Hasta la Vista, Windows

I’m really looking forward to getting myself a computer that can put Windows Vista to the test. Unfortunately, I will not be running out on January 30th to buy the new operating system from Microsoft.

First, I want to know if there are drives available run my hardware. When I upgraded to the 64 bit version of Windows XP many of my otherwise perfectly fine printers, cameras and other gadgets no longer worked. The lack of support by manufacturers was significant.

In addition all my trusty computer utilities were instantly obsolete. In fact most software companies still don’t support 64 bit operating systems. I had this wonderful OS with no antivirus, defrag or registry cleaning ability. Many programs that I rely on would not work and were not going to be supported by software makers. This included many 32 bit programs. By design no program with 16 bit code will run on a 64 bit OS. This includes Windows Vista. There are supposed to be both 32 and 64 bit versions of the new OS but information is not easy to find on the Microsoft site.

While a few companies finally did patch their code enough to run on a 64 bit OS, most also decided that I must be a business if I run a 64 bit OS and priced their products accordingly. Microsoft doesn’t even fully support the 64 bit version of XP. Their new OneCare product with anti-virus and other utilities will not work on their 64 bit OS.

64 bit computing is here to stay but will Vista be fully supported by the industry from the introduction on January 30? HP will not even release a list of their products that are supported in Vista until the 30th.

Will hardware manufacturers have a variety of drivers ready? Will they let us Beta Test their drivers and then find something that works or have they done their homework?

Based on my experience with 64 bit computing thus far, I recommend caution before blindly upgrading to Vista. In fact, Microsoft doesn’t even allow me to upgrade my OS to Vista. I must wipe the drive and start over.

If Microsoft can’t fully support their own software, what hope is there that the entire industry will do better?

Schwarzenegger Leads Left

It seems that Arnold Schwarzenegger has morphed into a caricature of Maria’s Uncle Ted Kennedy.

When I voted to reelect Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in November, he had an “R” next to his name. While I knew he was on the fringes of the Republican Left, he was better than the other guy.

This week however, he seems to have completed the metamorphosis that he began after the failed special election just over a year ago. If you recall, he dumped many on his staff from the Pete Wilson camp and replaced them with others further to the left including some Democrat activists. (Any Republican getting to the left of Wilson is a remarkable feat all by itself.)

I wonder if these changes started with his motorcycle accident.

In recent weeks we are seeing just how far the Governor has gone. With universal healthcare and the myth of global warming as his main issues, I’m wondering what happened to the man who promised fiscal responsibility and blowing-up the boxes of government waste.

Arnold has been playing a shell game of reducing the deficit spending that he inherited from Gray Davis and trading it for tens of billions of dollars in bonds. (If Schwarzenegger gets Phase II of his plan, the bond debt will be in the hundreds of billions.) He is mortgaging our future to pay the legislative credit card debt of the past and present. He is not addressing the structural flaws in the current budgetary system.

For and analysis of Arnold’s healthcare idea see RomneyCare vs ArnoldCare at this link.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/8e266ace-3c9d-4c8e-aaf3-aba37fff76bf

Democrats Splinter

The sundering of the Democrats is underway. The motley group of single-issue hippies and socialists that vanquished their common enemy, the GOP, is now dissolving their coalition and going for each other’s throats. This is the result of them not having a unified view of policy on the Global War on Terror and other issues confronting our nation. Heck, most don’t think there is a War on Terror. To them, 9-11 was just a fluke.

The multitasking granny, Speaker Pelosi, has already broken every promise of ethics, reform and openness that she made during the campaign at least twice and she isn’t even done with her second week. It is unclear whether the new crop of freshman in her party will stick to their conservative campaign promises or back Nanny Pelosi in here quest to deconstruct our national defense and economic prosperity.

The fever swamp wants impeachment and withdrawal from Iraq while Nancy wants her party to get the White House in 2008. Before summer, she will have alienated most in her party and put the legislative branch in gridlock.

