I never thought I'd get around to saying this (especially so early in its lifetime), but Windows 7 is really starting to appeal to me. Over the past few days, both Gizmodo and Lifehacker have been showcasing some of the cool new features. Several have caught my eye:

The New Taskbar

The new taskbar inside of Windows 7 looks great. Gone is the separation between the quick-launch menu and the standard list of task buttons. Instead, the two have been merged into one entity; very clever! However, I wonder what it's like with a large number of icons. I'm a huge quick-launch user and couldn't live without it. For instance, here on my laptop, I've got 28 icons at my disposal, with another 7 squirreled away in a sub-menu. The screenshots at the Gizmodo story only show the large icons in use. At those sizes, my taskbar would clearly take up a lot of screen real estate. Hopefully, the icon sizes are either settable via a preference or scale down on the fly.

20 New Themes

Windows 7 ships with a total of 20 themes, all of which look fantastic. This will be a welcome change from the 3 ugly themes in XP.

Problem Steps Recorder

Being able to create a web-based slideshow of a problem recreation scenario is awesome. My only fear is that, if it's like any other web-based stuff Microsoft has done, the resulting HTML is bloated, ugly, inaccessible, and devoid of validation.

Improved File in Use Messages

Knowing exactly why a file is in use is totally rad. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

Improved performance looks like it will be making its way to Windows 7, another great reason to look forward to the new OS. The sound virtualization introduced in Vista is a great feature, and one I wish existed in XP.

With all of these great new features, there are still a few things I'm apprehensive about. The graphical intensity of it all still seems ridiculous, especially the 'Aero Peek' feature, which feels like a cheap gimmick. I'm not a fan of the ribbon interfaces, simply because it's an entirely new paradigm (I can work with menus just fine, thanks). And what of the new user security model introduced in Vista? Are the problems solved?

If Microsoft continues to head in their current direction, I'll seriously consider upgrading once the OS is released. That's a far cry from my opinions in the early Vista days.

The contact form here at this website has been fixed. I did some debugging after my recent breadcrumbs issue, and managed to forget to restore things back to their original state. Many thanks to Archaeopteryx for finding and reporting the issue.

I'm really on a roll for bugs this month, huh? :oops:

Dry Ingredients

• 1-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 1-1/3 cup buttermilk
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil

In a bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. In a suitable measuring cup, measure out the buttermilk. Add the egg and vegetable oil to the measuring cup, and mix together well (beating the egg in the process). Pour the wet ingredient mixture into the dry ingredients, stirring until blended, but slightly lumpy. Add additional buttermilk to thin the batter as needed (not too thick, and not too thin). Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto a lightly oiled (e.g. PAM cooking spray), 325 degree griddle. Cook until the pancakes are golden brown on the bottom, turning them over when the surface shows bubbles and the sides are slightly dry. Makes around 10 large pancakes.

It's incredible to me that over 2 years after the debut of the Nintendo Wii, you still can't buy one. Several of the "in stock finders" online indicate that everyone is out of stock. I'd like to get one, but I can't find them anywhere. Does anyone know of a place that might actually have one in stock at some point?

I was in the grocery store last night cursing the paper shopping list I had written out. The list had grown messy from scratching out stuff I had already picked up, and items weren't organized in any fashion, resulting in my backtracking across the store three or four times. So I got thinking about how this is a perfect solution for a PDA. I want a PDA that:

• Can handle customized shopping lists, saving entered items for future use (perfect for groceries)
• Can organize said list into categories
• Has a user-friendly interface
• Is not an iPhone

Does anyone have any suggestions on what might fit the bill? I'm not terribly interested in using it to do any networking; I mainly want something that can handle data input and the like. Ideally, the device would be affordable, but I'm willing to explore most avenues. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

I am really enjoying the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. This cartoon, which was launched in 2005 and wrapped up earlier this year (for a total of 3 seasons), is outstanding. It appeals to all ages, and is a joy to watch. Here's a brief premise, as taken from Wikipedia:

Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a fantasy world that is home to humans, fantastic animals, and spirits. Human civilization is divided into four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads, and the Fire Nation. Each nation has its own natural element, on which it bases its society. Within each nation exists an order called "Benders" who have the ability to manipulate the eponymous element of their nation. The show’s creators assigned each Bending art its own style of martial arts, causing it to inherit the advantages and weaknesses of the martial arts it was assigned. The Bending types are Waterbending, Earthbending, Firebending, and Airbending.

