Vista Certified

This week I attained my Vista Certification.  I think the official title is Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Configuring Microsoft Windows Vista Client.  I’m not sure how I feel about the whole “Technology Specialist” part.  They have changed it from the old 2000/2003 Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).  ‘Professional’ sounds much better than ‘Technology Specialist’ in my opinion.  I think it has something to do with the fact that many people in my company have the word ‘Specialist’ in their title, and they are anything but.  Overall, I’m pretty sure the last year I spent working with and deploying Vista at work has given me more experience than most with Microsoft’s latest and greatest.  It is just too bad that Vista has such a bad rep in the press.  I’m hoping Microsoft will be able to turn that perception around so I don’t have to bury my latest certification at the very bottom of my resume in small print.

iPhone

Alas… I think I am the only person in my immediate group of friends who does not have an iPhone.  I’m sure there are a couple of them that don’t have one, but I feel like the only one who doesn’t.  I must say congrats to Steve Jobs for inventing such a nice phone.  It really has set the bar in regards to most other phones out there.  That is kind of sad actually.  It is not that Apple has set the bar so high, but more that the rest of the cell phone industry let the bar stay so low for so long (Microsoft included).  Microsoft tried to shoehorn Windows into a mobile device for years when they should have trashed what they had and started over from scratch.  Granted they were trying to compete with Palm initially and the whole stylus thing (which was never cool).  But Windows Mobile 5 and 6 never did much to really up the bar.  They work alright, but have been in need of a UI overhaul for awhile.

One of the Windows Mobile Phone makers from Taiwan (HTC) has done more to experiment and develop new UI’s than MS has.  Pretty sad actually.  My T-Mobile Shadow phone had a pretty neat interface that T-mo made, and perhaps that is part of the problem.  Microsoft wanted to make the foundation OS and let the phone makers customize it.  I recently updated my Shadow to WM 6.1 which includes a really neat sliding panels UI made by one of the MS devs.  But it is clear this is just a stopgap until they can come up with something truly new (i.e. copy the iPhone).  I won’t go into all the reasons why I refuse to go iPhone since plenty of people have covered all of its inadequacies (go here).  What I am glad to see is that Apple has forced the rest of the industry to stop releasing such crappy hardware/software for mobile devices.  It is apparent that Apple is not going to let up on The Shiny®, so the rest of the industry will be playing catchup for awhile.  But this time, instead of a race to the bottom, it is a race to the top.

Ahhh… this is sweet.

Adobe’s Flash player is almost a requirement to view most web sites today.  My rant today is how much Adobe sucks.  For a long while now, some of us have been waiting for them to release a 64 bit compatible version for 64 bit browsers (i.e. Internet Explorer 64 bit).  When Flash 9 came out, they said they were working on it and it would be released when it was done.  Well, Adobe has begun releasing betas of the new Flash Player 10.  Yes!  Flash 10 for 2008.  Yea 64 bit!

Wrong!

Not only do they still not have a 64 bit version, I read that one of the developers said they aren’t releasing a 64 bit version AND, "we will evaluate that requirement, which has been requested before, for inclusion in possible future releases based on customer demand."

Based on customer demand?!?!?!?  I read an article on Slashdot from 2005 of people petitioning Macromedia (the original Flash developers) to release a 64 bit version of Flash.  3 years ago! GAH! WTF Adobe?  It’s not like this is some small developer.  This is Adobe.  Owners of fricken Photoshop, surely one of the biggest/complicated programs that exists.  How hard can this be?  Seriously.  I don’t code.  How hard is this?

I’m guessing it is hard.  Microsoft has their Flash competitor, Silverlight.  I was fully prepared to demand that all web developers switch to using Silverlight so we can move into the 64 bit age.  But upon checking… there is no 64 bit Silverlight support.  GAH!

Why does the Internet hate 64 bit?  :-(

Last week the FISA update bill passed Congress that grants immunity to the Telecom companies for any wrong doing their part for warrantless wiretapping.  I initially wanted to add Barrack Obama for voting for this bill after he specifically said he would not.  Then I wanted to add ‘Democrats’ because of how many of them voted for it.  But I thought it would be unfair to leave out the Republicans who really pushed for this in the first place at the behest of the Bush administration.  So to make things nice and simple, I’ll just add ‘Congress’ to the DIAF list.

Carl Rove will also be added this week.  He was subpoenaed before Congress to testify on the firing of Justice Department employees for purely political reasons.  He didn’t show up.  His lawyer did and told Congress that Rove will not be speaking to them.  WTF?  If this was you or me, our asses would be in jail.  But not only is Bush and his cronies above the law, apparently they can get away with ignoring it.  Continually.  Without consequence.

Last week was the last week of summer semester.  I’m so glad to be done with school for awhile.  The last project I had was group based and I was assigned two of the Chinese girls as my teammates.  The last few times I’ve had Chinese girls in my group, I ended up doing all the work.  I told them both this and that I just would not have time to do the entire project myself.  They assured me I would not have to.  To make a long story short, they completely dropped the ball.  In the end, I turned in the project without their names on it and then proceeded to throw them under the bus to the professor.  He completely understood.  I felt a bit bad for them, but I did all I could to help them.

I’m also reading daily stuff about the upcoming summer Olympic games.  China is having all sorts of issues ranging from bad air to limiting what can be said, etc.  It is all very un-Olympic in nature.  So I was going to add ‘Chinese girls’ to my DIAF list, but to make things fair, I think I’ll just add all of them.  The ‘Chinese’.

I haven’t been posting much the last few weeks because of all the writing I’ve been doing for school.  I know for awhile there it appeared this had turned into “Jarred Fehr’s Video Blog”.  Alas… it has not.  Now for the topic at hand.

Last night I went to see Ben Hur at the Fox.  Originally I had been invited by Robert who ended up not going due to being out of town.  After watching the movie, I can see now this was his insidious plan the entire time.  I didn't know anything about Ben Hur other than it was an older movie.  I think I knew there was something about a chariot race, but not much more.  Imagine my horror when the actuall title of the movie was posted on the screen:

Ben Hur: A tale of Jesus Christ.

Curses! Foiled again!  Just when you think you can trust someone, they go and trick you into large screen Christian indoctrination.  By the end of the movie, I was perplexed by the movie title.  It didn’t have much to do with Jesus at all.  He was in a few scenes, but didn’t say anything at all.  He was even faceless.  I thought the credits were funny.

Jueda Ben Hur:……  Charleston Heston

Water boy:……………  Jesus Christ

If I had to pick a better water boy performance, I think I’d go with Adam Sandler.

My favorite part was just being the in the Fox Theater.  I go there a few times a year to watch movies, shows and other performances.  It is really a great venue.  The crowds that attend tend to be much more behaved than at regular theaters.  However, last night the family behind us kept asking stupid questions during the movie.  “What’s a leper?  Huh?  What’s Leprosy?”  Dolts.

Wow… double geek find today.  This one is courtesy of Don.  There’s even a website!

http://www.challengeofthesuperduperfriends.com/

Oh yes.  I have died and gone to heaven.

George Carlin died.  What can I say?  I liked him.  A lot.  Here’s some of his death material.  It goes without saying it is NSFW.

www.wherethehellismatt.com

I sometimes reflect on how my life could have turned out differently that what it is now.  I found this video which accurately describes one version that I can say I’m happy didn’t (and won’t) happen.