smooshspace

I think upon inspection you would find that those most worried about privacy and the peering eye of big brother, are the same people who would be the most upset to find out that no one actually cares.

Haven’t done a desktop snapshot in quite a while.

The icon sorting mechanism is called Fences from Stardock which is absolutely awesome if you are like me an have about 40 too many icons on your desktop at any given time. (And it’s free!)

Sidebar is standard Vista flare.

I have never used the sticky notes gadget, but I just like the look of it for some reason.

The application bar above the Windows taskbar is Kubuntu running in a Sun VirtualBox in seamless mode, which makes it behave much like an app running in Vista, but it’s actually kind of just overlayed.  Pretty cool actually if you want the whole “eat your cake and have it too” scenario.

The picture, honestly I just Google imaged the search term “widescreen desktop wallpaper” and this was one of the results, and I thought the robot was cool.  I think he is looking at the heart, not quite sure what to make of it because it is so foriegn to him.  He may squish it at any moment, because he needs to know what will happen when he does.  It’s how he’s wired.

As much as I tried to ignore this, my inner nerd wouldn’t let me.

On the weekend I pulled out my old PC, downloaded and installed Windows 7.
Perhaps it was just an excuse to get me moving on my plan to run Cat5 from the basement to the top floor, but what I think it really was was the idea that Microsoft would open beta an OS.

Could it be that Microsoft is actually seeing the value of seeking input from their client base?
It seems strange and unprecedented to me. A test group outside of it’s fanboi TechNet base, neat plan…
Could the titan be learning that today’s audience actually can and wants to have a say in things?

Anyhow…sarcasm aside…

What do I think after a night of using it…
Well…It’s neat, flashy, and seems to run reasonably well on my somewhat dated 3.4ghz single core box.
But isn’t it an awful lot like Vista? If you sat me down in front of it without telling me what it was I’d think that someone just browsed around Lifehacker and followed one or more of their custom desktop guides.

So far I haven’t seen anything that really makes me think they have done anything substantial to the OS.  It makes me wonder if they are just trying to distance themselves from the Vista name that has been a bane for them since it’s been released and Mac dragged it through the mud with their brilliant marketing campaigns.

I’ve still to dig into the technical inner workings of 7, so I may change my mind.  But using it as just a guy surfing the internet and exploring the new computer, I don’t see anything that I would upgrade beyond Vista for.

Mind you the new task bar is kind of cool…

Lily at the Computer

I hope Lily turns out to be a nerd. Probably because I consider myself a nerd, and I think most people want their children to become little mirrors of themselves.  But I also want her to embrace and welcome our new robotic overlords.

I  respect the analytical mind that lives within many nerds, and hope that she can embrace the best parts of nerdhood while leaving behind some of the stereotypical social awkwardness that often comes along with it.