The iBwee Factor

The blog of Daniel Bird of BirdBrain media.

July 27, 2004

light goes on, light goes off, etc.

Something I think all computers should have is a on/off toggle switch.
Why? I‘ll tell you, my emachines computer is very crash prone, and sometimes when it freezes it won’t respond to anything even pressing power button thing, and I have to pull the power cord out. It would be nice if all I had to do was flip a switch to kill the power, instead of pulling out the power cord. For an example when the robots in I, Robot go nuts if they had toggle switches, the movie could have gone like this.

(Robots start to go evil, and yell.)
"KILL ALL HUMANS, KILL ALL HUMANS"

(Then they attack the humans, but Will Smith jumps out and reaches behind each robot and flips the power switch to the off position, stopping the robots.)

Yes, it would make a boring movie, but in real life it's nice that when your computer crashes you can just flip it off, and then flip it on again. That’s just my opinion on power buttons.

July 15, 2004

Why?

Why? Why? Why does Microsoft design crap?

I was listening to a CD, while online, through Windows Media Player when up popped a window to download a WMP upgrade. I thought sure why not, so I said yes. Then it said you must close WMP and any other programs, I hit next. The next page said the download was 11 MBs, I'm on a dial-up 56k modem, so I clicked close and WPM froze up. WMP then brought Crazy Browser and Windows with it, then gave me the blue screen of death. My system was gone, now to restart it. But hold on, I'm suppose to be able to restart from the blue screen of death using the three fingered solute, but it doesn't work. My only option was pulling the power cord.

1) Why did the WMP updater bring down the whole system?
2) Why do I have to close WMP to update it?
3) Why can't I restart from the blue screen of death, like I should be able to?

As I see it, my only error (besided using windows) was ignoring the close WMP message, but look at the second question again.

July 10, 2004

Wintel Vs. Macintosh (pt. 1)

I know it's a big debate, Mac Vs. PC, but I thought I'd give my two (or three) cents.

Cords

Starting with power cords. On my Mac there is a pass-through power cord from the CPU to the monitor. By using this I free up an outlet, which to me is a very intelligent thing to do. When I have two computers, a lamp, stereo, and clock on my desk it's convenient to have an open outlet. As I recall, I've seen only one pc with a monitor power cord pass-through, compared to all the Macs I've seen, which are ether one piece or have a monitor power cord pass-through.

Your mouse and keyboard sit inches apart, why not run one cord to the CPU, instead of two? Macs run the mouse to the keyboard and then one cord to the CPU, reducing clutter. With a USB keyboard any USB device can be connected to the keyboard, and with the right monitor the keyboard can then be connected to the monitor.

So for the most part, Apple seems to have a more efficient use of cables, like the new cinema displays that have the video signal, power, USB, and FireWire in one cable.
Wintel machines work, but if I had a newer Mac I'd only have one cable from my desk to my CPU, instead of the five or more I have now.

July 01, 2004

I have become what I hate

Something that bugs me is when website aren't updated in years or people don't post on there blogs. Now I haven't posted in a month! And I have become what I hate. But hey, I was on vacation, then I went to camp, and then I became a lazy kid, out of school.

My Mac IIci, named "Aurora II", is awesome.
When it's powered up, the fan sounds like a spaceship revving its engine.
Of the three computers in my house, I think it has the shortest boot time. (Take that Windows ME, 95, and XP!)
It's running OS 7.0, which seems about par with Win 95, though I'd like to get 7.6 or something.
It has the coolest floppy drive ever!
And except for not shutting down it runs great for being 15 years old. (I'd like to see a PC do that!)