Nancy’s claim to be the most powerful woman in the country was an insult to Mrs. Clinton. Without the Senate, Nancy’s utopian dreams are unachievable. With the amount of mistakes she has made thus far, we will see how long Speaker Pelosi can ride her wave of glory.

Petsmart Sued for False Imprisonment

This one could make Jay Leno’s Headline segment.

In the December 29, 2006 edition of the Sacramento Business Journal is the following item on page 33.

Rachel Mikel is suing Petsmart, Inc, Whitney Lumstead and Antionette Valles for a complaint of sexual battery and false imprisonment.

This raises many questions to the careful reader including:
How did Rachel get in the gerbil cage?
Are Whitney and Antionette employees?
Does Rachel buy all her leather goods at Petsmart?
Aren’t the cages too small for any kind of imprisonment?

Rachel, that’s not what they mean when they offer obedience classes.

Merry Christmas

Sorry that I haven’t been blogging much latterly but I have been hurrying to finish an addition to my house in time for Christmas.

I’ve been enjoying the joy and wonder of my two-year-old discovering Christmas. I tell him we are having a birthday party for baby Jesus. All the lights in people’s yards are preparations for the party.

DIRECTV, Samsung LCD and HDMI

Six months ago my wife and I finally brokedown and purchased a 42” Samsung LCD television. Like a good husband, I obeyed my wife and went to the local Comcast office and to get their high definition receiver with DVR. We hooked-up the composite cables and entered the world HD TV.

Shortly after we got everything hooked-up and running we began to encounter issues with what we called “pixelization.” Instead of the crystal clear image we had hoped to see we found many stations unwatchable. Many programs that we recorded for our small son from the PBS Sprout station were just a series of colored boxes that changed every few seconds. Many recordings had no audio. Some stations such as HBO just gave us a black screen with no picture. At other times these same stations seemed ok.

We finally quit relying on recordings of Thomas the perky little Tank Engine; opting instead to buy several DVDs just so the baby could have a morning visit with his friends from Great Britain.

After several months of really poor performance from Comcast and the obligatory visit from the repair guy, I finally decided to make the switch to satellite. First we switched our ISP to Frontier. This was a difficult decision because it is the only choice available to us in our area and Frontier has a checkered track record. It has been slower but more reliable than Comcast.

Next we chose DIRECTV. Why? Simple the children come first and DIRECTV is the only satellite provider to carry PBS Sprout.

We went to our local electronics store and paid for the installation and equipment. This part is strange on two accounts. First, although you pay for everything they only give you the DVR boxes not the dish or basic receiver units. Second they had no HD DVR units in stock. At the time of our purchase the DIRECTV website was placing folks on a waiting list. I had to drive to another store to get our HD DVR unit.

During this time I found-out that the DVR unit needs two feeds from the dish (ours has four) so that you can record one show while watching another. Once I learned this little nugget, I had the mental picture of a knuckle dragging guy with a staple gun in one hand tacking wires all over the side of our house and a drill in the other putting holes through our walls. To avoid this scenario, I chose to run coax cable from the point where the dish would be installed to the room with the HD TV.

I used a low voltage cutout and cover plate for the cable and as an added bonus I ran CAT 5 cable at the same time. All were purchased from the local Home Depot.

Next the installers came and installed the equipment; mostly. The only issue that they were unable to resolve was connecting the HD DVR unit to our HD TV. After an hour of messing with our HDMI cable connection, they gave-up. We were told the Receiver was defective. We were to contact the store and get a new unit. After talking to three different people at the store, we finally reserved another unit at another store. My wife and I went to the other store, picked up the unit and installed it with the same result; the TV flashing a No Sync Signal error in a blue box on the screen.

My wife went to Google and found the answer by looking-up the wrong model of Samsung television. The bottom line is that the Samsung units require a signal of 720i but the DVR unit defaults at installation to 480i.