The Avatar is the one person who is able to bend all four elements. He (or she) serves to ensure that the nations all live together in peace. One hundred years before the starting point of the series, Aang, a young airbender, learns that he is the next incarnation of the Avatar (each generation yields one Avatar to preside over the nations). He disappears out of fear of his looming responsibility. With the Avatar gone, the Fire Nation attacks the others, and essentially takes complete control.

As the series begins, two water nation siblings, Sokka and Katara, happen to find the Avatar frozen in a block of ice. They remove him from the ice, along with his giant flying bison Appa, quickly become friends, and set out to help the Avatar master the four elements, so that he may restore balance and order to the world.

I'm currently half-way through the second season, and I'm greatly anticipating the rest. The overall story-arc is wonderful, and each episode also has a great side story. Action scenes are incredible, the animation is fantastic, and the dialogue is very funny. I highly recommend this series to anyone even remotely interested in animated series' (or good television for that matter). I'm really looking forward to finishing out this season and the next!

I have had to turn off the breadcrumbs feature here at this site, due to an unfortunate bug causing my contact form to stop working. My contact form is not a part of WordPress (it's a standalone package), and I'm sure that the root cause lies in that fact. I'll work on fixing this issue after the holidays.

Many thanks to Ingo for pointing out this problem.

Well, four years later I'm finally catching up on LOST (hat tip to Dustin). So far I'm enjoying the show: I gave the first season a 4-star rating ("I Really Like It") at Netflix. There's obviously a lot left for me to catch up on, but so far, so good. Mystery abounds, the characters are interesting, and the plot twists and turns all over the place. Hopefully things will start making a little more sense in season 2. Here's a brief rundown of my current opinions of the main characters:

Jack

Probably my favorite character and the most practical (which is why I think I like him best).

Kate

I started out liking her, but the more I see, the more I dislike her. She's "peas in a pod" with Sawyer.

Sawyer

Not much to like about this con-man, though I do feel a little sorry about his childhood trauma.

Locke

Meh.

Jin

I'm liking him more and more. His "business" dealings with Sun's father are mysterious and pretty violent.

Sun

I'm enjoying her character more as well. She's becoming much more independent, and is stepping into a leadership role. Here's hoping that continues.

Sayid

Moderately interesting guy. Definitely someone you want on your side.

Charlie

Another of my favorite characters. I came to enjoy Dominic Monaghan in the Hetty Wainthropp series, and he shines here as well. I know how this character ends up, so it's a bit of a bummer.

Michael

Started out a jerk, but has improved a great deal.

Walt

Along with his dad, he's improved as a character. Gets abducted. Oh no!

Hurley

Another of my favorites, and great for a laugh. Has some of the best lines in the show, and a great back story.

Shannon

One of my least favorite characters. Snotty, boring, and someone I wouldn't want to be around.

Boone

Again, one of my least favorite characters.

Claire

Always seems to get the short end of the stick. Very likable, however, and the kind of person that would be fun to get to know.

Rousseau

I know she's been stranded on this island for 16 years, but someone needs to shoot her. Multiple times. Now.

I'm looking forward to season 2. Do you follow the show? If so, what do you think? No spoilers please.

I ran across a thoroughly engaging article at the Netflix blog that discusses the various encoding techniques they use for delivering "Watch Instantly" content. It sheds light on a number of the issues they face, and some of the decisions they are making. Silverlight is apparently their future player platform of choice, and the article discusses a little bit about why they chose this path. The technical details are appreciated, and it's cool to see them being open like this. Maybe they'll share similar information about other aspects of their business in the future.

Oh, noes! Steve Jobs is skipping MacWorld! Not only that, but this will be the last time Apple attends the event! What ever will we do? Can Gizmodo survive? What about Digg? The end is nigh. Run; run, I say! Oh, what a world!

