Ingredients: sugar, starch syrup, natural flavor (menthol), colors (E102, E110, E124, E131, E151), glaze (E901).

Geez, I’ve gotta stop eating these… *puts a few candies in his mouth anyway*

I can understand Windows Mobile 7 is in the making, but why is it that hard to do some revamping on 6.5 as well until the great seven-point-oh arrives? Popup menus have a better and a much more finger friendly look, but what about scroll bars? To be honest, they look like “utter shayt” and take much underserved screen space. Buttons? Yeah, they’re better, but are still aranged in a stylus friendly manner instead of being finger friendly. Checkboxes? Don’t get me started… having large fingernails is the only thing that can prevent a WM user from reaching for the stylus when it comes to checkboxes and radio buttons. Why was so much effort placed in creating a new home screen (that most end users never get to see anyway) instead of rearranging and redesigning some UI elements inside the OS itself? Exiting a frond end GUI such as TouchFlo and playing with some advanced settings is like going from Windows 7 to Windows 3.11 in a nutshell – it’s that bad. A few gradient backgrounds, bigger screen widgets – properly arranged, and a nice screen drawing method would do wonders (it’s currently too slow and blocky, drawing one screen part at a time). It’s not THAT hard… is it? The start menu “honeycomb” icon arrangement really is finger friendly and esthetically pleasing, thumbs up for that… Kinetic scrolling, the new lock screen, app marketplace, beautiful icons, MyPhone, IE Mobile 6, Flash support and other new additions are good signs that Microsoft still has some punch in them, but they need to channel all that energy in a good spot, because OEMs are just not willing nor able to do that much customization to keep Windows Mobile 6.x going for a long time.

Also, why do some WM phones lack a 3.5mm audio jack? If Microsoft can mandate all new Windows Phones need a dedicated Start hardware button, why can’t it do something like this? Proprietary dongles suck.

Picture copyright intomobile.com

At about 4AM this morning, while I was crafting some junk to feed my ugly face in the kitchen, I thought I heard a kid crying outside… There was a weird owl chick nest near my parking lot that usually gave off such sounds, so I ignored the whole thing. 10 seconds later, there it was again! I rushed outside to listen to what the hell was going on out there and I realized my brain hasn’t turned to a pile of fish food yet – a sound of a ~4yr old kid whining and crying about his mom was truly echoing throughout the whole neighborhood that was fast asleep! Well, imagine that – a stranded kid in a not-so-safe neighborhood at 4AM (makes you wanna ignore the whole thing… right?)… Just as I was about to rush out to find him (I knew the police would like to help me as much as I would like to shove 4 potatoes up my ass at this very moment), the sound abruptly stopped. Complete silence overshadowed my ambition of going outside in slippers like a complete idiot, yet I continued spreading my ears while trying to hear something again for the next 15 minutes, even though the munchies were kicking in in a much more aggressive manner. Not even after 15 minutes of complete silence did another sound grab my attention.

So, what have I learned from all this? Either some dickhead with air conditioning turned off decided it was a good idea to open all of his windows nice and wide so I could go on a guilt trip whenever I hear a “helpless” kid crying –OR- some other dickhead decided it was cool to take his kid on a walk at 4AM in the middle of the dark… somehow I think the former situation is much more plausible, yet it still doesn’t make it right – curb your kids, close your windows and for fuck sake, learn to quiet your kid down in a few minutes or less if possible, after all, the sound of a child crying is genetically implemented in our brain as a signal of urgency, and we wouldn’t want to combine that with the acoustics of a urban neighborhood where a pin drop is heard in the middle of the night… would we now?

Now, I’m surely not some annoying Greenpeace hippie, and I know Earth Hour will do absolutely nothing for our planet in it’s tiny 1hr of power preservation, but it’s the thought that counts, like in every gift. If I turn off my lights, I still probably have the air conditioning, heating, TV, PC etc. turned on, which probably nullifies the saved energy from all the switched off light bulbs (and I even use CFLs), but it still counts – seeing that I’m letting others know that I give a damn and that I am aware of my surroundings.

It’s not just about the environment, it’s about the inclusion in major world events. If pretty much nobody did anything to show their participation in this happening in my neighborhood, that’s the mirror of the regional awareness in any global topic – zero – nada - null.

Enjoy your lights, people… I’m still not sure how you evolved from candles in the first place…

Before I write a few lines of my own, I would like to write some about other people's piece of minds. The first comments I heard about Windows 7 were about it being way better than Windows Vista. Fair enough, but the overall look and the low-end system base are practically the same as Vista's, only slightly modified. Why all the love all of a sudden? Once again, this behavior attributes to the typical SP1 or Windows 1.2 craze that mandates that no Microsoft product is perfect before the first service pack or the next minor version is released. I would like to quote Paul Thurrot on this one (interpreted, since I heard this on his podcast):

Windows 7 is basically Vista 1.3, and I don't know what's all this about the sudden change of heart.

Now, even though Windows 7 is just a simple upgrade, it does boast some very neat features that I really dig. Native biometric device support, better Bluetooth support, the new taskbar (although it can be improved), taskbar context menus, ribbon interfaces, better connectivity, UAC that actually does it's job without nagging (hell yeah, finally!), faster boot times, Libraries, new and redesigned control panel items, better theme support, automated wallpaper shuffling, Windows Action Center, better gaming integration, Aero Peek, more intuitive device managing through "Devices And Printers", Gadgets that don't need to be placed on a sidebar, recovery disk support (finally...), improved Paint , new Windows Media Center, automated window maximizing/resizing, and etc. etc. There's really much more than this list, but these are the first ones that caught my eye. One more thing though... Windows Explorer is WAY more fast and MUCH more responsive! I haven't experienced any lagging or lockups at all, it's just that good! Kudos, Microsoft!

What I do hate about Windows 7 is fortunately small enough to fit on a list... The OOBE (out of the box) experience is still very yucky (seriously, if someone cashes out >200$ for a version of Windows, you'd better give them a more friendlier welcome than the dull and boring Welcome Center!), there are still some Control Panel applets that open in separate window dialogs (WHY!?), the taskbar can't be set to always allow grouping and display window titles at the same time (again... why!?), and I still think that Aero is not used enough for graphic effects that could enhance the overall user experience (no, I'm not talking about the retarded Compiz Fusion Linux youtube videos where windows randomly stretch and fly around, but the usual stuff - non agressive, yet pleasant, user friendly and non time consuming animations). No crashes or problems so far, so the list ends here. Sure, further improvements could find their spot in this new version, but like I (and many more others) have already said, this is Windows Vista 1.3.

If you want to see some screenshots of Windows 7, take a peek in my gallery.

Also, if you want to try this baby out yourself, here are the download links and links where you can get your very own Windows 7 beta key:

32bit Windows 7 ISO

64bit Windows 7 ISO

Windows 7 beta 1 download page (scroll down, and select your version and language)

DON'T just click on the first two links, since you'll most probably get an error! Google Chrome reported that "the file is too big" when trying to access the first two URLs... in a hidden message! (what the hell?) Anyway, just paste the URL in your favorite download manager, such as FlashGet, and off you go!

Enough emo thougts… Enjoy your alcoholic beverages and leftover Christmas candy before the holidays come to an end, I know I will!