Yet More Proof that Vista is a Piece of Shit

The hell that a simple computer user goes through with Vista is hard to describe. A while back, a friend of mine needed my help - his laptop was sluggish and buggy, although it was a new one. The obvious culprit was Vista. After a long, hard battle, I managed to get his computer to a manageable level.

The troubles didn't end there. He wasn't the only one with Vista problems. Complaints about the new Microsoft junk-OS are all over the place - friends, colleagues, bloggers, surfers - all tell the tale of the Vista Horror Show. My friend and his laptop finally gave up. I "upgraded" him back to XP, and all is well, for now.

And lo and behold - even Microsoft employees can't handle the piece of crap that's Vista. Internal e-mails of Microsoft employees, published online by The New York Times, reveal that corporate vice president for Windows product management Mike Nash, says he "got burned" after purchasing a notebook computer advertised as "Vista Capable" that was actually incapable of running Vista.

Nash wasn't the only one - Microsoft's chief operating officer, Jon Shirley, chose not to install Vista after discovering it was not compatible with his printer and two scanners.

So, even Microsoft can't handle Vista. Why should we, then?

Vista: Mostly Annoying

A friend of mine dropped by for dinner the other day. We had a lot of fun, and he also brought his Lenovo laptop for the rider. He's been having some problems with the Vista operating system and I offered to help.

I don't use Vista myself. I have no intentions of doing so in the near future, either. I have seen Vista on other people's computers, and I knew instantly it would be a mistake to install it. The different horror-reviews I have seen all over the net only made me more confident in my decision. I have XP on my laptop and Windows 2000 on my desktop - ironclad OS that runs smoothly.

My friend's laptop is brand new - about a month old. He didn't install anything horrible on it (except some sort of a Symantec Anti-Virus, which we will remove ASAP). He has 1 GB of RAM. It's not an expensive computer, but it should do its job. Basic stuff like surfing the net, creating presentations and storing pictures. Nothing fancy, right?

Well, wrong. The computer is slow, annoying and full of stupid little bugs - all because of the not-so-wonderful Vista.

First thing we tried to do, was connect to my home wireless network. Denied. The computer connected to the net but I couldn't use the internet. Since we didn't have much time to play with TCP/IP settings, I decided to try and make the laptop a bit faster and more convenient, by removing some unneeded features and tweaking the interface.

The annoying Vista kept bugging me with "are you sure" kind of questions, for every little move. The pseudo-friendly names for the different elements in the control-panel aren't making things easier - I had to scan the list a few times in order to understand where are the settings I need to handle. Installing drivers for something simple as a Disk-On-Key seemed to take ages. The graphics and effects are redundant, resource-consuming and silly (the "Gadgets" thing on the desktop is especially moronic), and the main feeling is that Vista thinks it's smarter than the average human, and can solve all its problems by itself.

Well, it couldn't. It didn't solve the wireless problem (other computers connected perfectly), it didn't help to improve the system's performance and most of all - it makes the probing and tweaking very difficult.

Since that little meeting with Vista, I had gone online and did some research on how to tweak it and force it into something a normal human can enjoy. I'm going to recommend to my friend to format and install XP. If he doesn't feel like it, I'll do my best to help fix all of the problems, but I'm pretty sure it will be far from perfect.

I have been warning people from Vista from the moment it came out. Not because I tried and tested it, but because of a simple rule - Never install a new Microsoft product. Wait AT LEAST two years for most of the bugs to die. And even then - reconsider. My little meetings with Vista only proved me right. The fact the Microsoft is silently "allowing" vendors to sell PCs with XP again, just fortifies the claim - Vista is far from being the OS of the future. It's just another bad Microsoft product.

Harry Potter - The Leak was Real , The Book is Awful

(I published this post on July 21st, 2007, in another blog. I moved it here)

Now that the "real" Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is out, we know that the leak that set the net on fire - was real.

Scholastic was all over the place, trying to remove spoilers and torrents of the book on one hand, and on the other hand - claiming that the book wasn't real. All of this didn't prevent tens of thousands of downloads - maybe even more. Every time a torrent disappeared, another appeared, and anyone who wanted to know what happens without buying the book - could do that, easily.

