Cogs can think.

I just downloaded NewWave 4.0, a desktop manager from HP for… Windows 3.1. It’s from 1992. The installation went fine, and within 3 seconds it was done, and working perfectly. Start menu entries were created.

I was installing it in Windows Vista Ultimate.

Sometimes, a day comes along that is just so good, you can hardly believe you’re actually living it.

Today, my mother had a photographic check up of her remaining breast. Comparing it to the previous, ‘cancer-less’ photo, they found nothing. This means that the doctors are 95% sure that my mother is ‘clean’. The remaining 5% will be investigated in the coming week (a careful examination of the photo). After having so many setbacks in 2005, getting the phonecall from my mother that all was ok just brings instant tears to my eyes. Fcuk manliness, I cry when I get news like this.

I am so happy. Seriously. You cannot imagine how news like this feels.

And to make the day even better, my digital TV kit arrived today. I now have television via DVB-T to my brand-new 17″ widescreen HDTV, which Geeks.com sent me for review (expect it next Monday). And to top it off, the Vista review kit from Microsoft NL arrived today, containing 32bit and 64bit copies of Windows Vista Ultimate (expect a review on a low-end desktop soon).

I love days like this.

Cheesy, but I could not resist.

Petrol to reach Noorder Arcade shopping centre: 2E.
Ink cartridges: 50E
New headphone: 25E
Finding out the ticket machines of the parking garage run Windows XP: priceless.

Seriously. That really made my day.

Seriously. Apple’s marketing departement could learn a thing or two from the current Vista campaign Microsoft has launched. The guy says (in Dutch):

How many times do you experience something where only one word fits?

Discover Windows Vista.

It’s brilliant because it’s so simple and to the point. It appeals to a basic emotion, and instantly makes clear why you should try Vista: it will ‘wow’ you.

Compare this simple and direct ad to the somewhat arrogant and childish ‘Get a Mac‘ campaign from Apple. They were fun at first, but now they just make me cringe. Apple has such a good operating system, but instead of capitalising on that, they just ridicule their potential buyers. I have never seen an Apple ad which tries to sell OS X or the Mac on its own merits. Which is kind of sad.

Come to think of it, I have never seen an Apple ad, period. There has never been an Apple ad on Dutch television. Not even for the iPod.

I bought a new videocard to replace my aging Ati Radeon 9000 with 128MB of RAM; it’s an nVIDIA Geforce 6200 with also 128MB of RAM.

The funny bit: Linux loaded in CLI mode, I modified xorg.conf, and I was ready to go.

Windows XP refuses to load. At all.

Update: Well paint me polka-dot and call me a girly scout, but swapping the old and the new card did the trick. It all works now.

You can say whatever you want about Windows Vista. I don’t care. Even though I like it, it’s still Windows and therefore has a whole slew of downsides that annoy me every day.

However, can we please, for the love of god, quit this whole nonsense about how supposedly millions and millions of features have been ripped out of Vista? The only three notable things that are not included in Vista but were promised to be in Longhorn were:

That’s it. That is all there is to it. I simply refuse to take any comment or article seriously that continue to spread lies about how many features were removed from Vista. Yes, it’s a resource hungry mammoth of an operating system, it has its quirks, it is expensive, and it comes in too many versions, but please stop spreading lies about the removed features.

Please. It annoys the crap out of me.

I think the Linux world has a problem. And no, it’s not SCO.

When the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world says Linux infringes its patents, you’re in deep shit. That CEO won’t say this because he has some small hunch that it might be possible; no, he’ll only say this when he is 110% sure he has a case on his hands.

Now, you may or may not disagree with software patents and intellectual property stuff (software patents suck ass if you ask me), but fact remains that the law is the way it is (in the US at least), and as such, you’ll have to deal with it.

In other words, Linux companies are in a world of shit.

And so the EU continues its crusade against Microsoft.

With my damn tax money. It’s already bad enough I have to pay taxes to Brussels and Strassburg, but I wish they at least use it to help poor people or the environment or something, but no, they have to use it in a pointless battle against Microsoft, just because the US government is too corrupt to fine its own companies.

Damn, damn, damn. So powerless.

After seeing the interface that will come with the Zune in action, I actually was pleasantly surprised (Eugenia blogged about it too). As most of you will know, I’m a minidisc guy, however, that Zune video made me think about .mp3 players for a while. Firstly, the Zune has a few advantages over the iPod:

However, major concerns from a minidisc fan like me remain:

So, in order to win me over, these harddrive .mp3 players still have a lot of improving to do.

I’ll be short and to the point.

OpenOffice.org is a steaming pile of shit. It is so utterly, utterly, utterly evil, I’d rather eat my own hair instead of having to rely on this buggy piece of crap software. Anyone saying OpenOffice.org is anywhere even near Microsoft Office in whatever measure, has simply never used OpenOffice.org for longer than 7 seconds (the time it takes for Writer (2.0.4) to load). It crashes. It hangs. It churns. It moans. It has a settings panel designed by a seven year old starving Ethiopian kid high on crack, acid, and glue. It is slow. It is unresponsive. It sucks at .doc importing (not really their fault, but still).

I’d give up Compiz/Beryl. I’d give up automount. I’d give up apt.

If I could just have an office suite on Linux that’s even 1% as good as MS Office 2003 (let alone 2007).