Switching OS Woes – XP and Vista

I have actually re-written, deleted, created and changed this article so many times over recent months that I’ve lost count. The bottom line is that I was fed up with Windows Vista – to the point I wanted XP back. I have no doubt that Vista will become the OS of choice in a year or two when more software is fully supported. For me, Windows Media Player, ZoneAlarm, and Steam (the three programs I use most) crashed at least half the time, and there were issues with other security features and it was generally too slow and too unreliable for everyday use.

Before I switched OS’s, I was expecting problems to crop up while completely switching back to XP from Vista, after all, it is a hugely complex job. What I wasn’t expecting was Vista to fight me at every possible opportunity. In the end I used 3rd party software over in-built Vista tools. The partition manager is either badly designed or corrupted or something, because it wouldn’t let me do anything I wanted to do. Simply put, here’s what I did; I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 10.0 (which I would recommend if you plan to dual boot or switch OS, or just for general HDD maintenance) to create a 15GB partition which I installed XP onto, switched the default OS to boot into XP, uninstalled Vista, deleted the Vista partition, and then extended the XP partition to the full hard drive.

It was far from simple though. If you plan to Dual Boot or switch back to XP then you have to back up everything, plan ahead and know what you are doing, because I found it difficult, so anybody who doesn’t use computers daily will seriously struggle to do it. I’m happy to help anyone who is struggling or plans to do this, just email me on the usual link. There was a lot of tinkering in boot settings, I had to create boot disks, use the command prompt quite a lot, and had trouble with other Boot settings and horrific moments where neither OS was recognised. I had literally a black screen with 4 words on it – ‘No Operating System Detected’ and it then proceeded to reset every 30 seconds before I fixed it. That was a seriously heart-topping moment. Several (and I mean several) hours later and innumerable restarts later, I was solely running of XP again just like the good ol’ days, or was I…

So, having finally got rid of Vista and running solely off XP, there were some startling surprises. The first was just how poor XP looks by default, sure you can use WindowsBlinds and TweakUI to use different themes and change other appearance settings, but it still doesn’t look as good as the default Vista theme. Another is that the menus in Vista, such as the Control Panel and Computer Management and also the User pictures and downloads work much better and are easier to find and use. They do appear better in terms of appearance, but the way different areas are categorised in Vista is very useful and you don’t realise until you use XP again. Luckily, most of Vista’s appearance benefits can be applied in XP using Windowsblinds 6.

Most noticeable for me was the way in which technology has changed recently. In the last maybe 4 or 5 years, laptop sales have soared. This is because of cheaper components, better mobile performance and feasible usage on any task. In XP, the Power Management system is very basic, you can choose what happens at what power level (sleep, standby etc), and that’s about it really. In addition to this in Vista, you can edit whether you want to focus on performance or battery life, and power levels are adjusted accordingly, and I tested this when I first got my laptop (using 3D Mark05), and it really does lower performance to conserve the battery. BUT, Vista uses more resources so battery life is probably equivalent to XP.

However, the key reasons why I switched back to XP remain; better driver support and compatibility (SP2 Compatibility mode in Vista doesn’t actually do anything) meaning I can now run my beloved ZoneAlarm Suite without fear of crashing randomly, the lower hardware requirements means better performance (which is most noticeable when gaming, but also on boot-up, and after logging-on.) Also, shutting down and/or hibernating/stand by is far quicker than in Vista, (because of all the background tasks in Vista that need to be shut down) and that’s about it. It’s not a lot at all really. But having the fastest performance possible is the most important thing for me, which come back to my original point – Performance is key, and the bottom line is that XP performs better (for now) than Vista, even though looks and security are generally weaker. When Vista catches up with XP in terms of drivers, support, compatibility and performance, I will happily dig out my Vista Home Premium disk and switch back.

Green Day – Nobody Likes You – Book Review

Green Day are easily one of the biggest and most successful punk bands of all time. Even if you are not a fan and say don’t like their music, fair enough, everyone has their opinions and preferences, but for some to say they are rubbish, well…Love them or hate them, the fact is that Green Day have sold over 62 million albums, won plenty of awards worldwide for various work, and for videos, music, albums, and live performances from 1989 to the present day. There have been plenty of highs and lows over the years, and unlike many modern bands they managed to stay together no matter what. So the opportunity to write about the bands ‘colourful’ history was a chance that writer Marc Spitz couldn’t pass up. Spitz’s writing for the book was described (on the back cover) as, “cool, quick and instantly memorable” and I can’t really argue with that.

