How can Win 8 win great?

For a while now all the tech talk has been about leaked previews of Windows 8. So far it has been a real yawn fest. I haven't seen anything worth reporting yet. Who is Microsoft building it for? We all know not the people that buy their products. Especially those talking about them on their arch-rival's blog service, and does the pre-write on a free office suite.

Have I ever let that stop me before?

While flipping through those other articles on PCWorld, MaxPC, and Leo LaPorte, I had some other ideas that I think would be a big improvement.

We only need one version. Not starter, home, pro, and ultimate. And certainly not in OEM, upgrade, and full retail. There really wasn't any differences between XP Home and Pro. Every possible version of Vista was on each disk. Now 7 is a little bit different, there seems to be some code hidden on the disk that tells the installer what version the disk is, but I have a feeling that it can be easily removed and you can install any version you want. I did it with the release candidates.

All these different versions do is confuse people. They're too busy trying to figure out what version to buy and at what price. I have used both Ultimate and Pro. I've seen no differences. If I were to switch to Home, I'd probably type away happily. I would miss XP Mode, but only so I could test out new apps without junking up my hard drive. You can get Virtual Box for free with out spending an extra $80 for visualization from Microsoft.

Also, there really is no difference between an OEM, upgrade, and full retail disk. Except for that little line of code that tell you what it is after it is installed. And the differing prices. Win 7 Ultimate goes for $250 OEM, $220 upgrade, and $320 full. It's the same damn thing. Just one version of Windows is all we need. One price.

Look at Mac. One disk, one version, one price. $30 dollars, $50 if you want to have the five install family pack.

Looking again to Apple, Microsoft should not try to build Win 8 for the desktop and try to adapt it for phones and tablets. They shouldn't build it for phones and tablets and adapt it for desktops. Apple has separate OSes for desktops and phones/tablets. Apple built the iOS on it's own and is not really related to Mac OS. Microsoft has failed for ten years in tablets because they haven't done that.

In other words, I recognize the fact there should be at least two versions of Windows.

Once again we barrow another page from Apple. Apple has this habit of telling software and hardware venders to suck it up when Apple releases a new OS. Meaning that if a program no longer works when Mac OS is upgraded, too bad. Fix it. Microsoft needs to do the same, by making a 64 bit only OS.

Awhile ago I talked about switching form 64 to 32 bit. I did it as an experiment. And found that 32 bit runs everything better. The reason for this is that all apps and drivers are written in 32 bit. So there are going to be some bugs running 32 bit apps in a 64 bit OS. It's time for Microsoft to stop being coy and make the switch. Since Vista, most new computers have come with 64 bit Windows installed. But you could still get 32 bit on the shelf over there. No more.

There is a consumer demand for Windows to do more. People want to be able to edit photos with overly bloated software, watch streaming videos, constantly running anti-malware suites, and play games. All at the same time. You need RAM. Unfortunately 32 bit OSes can only address 4 GB at once. I just checked, right now I'm using I'm using a gig of RAM just to type this out. I remember just getting 128 MB (that's megabytes) of RAM was a big deal. Now I'm seriously reconsidering switching permanently to 64 bit just so I can have that extra RAM.

Wow, I certainly can talk up a storm, and there's a lot more I want to say concerning Windows 8, but I'll save that for later.

Ravy 2011 Pg. 26.

Click Here.

Waiting in line at the lunch counter, everybody's watches said 12:05. But not the manager's. He had a atomic clock wrist watch powered by a black hole singularity that somehow kept amazingly inaccurate time. Why didn't we just go somewhere else? Because the next place was a half an hour down the road.

Mr. Popper's Penguins.

Tom Popper is on the verge of the greatest financial success of his life. First he must buy the restaurant from a fire brand of an old lady, deal with his teenage daughter, memories of his own father, and the gift of penguins. Hilarity ensues. While taking care of these birds Mr. Popper realizes the one thing he needed all along, his family.

This is your fairly typical Jim Carrey movie, one of the good ones. Like Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, or even The Mask, you have someone that is thrown into an impossible situation, falls on their face, then rises above it all. In this case, Pet Detective was thrown in for good measure. I was too busy laughing throughout and enjoying the reuniting of the Popper Family to even care about that. Or all the poop flying around.

It was worth it at full price.

A couple of side bits: There were a couple of mistakes. When the bathtub floods, you can clearly see the overflow. This handy little device prevents water from filling the bathroom. That is unless it is full of penguin feathers and poo. This mistake was worth making just to see the penguin waddle up to the glass door, and then swim up the door.

Maybe Tom Popper's copy of March of the Penguins had that scene with the uncovered eggs freezing cut out. That's what happens when you don't let the bird sit on them.

Best of all, it was great to see Angela Lansbury again. She was just perfect in this movie and practically stole the show.

Online snail mail.

One of the many weird and totally boring hobbies I have and have decided to not bore all of you with is coin collecting. Trust me, I have become a total nerd and can really bore you about the proper way to clean a coin.

The point I'm going to make is that if I do buy form the U.S. Mint directly, I do it online. So why am I getting advertisements and catalogs in my mailbox? You know, U.S. Mail. United States Postal Service. Everything I buy from The Mint is from The Mint's website. I have never ever filled out an order form made from paper.

What? Do they need to spend the money or their budget is going to get cut? (Yeah right.)

This missive was prompted by Adobe. They sent me a card in the mail, U.S.P.S. an offer to buy CS5.5. Why? They got my email account. How many people got that mailer? How much did that cost? Is that why CS5.5 costs $1900? To make up for all the stamps Adobe bought?

Ravy 2011 Pg. 25.

Click Here.

Reading all that Lucky Star finally paid off. I got a reference worked in.