Windoze Vista? Are you nuts?

Do you like to have to upgrade your hardware, add memory, etc? Do you like to have the applications and drivers that you have used for years no longer work? If you're a sucker for punishment, then I guess Vista is the Operating System for you. I have heard many war stories of this no longer works, or my machine runs like a dog now after people I know have installed Vista.

As this person says in this video, Vista is not a new and improved OS, it's just a different OS. There is nothing I have seen to date that makes me want to again pony up to the Microsoft Tax to upgrade my machines. If you want my advice, stick with XP until you are dragged kicking and screaming to Vista. It's been the same story from DOS to Windows 3.1 to Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows XP to Vista, every subsequent release adds more un-needed features, more bloat and always requires more hardware horsepower to run. Add that some of the applications you currently run will no longer fully work and I have to ask, "What are you people thinking?"

Airline Passenger Bill of Rights .. Take out passenger and you got it right.

It's sad that it's come to this. Most of the airlines are so lacking in customer service it's amazing they are still in business. Oh yeah I almost forgot, they provide bad customer service, people stop flying them, then they ask the government (meaning us taxpayers) to bail them out.

I was in Phoenix recently and I saw a lady go up to the ticket counter and the agent said "Hello How are you today?" The lady responded "Not to well, I haven't been treated very nicely by your fellow employess". Now the woman was not belligerent, she was not agro in any way. Rather her tone was very conciliatory and rather downtrodden. The agent however that it was necessary, in front of me, to take the lady aside, and start wagging his finger in her face and tell her that "If she didn't shape up her attitude that she wasn't going to get on the plane"

I see things like this happen alot. Airline employees seem to have free reign to treat the customers any way they like and any time anyone complains or has an issue with the service passengers are threatened with not being able to get to their destinations. These days I just suck it up, try to keep my head down and not be noticed. I don't want to miss a business engagement because some Airline ticket agent is having a bad day, or they don't like the look of me or my attitude.

Anyway the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights had all the bite removed from it and is now a watered down version of the original that removes any real protection to us consumers, gives the Airlines lots of leeway, and really doesn't address the problems experienced by travelers. I'm sure the Airlines are breathing a sigh of relief, us passengers are left wondering why our elected representatives don't really represent us at all.

New I-Phone? I think not.

I've been a big Treo fan for years. I've still got my Treo 700p (The P is for the Palm Version). I've really loved this phone and Palm-OS has been good to me over the years.

Unfortunately all that has changed. You can no longer get support from Palm on their Palm phones. You have to go to the cell phone provider to get support on your Palm-OS. Problem is support for the phone consists of, "Well send you a replacement unit" Anyway I digress.

Needless to say, I am now searching for a new platform. I've been eying the I-Phone, but from what I've read, it's very sexy, but get under the hood and it blows up. Recent reports of installing software to allow use of the phone with other service providers causing the phones not to work and the support of only one phone service provider are leaving me cold on this one.

I'm actually quite interested in the new Linux phone initially there will be only one manufacturer, but I'm all about Open environments. I'm kind of concerned about the lack of applications for the phone, but with the Open Development environment, if I like I can port my favorite Linux applications right on to my phone. Try that I-Phone users!!

I've always been a big fan of Apple because they are not Microsoft and they don't seem to be quite as involved in predatory business practices as MS appears to be in, they always seem to be more expensive and sometimes have a more closed environment than MS though. Also their move to BSD Based Unix on their OS X, was brilliant IMO.

The high initial price of the I-Phone and the closed environment of the operating system are motivating me to look for something better. The new Linux phone won't be out until later this fall, and I'll probably wait a bit after that before I check one out to make sure it's had some air time and major problems fixed. Guess I'll stick with my teh suck 700p for a little while longer.

Overweight Passenger Forced to Buy Second Ticket

Well it's about frickin' time I say.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to sit next to an overweight passenger that overflowed into my seat.

I paid for my space, If I don't fit in it, then I need to buy more space. Simple as that. If I do fit in my space, it's not fair that I should have to share that space with someone who comes over into my seat.

Anyway, good on ya Southwest (Although I think you're recent dress code issues were taking it a bit too far).

Southwest Makes Big Guy (430 lbs. worth) buy a second ticket.

Fix Disconnect Problems on Battlefield 2142

For those of you that don't know, Battlefield 2142 is one of my Favorite FPS (First Person Shooter) games. It's a multi-player futuristic shoot-em-up that is the third generation of the original Battlefield 1942. If you like FPS games at all, this is one of the top of the line games.
Although the game has worked flawlessly for me, a couple of different people have reported problems with being randomly disconnected from games both with and without messages from Punkbuster.

These things have worked for some people and if you are having problems with disconnects when you play BF2142 try these links first.

For Punkbuster Kicks

For Disconnects

If that doesn't work you can try to uninstall Windows update KB917422 by going to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, checking the show updates box, and removing KB917422. Do so at your own risk.

See you on the Battlefield

Get rid of the annoying beeping when playing games on Windows XP

My machine recently started beeping when pressing multiple keys on the keyboard.

As I understand it, the Windows keyboard buffer is filling up and it's giving me a system beep sound. My games function properly, I just get this annoying beep when I try to hold a key or a key combination found.

I saw some solutions like trying to increase the buffer size in the registry, but the one I opted for was to go to Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager

Then select View->Show Hidden Devices

Then in non-plug and play devices, right click on beep and then disable.

After you re-boot, the beep is gone!!

Some Old Classic Links

I was recently reminded of a couple of fun links from a few years back.

Check out Larry's Face

Poor Larry....

And of course

Fear The Mullet

And Remember

Anything is possible at Zombo Com