Overcoming XP SP1

Been almost a year since I last said anything poignant about my disadventures in the world on Windows 7. (Okay, since I last said anything about Win 7.) I was mostly waiting for Service Pack 1 to come out. That was ticking me off. I was going to reinstall Windows when SP1 came out. Which was originally October. Then November. December. January. Finally February. I went and reinstalled much earlier because of some crash issues. I thought it was the hard drive, but it turned out to be the power supply.

(I know, it's not really a power supply. That's the outlet in the wall. Everybody calls that big metal brick a power supply, even Leo Laporte.)

What I'm mostly going to focus on is what has changed in my opinion from what I originally scribed about.

First is I switched from using Ultimate 64 to Pro 32. I was still having minor bug issues. Little incompatibilities here and there. It's been an issue forever. Only when all hardware and software manufacturers switch to 64 bit will the problems be solved. I decided that if I didn't like Pro 32 I could easily switch back to Ultimate 64. Other than the fact I had to load up Solitaire separately I've been pretty happy. Most things seem to be working better. Sure I can only use 4GB or ram, but hey, the most graphic intense game I have is Angry Birds. To be quite honest, perhaps the only version of Win 7 needed is Home. Unless you want to use XP Mode.

That's the next one. At first I thought XP Mode was rather useless. Sill is, except I did find one rather interesting use: Test programs I download. Instead of junking up my Win 7 install with trials and errors, use XP Mode. When things get to screwy, just delete the 4kb file in the Virtual Machines folder of your user account and start again.

I had a lot of trouble with Soundblaster. It's gone. One day it quit. I'm sure I'm the reason. The card is good. I tried it in my Linux Test Box and it worked fine. I now use what I term the Soundblaster bypass. I'll talk about it some other time.

Last thing I can think of is that I no Longer use XP Paint. I found out that I can resize the boxes even after I draw them.

That was the last bit holding me up.

In summery: I like Win 7. It's here to stay. In fact I'm at a point now when someone asks for some help with XP, I can only stammer through a response because I can't remember a damn thing about it. Win 7 has totally flushed it out of my brain.

Ravy 2011 Pg 09.

Click

It's pretty easy to tell when I do my own backgrounds.

here.

A Boy and His Dog-Type Girl.

If anybody ever takes the time to read the comments might have seen me spouting off about something that's binding my cheese. Welllllll, I changed my mind, I'm not going to talk about it. Why? Because I can. Instead let's be positive and talk about:

This weekend I was engaged in my usual pastime of going to book stores and reading the magazines without paying for them. When I was done I went to the manga section (big surprise, wasn't expecting that was you?) I was looking for the usual suspects and they weren't out yet. Then I spied the omnibus collection  of Inukami. The cover picturing a cute girl with the bushy tail had me picking it up and taking a much closer look. Yes, a very closer look.

To sum up the summery: "Ineffectual trainer has to train the untrainable." Wow, I've never seen that before *cough* pokemon *cough* kurumi *cough* Now my conundrum: which one to buy: The $16 volumes 1,2,3 or just the $10 volume 1? I hate spending even $10 on a book, I may not like it, but you can't judge a series on just one volume. It took about two volumes of Soul Eater for my to decide I didn't like it. (I do like the anime.) So I spend the extra six bucks and tax, (lotsa tax.) I figure if I don't like it and if there isn't any nudity I can give it to a friend of mine for his kid to read.

I liked it, I couldn't put it down. I went through Inukami that night, now I'm busy rereading it. Let's get the two major drawbacks out of the way. The nudity. While I love looking at naked women, there's a time and place. One of the places is certainly not in this story. Sometimes you have to take the unnecessary with everything else. The other bit is that Yoko's hair has a tendency to change color and style. Making it hard to read at some points.

This next criticism is not specific to Inukami, It's one I have of books, comics, TV shows in general: they're hard to follow at first. That's why I read through at least two volumes before making a decision on whether I like it or not. The creators are throwing all their ideas together trying to see what clicks and what doesn't. Establishing their characters and stories. That can take awhile. By about volume three of Inukami this is mostly settled and an actual conflict seems to be brewing.

To be honest, I don't know why I like Inukami. Why Oh My Goddess? Why am I still reading Lucky Star? I just do. Give Inukami a try, It can't hurt you. Well maybe drool over everything and scratch herself at inappropriate times.

Ravy 2011 Pg 08.

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Some of the more ironic comics I have done. I'm making my own emoticons, but I'm still using backgrounds from the game I got them from in the first place.

Previews and Trailers: The Day I Dread Has Come.

Remember movies cassette tapes? I do. I also remember how in the beginning the FBI Warning and then the trailers for other movies were at the end of the tape. Then some genius got it in his head to put this stuff at the beginning of the tape. Why? Because no one would bother much with watching them. But they didn't count on the fast forward button. You still had to sit through the previews, but at least it was at least twice the normal speed.

Then comes DVD. Same thing: FBI Warning (oh, I'm soooo scared) and trailers. You could fast forward, and you can hit the Next button, or the menu button to skip all that and go straight to the movie. Then I got scared, Paramount, the guys who put out Star Trek, wouldn't let you skip their logo. Pop in most any Paramount DVD, you have to sit through. It's only a few seconds, but that's a few seconds I could be watching Kirk yell "KAAAAAHHHHHHN!!" Rhino DVD was even worse: you had to sit through the catapult sequence on each Transformers disk before you could even think of hearing Optimus Prime order "Autobots: Transform and ROLL OUT!" Youtube, they've been putting ads in videos for years now. WWE got in on the act. On each disk you can't fast forward, menu, or next through the "Don't try this at home." PSA. WWE I give a pass to because that is mostly important. But, hey, I wanna watch Nature Boy go "WOOOOOO!" Do I have to sit through the PSA on each disk?

I thought my greatest fear had been alleviated. The trailers and previews were moved from the beginning of the disk to its own sub menu. YES!!!! No more having to even think of having to see the Tsubasa preview. Okay, I still have to wait out the FBI Warning, but I beat that by using that time wisely by making a call on the porcelain phone.

HOWEVER!

A while ago, there I was, minding my own business, bothering absolutely nobody. I hadn't even updated the blog with my bumblings. I was having an oh so excellemundo time watching Sasami: Magical Girls Club (review to come) when the day I had long dreaded, the day I thought had been slayed, had come back with with a mighty vengeance. I put in disk three and the preview for Tsubasa came up. No biggie, just hit menu. Biggie. Hit next, even bigger biggie. Fast forward?

OH MY GODDESS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! KAAAAAAHHHN! STAAARRRRSCREAM!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't skip the trailer! WHY! Haven't we suffered enough with the gross mis-pronunciation of names? Why must we be forced to sit through the previews? I had already seen the Tsubasa preview on another DVD. I was indifferent. Now I dislike it.

This is just one preview. What if they decide we need to sit through all 5, 10, 15 previews? Hey guys! You guys in the Anime DVD business. You're in enough trouble as it is. Best Buy is dropping Anime. Suncoast has long since disappeared from my area. Wally World only really carries Naruto and Dragon Ball. Hastings? At this point we're completely dependant on what somebody's mother decides to trade in behind his back. Amazon, sure we can go there, but I like to support my local businesses. And I get the disk in my hands right away.

Anime DVD dudes, don't give people any more  reasons to stop buying DVDs.