I recently ran across an interesting implementation of the classic Arkanoid game. The game is coded completely in object-oriented JavaScript / DHTML. I'm really impressed with what the author was able to do. The game has all kinds of features: a level editor, power ups, decent sound effects, and more.

I found this via a handy list of other JavaScript Games. What a good way to waste some time!

I have just updated my various WordPress installations to the new 2.7 release. I really like the new admin interface. It's sleek, simple, and doesn't get in the way. The new dashboard is much cleaner as well, and provides some nice new options. I particularly like the ability to hide certain screen elements that you aren't interested in (this is particularly useful on the "Write Post" page).

Version 2.7 now includes an auto-updating feature, which is interesting. I still think that updating via Subversion is super easy, though an auto-update feature is a great step forward for this platform. WordPress is becoming more and more robust, and I'm oh-so-glad I chose to use it.

When I moved into my new house at the end of September, I took on a lot of new financial responsibility that I've never dealt with before (mortgage, monthly utility payments, outstanding debt on large purchases, etc). As such, I've been a little overwhelmed in trying to keep up with what payments I've made and, more importantly, where my money is going each month. In short, I want to track my money.

There are a number of avenues I've briefly explored, some of which require a lot more effort than I think I'm willing to exert. Mint.com looks really interesting, and looks a lot like what I want, but I'm leery of giving out my banking and credit card information to a third party. The same can be said for Quicken Online. Non-web software solutions are a possibility, but obviously restrict my ability to view the data from anywhere. They also often require more manual input than their online counterparts.

How do you keep track of your money? Do you have a tried and true means of seeing where you spend? How do you keep track of what bills have been paid? Any tips from you seasoned veterans would be helpful for a newbie like me.

Netflix has a movie rating system designed to help them recommend titles that you might like. They present the user with six rating options:

• 5 stars (Loved it)
• 4 stars (Really liked it)
• 3 stars (Liked it)
• 2 stars (Didn't like it)
• 1 star (Hated it)
• Not interested

When I first signed up, I went through the movies that I either owned or could remember well enough, and rated each one as carefully as I could. However, as time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to rate movies that I watch. I often find myself second guessing my initial rating, usually in the negative direction. For example, I've recently watched the first four Dirty Harry movies (out of the total five). Here's what I gave each:

• Dirty Harry: 5 stars
• Magnum Force: 4 stars
• The Enforcer: 3 stars
• Sudden Impact: 5 stars

I feel pretty solid on my ratings for the first three movies. The first movie is an all-time classic and set the bar (and tone) for most subsequent police dramas. Magnum Force was nearly as good, but felt a little flat in parts, hence my four star rating. The Enforcer was weaker still, and felt like any generic action film might in the 1970s (the female partner story was particularly disappointing). But what about the fourth title? Towards the end of the movie, I found myself thinking that it was a solid four-star film. But the climax was so epic, that it vaulted the movie into five-star territory for me.

I later found myself second guessing my five-star rating, wondering whether or not it was truly "five-star worthy." The movie had some flaws (what movie doesn't?), but were they enough to lower the rating? Which leads me to the ultimate question: what makes a movie five-star worthy? I know I'm over-analyzing the matter, but it's so hard to compare apples to oranges. Do you use Netflix? If so, how do you rate movies? Are there any rules you follow?

Chrono Trigger, for the Nintendo DS, was just recently released and I am so excited! This game, originally released on the Super Nintendo platform, is incredibly hard to find as a SNES cartridge. I recall trolling eBay years ago trying to find it, only to see it get sold for hundreds of dollars, putting it well beyond my price range for a game. I am undoubtedly one of the few folks remaining who owned an original SNES system but failed to play this title. The Metacritic reviews are, so far, very positive.

It's great to see old titles (especially ones I never played) getting some loving attention by means of a port to the Nintendo DS. Hopefully Secret of Mana and EarthBound will get the same treatment! If so, I'd have a lot of gaming goodness to be thankful for.

