Author: paulandmelanie

Nasty tumor pic!

So this past weekend we celebrated my grandmother’s 96th birthday. My aunt (Don’s mom) just got back from the PI (Philippines) were she volunteers with my uncle every year to help with medical needs. This time she brought back pictures of a surgery she assisted with, it was removing a 32 pound tumor from a 100 pound filipino lady (she was 132 with the tumor). Check out the picture…

 

Day 2, Comcast speed even faster

Update: Checked my speed at 10:10 pm tonight, definitely slower but still very much impressed…

Been monitoring my speed and this morning is the fastest I’ve seen it at 25 mbps, check it out:

The slowest speed I got yesterday when I got home after work was 13 mbps, so I’m very satisfied with switching to cable internet so far. For those of you unsavy technical people out there, my previous speeds with DSL were around 2.5 mbps and at my company who has a very fast line, the fastest I’ve seen the download speed is 9 mbps.

Switched to Comcast Triple Play and it's crazy fast!

So I’m not a big fan of Comcast, they have great services, but I haven’t had the best of luck with the customer support.  Either way Melanie and I decided the Triple Play deal was too good to pass up, you get Cable, Internet, and Phone service in one package, so we decided to go ahead and try it.

Installation went pretty smooth today, the technician (Tony, who was filipino) did a really good job, I also made life easy for him, since I wired the whole house and he didn’t have to go into our crawlspace.

The biggest change I’ve seen is my download speed, it’s crazy!  The I’m getting 20 mbps download, that’s just nutz, check it out…

We’ll see how the rest of the services pan out, so I’m sure there will be more to come.

Giving up on Windows Vista!

So, my 2 month trial of Windows Vista (the latest OS from Microsoft) is over! What I mean by this is that as I’m writing this blog, I’m re-installing my laptop with Windows XP. I’ve had some serious debates with co-workers at work trying to defend my love for Windows, but I have to throw in the towel on this one.

Why did I decide to give up? The biggest reason is there are too many obstacles for me to do my job efficiently at work using Vista. I had the same problems when I tried to switch to OSX (Macintosh) for my work operating system, but Vista is a bigger nuisance and I gave up a lot faster.

So here’s my biggest gripes…

  • Resource Hog – I’m running a PC with 2 GB of ram and a very fast Intel processor (T7200). The performance I get from my machine is slower than the same machine with 1GB of memory and it’s also slower then many other machines I have with less memory and slower processors
  • Networking – There are a bunch of item related to this, but the short list is:
    • Internet connectivity is spotty. We have 2 offices, at our main office speeds are fine, but at the office I work at the majority of the time, my uploading speed is pretty much zero and downloading is cut in half.
    • Security – They added this security feature where you have to designate the type of networks you are on each time I go to a different network. For instance my home network and my work network are different. I have to designate what access level I should have for each network. The biggest problem to this is when you want to share files/folders on your PC, it use to be soooo easy, now it’s a big pain in the ass!
  • Domain controller group policy over rides my local admin priviledges. For you non-technical friends of mine, I can’t install software or configure my machine if my IT group’s default setting say I don’t have privileges. In the past, if my IT group gave me local admin rights, then I could configure my computer any way I wanted.
  • Software incompatibility
    • Can’t install many of the software applications we use at work on Vista, they kind of work, but not the way I need them to.
    • Having issues with some of my old Windows XP programs not approved to install on Vista
    • Couldn’t install a free online game, I’ve heard multiple people complain that gaming just doesn’t work on Vista
  • Administration approval prompt – To tighten down security, there are many things that require me to say “I approve” installation of this software or hardware. This seems really inconsistent to me on what or what is not required for approval. For instance I was required to give permission to copy my music to a USB external hard drive, not sure why, but I think it’s stupid! I could name a bunch more instances, but this can become another pain in the ass. I’m sure many of you have seen the Apple commercial, which sums it up. If you haven’t seen this, check it out at:

    http://www.apple.com/getamac/

    Click on the “Security” video

  • Pre-installed applications are not compatible with some of my software. I guess this could go under the software bulleted item above, but Vista comes with Window Media Player 11 and all the latest MS application versions. I’m finding out that some of the software that seems to install fine is incompatible with the latest versions of MS pre-installed software. An instance of this is Windows Media Player 11 doesn’t work with the version of Roxio software I use and I can’t roll back to Windows Media Player 10.

Well that’s all I can think of for now, I’m sure I’ll think of more gripes to write, but I think you get the picture. If you’re one of my family or friends that purchased a PC with Vista or upgraded, I’m sorry to say it won’t be a fun battle to deal with.

Wii, what a blast!

So my manager’s wife got him a Wii for Valentine’s day.  Some reason Toy-R-Us shipped her 2 units, unfortunately she paid for both, but fortnately for me I got a Wii today.  Melanie and I played for 1 hour 32 min. and man was it fun.  We just tried out Wii Sports and it definitely get’s your energy level up.

 Melanie’s favorite game is the bowling, she one me the first round.  But she’s pretty crazy with boxing, knocked 2 guys out in the first round.  As it’s not HD and doesn’t have the intense graphic, the games are incredibly fun.  If you get a chance to pick one up, I highly recommend it, you’ll also find it hard to find the Wii-mote and Nunchuck.  Fortunately I found the Wii-mote, but I’m stil on the hunt for a Nunchuck.

Below is a picture of our Wii.  I also added a link to all the pictures and the “Mii” characters Melanie and I made of ourselves.

Wii

Click here to see more pictures of the Wii