Posted by Whitney Young
Thu, 01 Jun 2006 04:11:30 GMT
I’m not a fan of Microsoft. In fact, most of the time I really despise much of what comes out of Redmond, but I’m excited for Windows Vista to come out. No, I’m not excited because I plan on using it. No, I’m not excited because I think it has a lot to offer. From everything I’ve seen and read so far, there appears to be little new in Vista from a user standpoint. Maybe things will be easier to set up. (Who are we kidding? That won’t happen.) Maybe it will be easier to navigate between different things you’re doing with their eye candy that looks a lot like things Apple did in OS X years ago. But who cares? People will continue to beat into the ground how great Vista is and everything new that it has to offer. Others will continue to beat into the ground how those features have been around in other applications / operating systems for a long time. None of that really matters, though. What matters is how many people upgrade.
I’m a hard core nerd. I pre-ordered Tiger when it came out. I’ve already checked out Ubuntu Dapper and plan on installing it on my girlfriend’s laptop for her (to replace SuSE 10) in the next month or so. I have more outdated GNU/Linux install CDs than I could ever possibly need (for use as coasters). I like technology and finding out what’s new. There are a lot of nerds. Then there are people like my mom and my sister. I’ve given both of them the option of upgrading old OSes to something that’s a little more current. I’d do all of the work for them, and they’d get something faster, easier, etc. Do they care? Not really. What they have works, and it works just fine. My sister let me upgrade her OS, but my mom said no. That’s all well and good, but add on top of that the choice that users have when upgrading to Vista. I lost count after 3, but there are apparently some absurd number of choices for which version of Windows Vista you could buy. Yes, the sales man will be kind enough to tell you which one to get, but too much choice sometimes isn’t really good. Most people stick with the same OS that they got on their computer (unless they have a problem and some dorky computer person (like me) tells them to upgrade). This issue has been talked about before, too, though.
Since I’ve avoided the real reason that I’m excited for Vista for so long, I might as well come out and address it now - Internet Explorer. I hate Internet Explorer these days, and I don’t any more time with it than I need to. I remember the good old days back in the 90s when the browser wars were brewing. I loved IE for a while then. I remember switching back and forth between IE and Netscape a couple of times, but eventually IE won the war. But then the girls and guys in Redmond relaxed. (I believe one of the head developers was asked to leave, too.) And in the mean time a once great product has deteriorated.
I don’t think that IE 7 will fix all of the problems that IE 6 has, but I think at least it’s a step in the right direction. I doubt I’ll be recommending people to use IE over Firefox for a long time, but the point is that at least there is being work done. I’m excited for Vista simply because PCs that ship will ship with a better web browser. More people will be upgrading to IE 7 without really knowing it just because they bought a new computer.
Sad that the one thing I’m looking forward to in Vista is the upgrade of a piece of software that I hate, but I did start by saying that I’m not a fan of Microsoft. Anyone surprised?
Tags internet explorer, microsoft, vista, windows | 1 comment
Posted by Whitney Young
Tue, 30 May 2006 23:11:00 GMT
This is more of a note to myself, but I’ve had to look up how to initialize a priority queue with a custom comparison function in C++ too many times (and it’s always hard to find). It’s really not hard, there’s just not one good online source for the STL (someone please point one out if there is - or even a good pocket reference type book). Anyway, here’s the code…. not too hard:
#include "event.h"
#include <queue>
using std::priority_queue;
class greater {
public: int operator() (Event *x, Event *y) { return *x > *y; }
};
priority_queue< Event *, vector<Event *>, greater > _event_queue;
(Also just discovered the <typo:code></typo:code> code block tag for typo. Nice.)
Tags c++, code, typo | no comments
Posted by Whitney Young
Tue, 16 May 2006 20:41:00 GMT
I’ve been working on a new project for a while now. It’s a web based image sharing application (tenatively called Snaps). Feel free to check out the trac on it. There’s a sample gallery up as well. If there’s anyone who would like to help out with the project, please contact me.
Tags snaps, software | no comments
Posted by Whitney Young
Fri, 12 May 2006 01:06:00 GMT
It’s been a while now that my blog’s been offline. The URLs leading to it have also changed a good amount in the last month or so, and for the (two) people who subscribe to the blog via RSS, I’m sorry to change things up on you so much.
Everything’s functional again, but now I’m on the Typo trunk because I couldn’t get the current stable release that includes rails to work properly for me. I had a good number of problems setting things up with lightly, but managed my way through them. I might post something here later about that for other people setting things up. For now I’m going to keep sorting through the few issues I still have to sort out in my second webserver transition in a very short span.
I’m now on a NetworkRedux VPS account which has been extremely nice so far. I’ve learned a good amount about setting up a server and I’m sure I will continue to learn about it as things progress.
Tags blog, network redux, server | 1 comment
Posted by Whitney Young
Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:10:00 GMT
I finally got around to registering a domain name, so update your bookmarks (for the few people who have bookmarked things on my site). I actually am set up with a new host as well, NetworkRedux, and so far they have been amazing. AmbitiousLemon has been so good to me, and I still feel like I owe the guy who let me steal so much bandwidth from him for so long. I highly recommend taking a look at AmbitiousLemon if you’re looking for a free web host. They do have a few rules, though.
The NetworkRedux server feels a lot faster than any host I’ve been with yet, and I hope that eventually I’ll be able to get some RubyOnRails applications running on FastCGI. Right now I’m using Typo to do blogging, but am still running it on CGI. Now that I have a real blogging system set up, maybe I’ll actually post things here more often. I doubt anyone actually reads any of these posts, though, anyway.
Tags blog, network redux, server, website | 6 comments
Posted by Whitney Young
Fri, 17 Feb 2006 01:20:00 GMT
I forgot to post an update here, but it looks like Senuti is now running fine on the Intel machines (as of version 0.32) thanks to help from a few users. Thanks!
Tags senuti, software, update | no comments
Posted by Whitney Young
Sat, 21 Jan 2006 08:04:00 GMT
Well unfortunately the transition to Universal Binary was not as smooth as I would have hoped for Senuti. There appear to be problems with the integration of Senuti with Libgpod on Intel machines. This problem is likely an easily fixable problem dealing with configuration of different GNU tools. With access to one of the new Intel Macs, it would be far easier to fix this problem. For now, though, I’ll have to wait to hear from different users who have access. Until then, Intel users please use version 0.29 which will run fine under Rosette.
Tags senuti, software | no comments
