Windows 7 features

It’s been now a few days (since the 20th of January) that I’ve the Windows 7 official beta from the Microsoft Website (which I think is not available anymore since.. today) and it works great (same as in my desktop)
Things I appreciate the most from windows 7:

• Automatic Driver detection and installation: so far, I’ve had to install NO DRIVERS for any of my PCs, no graphics card driver, no TV card driver… nothing!
• New Taskbar: the new taskbar has proven much more useful than I expected. The new bar allows you to “pin” programs you use the most (sort of a Quick access icons you used to have since Win 98 or so) but this time you just open the window in the icon, you won’t open more and more tabs, it’s quite useful. Also, if you set your mouse over the preview, the rest of windows become invisible.
• Network management: awesome job, great, simple and bug-less… although I have a complaint: what happen to the “repair” option from XP? The Vista one sucked balls and this one is just useless!
• Boot-Time: reduced like 25%~35% faster than Vista and XP
• Compatibility: I’ve only had one compatibility problem: Nero, but just because I tried to install some prehistoric version, as for the rest 100% working! No complaints this time!
• New Paint and Word pad: Finally! It was about time to change these two older-than-god apps from the Windows OS… now they both look Office 2007-ish and WordPad has now recognition for *.docx formats!
• New Keyboard Shortcuts!: They really are great and extremely useful, Microsoft has really outdone itself with them.

These are the things I appreciate the MOST, but Windows 7 has many more surprises I suggest you install it asap!

Dune and Return

Today (well, at 05:00 AM) I finished the second book of the Dune Series “Dune Messiah”… one word: AMAZING!
Sure the book is thinner than most of the other books in the saga and the beginning is quite boring, but the ending is the best I’ve read in a long time!
Anyways, today I woke up at 14:00, felt guilty, got dressed and went to eat something and now… I’m back on the blog!

Exams, Exams, Exams....

I hate this period of the year....
sure, you meet again with your friends after holidays, go back to Madrid blah blah blah... but WHY do I have to go back to Madrid?.... Exams.
As I'm writing this post I'm having this feeling inside telling me that I should study, but I just can't take it anymore! I need a break!
This might be one of the reasons I haven't done geeky stuff recently (which I miss... a lot). I just downloaded an official beta release of Windows 7 (Yay!) but I haven't even installed it yet (just in case my laptop goes Kaboom) and yeah, that's it!
So 'till January 21st, I'm nothing but a slave to University...
PS:Also, the internet in my residence sucks... that's also something I miss from home...(and, of course, my parents)

Back to work

OK guys, first of all, I want to apologize for not writing in so many days, I went to this house with my family (29 ppl) and came back yesterday... OK, having that said, lets get back to work
First of all, I just installed Windows 7 on my desktop PC and its just way too awesome, Microsoft did a great job with it... and its only a beta! (lets just hope they don't screw up...) I'll make a tutorial about it in no time, maybe in another post.
oh, and my cousin taught me how to solve a Rubik's cube, also to be posted.

What it feels to sue Microsoft, Apple and Google at the same time

The story goes like this: there is this little tiny company somewhere in Michigan that has been recently awarded a patent for thumbnail previews of a file. so, what to do with it? lets sue everyone!
This company has sued Vista (Microsoft) OSX and CoverFlow (Apple) and Google Chrome (Google) for using the before mentioned patent without permission...
I personally think they won't be getting too far if Microsoft, Apple and Google (=100% share of the freakin' internet and computers) join legal forces against a tiny whiny Michigan company...
but I'll give you credit, you have to have Balls the size of Texas to start this...

Songbird: The ultimate media player

That's it people, iTunes is over (at least for me). Why? you might ask, well, the answer is "because Songbird, a new open source software that does EVERYTHING iTunes does, only takes less resources, it does it faster and with the possibility to have Add-ons.
I've been hearing about Songbird for a long time online, and today I decided to try it. Typed Songbird on google and download it from the huge button in the middle of the official website.
It took close to nothing to install and, to my surprise, it allows you to import your library from iTunes (which, even tho I use(d) iTunes, didn't do) and also to just scan your library as iTunes did.
I left it scanning my ~10 Gb music library while I went to the bathroom and after I came back, it was all ready to go!
OK, so I get this iTunes-like program... lets start... TWEAKING!
Everything works pretty much like Firefox, with the Add-ons and so on, so just click on Tools>Add-ons and "Get Exensions". This is was my choice:

• Lyricmaster: This Add-on automatically downloads Lyrics for your songs and gives you the choice to store them on your machine
• The Exorcist: Delete clone songs or find Ghost (missing) songs from your libraries
• MinimizeToTray Revived (mintrayR): this lets you minimize songbird in the system tray with some basic, iTunish options, great tool that I still don't know why it isn't there by default...
  

As far as themes is concerned ("Feathers" in songbird) I downloaded a few but decided to stay with the default feather (Gonzo)
As I'm typing this, I'm listening to SkyFm over Shoutcast online radio stations, great tool
Songbird also has last.fm related tools (Which I'll start using as soon as I create an account in like... 10 minutes)
Another great tool is "mashtape" which gets album info, singer info and youtube videos from the moment you click on a song.
Here is what it looks like:
PS: it has iPod and iTouch (and iPhone I presume) support, so no excuses from Mac lovers!

My Firefox Add-ons (and themes)

Firefox is nowadays one of the most popular apps in the world. not only provides faster internet browsing speed and almost no security breaches, but it also gives us the potential to have ADD-ONS
yes, add-ons, these little apps that make your everyday internet browsing SO much easier. they can be downloaded mainly from 3 different sources

1. In your Firefox browser click on Tools>Add-ons and then the "Get Add-ons" tab
2. Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/ (official Firefox Website)
3. Finally, you can always get it from some third party website

Now that we have the sources, lets go on with my personal selection:

• Adblock Plus: great for getting rid of annoying ads!
• BugMeNot: to Bypass cumplusory web registration with the context menu via www.bugmenot.com
• Cooliris: 3D interface that allows news to be read/seen in a more interactive way
• Download Statusbar: The ultimate download app. this app allows for easy and controlled downloading without the Downloads window opening
• DownloadHelper: ever wanted to download videos from youtube/Megavideo/ANYTHING?
• Flagfox: This little geeky app lets you see the country the server is hosted on and server statistics
• Google Toolbar: No explanation needed
• Tiny menu: This Add-on compresses the Fire/Edit/View/.../Tools/Help menus into one, handy icon so one bar can be erased thus more browsing space!

As for themes, I am currently using...

• Full Flat 3.0

Overall, this is what my Firefox looks like