The Best and Worst of Windows and Linux

On January 25, 2011, In apple, Internet Technology, By Erik John Bertel

Finally, I had chance at work to upgrade my old XP laptop to Windows 7 and the performance improvement was dramatic running the same software. It boots faster, the OS is more responsive and apps open faster. It looks good too but it’s easy to turn off resource hogging features. That said, I will say the key to performance is to have 3 or 4 gigs of memory.

I’ve been running Windows from 3.0 to the present and this is one of the better Microsoft releases. In order here are my favorite all time OS’s:

1. Ubuntu 10.x (try it on a old machine and you will love it!)
2. Windows 2000 – truly stable and ran everything without a fuss!
3. Windows 7 -fast, pretty and stable, as good as Windows gets.  Had a problem with an upgrade from Vista but once I went to a clean install it was a home run.
4. Windows 3.1 (After 3.0 this was actually stable and you could run multiple apps)
5. XP- eh, what can you say?

Most hated operating systems I have encountered:

1. Anything Millennium
2. Bob  -WTF?
3. Windows 3.0 – so cranky, so unstable like some old girlfriends.
4. XP – yeah, definitely a love-hate thing going on here.
5. Anything DOS – it worked but why bother?  I really wanted to multitask and I actually used WordPerfect Shell to switch between DOS apps.

I didn’t add Vista to the hate list because frankly I was okay with it. It was stable for me but it just seemed, I don’t know, tired, almost sluggish.  Years ago I tried Red Hat but I didn’t really use it for anything nor was I inspired to try.   As to Apple,  I tried an Apple II years ago right after I gave up on TRS-DOS from Radio Shack (yes Timmy The Shack had their own computer line).  It was okay but it was before the Mac so there was no multitasking for me to fall in love with.  If I had money I could have been an Apple snob but it was not to be!

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John Dvorak and the Apple iPad Fantards

On June 29, 2010, In Internet Technology, iPad, iPhone, Mac fanboy, Uncategorized, By Erik John Bertel

I can’t believe I am writing about this again but somebody has to stop the madness.  John Dvorak, the old curmudgeon himself, decided to write an article not on the iPad but on the fantards that droll over themselves in singing their praise for the iPad and the crappy apps you can get for it.  You know the same kind of fantard who stand on line for the new iPhone 4 for hours on end and then suffer through the miserable AT&T service for two years just so they can use their iPhone. When nobody is looking these very same neo-techno nerds fondle their iPhones while cooing “my precious” to it.

Needless to say the Mac fantards were in full attack mode regarding Dvorak with most of their diatribes calling him an old  fossil who doesn’t get it.  Really?  But you know sometimes the fossil does get it right and sometimes the technology is just some bright and shiny plaything for the natives!

Not that the iPad is a bad piece of technology.  I did get a chance to play with one and if the cost were closer to let’s say $199 I’d buy one in a heartbeat.   However, at $499 I can secure a decent, much more serviceable laptop with a bigger screen.   I can easily forgo a touch screen as well since I’m a keyboard and mouse type.  And this goes to my central observation about the iPad, it’s for consumers rather than producers of the Internet.  For example, just try touch typing on one! You can’t.  Or trying installing an application not from the iStore or whatever the hell they call it.   However, to read a book or surf the net it’s great with some gorgeous eye candy.  To me it’s the greatest eBook reader ever made but not the greatest thing since the PC despite what the Mac fantards woud lead you to believe.

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Is the Internet making pundits quick but shallow?

On June 7, 2010, In Internet Technology, By Erik John Bertel

A recent article by Nicholas Carr for CNN indicated his support for Obama’s concerns that American are spending too much time on the Internet, in fact we average 8 hours day surfing the net. It was another tired variation on Carter’s malaise speech. He then points to some ill conceived and poorly designed studies that indicate the Internet is often a distraction to the task at hand. Really? Wow and how many tax payer dollars went to fund those trite observations?

Jeez for the last 90 years pundits have been spinning cautionary tales about new media ranging from negative observations on magazines, radio and just recently to television. Really, are we surprised that when people get tired of looking at porn they go to YouTube or their friend’s Facebook page.  Let’s face if they weren’t on the Internet most people would be watching the WWF and Dancing to the B Celebrities before they would turn on a Bill Moyer’s special, or wait he retired didn’t he?And we all know how empowering television has been as we watch the latest BP commercials.

Face it, people love to waste time, and for some bizarre reason despite evidence to the contrary, we all think we have plenty of it.  So the media is not the problem no matter what the technophobic Obama may think.   People will always want to be doing something no matter what the media maybe. The Internet is just the latest time waster in a long line of time waster’s pretty.

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