tbradshaw.net

So for the last month or so I’ve been running Windows Vista RC1, trying things out. My primary reason for installing Vista was the installation process. I’m so freaking sick of the crappy Windows XP installer that it’s difficult for me to blog about it without dropping my rating from a PG-13 to NC-17.

Suffice it to say that I’m offended at an installer that doesn’t support years old technology (SATA) without requiring ancient technology (a floppy drive). Vista’s installer has resolved that problem in both ways, first providing full SATA support and second by allowing drivers to be loaded from floppy drives, CD-ROM, and USB storage devices. They’ve also done a few other nice things, like ask almost all of the questions at the beginning so that you can go have a donut while the installation finishes. Review of the installer? Two thumbs way the hell up.

Things start to fall apart a little after installation though, the crux of the entire situation being memory usage. Freshly booted, nothing running, idle, Windows Vista uses about 650 megs of RAM. We’re talking a fresh installation as well, so there’s nothing else running. It’s offensive. My relatively nice computer with a gig of CAS 2 latency RAM was upgraded to a sporty new video card… and game perforance went down after upgrading to Vista! Down!

Simply put, Vista uses too much RAM. Even after disabling every single internal service I could disable without crashing the box: the Defender, the nice new UI, absolutely everything; it still used 430 megs of RAM. Is Vista worth the sticker price? Maybe… I guess… depending on how much you pay. Since I’m a student in the Computer Science department, it’s free, so yeah I guess. However, is Vista worth buying a new computer (or at least a butt-ton of RAM) for? Definitely not!

In fact, I was previously offended enough by the installer that I refused, on all counts to install a floppy drive just to install XP. However, I’ve been having a huge amount of fun raiding in WoW lately, and that is enough. I’m currently downloading SCSI drivers for my SATA controller to copy using a freshly installed floppy disk drive to disk.

Before I had experienced Vista, there was nothing that was going to make me go through the additional work to install crappy ol’ XP. After experiencing Vista… turns out it’s worth the extra work just to stick with XP and not use Vista. How’s that for an ironic turn around? I just got owned.

I noticed today on Slashdot that IGN has released a complete track list for Guitar Hero 2!

To say that I’m excited would be an understatement. I’ve already been downloading music to fill out my Guitar Hero 2 playlist on iTunes, just so that I can be familiar with the songs before the November 7th release. Now (as soon as I get my PowerBook back) I can finish up the track listing completely, in order!

A quick note before I dive right into the track list: 40 licensed songs things time instead of 30, and it look to have gotten a lot harder!

• 1. Opening Licks
  • Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil
  • Danzig - Mother
  • Cheap Trick - Surrender
  • Wolfmother - Woman
  • Spinal Tap - Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
• 2. Amp-Warmers
  • Kiss - Strutter
  • Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box
  • Police - Message in a Bottle
  • Van Halen - You Really Got Me
  • Kansas - Carry on Wayward Son
• 3. String-Snappers
  • Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
  • Alice in Chains - Them Bones
  • Iggy Pop and the Stooges - Search and Destroy
  • Pretenders - Tattooed Love Boys
  • Black Sabbath - War Pigs
• 4. Thrash and Burn
  • Warrant - Cherry Pie
  • Butthole Surfers - Who Was in My Room Last Night
  • Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
  • Rolling Stones - Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’
  • Guns N’ Roses - Sweet Child O’ Mine
• 5. Return of the Shred
  • Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name Of
  • Primus - John the Fisherman
  • Sword - Freya
  • Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation
  • Aerosmith - Last Child
• 6. Relentless Riffs
  • Heart - Crazy on You
  • Stone Temple Pilots - Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart
  • Stray Cats - Rock This Town
  • Allman Brothers - Jessica
  • Jane’s Addiction - Stop
• 7. Furious Fretwork
  • Anthrax - Madhouse
  • Living End - Carry Me Home
  • Lamb of God - Laid to Rest
  • Reverend Horton Heat - Psychobilly Freakout
  • Rush - YYZ
• 8. Face-Melters
  • Avenged Sevenfold - Beast and the Harlot
  • Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
  • Dick Dale - Misirlou
  • Megadeth - Hangar 18
  • Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird

Yeah. Amazing. Can’t-Freaking-Wait Amazing.

It started this morning my phone was uncharged thanks to a loose USB jack on my phone charger. Annoyed as hell that it had happened again, I went to investigating.

The problem was simple to find, after removing the plastic case to the voltage increase adapter I found that the solder that was use to affix the jack to the PCB was broken and allowed the jack to wobble. “No problem,” I figured, “I’ll just get out the soldering iron, wick up that solder, and resolder it to make a new attachment.”

Turns out, I was right. It was just that easy. Unfortunately, once when I had sat the soldering iron down and was focusing on manipulating my desoldering braid for the next heat-up I picked it up by the metal element rather than the handle.

It hurt pretty bad, but not enough that I couldn’t keep working and finish. It sucks now though, because I have two nice blisters on my fingers right where I would hold a pencil. So my right middle finger has a little blister on the top by the knuckle–no big deal. However, my index finger has a big blister right on the underside (or face?) of the finger–bigger deal. Of all the places to get an injury, as a computer nerd a big burn on the end of the right index finger is about as bad as it gets, barring amputation.

So now I’m at my desk with a small sandwich bag of ice on the desk surface and every few seconds I have to place my finger back on the desk on the ice pack to avoid the very strong burning pain. When it stays cold, it’s totally fine. Unfortunately, typing really gets the blood flowing to the finger and hitting keys towards the top of the keyboard (like say, ‘y’ or ‘7′) actually tap the blister.

I’ve got lots of homework due tomorrow as well, so “not typing” and “resting the finger” aren’t an option.

I’m really happy that my phone charger is totally fixed now… but I’m not entirely sure that it was worth the trade.

Doh. Rough couple days.

The end has come for the hard drive in my fantastic little laptop. Sadly, it was not a merciful death. Over the last 16 hours the hard drive has come to a screeching, grinding, crashing halt. The AppleCare representative–as expected–was incredibly nice and helpful. We both had a good laugh as I told the story of the last 12 hours of my hard drive’s life.

Then, when it came time for me to pop in the original installation CD I was unable to find it. I’ve torn my room completely apart from top to bottom, but with no luck. I must have accidentally tossed the CD folder. Lame.

I’m pretty upset about things, but I hope that this won’t end up costing me any money. This would be exactly why I purchased the AppleCare. The time without my laptop will be difficult, though.

However, the worst thing about the whole ordeal came right at the end after the technician was setting up my repair order. They require my username and password! That’s right! I was required to state my user name and password in order to have a repair call.

Sadly, since I was unable to boot the computer I had to give them my “real” password, leaving me in a state of shock and dismay. As a computer science student, computer generalist hobbiest, and a systems administrator, I type my password hundred of times a day to access all of the various resources I need in a day.

It was like I had just give a skeleton key to every door I touch, and now I have to change all of locks. Make no mistake, losing my laptop for several days while it is serviced really sucks. However, having to change my passwords on everything, that is so much worse.