Oh my god. I think the single most important event in Mac’s recent history has just unfolded. In case you missed it, Valve has announced that Steam will officially be released for OS X in April. This is massive. This is ginormous. This is other-worldly huge.

Why? From the best of my knowledge, the only things that Windows has in favor of it over OS X is the fact that people mainly have used older versions of its software on Windows, and are used to the mechanics of it, and rely on the ability to use those same programs on newer versions of Windows. The second thing that Windows has over Mac is the games.

Windows has had Direct X on its side for a long time, but OpenGL is a VERY capable competitor to Direct3D, and has the advantage of being Operating System-neutral. In fact, most games have a very capable OpenGL mode. What this move for Steam does, though, is give all the Windows gamers a capable alternative to Windows with the same experience on Mac. Essentially, the slew of games that could only be run on Windows can now be run on OS X with little to no hassle. This is a MAJOR barrier that will be hurdled. Imagine all those gamers having to re-buy their games in order to play on the Mac as well as the PC. The way it was announced, no additional costs will be required for consumers to install their games on the Mac.

I can just envision it now:

Hi, I’m a Mac

And I’m a PC. Hey, Mac, whatcha doing over there?

Oh, hi PC. Actually I’m just playing the new Portal 2 game. It’s really great. The cake is a lie, I guess. I haven’t quite understood it yet, but this game rocks! Have you played it?

Yes, Mac, I just got it today. I was about to tell you the same thing. It’s really great, isn’t it? I actually have thousands of games I can play at a moment’s notice, most of which have received numerous Game of the Year awards. I bet you wish you could do that!

Actually, PC, I can. Most of the highest rated games you can play are here with me as well. It’s great. And if you already bought the game, you don’t need to pay another cent. It’s really quite great. In fact, I can even play this game with you, right now. Want to give it a shot?

No, Mac… I’m just going to go over another spreadsheet…

And, scene. Wow. I am still geeking out over this.

Of course not everyone will be a convert to OS X and Mac, it is still a pain to have to buy a special Apple package, but with the way things are going nowadays, Apple has just increased their potential customer base by millions. Macs could always run Windows side-by-side since Intel chips came along, but that required an additional purchase of Windows on top of the Mac.

With Office available on OS X, now Steam, and all the big programs like Adobe Creative Suite and iLife, and Final Edit Pro (not to mention Xcode), there is no better reason to make your next computer purchase a Mac. Games? Check. Productivity? Check. Video/Picture Editing? Check.

Add this on top of the most solid platform available, next to no viruses, and one of the simplest interfaces to ever come into existence, you would be insane not to buy a Mac.

So do it!!

I am Oz! The great and powerful! Ok, that may not be true, but I have accomplished some great things with my sister’s computer tonight. For starters, I added a new video card to her computer so she can finally use her new monitor with the correct resolution. The integrated graphics just weren’t cutting it.

But in spite of that, it was only a cosmetic fix, something far more devious was in her computer, and something I spent two months looking up on.

Essentially what was happening was every time she (or I) tried to open up her Internet Browser, or the Control Panel, or any program or feature for that matter, there would be a handful of “Bad Image” errors popping up. You could simply press “Ok”, make the window disappear, and everything proceeded to work fine, but c’mon, that’s annoying as hell, right?

So I am looking and looking and looking for answers as to why these particular DLL’s were causing “Bad Image” errors (for those wondering, “mazomoki.dll” was the worst offender). In the end I decided to turn to the usual solutions: Microsoft Security Essentials, and Spybot Search & Destroy. They ended up finding LOTS of errors, and I was thrilled with the ease of use, and results of these programs. But in the end, the problem I intended on solving never got solved! Every time I log on her computer, these messages pop up over, and over again. It was driving me nuts not being able to figure out how to fix it, so I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for Katie to have to deal with it day after day.

I ended up coming to the website maximumpc.com and they offered a lot of good suggestions about how I could clean “my” computer of lots of unwanted errors. Towards the end of the article they came to a couple of programs that promised “registry” cleaners. I decided I like Maximum PC and would trust their recommendations. So, I tried the first one on the list, SUPERAntiSpyware, and while it appeared to solve a few problems, it didn’t fix anything noticeable.

After that, I made the mistake of skipping to the next ones on the list that generally looked like something I wanted to do. I thought that the problems I was having had to do with registry errors so I skipped ahead to the section that described a couple of programs that dealt with registry errors. I first installed the program COMODO and ran that. After running that program, I got similar results. At this point I was pretty frustrated and was out of answers. Fortunately, I went to the beginning of the article again.

I ended up making the wise decision to download and install MalwareBytes and ran that as soon as it installed. As you can see on the screen shot in this blog post, there were quite a few errors that it picked up even after running the previously mentioned programs. As this was running I was very impressed with the results. Of course a lot of the programs had errors of their own so I was skeptical to say the least.