I proved this by connecting the DVR unit with composite cables. I was then able to configure the DVR box and activate the service.

Then I set the unit to 1080i and connected my HDMI cable and I had a picture. However, to keep it that way, I needed to program the DVR unit to only use a resolution of 1080i. Oh, the composite cable and HDMI can both be connected at the same time.

Last, the dish installers never have contacted us to see if the TV is working. It’s been a week now.

Oh the picture with DIRECTV, I describe it this way: Comcast is like listening to a Salt Lake City AM radio station late at night and DIRECTV is like your favorite song on local radio in FM Stereo. In other words, satellite is far superior. IT ROCKS!!!

Presidential Preview

Eddie Moran—someone I knew back in my navy days—used to say, “It doesn’t matter what race you are, at ground zero, you’re still a vapor.”

It is with that idea in mind that I look at the early contenders for the Republican nomination for President. The three top-tier candidates are Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

McCain is as nuts as Ross Perot. He longs too much for the attention of the media and cares not for the Republic or his party. He is self-serving not a public servant.

Romney seems like a better choice. As a Republican, he won statewide election in the most liberal State in the Union. His biggest strike is his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Romney, if he follows the teaching from Salt Lake City, he would be the best of the three on social issues.

Giuliani would be the best on the War on Terror and seems to have more backbone than either President Bush. His social positions are way too liberal but if terrorists nuke us, the social issues won’t matter anyway. Rudy made his mark with law & order and administration in New York City. It’s a tough, scrappy political arena. By contrast, Congress is a bunch of spoiled pansies.

At this early stage with global terrorism as our biggest issue, I think Giuliani should be viewed as the early favorite.

A Fair Warning

by Katherine

As I look at the world today,
And hear the people say,
“Save the troops,
Bring them home,
Keep thousands, no,
A hundred thousand or more
Alive to fight another date.”

I glance at them and answer back,
“Their job’s not done,
Why should they play?
We need them to stay
And work for today.

“My life is new,
My days are young,
My heart still yearns
For things I’ve not done.
If they leave before they’re through,
Those undone things
Will remain undone.

“I won’t get a chance
To do those things
For I may not live
To be much older
Than I am today.

“If I live then I will deal
With the mistakes and errors
That you, my leaders, made.
My life will be torment
From the bomb
That will attack
The country I call home.
I will suffer from poisoning
That traveled from who knows where,
After the wolf slaughters
A nearby heard of sheep.

“My brothers will fight
As soldiers tomorrow
Not the Mid-East Islamic,
As they do today,
But the European
And Hispanic Islamic.

“For they will have succumbed
To the numerous threats
Of destruction
Or isolation
That moved them to do the things
They would never have done
In a time of peace
Before the war
To end all wars.

“It was never about oil
Or about revenge.
It was about keeping
Our way of life the same.

“What good is saving
A hundred thousand plus
When you condemn
A billion or so?”

Author Note: Katherine is 15 years old and has been an occasional contributor to this site. She is busy with school and has little time to blog recently.

John Kerry the Beltway Buffoon

John Kerry this week outlined why Republicans need to be returned to power in Washington.

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

This glimpse into the heart of the man who should be the defacto leader of the Democrat Party—should the Clintons ever fade away—reveals the contempt that the Left has for the military.

I owe an apology to no one.

Kerry still believes that he is right and has parsed his words to stand on that ground even when others wish he would shut-up for another week.

In a subsequent statement clarifying his attack on the military, Kerry stated:

when I came back from southeast Asia, I told the truth, and I am proud that I stood up and told the truth then

And what was the truth that John Kerry claims that he witnessed when he testified before the US Senate in 1971

In addition to the normal ravages of war, soldiers in Vietnam had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.

John Kerry may be a legend in his own mind but he leaves the rest of us wondering why such a pompous buffoon thrives inside the Beltway.