When people ask me PC or a Mac, I have a hard time telling them which is best for them. For me, both is the best choice. They both have their disadvantages and their advantages. For a power-user, I think its essential to have BOTH platforms. A power-user should be able to use both Operating Systems and see their pro’s and con’s. There’s no such thing as a perfect OS. I don’t think we are ever going to see that.

I have to admit that I have yet to own my own Mac. As soon as I can save up for one, I’ll jump right on it. I really can’t wait after using my friends for a few days. But if I was only partial to one platform, I would never had enjoyed using Leopard.

So can’t we all just get along? 

Your comments, wether good or bad, are always welcome!

Based off of the Mac based program WriteRoom, "Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text."

Now there’s nothing special about this program. It’s extremely simple; there’s not even a spell check.

But as I write this blog now, (using Dark Room) I’ve noticed how much faster and efficently I can write and type. No distractions, IMs, or email alerts. It’s a gift from the ADD gods.

You can download Dark Room free of charge at:

http://they.misled.us/dark-room

Thanks for reading, and as always, your comments are always welcomed.

"Greetings Professor…"

"How about a nice game of chess?"

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1521 laptop around 4 months ago, and I love almost everything about it. Dell’s website makes it easy to customize your machine without confusion and helps you compare products. So I choose Dell to build my Notebook. I had so much fun choosing and building my machine and after the whole adventure, was eager for it to arrive.

I choose Next Business Day shipping and paid around $42 bucks for it! I figured it’s worth the extra cash to get it here in a jiffy.

After checking Dell’s order status website and telephone number obsessively every 10 minuets, it finally made it into the “shipping” stage. Boy was I excited! It was a Tuesday and that means it will get here, of course, on Wednesday. I mean that makes sense right? Next Business Day!

Well Wednesday came around and no computer! I called DHL and talked to a rep. They told me basically; Dell screwed you over. Take it up with them. (Not a direct quote by the way)

I called Dell and unloaded my frustration on their rep, and demanded a refund. They credited my account for $50 bucks and assured me, after many threats to stay away from their computers, that it would not happen again.

So fast forward to about 2 days ago. I’m looking for a new PDA and thought; why not choose Dell? Well that was somewhat of a mistake.

I choose, you guessed it, Next Business Day shipping and of course the shipment was delayed. I dialed the telephone and spoke with a rep who told me at first that it was “bad weather”. Well I live in the Cleveland Ohio area and I at first, was convinced that it was the problem. I mean if you know Cleveland, the weather can change in a second. But after looking out the window and noticing the thermostat and the clear sky’s, I assured the rep that it couldn’t be bad weather.

She put me on hold for around…EVER and the told me that I was right. Ohio wasn’t on DHL’s delay list. She refunded my account and, oh boy! Assured me that it would not happen again. Just like last time!!

So my PDA is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. And I guess for free shipping it’s worth the wait. But the whole point of this spiel is: Why can’t Dell get products to their customers on time? I checked with fellow Dell users and they too had complaints about the delays on shipping.

I hope Dell can get it together. They offer great products, but their service is less than satisfying.

“After a trickle of updates and “betas” bearing the Windows Live moniker, Microsoft Corp. is ready to start promoting its official package of free desktop programs for e-mail, instant messaging, bogging and sharing photos. The package includes Windows Live Mail, which can grab messages from multiple free Web-based e-Mail accounts, including Microsoft’s Hotmail, Google Inc.’s Gmail and AOL e-mail. The new package, which Microsoft formally announced Tuesday, allows PC users to read and respond to mail even when they’re not online, just as Outlook Express, which Microsoft has phased out did.” it goes on to say “the package also includes Live Writer, for writing blog posts, the Live Messenger instant-messaging program and Live Family Safety, parental controls for Web surfing at home. For more information, go to windowslive.com.”

After reading this article, I had to laugh a little. When I read the headline I was excited, hoping that something useful would be released; and from what I’ve read, I wasn’t that impressed. Don’t get me wrong, these programs are some what useful like Gmail for Windows Mail, but doesn’t Vista already come with Windows Mail?

I do suppose that this is revolutionary for Microsoft. These “free” programs may lead to open source programs in the future. But one question remains… will it be compatible with XP?

[tags]microsoft, free, applications, open source, desktop programs, programs, windows, windows live, gmail[/tags]

One Name….GMAIL!

I have been using Gmail (google mail) for around 3 years now, and it’s been nothing but fun, friendly, productive and easy to use. Gmail has been very popular over the past year and is gaining more users every day.

Why do so many people like Gmail? Well its Elementary my dear Watson!

Gmail is chock full of cool features that you will actually use! Features like google doc’s (google documents) which lets you store, edit & create Microsoft Word type documents that are also compatible with Microsoft Word. But you can also create presentations & spreadsheets like in Microsoft Power-point and Microsoft Excel. Google-Doc’s also allows the user to save and edit documents on the Google Server, instead of clogging up their hard-drive.