A funny thing happened, though: it actually worked! I managed to restart the computer many times and not a single time did these error messages show up again. Things went so well that I was even able to enter control panel and get another problem I had no intentions of fixing under control as well.

In the end, it seems I spent a lot of time trying to fix the problem this simple program was able to do in five minutes for me. I am sure my sister is more than appreciative of the effort I put forth, but I understand the true nature of the solution and am very grateful for the solution I have just described. In the future MalwareBytes will be the first program I try whenever I have computer issues in the future. I just figured you all should know!

So, iPad! YAY! I haven’t watched the press conference Apple threw today, so I have only been able to read what others have writen about the new iPad introduced to the world today. Here are a few of my thoughts on this “revolutionary” device:

Simply put: it’s a lot of overblown hype. I guess more specifically I mean that the hype it is getting too much hype. I’m not saying everyone who loves all the features and demos shown today are wrong, but the overall “buzz” for this is overblown. Essentially, in my mind, this is what the Kindle should be, and once again Apple has shown the way to the world about how exactly to lead the world in every electronics category you enter.

Operating Systems? Leads. Hardware? Leads (but I understand both of these go hand-in-hand). Smartphones? Leads. Portable music devices? Leads. And now? They will lead in the “medium sized application delivery system” category, that they just created. The only they don’t lead in is servers, and that’s just an opinion, I don’t have any numbers to back that up.

The Kindle now belongs to this category, as does Barnes and Noble’s new device. These devices are now painfully behind what Apple has introduced here today: a gorgeous color, multi-touch screen, with full iPhone/iPod touch application support, and the same, rock-solid portable OS that is found in the iPhone and iPod touch.

This all combines to be one awesome package, and is proof, yet again, that Apple is on top of their game.

Now that I’ve said that, here’s the problems I find with this:

This is essentially what the iPod touch SHOULD have been from the very beginning. All the other iPods are better portable music player values then the iPod touch. Sure, a case could be made that the iPod touch can and will kill the Nintendo DS, and the Sony PSP, but the issue with that for me is that now there will be little to no market for an iPod touch.

No one is going to want to make games for the iPod touch that is designed for the small screen, when the same effort could be made to expand the experience on a larger screen. Most games require an internet connection, anyway since they are anticipating being run on an iPhone anyway.

Now, though, the devlopers of apps have 2 clear targets: iPhones (and by association the iPads with 3G) and iPads. Games will be designed to run at the max resolution, and some productivity apps will be designed to run exclusively on iPads.

But logistics aside, who is going to use these? Travellers, for one, as they can now watch movies, listen to music and play games from their seat either on the train, or plane, or taxi cab. This experience will be AMAZING too. A gorgeous screen to watch movies and music videos and TV shows.

But how many people regularly fly anymore? Take the train? Not many. As I blogged about earlier, when I lived in the Bay Area, I rode the train often, and loved spending my time playing the PSP. But that’s a PSP, not this large, bright $500 “STEAL ME!” sign. Not that I expect the worst in people, but all it takes is one bad Apple (pardon the pun) to ruin the bunch, and this device seems a little too flamboyant to take out in public.

So that leaves long-distance travel. And again, who does that regularly? At MOST I fly a couple times a year. I don’t go on Amtrak, and I don’t take Greyhound. So for me (and millions of people like me) this iPad is a catchy and kind of cool device, that will never satisfy my needs at $500.

Perhaps if this were the price of a PS3, then I maybe could justify the cost of purchasing it, but as it currently stands, I would rather spend a couple hundred more dollars, and get a full-fledged laptop, and I know I’m not in the minority on this.

Yes, it has some cool features, and yes it looks sharp, great, and Apple continues to demonstrate itself to be a trand-setter, but I don’t see how this is “revolutionary” at all. It’s just a bigger iPod touch, and as such has a few new bells and whistles to go with it. That’s it.

There will be the obvious migration to your local Apple store to pick one up, and your obvious fanboys will pick one up, but I don’t see how this will benefit the average consumer in any meaningful way.

We’ll see!

Remember this post? I was geeking out about the fact that Firefox had so many extensions, and how I could customize it any way I wanted. Namely, I could stack my tabs anywhere I wanted, and I could have my bookmarks appear anywhere I wanted too.

