I remember it fondly... the days of my youth... (ok, so I can't really remember my youth at all, but that's beside the point)... The good ol' days of playing with computers... teaching the other kids in my class how to use the Commodore 64's... writing dumb little programs in BASIC that never worked... Running pointless commands on the Apple IIe's... and then came the Windows GUI. I was in love. As if by natural instinct, I could find everything. It all made sense to me. When I opened an application, I could learn pretty much anything that the application was capable of, just by looking though its menu system... the old familiar menu bar... File.... Edit.... View... Tools... Help.... ah... good friends...... its too bad that Microsoft has decided to plunge a rusty knife straight into their hearts and send them, screaming, to their demise.

You see... I've been noticing a disturbing trend lately. Every time I try the Beta (or latest) version of Microsoft software, I find that they've decided to completely change how navigation works in a Windows application. And, I guess, in some way, that might be cool... IF they were smart enough to make the same changes across all of their apps AND if the new way was actually better than the old way... but we're not so lucky. Open up the new Windows Live Messenger... where's the menu? Well... it's hidden... you can choose to display the menu, if you can find the option that does so.  Open the latest Windows Media Player... similar deal... nothing is where it used to be and finding anything more advanced than "play" and "stop" is a chore. But if you search long enough, you'll find the old menu. This is the disturbing trend showing up in much of Microsoft's newest releases. They take the navigation system that you're used to, and that works, and that has worked for countless years, and they hide it from you... only offering it up if you're smart enough to find it.

But then comes Office 2007...

Well... it's that time again... I've gone back to messing around with TaskRunner. I'm updating (and adding to) the list of things that I plan to cram into its feature-set, and doing some preliminary code tests. That's not to say that a new version will be out "soon"... but at least I'm finally back to doing some coding.

And as a result, I can take a break from the monotony of bashing Mac users, and actually post something useful.

One day into working on TaskRunner again, and I already have run into the typical scenario: I think of something simple that I want to do, and go out in search of a straightforward solution, only to find that no one seems to want to do it the easy way. All those C# nerds out there are too good for a three-lines-of-code solution.  They've gotta go making up a bunch of classes and methods and properties and crap just to do what can be done in a few short lines. Well I'm a VB.NET hack, thank you very much... I don't wanna have to add classes and functions... just tell me how to do it in two lines or less.

So without further ado, I present... how to read an XML document, when you're behind a proxy (in 5 lines or less )...

I just thought I'd take a quick minute out of my busy day to pass along a very funny conversation I was witness to just recently. You see... I take pride in my Mac-bashing... I'd like to think... in some small way... that I'm actually good at it.... but alas... there are those who are much, much better than I am at pointing out the absurdities of Mac zealots... and here's a perfect example.

 (But first... a little backstory...)

The program I use to record audio is called Pro Tools. It was originally written for a Mac, so many of the "pro" studios who use PT run it on Macs. The fact that Macs are the "standard" platform for PT only feeds the "elitist" attitudes of Mac users who get into pro audio... ok... so now that you have the background... here's the funny part...

In my continuing quest for things I can use to make fun of Macs and Mac users as much as possible, I stumbled across a little article today about some very interesting vulnerabilities in the latest Macs.

It appears that a couple of hackers have found a way to completely take over a Macbook in mere seconds, using nothing but it's wireless connection. That's right... completely take over the machine. Not just plant some trojan on it... or run some spyware in the background... but gain complete control over your machine, as if they are sitting at the keyboard themselves (doing things like deleting all of your important files and saying mean things to your friends using your iChat).  Apparently, one of their motivations for presenting a demo of a Mac being hacked was what they called the "Mac user base aura of smugness on security". Which, as you all know... I would staunchly disagree with... I mean really... Mac users...? Smug...? That's just ridiculous!

Anyway... I would say that this is a pretty good find.... but that would be the understatement of the year... so I won't. Instead, I'll just tell you more about the hack (and how you can witness it yourself), while throwing in a couple stabs at Mac users, just for kicks.

I was reading a blog the other day and the author was asking people to post their most interesting personal story. After a brief scan of what little memories I have of my life, I came to the conclusion that I was a very boring person, seeing how I couldn't think of one good story about something I'd experienced. But a day or so later, I was reminded that I did have a somewhat notable event happen to me, so I typed it all out and posted it on the site. I figured I might as well put it on my own website as well, seeing how it's the only semi-interesting personal experience that I'll ever have to offer.

When I was in my late teens, I worked at a used auto part yard on the far south side of Chicago... there were a number of VERY interesting characters who worked there, one of which was "Ned". At least... I'll call him Ned to protect his identity. He was pretty new at the yard and, I swear, he was the spitting image (in personality more than looks) of Ned Flanders. He was always chipper and dorky and "okeley-dokely" and what not, and he didn't quite seem to be "all there". Anyway, Ned was going to unknowingly have a large impact on my life... which I'll get to later.

A while ago, I posted a link to touchscreen UI that was being developed that looked like it had good potential. Well, here's another twist on touchscreen UIs. Instead of a back-lit touchscreen, this one uses touch sensitive projections (on a tabletop device) and voice commands. It doesn't look quite as cool (visually) as the last one, but functionally, it does a good bit more. They're integrated the UI into a few different kinds of software (Google Earth, Warcraft3, etc) and shown how it can be used in a fairly practical manner. Pretty cool stuff.

WATYF

So... everybody and their mother knows that Apple said that they wouldn't do anything to hinder or support the installation of Windows XP on their new Intel Macs (commonly referred to as Mactels). And everybody and their dog knows that some guy won 13 thousand dollars by figuring out how to boot Windows XP on a Mac.... and now everybody and their pet fish knows that Apple went back on their original promise (of not doing anything to support Windows installs) by offering BootCamp, which allows any dumb shmoe a chance to boot Windows XP on his shiny new Mactel.

But my question is... where is all this mad Mac/Windows love coming from...???

You know... it seems like just last week that Mac users were sitting... all smug and metrosexual... in their coffee shops... wearing their ridiculously over-priced Diesel jeans... sipping their lattes... and feeling all secure in the "fact" that their computers were "safer" than the "inferior" Windows PCs of the "lesser" humans.

Oh wait.... that was just last week. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

And then... a little thing I like to call "reality" set it... and the ginormous myth that Mac's are "impervious" to viruses was dashed against the brutal rocks of inevitability.  For in one week's time we have seen not one..... not two.... but THREE viruses/security flaws appear on the radar screen.

And the best part about it is.... they just keep gettin' better.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to point and laugh at Apple over its latest troubles.

As if all of Apple's previous problems weren't enough.... here they go again.... puttin' a happy smile on my skinny little face.

Apparently, someone has filed suit against Apple claiming that they're.... wait for it....

*snicker*

.....a monopoly!!!!

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

So I guess that cornering a whopping 3% of the global computing market has put them in dangerous territory with the DOJ.

How many nerds, like myself, watched Minority Report and remember that scene where Tom Cruise was working with the "future telling" machine thingy and he was dragging visuals around in mid-air and using that wicked cool user-interface to check out all the crimes that hadn't happened yet? How many of you also remember thinking how cool of a UI that was, but that it wasn't very realistic and probably wouldn't be a "real-world" technology any time soon (if ever)?

Anyone? Come on... of all the countless thousands of people who real this blog every day (whuh?!) there has to be someone else who thought that. I dunno... it just came across to me as being a bit too "Jetsons"... a nice piece of eye-candy, but just not a technology that I could see being developed for widespread use.

Well,... I'm happy to say that my initial gut feeling was wrong...