Month: October 2012

For Windows 8, the second time isn’t the charm.

D'Arque Bishop4 Comments

Several months ago, Microsoft released a consumer preview of Windows 8. Curious, I decided to load it into a virtual machine using VMware Player. To say I wasn’t impressed would be putting it mildly. After a couple of days, I deleted the virtual machine and gave up on it. Now that Windows 8 has been officially released, I decided I should at least make myself somewhat familiar with it. I didn’t want to spend money on software I wasn’t sure I wanted, even if some places had the upgrade for $40. So, I grabbed the consumer preview ISO, loaded it into a new virtual, and loaded it with the software I normally use on a daily basis. The plan was to run Windows 8 as my primary OS for a few days and get used to it. Perhaps I had been too hard on it.

After a couple of days, I can safely say that I still don’t like it at all.

The thing I hate the most is Metro/Windows 8 UI. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Metro was designed with a touchscreen interface in mind. The problem is that while it works great on a touchscreen (as I’ve seen when using it on a phone running Windows Phone 7), it’s terrible to use on a keyboard/mouse interface. It’s not intuitive and awkward to use. Worse, there is no way to turn it off and return to a classic Start menu. Even if you want to use the classic desktop (which is still available, albeit without a Start menu), you still have to go through Metro to get to it. The only thing that’s made it tolerable has been installing a third-party utility called ClassicShell, which provides a Start menu for me to use.

The user/pass convention has been a right pain in the rear, too. When you set up your system for the first time, you’re asked to tie it to a Microsoft account/Windows Live ID, which would allow you to purchase apps off of the Windows Store and sync your settings between PCs. It also forces your account to authenticate using the Microsoft account’s password. Personally, I wouldn’t MIND having my local account linked to a Microsoft account, but I would also like to be able to give my account its own username and password. As it stood, I ended up having to look in Computer Management to see what username to use to log into the machine via Remote Desktop Connection. Disabling it as a whole apparently requires a copy of Windows 8 Professional or Ultimate, as the local security policy needs to be edited.

For everything else, though, the install isn’t very different from Windows 7 for what I use it for. There’s nothing in Metro that makes me want to use it, and the desktop is a downgrade from Windows 7 without the Start menu. In fact, the release version is even more of a downgrade than the consumer preview I’m running, because the consumer preview has the Windows Aero desktop while the release version does not. There is simply nothing that makes me want to use this version of Windows.

At the end of the day today, I’ll likely go ahead and delete the virtual running Windows 8, and go back to running Windows 7 full-time. I now have an idea of what to expect should the time come when I’m forced to purchase machines with Windows 8 for work and not be able to downgrade to Windows 7. Until then, I’ll be digging in my heels and sparing myself (and my coworkers) the annoyance of dealing with it.

Classic Doctor Who on the big screen? Yes, please!

D'Arque Bishop

So, Jennifer and I did something fun this past weekend.

On Friday, the Alamo Drafthouse at Mason Park tweeted a link to a story on the Houston Press, talking about how they would be doing a free showing of the Doctor Who serial “The Tomb of the Cybermen”. For those not aware of the format of the original series, it was a serial, with stories taking up multiple 25-minute episodes. Most Doctor Who serials were four episodes long; “The Tomb of the Cybermen” was no exception. “The Tomb of the Cybermen” features the Second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton) as he and his companions happen upon an archaeological expedition to the adopted Cyberman homeworld of Telos. While I have the serial on DVD, I wanted to see it on the big screen, and this also gave us an opportunity to go to the Alamo Drafthouse for the first time. Jennifer was willing to go along, even though she doesn’t care for the original series.

Old-school…
When we got there, we found a company called 8th Dimension had set up a table selling Doctor Who-related merchandise. Jennifer and I looked over what they had, and we ended up buying me two items. The first was a full-size sonic screwdriver. While they had the Tenth Doctor’s and Eleventh Doctor’s models available, I just had to pick up the Fourth Doctor’s model once I saw it existed. We also got a miniature LED flashlight shaped like the Eleventh Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. That one is going into my laptop bag, as there’s been more than one time I’ve needed a flashlight at work. :-) Once we got our purchases settled, we went into the theater, picked our seats, and ordered our dinner: red pepper hummus as an appetizer, followed by a BBQ chicken pizza for me and a chicken caesar wrap for Jennifer. It was delicious, all told.

