's nothing to do but wait and see...

2001 Websites

As you probably know, I'm into electronics. I'm fascinated by every new thing, from the ingeniously simple to the awesomely complex. There's a lot out there, it's a good time to be alive.

I was searching for some information on a hobby of mine though, and I was incredibly disappointed at the results I found. I did a search for BEAM robotics, and it seems there hasn't been any progress made, not a single noteworthy thing, since 2003. Google's top search results don't include anything recent, apparently the most relevant links are nearly a decade old.

It's not like I'm searching for Hammer Pants here, this is robotics! I think it's reasonable to expect some recent news, developments, and articles. But apparently that's too much to ask. It's clear that BEAM was very popular from the late 90s-the early 2000s, but then it must have fallen off the face of the earth, because no one on the internet seems to be talking about the subject.

I'm going to do my part. I've got a little blog going dedicated to the art of BEAM robotics. It's a fascinating realm, full of hard hacks, clever design, optimization, and (generally) analog electronics. Beam bots meet the expansion of their acronym, including bionics, electronics, aesthetics, and mechanics. I created the beambots blog (name subject to change) to cover what's new in the field, even if I'm the only one doing any beam work and posting it to the internet.

I'll keep you updated if I find any post '01 BEAM resources. I'd love to find some myself. I hope everybody hasn't just moved on without me, and if you have... where are you? I want to know!

Whatever the case may be, I hope BEAM can hold on, if not online then off. It truly is an art practiced by masters.

JukeFly

Regarding music, there are a couple of complaints I was going to make... but I've found an answer. Complaint 1: Why can't most music players show me the lyrics of the song that's playing? Complaint 2: Why can I watch any music video for free, when I can face serious penalties for sharing just the audio?

Somebody's put together a great web app that's basically a mashup of all the music features I was looking for. It even covers some of my real pet peeves like equalizing the volume of YouTube videos. The interface is a little ugly, but the features are great. It's unlike any music player I've ever used, and as far as I can tell is completely legal.

Anyway, it's called JukeFly, I've only been using it for a little while now, I'll reserve the right to edit this post for good or ill as I get more familiar with the service. It's worth checking out though.

On Audiophiles

An interesting survey out, that the young crowds seem to prefer MP3 sounds over uncompressed audio. Seem bizarre? it shouldn't; audiophiles have been touting their formats of choice for decades now.

Ever hear someone swear that records sound better than CDs? The preference seems to be for familiarity rather than quality. Those that grew up listening to LPs seem to think they sound better, and why not... they sound true to how they've always heard the song. The same thing is now happening with digitally compressed audio, if that's the only version you've heard, of course it sounds most like the original.

I think it's fair to take this out one step further... can a recording ever sound better than the live performance? The truth is no matter what the medium, there's always a filter between the instruments and the listeners ears. Sometimes its a record needle or digital compression, but in other cases it's a set of low-quality speakers. Even consider a live performance, the sound would presumably be great right? But what if you were in a room where you could control the atmosphere... would denser air give you a more true sound?

It's all really a matter of preference. As for me, I'll stick to lossless audio (where possible) over $10 headphones. Sounds pretty good to me!