Some more cool features include google talk, google chat, Archive (instead of deleting emails you can archive them!), google page creator, google ad-sense, & my favorite feature ( besides google documents) is auto-fill for you “to” line on a email.

There are of course many, many more noteworthy features, however I’m trying to keep this Blog as short as possible and to the point. And of course the point should be obvious; GET GMAIL! It’s easy, fast, reliable, useful, friendly, compatible, and of course the best part: FREE!

Please feel free to comment on your favorite mail provider and why! Or why you don’t like gmail, as well as any questions. You’re comments are always welcome and encouraged!

That information opened my eyes to start doing my part to help my pocket book, and the environment. I usually kept my 3 computers and my 1 laptop powered on at one times to be able to transfer files and information. Come on who wants to have to boot up a computer every time you need to use it!? But these staggering figures are enough to change my actions and should be enough to change yours. Taking the few extra seconds out of your life to boot up the computer is well worth your effort. You can lower your electric bill and help save the polar bears!

But what about notebooks? Isn’t using a battery better for the environment?

Well yes and no; in theory if you had a battery that could use less electricity to charge and use more to discharge, you might then have a more eco-friendly system. But I haven’t seen anything like that around; electricity used to charge you battery is still equal to the amount you use. Remember, a battery is just holding the charge, not generating it.

Also consider what goes into making a lithium battery; chemicals galore are jammed into that little plastic stick. If you broke one open and dumped it into a small pond, you would kill the pond’s entire ecosystem!

The best solution I can think of is a solar powered battery charger; more and more research is going on every day to utilize solar power in consumer electronics. Hopefully in the near future, all of our electronics will be powered by that big bright star in the sky.

But for now, the easiest thing you can do is unplug your computers and laptops when you’re NOT USING THEM! We all need to take action and save this one planet we have.

Your comments are always welcome!

[tags]environment, geeks, computers, laptops, solar, tech, world[/tags]

Dear Chris,

I’ve been a Windows user for as long as I can remember. From 3.11 to Vista, I haven’t even thought of changing to a Macintosh — like most of the other Windows loyalists. But after browsing around on apple.com, I watched the amazing video of OS X Leopard. And quite frankly, my jaw was dropped the entire time. I’ve never seen anything so amazing in an OS yet. I must stand up and say: “my name’s Owen… and I’m a Windows traitor” to all my loyalist friends.

Compared to Leopard, Vista looks almost as “Fisher Price” as XP. I recently purchased a Dell notebook with Vista and was so excited to get a great product with an even better OS. And just as your friend said in your Vista video blog, I also felt ripped. Especially when compared to Leopard. It doesn’t even come close to the over 300 new features that Leopard includes. And I had to force myself to say that I will soon buy a MacBook.

So I can’t wait to see what Microsoft has up its sleeve. It must have something extremely impressive on the way to compete with the orgasmic Leopard. I can’t say that I don’t like Vista. It does what I want it to do and performs pretty well. But there is nothing “orgasmic” about it. It’s XP on Crack…

I predict that Apple might just become more popular with Leopard than people expect. If Apple keeps coming out with more impressive features like this, I could see it coming very close to being the leader in OSes and computers in the near future. I only know about 20 people personally who own Macs, and I’ve asked them if they’re interested in the Mac’s new OS version. Many of them had the same response: stick with Tiger, whatever you do! I’m not sure why so many people told me to stay with Tiger if I get a Mac! From what I’ve seen, Tiger does not come close to Leopard.

So what are your ideas about the new Leopard? Do you suggest the upgrade/discourage the downgrade to Tiger? Will you be doing a blog and or video about it?

[tags]windows, leopard, vista, apple[/tags]

If you have Windows Vista, my heart goes out to you. If you don’t, good for you! We have all heard or read about the problems that have been arising with Windows Vista, and it is quite apparent that Vista is giving Microsoft a bad name. Problems with compatibility, security, performance and user friendliness are becoming more and more of a problem; Vista just isn’t cutting it. And now with Apple’s new OS X Leopard, many windows users are considering the change from Windows to Mac’s.

So what will Microsoft do to encourage Windows users to stick with them? Well they’re going to have to come out with something pretty impressive to get their users back, because compared to Leopard, Vista doesn’t stand a chance.

2010 is a long time from now and is the suspected release of Windows “7″; and that basically the only details about 7 that Microsoft wants to say about it. But will it compete with Leopard, or perhaps future releases of OS X? I think not. Microsoft is loosing popularity fast, especially with the younger generation of computer users. Apples design in Software is more appeasing to the fast, point and shoot users who want something easy and fast to use that also looks nice on the eye. I see more and more people with MacBook’s everyday, which isn’t surprising. Do you ever see any Vista adds on TV? Well I haven’t, all I’ve seen are those very humorous PC-Mac ads.

So what lies in the future? Will we live in a world of Mac’s? Or will Microsoft dig itself out of its hole? Only time will tell, but I am sure that we will all be following this very interesting and entertaining struggle with Windows vs. Mac.

God speed Microsoft, God speed.

You comments are always welcome!