Monday, January 29, 2007

Posting

Sorry I haven't posted for a little while, I'm working on this game about Lost which I think will be pretty cool. I'll have a post up by tomorrow, and the game will be finished probably in a week. See you soon.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Why Vista is Doomed, the Definitive List

Here is the definitive and authoritative list as to why Vista is doomed and Apple and Linux will soon take a big dip into Microsoft's market share.

1. It's expensive
2. It doesn't offer features promised that would have made it a contender, in essence, it's too little too late.
3. Many home and business computers won't be able to run it, cutting a huge slice out of their market share.
4. Its 5,000 different versions will leave users shocked and confused as to which one is right for their needs.
5. Dell, the world's biggest PC corporation is now giving users the option to not have Windows pre-installed on their computer.
6. Linux is free and is all the time getting new features and programs that make a switch beneficial to the uncertain user.
7. Apple is hip with the young crowd and the early adopters, meaning that Vista won't be as well received with them.
8. Security is an issue and probably won't be fixed for a while to come.
9. Even if your computer can run it, many features that are graphically intensive won't be runnable or will run slowly.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Carbon Dating for Dummies

For those of you curious as to how scientists figure out the age of ancient artifacts and skeletons, I have put together a simple little article on why carbon dating works.

Carbon comes in two stable non-radioactive isotopes (meaning that it won't radioactively decay) Carbon-12 and Carbon-13. There are many other Carbon isotopes, but the one we want to look at is called Carbon-14. Carbon-14 is produced as a reaction to cosmic rays in the Earths atmosphere. This means that small amounts of Carbon-14 are present in your body whenever you breathe in, or eat. Carbon-14 unlike Carbon-12 or 13 is unstable and slowly decays into Nitrogen-14 over the course of thousands of years. Now you ask, how is this related to Carbon Dating?

I'll tell you.

Carbon-14 is not naturally present in your body. It only comes in when you breathe or eat. So when you die, you stop intaking Carbon-14. Now when scientists dig up your remains thousands of years later, they can measure the amount of decay of the Carbon-14, and if you have died within the last 60,000 years they can determine the exact time at which you died.

There you go, carbon dating for dummies.

Page Rank on Google Toolbar

As many of you who have the Google Toolbar (if you want it click on the link in the upper right hand corner ;) ) know, whenever you go to a web page, it shows you that page's "Page Rank." The Page Rank system uses a complex algorithm to calculate the importance of a site based upon other sites that link to it.

That's the page rank for my site, a lowly 2/10. I have a question for everyone, do you look at the Page Rank often and if you do does it affect your view of the site that you are visiting?

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Why Apple and Linux Will Kill Vista

Because my last post touched upon why Vista is doomed, I wanted to do a more in depth post on why Apple and Linux will kill it.

Apple isn't the main reason why Vista is doomed, but it does contribute to it. With its slew of hilarious commercials and the iPod it will cut into Vista's market share but not that much because you can load Vista onto one any way (I think).

Actually the company that has really killed Vista is Dell. By giving users the option to opt out of Windows, they have opened up a whole new market for Linux which is cheaper and more secure than Windows. Linux will gain market share steadily while Windows loses it, and finally it will culminate in Microsoft leaving the operating system game altogether, at least for the time being.

Vista was too expensive and too late to be a success.
What do you think?

Another 4 Reason Why Vista is Doomed

Here are another 4 reasons why Vista is doomed:

1. Its five flavors are confusing and do not lend themselves to easy purchasing
2. It doesn't provide enough new security features and other features to make it worth its price tag.
3. Increased competition from Apple and Linux will stifle growth especially now that Dell is selling computers that do not have Windows preinstalled.
4. It doesn't deliver on many promised features so that it could ship earlier.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Gnome Project

The Gnome Project, is a project designed to let bloggers tell their readers that they are
a.) serious about blogging
and
b.) that blogging is an important revenue stream for them.
It's kind of like a secret handshake that just lets the reader know a little more about the blog without even having to read a word.
You'll notice that on the sidebar of this blog there is a little Gnome. Take this little Gnome, and post it into the sidebar of your own blog. Explain to you readers what it means, and eventually it will sink in. If a reader sees the gnome he will know that you are serious. If another blogger sees the gnome he will know that you are serious. And if that gnome is there, it might encourage them to support you through a PayPal donation.
I could be totally off on this whole gnome thing, but it seemed like a good idea.

Alright So Here Is What I'm Going To Do

I'm not going to start podcasting again, that takes too much time. But I am going to be posting my thoughts on tech stuff here much more often, as I already have a political and personal blog. I have this thing that I want to do called the Gnome Project. It's going to be pretty sweet. You'll here more about it maybe later tonight, maybe tomorrow.