Here it is, one day after Thanksgiving and the official start of the Christmas season, and I'm already sick of Christmas songs. Earlier this week, while shopping in a local Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I was treated (or was it tortured?) to the sounds of 'contemporary' Christmas tunes. You know, classics like the hip-hop version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" or a techno-influenced rendition of "Deck the Halls." I've never been 'in' to Christmas music per se, but I suppose I can consider myself 'out' of it at the moment. Apparently, everybody who's anybody in the music industry has recorded an album of Christmas songs. And there exists an unwritten convention amongst retailers that these songs are to be crammed into shoppers' ears. You know, so as to "get them in the spirit."

I'm all for celebrating Christmas. In fact, it's my favorite holiday of the year. But I think it's time that we, as a society, take things down a notch. Christmas displays went up at stores as soon as Halloween was over, and in some cases, days before. Holiday commercials are being aired on TV and radio every 5 minutes, each one with its own variation (nay, perversion) of a beloved Christmas tune. Like Andy Rooney says:

It ought to be against the law to start Christmas before December.

Damn ABC! Damn everyone that won't damn ABC! Damn everyone that won't put lights in his window and sit up all night damning ABC! (Apologies to all my U.S. history professors. For those in the dark, here's the cultural reference to the above joke.)

I simply don't understand it. An incredibly clever, imaginative, and entertaining television show gets canceled because it's not getting the ratings the executives want. This proves that creativity has no place anymore in Hollywood. In short, it's not a crime drama, a medical drama, or a reality show, apparently making it the scourge of the land. Maybe the fact that the network didn't advertise the show has something to do with it. Or perhaps we can blame the failing economy. Either way, I'm disappointed.

I have truly lost what little faith I had left in television. All the more reason not to watch it. My only hope is that Bryan Fuller will come through on his promise to finish out the story with either a movie or through comic books. What a dark day.

Last month, I blogged about the strange trend of sign twirling. Stranger still is a new twist that I'm seeing introduced by Linens 'n Things, which just happens to be going out of business. Around their various stores in our area, they have apparently hired people to hold up a going out of business sign. The people doing this job don't twirl the sign or anything fancy. They just stand there, holding the sign up for people to read. Are metal sign posts too good to do this job? I have to believe the company could save some money by investing in a few of them.

Every so often, I troll the Apple movie trailers page to see what's in the pipeline (ironic, considering I almost never go to the theater). In browsing the page today, I noted a trailer for "The Pink Panther 2," which will undoubtedly be an embarrassment to the good name of Peter Sellers. This got me thinking, however, about how sequel titles have gotten dumber over the years. Here are the original Pink Panther movie titles:

• The Pink Panther
• A Shot in the Dark
• The Return of the Pink Panther
• The Pink Panther Strikes Again
• etc...

Note the clever new names for each movie. The upcoming film, starring Steve Martin (who can't seem to make any good movies anymore), has simply appended the number 2 to the end of the title. Many movies these days resort to this cop-out tactic, which seems to me to be an excellent indication of the lack of imagination and creativity left in the entertainment industry. I can think of only a few recent exceptions to this trend: the Lord of the Rings movies (whose titles come from books anyway), and the Jason Bourne movies (again, which come from book titles). Everyone else just tags a number on the end: Pink Panther 2, High School Musical 3, and Star Trek 12: So Very Tired. Do movie executives really believe that the public is stupid enough to not know a sequel when they see it? Apparently so.

A while back, I noted how I was planning on watching my television over the air. I recently bought the Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna. I started out by placed the antenna next to the TV, pointed in the direction indicated by AntennaWeb.org. Reception was OK, but could have been better.

Thanks to the fact that my house is prewired for cable, I was able to move the antenna to an upstairs bedroom, and wire it directly to my television in the family room downstairs. This helped, but didn't fix things. My dad helped me mount the antenna outside on an old satellite dish mount. Again, the hope was that this would help my reception. And again, I've been disappointed.

Unfortunately, my antenna is 'looking' directly through a line of trees about 100 feet behind my house. When the weather is windy, my reception is really bad (and it's been very windy here recently). As such, I've been disappointed with the antenna.

Does anyone here get TV over the air? If so, how do you maximize your signal strength? I'm getting frustrated with my current setup, and I'm not sure how to proceed. Cable television is ridiculously expensive, and I like having stations in HD. But my options seem so limited. Anyone got any tips?