everyday

I need a new computer. I have been mulling around the idea for a while. My current computer has served me well, but it has too many quirks and oddities to be stable anymore. It will freeze up for no reason and it is running a tad slow. I don’t want to start over from scratch with my current PC since I plan on building a new one anyways. Anyways, I have narrowed down my hardware requirements and I think I can do it for under $1,000.00.

Here is a list of some of the hardware that I want:

• Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum/SL
• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
• Video Card: XFX Geforce 6600GT
• RAID Carrier: Enlight Ultra320 Drive Module
• Memory: CORSAIR XMS 1GB DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
• Hard Drives (For RAID): HITACHI Deskstar 7K80 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA II

Of course there will also be the obligatory fans, thermal paste, and other odds & ends.

I am thinking of turning my current PC into a Windows Media Center, once I get this new one up and running. I have been holding off getting a Tivo because I want a Media Center PC. I really would like to be able to record TV in a Tivo like fashion, but I don’t like the subscription aspect of the Tivo system.

I think I want a Mac. A Powerbook to be exact. I am getting more and more frustrated / let-down with the Windows enviroment. Everything works in Windows, it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I am using the desire for a Mac as an excuse for my recent lack of creativity. It seems like all the good musicians, writers, artist and all other generally creative types are using Macs. Perhaps if I had a Mac I could be more creative also. I do know that when I sit down at my PC to do something, get halfway through it and my PC locks up I generally just give up! As time goes by I am becoming more enamored with OSS (Open Source Software). I don’t think I am quite ready for Linux just yet, but switching to a Mac is definitely a step in the right direction for me.

Damnit, I wish I had an extra $2,000 laying around. Apple has just unveiled their newest portable computer, the MacBook Pro. While the style is the same as the previous PowerBooks, the innards are significantly more powerful thanks to a switch from the G4 PowerPC processor (IBM) to a Intel processor. Unfortunately for those with cash in hand, the new models aren’t shipping until next month, and even then I would expect delays due to what will probably be a rather high demand. As stated in a previous post, I was looking into getting a Mac Mini. I was really hoping that Apple would update the Mac Mini as well, but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen this go-around. So now the question is, do I wait and see if Apple updates the Mac Mini in the near future, or just go ahead and make the plunge. This is, of course, the age old question when purchasing electronics of most any sort.

I have posted about wanting a Mac before a few times, but now I am getting serious. I am duly impressed with Apple’s recent hardware offerings. It seems like almost everything the company does is a step in the right direction, at least it is in my opinion. The most recent offering from Apple that I simply cannot live without is the new MacBook. I think this would be the perfect solution to my desire for a new Mac. It has the relatively low price of the Mac Mini, the portability of the MacBook Pros and it is powered by the new Intel chips so it’s performance should be impressive. Not that the performance of the previous Macs was lagging.

As you may have read in a previous post, I am now working with RubyOnRails to do web development. I have watched a number of screencasts showing tutorials of how to do various things. Most of these screencasts have been made from a Mac, and they are very impressive. The GUI looks so clean and the programs they are running just look better. As a result of this I have been seriously considering purchasing a Mac. Unfortunately, Macs are expensive. Not neccesarily more expensive than a comparable wintel computer, but expensive nonetheless. One option, is the Mac Mini, they start at $499 and the fastest one is $699. Of course, as soon as I start researching the Mac Mini, I find out that Apple may annouce a new one at MacWorld next week. I really don’t want to spend money on something that may have some kick-ass upgrades (including an Intel processor) in just a few months. Of course if I always waited until the next major upgrade to purchase high tech stuff, then I would always be waiting!

Nothing new here, just my realization that I REALLY need a new computer. I can’t handle all of the problems I am currently experiencing. For your information, a list:

1. Computer, occasionaly, will not start
2. Mouse quits working (XP loses the connection to the USB device)
3. Way, way, way too much latency when trying to play a virtual instrument in Sonar via MIDI
4. Sonar locks up, this really makes creating music difficult
5. Computer freezes for no apparent reason

I suppose that list isn’t too awfully long, but some of those items really bother me. I have decided to build a dedicated music PC. No development software, no Photoshop. A PC solely dedicated to creating music. I am thinking about using Windows XP x64 and Sonar 5 (which works on a 63 bit system). I may be jumping the gun going to 64 bit, but how else will I ensure that my frustration level stays the same! Hopefully my hardware requirements will not differ too much from those of my previous post on the subject.

I think the following quote from Julie Larson-Green, who is the group program manager for the Office User Experience at Microsoft, answers the title’s question rather nicely. The quote is from Q&A: Microsoft Showcases New User Interface for Office 12 Core Applications”:

Word 1.0 only had about 100 commands, and you could go through the menus and see everything you could do. But Word 2003 has over 1,500 commands, many of which are harder to find.

Clearly, 1500 commands is too many. How many people do you know (feel free to include yourself in this number) insert space between paragraphs in Microsoft Word by hitting the ‘Enter’ key a few times? I think Microsoft may have misjudged the problem by trying to make it easier to find the 1 command in 1,500 that you were looking for. The problem, as it seems to me, isn’t the fact that it is hard to find the 1 in 1,500 thcommand. Rather, the problem is simply the fact that there are 1,500 commands!

I may be biased coming from a web based world, but I would have done a better job at seperating the content of the document from it’s visual representation. I would have incorporated the web’s idea of XHTML and CSS to traditional paper document creation. And I would have spent considerable effort making the GUI more adaptive and selective by utilizing contextual menus and other visual clues. For instance, placing the mouse pointer between two paragraphs should pop-up a graphic in the ruler that allows you to change the distance between the paragraphs in increments of the specified font-size, with an option to alter all paragraphs to match.

There is a better web browser out there, and it is called Firefox.
Why is it better, well it just is, and over 50,000,000 people agree. It
is very adept at blocking pop up windows and renders web pages faster.

But more important than that, at least to me, is that the browser is not dominant on the screen. It always seemed to me that when I was using Internet Explorer I was looking at a webpage “in” IE. When using Firefox, I feel more like I am looking at the web page itself, and Firefox is just a tool to help me get there. Firefox does not ever get in my way like IE did. It is better, you should try it.

The only downside to Firefox is that a small number of websites will not work with it. But this limitation is not the fault of the community that has developed
Firefox, rather, it is the fault of the web page designers who have
failed to adhere to accepted web standards and have coded for IE only. This problem was more prevalent in the early days of Firefox (6 months ago?), but as time progresses and more people switch over to Firefox this limitation is showing up less and less. Actually, I haven’t encountered a webpage that didn’t work in quite a while. Although it may be that I just refuse to visit them until they conform (i.e. Launch!).

Note: This is a re-post of an earlier entry, but I am so frustrated by IE that I felt it was time to post it again.

via: Gizmodo

Test Drive a Mac Mini: Gizmodo

Gizmodo is reporting that Apple has a new promotion. You can test drive a Mac Mini for 30 days, if you don’t love it, send it back. This may be a good way to determine if switching to a Mac is right for you, which is something that I have been contemplating for a while now.

Engadget has an article (originally from activewin.com) about a new wireless keyboard for Microsoft’s Windows Media Center Edition. It is very nice looking, has some nice features and isn’t too costly. I would like to know what wireless protocol it uses, Bluetooth hopefully.