Rowling was "shocked" that the New York Times "dared" to publish a review of the book before the release. Shocked, are you now? The paper bought a legit book ahead of the "sacred" time of release and revealed astonishing spoilers, like the fact that 6 characters are going to die. OH! How awful! The Horror! How dare they?!? I am guessing the NY times figured they didn't owe Rowling a thing, and they were perfectly right. I don't suppose Scholastic will sue THEM. No, they are going after the small retailers and people like Michael Arrington.

Some of their threats worked, by the way, and a lot of articles about the leak were removed - for no real good reason but the threats themselves. Still, you can't win a battle like that on the net. Those who wanted the information - got it, and without much of a hassle.

Some amazingly dedicated people, sat down and TYPED the whole thing from the pictures, and created a PDF file, for all to read and enjoy.

But that is the main problem, isn't it? The book isn't enjoyable. It's a long, boring, half-plagiarized piece of junk, desperately trying to tie all the loose ends of the entire series, and failing miserably. Large parts of the book are boring, non-contributing dialogs. There is plenty of chatter between the characters, that doesn't really add anything to the plot or character development.

The critics that I read so far loved the book. I thought it was a pathetic soap-opera, not even fit for paper-back. If you don't feel like reading the review, I'll sum it up for you: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a boring, unworthy book. Spend your money on a better product. And this is why:

George Loses an Ear - Fred Loses a Life

The deaths were completely random, and most of them meant nothing serious to the story. Seems like Rowling thought: "Well, I said there would be many deaths, I need to keep my hype, let's see...". I suppose she was trying to make some point about how death is random and meaningless in time of evil, but if that's true, she really didn't kill any important characters. I mean, Tonks? Lupin? They die, while inexperienced magic-kids like Luna Lovegood stay alive? Most of the deaths were of adults, despite the fact that the kids were in harm's way all along.

Can you say "The One Ring"?

The locket-horcrux scenes were completely Lord of the Ring, without a hint of shame. Wearing the locket makes the trio (Harry, Hermione and Ron) upset and irritable. The weight of it seems heavy on them. When Harry dives into a pool to get the sword of Griffyndor, the chain of the locket tries to kill him. Sounds familiar? And when they try to destroy the locket with the sword, the locket reveals an EYE who SPEAKS to them and tries to frighten them. Now, where did I read and see that before?

Come in, Voldemort, I hear you loud and clear

In order to make things easier for her, Rowling opened the connection between Harry and Voldy. Anytime the trio wants to know what Voldemort is doing, Harry blinks and he is inside Voldemort's head. Easy, convenient, no need for REAL intel, and speeds up things. A real p2p, if you want. Also, most of the solutions to the problems encountered by Harry and his buddies, come to Harry's mind all of the sudden. Not because he has found some info about it. Just because "it came to him", "he found the answer". For a wizard that knows so very little about his own world, that's quite an accomplishment.

No need to kill

Yes, a disarming spell is what wins the battle. The all-famous Expelliarmus. Sure, in times of war, you don't really need to kill. Let the evil forces do THAT. WE will stun them! In fact (and correct me if I am wrong) Harry, the pure soul of heaven, doesn't kill anyone at all. Even Voldy dies of his own curse, firing back at him because the wand didn't fit him well enough.

The sticky ending

The book itself has no flow and rhythm. It skips between broken plot lines, trying to fix the holes of the entire series. Harry is almost dead in so many parts of the text, you sort of lose interest near the end. Oh, and of course - he doesn't really die because he CHOSE to die. Naturally. And Snape was loyal to Dumbledore for 16 years because he was in love with Lily. That's really believable.The Epilogue sums it all up in the tackiest way - all was well.

Harry marries Ginny, Ron marries Hermione, Neville becomes a professor. All is well really. No one knows what they are actually DOING with their lives, but that's OK. Who cares, as long as they all have 2-3 kids.Rowling promised that this will be that last book, but the ending and the epilogue leave a HUGE opening for 2-3 more books, easy. Not really surprising, isn't it?

Oh, and one more thing - in a book about magic and lore, about witches and wizards and spells and potions - why do people keep saying "Oh my God"?