The writing is generally very good. It’s a nice healthy mix of facts, humour, and quotes from the band and from people who were there at the time like friends, family, producers, the local radio station etc. The book begins by describing the few minutes before Green Day go on to play in a stadium at the end of their American Idiot tour. I think it’s a great way to start the book, as this is only a brief intro before starting at the beginning with a young Billie Joe in a small industrial town called Rodeo. This really shows just how far Green Day have come, and from their background you can see how hard working and talented they are to have achieved all they have done, through adversity and against the odds.

As I said, the book starts with Billie Joe when he’s at school and details the key events of his life, from his first guitar, record deal, and forming Green Day, right through to the end of the American Idiot tour, and preparing for the next album. One good thing is that the facts and trivia given are relevant and genuinely interesting. For example, as a fan (but not die-hard fan) of Green Day, I didn’t know that the guitar in the videos for ‘Minority’, ‘Longview’ and ‘Basket Case’ was Billie Joe’s first guitar and most prized possession. While I’m sure many fans know this, I didn’t and the book has plenty of these little facts that are interesting. The book does a good job of telling both sides of stories of controversy, although ultimately, it does tend to side with Green Day. I think that while you would expect this, sometimes it is written a bit obviously and over the top at times which makes the writer look like a bit of an arse kisser. This is most obvious at the end where it mentions a young boy in hospital waking up from a coma after hearing the American Idiot album, which is just irrelevant and makes the writer look less credible. I mean, I like Green Day a lot but I’m sure even they admit they don’t have super-powers.

On the opposite side however is that by including lots of quotes from the band themselves, you get a good picture of events from the most reliable source there is. It’s also a good opportunity for the band to set the record straight with regards to ‘lost’ album tapes and the whole The Network thing. The colour print photo’s in the middle are a good touch as well, and are worth mentioning.

While the book does detail all the events in the bands history, there isn’t anything truly remarkable or anything that is new and ground breaking. While this isn’t a problem for me (as everything was new to me) I suspect that die-hard Green Day fans will find the book boring as it doesn’t include anything that they won’t already know. Overall the book does a good job, and isn’t rigidly fixed solely about Green Day. Spitz details the rise of the underground punk scene, and how Green Day were (at first) frequently booed for signing with a major record label and not being true punks, there’s a bit about the tour with Blink-182 and a bit about the rise of nu-metal.

So while the book does a good job of detailing the bands history and background, as well as the surrounding events, I would only recommend the book for fans who are either new to the band, or don’t already know the history of the band.

Overall - 7.5/10

Linkin Park – Minutes to Midnight – Album Review

When Linkin Park first arrived, nay exploded, onto the music scene back in 2000, their debut album ‘Hybrid Theory’ was the biggest selling record of the year. Their impressive mix of metal, rap, hip-hop and backdrops from a DJ dawned a new era for rock, dubbed nu-metal. As a huge Linkin Park fan, I adored both ‘Hybrid Theory’ and the follow up ‘Meteora’. But that’s not why I’m writing this article, the reason I’m writing this is for my feelings on this year’s album, ‘Minutes To Midnight’. So, here it is.

Having read all the interviews under the sun from magazines, online and TV previews with the God that is Mike Shinoda (Vocals, Guitar, Keyboard) and the twerp that is Chester Bennington (Lead Vocals), I gathered that the album had taken a different direction, which was not necessarily a bad thing, after all, a band who didn’t change their sound in 7 years might seem to be bland for not experimenting with different sounds. However, what annoyed me a lot was reading an interview in Kerrang! with Chester when he said to “shove nu-metal up your ass”. He went on to say how he was annoyed at Linkin Park being recognized as a nu-metal band, or something, he didn’t make much sense. I was now becoming very apprehensive about hearing ‘Minutes To Midnight’ after all, everything I heard about it was how different it was compared to the previous two albums. Not only that, how could any album even compare to the genius of Linkin Park’s earlier work? So, all in all, I was somewhat worried about the sound on the album which I had been waiting for, for roughly four years. The build up to it almost meant that it couldn’t possibly be as good as I hoped it would be…