An unexpected prize…
Right before the serial started, the gentleman from the Houston Press who was hosting the event stood up and said a few words. One thing he said that we hadn’t realized was that BBC America was sponsoring the event, and that this was going to be the first of a monthly series. As it was sponsored by BBC America, they had provided official Doctor Who merchandise as giveaways. The host asked several related trivia questions; I answered the first question and got a Cyberman toy as a prize. :-) It was very difficult for me to stay quiet for the other questions, though, as with one exception I knew the answers to all of them. Once the giveaways were finished, and we enjoyed the serial, complete with its bad special effects and obvious wire-work. :-)

In the end, we had a great time. Even Jennifer enjoyed watching the serial more on a big screen and with an audience than she did on my plain TV set. The host did mention that this event will happen on the last Saturday of every month; it’s a shame that we already have plans for the last Saturday of November, as the announced serial for the next event is “The Claws of Axos”, one of the first stories to feature the Master. We’ll almost certainly try to go to the December one, though.

All in all, though, it was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend giving it a try if you’re interested in seeing some of the original Doctor Who.

An improved home theater…

D'Arque Bishop

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve updated my website. The problem usually becomes one of finding it easier to do updates on Twitter and Facebook than it is on the site itself. One of these days I suppose I’ll put in the effort to be more productive with the site.

That being said, one thing we HAVE been working on here at the house is something I’m so happy about I wanted to share. Jennifer and I have been wanting to improve the home theater in our living room for the past year or two. It was serviceable as far as things went, but we’re both techie-oriented and knew we could do better.

The old home theater setup…

The TV is a 32″ Panasonic LCD TV. The disc player was a Samsung Blu-Ray player, and the home theater receiver was my old Onkyo unit. For speakers, we used the speakers from an older Aiwa home theater in a box set (the receiver had been destroyed in a lightning storm), and we connected the rear speakers using a Rocketfish wireless rear speaker set. The Blu-Ray was connected directly to the TV via HDMI, and to the receiver via optical audio cable. (The receiver did not support HDMI.) The Comcast HD DVR box was connected via component video and coaxial digital autio cable, and the Wii used standard RCA input.

Now, I say the unit was servicable. There were a few flaws, though. The biggest one that annoyed us was that the speakers had a tinny sound, and at some point the rear speaker outputs simply stopped working. In addition, the video on the Wii was dark enough that games like LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 simply became unplayable. Also, the entertainment center furniture was from WalMart and wasn’t well-made; the unit was bowing in the middle from all of the weight.

We knew we wanted a bigger TV in the 60″ range, so we started looking for new furniture first. After months of searching for the right furniture, we finally found the perfect one at the Dump. It’s made of much sturdier wood than the old one was and has less depth to it while being taller and wider. As it was delivered on a Friday, and we were going to Galveston for the weekend, we decided to wait until we got back to reassemble the home theater.

On our way back from Galveston, we stopped by Fry’s on a lark to look at home theater receivers. While there, we saw a Samsung receiver that had a Blu-Ray 3D player built in, had Dolby 7.1, and had wireless rear speakers. The receiver even had vacuum tubes in it for better sound. It sounded great and cost half what we were expecting to pay, so we went ahead and purchased it. That evening was spent hooking everything up.

In this setup, I hooked the HD DVR the the receiver via HDMI, and the Wii via some unused component cables. The difference in the picture quality was amazing; the Comcast box’s picture was much crisper and the light levels on the Wii made playing games like LEGO Harry Potter bearable again. In the end, we ended up with far fewer cables needed, and even had a Blu-Ray player left over. (It went to Jennifer’s parents.)

Once everything was hooked up, we put the entertainment center back against the wall, and Jennifer spent the next week putting the decorations back up. As for the final result…

The new home theater system…

Yes, we still have the same TV. :-) We figure that will be the last thing to be upgraded, and will be done in the next few months. Once we get the new TV, the old TV will go into my office for my consoles. As for the old furniture, the towers were moved into our bedroom to act as a TV stand, while the middle part is sitting to one side while we decide what to do with it.

So far, though, we’re very happy with improved picture and the MUCH improved sound. The only slight problem we have is that the TV is drowned in its space, but that’ll cease being a problem when we get a 60″ screen. In addition, there are a couple of movies in our collection that we’re holding off on watching until the big screen comes in… namely, The Hunger Games and The Avengers.

I’ll likely do another post when the new TV comes in. Until then… I’m going to go watch some TV. :-)