EDITORIAL NOTE (for lazy people): If you don't like to read paragraphs (for fear of hurting your brain) then please skip straight to the uber-funny sketch at the end of this article. If, on the other hand, you can actually handle reading more than four sentences in a group without your mind wandering off to thoughts of what's on TV tonight, then you can start reading here.... and now, on to the article.

Human behavior is intriguing. One such behavior is how the average person approaches the topic of taste in music. We all have tastes. Tastes in food. Tastes in men/women. Tastes in movies. You name it. But for some reason, no taste seems to carry with it the fervent arrogance and xenophobia that a person's taste in music often does. If you meet someone, and you start discussing food, chances are that you won't even notice if they mention liking a food that you dislike. Most people just accept it as normal. "Oh... you like fish, eh... I'm not a big fan it it." But mention a band that they hate, and watch the wonder that is human self-conceit... "What? You like Blink 182?!? Dude. They're, like, the worst band on the planet. Seriously. What's wrong with you? You really need to get a new taste in music". As if acquiring a new taste in anything is even physically possible, and as if there is such a thing as a "better" or "worse" taste in music. Now, for many of you, cognitive dissonance is already kicking in and telling you that, somehow, your taste in music IS indeed "better" or "more refined", but it's not. I know... it's hard to accept that what your ears prefer means absolutely nothing to anyone but you, but it's true. I'm sorry to have crushed your entire worldview.

I just stumbled across this story about how Apple is going to start charging people a $5 entrance fee just to get into their Apple stores. Can you freaking believe that? Seriously... I thought I'd seen it all when it came to the ridiculous lengths of Apple's smug marketing and aloof users, but this one definitely takes the cake. This just cements Apple, and all of the preening tossers who use their products, as the pretentious goobers that I've always known them to be. Now, it's not like I've ever been tempted to go into an Apple store (lest I lose 50% of my IQ and start drooling out of the corners of my mouth), but there's no way on earth it's gonna happen now. Oh yeah... and it gets even better...

But I DID refresh the page... AND restart the browser... AND clear my history... AND delete my cookies..... yet still you torture me!!!

WHY?!?!?! ...WHY, I SAY?!?!

(a thousand pardons for the blog spam, but I had to get that off my chest )

WATYF

As vastly superior to Microsoft as Apple is, they (in their benevolence) will occasionally throw us poor Windows users a bone every once in a while. And it looks like that once in a while is right now (yay for us!!).  Just this week, Apple took a stab at porting their oh-so-popular browser (Safari) over to Windows Vista... unfortunately, they overestimated their ability to write anything other than fluffy apps that don't do anything useful. Apparently, this little bundle of Apple joy came with bugs, exploits, and a complete lack of standard features.

That's right ladies and gentlemen... today I'm going to offer conclusive proof that the new Office 2007 interface has been endowed with copious amounts of suckage...

...but first, I'm going to ramble on for a bit (much like I do at the beginning of all of my articles, before actually getting to any kind of point or useful content).

As many of you may know... I very quickly grew an intense dislike for the new Office 2007 layout (or interface, or GUI, or menu system, or whatever you wanna call it) the minute I was forced to use it at work. You may think it's because I'm a luddite, but that's not the case at all... I rather like new things... just so long as they don't make my life a living hell. You may also think that I just like to bash Microsoft for fun... but that's blatantly untrue... I would never bash Microsoft just for fun.. that's what I have Apple for.

But after ranting about how much Office 2007's new look sucks, and trying to find ways around its idiosyncrasies, and hacking together a (very lousy) way to get it to (kind of) look like Office 2000 (or 2003), I was finally delivered from my turmoil (at least for now).

And I thought that was the end of it... I figured my articles would just fall into oblivion (much like every other article that I write on this site ) and I would move on with my nerdy little life... but it appears I won't be able to forget them so easily...

Well... I finally got around to putting out a new version of TaskRunner (3.2.1063). Its primary upgrades are architectural, so don't expect a huge amount of new features, but it does fix a bunch of bugs and make a bunch of small improvements. The biggest GUI improvement you'll notice is to the Web Search app. I over-hauled the interface and added a bunch of new sites that you can search. The major architectural changes are that it is now .NET 2.0 compatible (which helped in adding a bunch of the new features) and its back-end database was updated to a new version. Here's the change log...

OK. Here's the problem... I want my .NET application (in this case, TaskRunner) to open a new instance of the user's default browser and direct it to a URL. Sounds simple, right? Well of course not.... this is Microsoft we're talking about.

Now, this is the part where you offer your pointless suggestions and ask irrelevant questions and tell me how I'm being an idiot for ignoring the oh-so-obvious solution to this problem... ("Hey stupid... just use Process.Start and pass it the URL!!"). But  notice that I said that I want to open a NEW instance of the user's browser. Unfortunately, if the user has Internet Explorer as their default browser, Process.Start (with a URL) will very often... not always, but sometimes (for reasons only known to Bill Gates himself) reuse an existing browser and direct it to the URL. So let's say you're sitting there replying to an email.... you've been up all night typing out some sappy love note to your girlfriend to try to get her to change her mind about dumping you... and you open TaskRunner's "WebSearch" app so you can search for snippets of crappy poety to include in your letter. Well, if IE is your default browser, then the WebSearch may very well commandeer the browser that you were using to compose that masterpiece of an email and direct you away from the work that you've spent hours pouring your heart into, thus erasing all that effort (and waste of emotion ).

Why, you ask? Because Process.Start(URL) does NOT always open a new instance of IE... but fortunately, I figured out how.... so you don't have to go through all the pain and emotional anguish of losing that email.

Just a quick link for y'all. One of my favorite internet writers has finally chimed in on Macs. Why am I not surprised which side he came in on?

Maddox on Macs.

WATYF

Demotivators have been around for a while. I remember getting a good laugh out of them back when I first discovered the site. My favorites are the ones that best portray my own personal worldviews... such as Indifference... and Pessimism... and my personal favorite, Procrastination.

At some point since I've been there last (which was quite a while ago), they added this nifty new feature where you can make your own Demotivator. Well, now... that's the type of fun I can really get into... and after a buddy of mine sent me a feeble attempt to insult my superior computing skills, the floodgates opened... and these are the results.

A buddy of mine who uses a Mac made me my very own Demotivator... I thought you all might like to see it.

now... we all know that it should say, "When you are too smart to run a Mac"... but hey... it's the thought that counts.

And since I'm such a thoughtful guy... I figured I'd make him his very own demotivator too...