The next time I thought about the upcoming album was when I saw (and heard) the first music video/single from the album, ‘What I’ve Done’ and all my fears were put to rest. The crashing drums, background mixing from Joe Hahn (DJ/Decks) and memorable guitar riffs instantly reminded me why I love Linkin Park so much. It’s another Linkin Park song that I simply don’t tire of listening to, and is right up there with the classics like ‘One Step Closer’ and ‘Faint’, while it is a different sounding song compared to previous singles, mainly because of the lack of angry shouting which made some tracks so great. But there were some concerns I had. For one, the video was very PC and was all about war, global warming, obesity and all this and that crap that simply doesn’t belong in a Linkin Park song. Linkin Park have always done angry shouty fast tempo songs, so, when I went into HMV to buy the album I had mixed feelings; I knew that the album had great potential as always coming from Linkin Park, made up of five truly talented people and Chester, the first single was immense, and it had been four years in the making. On the other hand, I already had doubts over the musical direction the album was going in, and the band that guided my musical tastes for so long were going in a different direction to me. One look at the album cover and you will see. It looks like a cheap Take-That rip-off, trying to be trendy and in cool poses, finished in back-and-white. Where has the style and cutting edge graffiti art gone?

The album has 12 songs, and one is an intro. Now, to me 12 (well, 11 actually) songs is an insult, after 4 years in development, hundreds of demo’s, why can’t they do a double CD album, like the Foo Fighters did with their ‘In Your Honour’ album? That said, the inside is typically stylish and pleasing for fans, with detailed descriptions about each song, and how it came to being how it is, and who did what etc.

Now, all the problems above wouldn’t matter in the least if the songs are as good as previous releases, but sadly, they’re not. As a huge Linkin Park fan, this is a huge disappointment, and the album simply doesn’t meet the high standards of past albums. Songs that will probably releases as singles, in other words the best song on the album are obviously ‘What I’ve Done’ and ‘Leave Out All The Rest’, and maybe even ‘Bleed It Out’. But these fantastic songs are overshadowed by the half-arsed efforts in the rest of the album, especially given the long time taken and many delays to get it into the shops.

So, to summarise; moments of brilliance are hidden behind the lacklustre performance in the rest of the songs, and there aren’t even any extras, bonus tracks, and after waiting for 4 years, I feel thoroughly let down. That’s not to say that the album sucks, but given Linkin Parks stunning history, I expected so much more.

Overall - 7.0/10

Bill O’Reilly – That’s What You Get When…

…when you piss off a group of hackers. I nearly went onto another Paramore tangent with the title, but I think it still fits.

“Two days after someone broke into the email account of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, unknown intruders have hacked the website of conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly and posted personal details of more than 200 of its subscribers.

The breach into BillOreilly.com came as retaliation for remarks O’Reilly made on FoxNews condemning the attack on Palin’s Yahoo email account, according to Wikileaks, a site that makes it easy for whistleblowers, hackers and anyone else to leak documents.

As proof, Wikileaks posted a screenshot of the BillOreilly.com administrative interface that showed the names, email addresses, passwords, and home town of 20 subscribers of the website. In all, information belonging to 205 subscribers was intercepted, according to Eric Marston, CTO of Nox Solutions, the company that maintained the O’Reilly website.

The hack came in response to comments O’Reilly made on Fox News about the posting of contents of Palin’s email account, including pictures of her daughter and her contact list.

“I’m not going to mention the website that posted this, but it’s one of those despicable, slimy, scummy websites,” O’Reilly said, according to this snippet from YouTube. “Everybody knows where this stuff is, OK, and they know the people who run the website, so why can’t they go there tonight to the guy’s house who runs it, put him in cuffs and take him down and book him?”

It’s evident from the remark that no one bothered to tell O’Reilly that Wikileaks, the first site to publish the Palin email, is a multi-national, bulletproof organization that has successfully withstood serious take-down efforts before. He’s not the first conservative to have his lack of tech credentials in doubt. In July, Republican presidential candidate John McCain confessed he was still “learning to get online” and “becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

The hackers were able to access the unsecured list by trying a large number of variations of the website’s administrative URL. He said all affected members have received an email and a phone call informing them of the breach and urging them to change their password anywhere they may have used it. No credit card information was stolen, and the site has since been completely locked down, Marston said.

BillOreilly.com charges $4.95 for monthly premium membership. The O’Reilly Store sells hats, mugs, T-shirts and other assorted schwag.

While the information exposed on Wikileaks may seem minimal, it has the potential to imperil the BillOreilly.com subscribers listed in ways they may not have anticipated. A case in point is Carolyn Carpenter, 68, of Henderson, Nevada. The list showed she used a six-letter word from the English language to access her account. Early Friday evening, when told she should change all accounts that used the password, she replied: “Oh damn, I use it all over the place.”

If there has ever been a case of Karma, then it’s here. When Bill O’Reilly starts shouting about something he knows nothing about, this is what happens. The hackers who broke into Palin’s account were not being malicious or trying to embarrass anyone, but merely to prove whether or not Palin was using a private email account to conduct government business. But rather than look at the facts surrounding the hack, ultra-conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly just went for the jugular and verbally attacked not only the hackers themselves, but even the sites publishing the material on the Internet.

As with the Palin hack, this hack wasn’t done for malicious reasons. No credit card details were stolen, and no harm was done to the website itself. The hackers have targetted Bill O’Reilly just to prove a point. He deserved it in my book, and while I do not condone or encourage any illegal activities, he’ll think twice next time about mouthing off about something he knows nothing about.

I Want To Increase My Carbon Footprint

Here’s why.

I’m so damned sick of people telling me to recycle, cut down on C02 emissions, fart less, do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that; it really makes me mad that people are telling me what I should and should not do. The planet has been around for billions of years and the government and the environmental hippies are arrogant to thing they can change it over 10 or 20 years.

As well as making me feel better, increasing my carbon footprint will also anger all the snobs out there, and is a big middle finger to David Cameron, who I utterly despise with every fibre of my being.

Part of the annoyance is that the people shouting about carbon emissions the loudest are politicians and celebrities who don’t have proper jobs. They do it just to get themselves noticed and to boost their popularity by appearing green. People like David Cameron, Bono, Heather Mills – these kind of people have private jets, a dozen cars, have massive personal electricity usage, yet preach to everyone else to ‘do their bit’

Live Earth was a complete farce in every respect. Even bands that I love like the Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy, I’m not sure how much they believe in the cause they were performing for, but it didn’t affect me at all. I think it did more harm than good. Every act was on a private jet, full tour bus, equipment, used loads of power, people used their TV’s and radio’s more, it was just a joke. Especially Madonna and Bono, who’s heads are so far up their arses, you would need surgery to get them out.

Recycling is mostly a waste of time. I work in retail and if people saw the amount of non-recyclable plastic packaging that is used you would be shocked. Every single piece of clothing, every cup, every plate and every T-shirt comes in a delivery is wrapped in plastic, which is then grouped into sets and wrapped in plastic yet again. Which is then put into boxes. This happens every day all over the country and it makes it clear that no matter how much we all do, it won’t make any kind of dent in helping, because no retail shop in England cares at all, and use tonnes of non-recyclable packaging every single day.

Leave suggestions here.

Kerrang! The Album 2008 out on Monday

Kerrang! The Album ‘08 – a 42 track compilation of the most essential and hardest rocking tracks of 2008 – hits stores on Monday.

“Green Day, Nickelback, My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park are the biggest bands of the decade,” states Kerrang! editor Paul Brannigan. “Kid Rock has scored the soundtrack to the summer. Rock is back? Nope, rock never went away actually! Kerrang! has driven the rock scene in the UK for the past 27 years and here’s our state-of-the-rockin’-nation address for 2008. Turn it up loud and prepare to have your mind blown by the hottest bands in the world.”

Tracklist:

CD1
Kid Rock – All Summer Long
Nickelback – Rock Star
Weezer – Pork And Beans
Biffy Clyro – Saturday Superhouse
Good Charlotte – Keep Your Hands Off My Girl
Pendulum – Propane Nightmares
Slipknot – PsychoSocial
Enter Shikari – Sorry, You’re Not A Winner
Linkin Park – Given Up
Serj Tankian – Empty Walls
Airbourne – Runnin’ Wild
Black Tide – Warriors Of Time
Killswitch Engage – Holy Diver
Dillinger Escape Plan – Black Bubblegum
Scars On Broadway – They Say
Bullet For My Valentine – Waking The Demon
Slaves To Gravity – Mr Regulator
The Gaslight Anthem – The ‘59 Sound
The Nightmarchers – I Wanna Deadbeat You
Coheed And Cambria – Feathers
30 Seconds To Mars – The Kill

CD2
Green Day – American Idiot
My Chemical Romance – Welcome To The Black Parade
Fall Out Boy – This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race
Elliot Minor – Parallel Worlds
Simple Plan – When I’m Gone
Panic At The Disco – Nine In The Afternoon
Alkaline Trio – Love Love Kiss Kiss
The Blackout – Spread Legs, Not Lies
Funeral For A Friend – Waterfront Danceclub
Madina Lake – House Of Cards
You Me At Six – If I Were In Your Shoes
Billy Talent – Red Flag
Fighting With Wire – Everyone Needs A Nemesis
HIM – Wings Of A Butterly
Avenged Sevenfold – Afterlife
Machine Head – Aesthetics Of Hate
Atreyu – Falling Down
Kids In Glass Houses – Give Me What I Want
Kill Hannah – Lips Like Morphine
Cancer Bats – Hail Destroyer
Gallows – Orchestra Of Wolves

The CD is generally quite good, but I have some issues with the statement about the tracks being the “hardest rocking tracks of ‘08.

Firstly, a lot of the songs (well, most actually) are not from 2008. American Idiot was released in 2004, Wings of a Butterfly – 2005, Keep Your Hands Off My Girl – 2006, etc, etc.

Second, the song choices don’t bother me, I happily admit I like Elliot Minor, Linkin Park, Madina Lake, Simple Plan, and Good Charlotte, but I also know that they are pop/punk and nowhere near the hardest rocking of bands. Doesn’t bother me at all, but plenty of ‘proper metal heads’ will be up in arms over the ‘hardest rocking’ quote. Slipknot, Atreyu, Alkaline Trio, Killswicth Engage and Bullet For My Valentine make up the heavy bands, but they are not enough to make it a heavy metal album.

Sega does a 90’s Innuendo Advert

In the days of 16 bit Megadrive gaming paradise, things were simple and the joypad was the pinnacle of user interface. Marketing must have been tricky, trying to make something so dull and basic as interesting and fashionable as possible. The tagline;

“To be this good takes AGES, to be this good takes SEGA”

does little to inspire confidence, and most people can be equally creative with their puns. It was the 90’s though so who cares, the 90’s rocked. Today, we would not be able to get away with taglines such as;

“The more you play with it, the harder it gets.”

Yes I know what you’re thinking, but this is still about the Sega Joypad (apparently) and the final part of the ad has equally questionable descriptions. I can only think this is a bad Japanese translation because come on, even the 90’s weren’t this relaxed on advertisements.

“You sit there, eyes glued to the writhing…pulling and squeezing your knob. Now you’re breathing heavily all over the digital stereo sound. Now you’re shooting all over the place, but it’s no use…Game Over”

Ah, happy days….Please look at the ad, you will laugh for days it really is so utterly hilarious

CLICK HERE FOR THE AD

Steve Jobs; “iPod Touch best portable device for gaming”

Source

Jobs summed up, claiming that Apple’s iPod Touch is no longer great for just music and video, but now games too.

“Now you can make a pretty good argument that it is the best portable device for playing games on – and a whole new class of games,” he said.

Despite my very public hatred of Jobs and Apple in general, I always admit that the iPhone and iPod Touch are very clever and intuitive bits of kit. The use of touch screens on mass selling units such as these, I think, paves the way for the future in terms of replacing buttons in every day use, like TV’s, ATM’s, phones, etc.

But come on, the Nintendo DS has sold 87 million since launch, the PSP (my personal portable gaming device of choice) has sold 41 million. The iPod Touch has sold nowhere near this amount, possibly because of price, availability, or better alternatives elsewhere. Like I said, it’s a great bit of technological kit to carry around, but comparing it too, and suggesting it plays games better than, the two dominant portable gaming devices is not the best move.

I think that there is still a long way to go before touch screens replace the chunky feel for real buttons. I can’t even imagine playing Tekken or Fifa wthout a proper clicky D-Pad or anaolgue stick with traditional gaming buttons.