Now? I’m geeking out again. This time it’s all about Google Chrome. The reasons for this are simple, but long. Here is a short list of why I love Chrome more then Firefox, and why you should switch:

1. 100/100 Acid 3 test. This means that every single thing should be rendered properly according to the specs as determined by the W3. Firefox isn’t there yet, and certainly not Internet Explorer. Safari is though, so that’s something.
2. By nature of its name, Google Chrome aims to use as little “chrome” as possible while still being functional. This means that things like the status bar and the tab bar either don’t exist, or are part of something else. The tabs now appear where traditionally the title bar appeared, and the status bar appears only when necessary, and simply hovers over the page.
3. Each tab is essentially in its own world. If that tab crashes, it simply closes. It doesn’t take the whole browser (and by extension, the rest of my tabs) with it. This is a major feature in my opinion, and I love it.
4. It’s fast. There are statistics everwhere, but trust me, it’s not slower then Firefox, it is faster.
5. It has extensions too!! My favorite extension is XMarks, and it allows me to sync bookmars across browsers (passwords too!), so wherever I am, my bookmarks will follow. Google Chrome even has this feature built-in, but it saves them on Google Docs, so they may or may not be easily transported to other browsers. Either way, most of the other extensions I have were to try to accomplish what Chrome inherently does, which is to minimize the amount of space the browser itself occupies, and maximize the area to view the web page.

If these 5 reasons don’t get you to switch to Chrome, I don’t know what will. 100/100 Acid 3 test alone is almost worth the switch, which guarantees properly coded web sites to render perfectly, and the extensions take it over the top. Some of the most popular Firefox extensions have found their way over to Chrome as well, so there really is little downside to switching.

Even if you want to give it a test-spin, go right ahead. Firefox won’t go anywhere. You can always switch back at any time.

Just please, please, PLEASE, don’t use Internet Explorer. Maybe by the time IE 10 comes out things will be safe, but at the moment, do yourself a favor and use Firefox or Chrome (or Safari, it works on Windows now too, not just Mac).

Peace.

Here’s why I hate Bill O’Reilly:

Here’s why I hate Fox News (if those Bill O’Reilly clips didn’t convince you), and why I love Ron Paul:

I’ll have more about why Ron Paul is so much better then Sarah Palin, but the internet is going berserk on me and I need to go to work, so maybe later. Anyway, enjoy what I’ve got for now

So, congrats to the new NFC Champion New Orleans Saints. They played their asses off, and deserve to be the NFC Champions. The Vikings piled up tons and tons of yards against them, and they managed to stay a step ahead.

But the Vikings lost this game just as much as the Saints won it. 5 turnovers, 2 of which were inside the Saints 10 yard line, did them in. The three other turnovers, and the other fumbles that happened to be recovered before they became a turnover, proved to be their undoing. As happy as I am that the Saints won tonight, I am more then concerned with how they played. The Vikings looked like the better team that just couldn’t hold onto the ball.

Because if this, I’m afraid that the Colts deserve to be HEAVY favorites against the Saints. I firmly believe the Vikings were the better team, that just so happened to play a slightly worse game. Most of the problems the Vikings had was their mistakes. They had no problems moving the ball, and no problems getting touchdowns, they just had a hard time keeping the ball. These mistakes are easily corrected, and most likely would have been in two weeks, but we’ll never get the chance to find out.

I always wanted whoever won this game to win the Super Bowl, but I am beyond disappointed in the performance of the Saints. I am having a hard time finding a way their defense can stop the Colts. I’m also having a hard time finding how their offense can score 31 points against the Colts either. Indianapolis shut DOWN the Jets in the 2nd half today, and while the Saints are tremendously better then Jets, I feel that the Vikings are better still.

They just dropped the ball.

I know I have posted a few Ron Paul videos before, but these things need to be addressed. I suppose I can start finding all the Ron Paul videos I can and keep posting them one at a time until he is elected President.

Our country has lost its way and is unwilling to realize it. 9/11 was our wake-up call and we are sleeping through the alarm. Ron Paul is a beacon of truth and as a nation we need to follow him. Our Constitution is under attack, and is defended by disinterested Americans. We have had two “greatest generations” and yet we seem to be a shell of what we used to be.

Vote for Ron Paul in 2012.

Wow. What an incredible game.

For 2-plus periods I was embarrassed to be a Bruins fan. I was watching the Flyers get all the chances, and miss. I saw Tim Thomas act like an idiot and cross-check a guy while the puck flew between his legs.

But then in the 3rd I saw the Bruins return to form. I watched them skate harder, get better scoring chances, and finally tie the game on a remarkable tip-in by Mark Recchi. All-in-all it was a magical game, and a magical event. I would have loved to have been there, but watching this game on TV was magnificent. I will find it hard to top this event in future years. The Bruins, the Red Sox, and the city of Boston have lots to be proud of. Off the charts.

Well, see ya later #1 seed. Perhaps see ya later #2 seed. But this game may be the most important, and most beneficial loss they could have had.

So, yeah, it would have been best if they won. It would have been better to help determine home-field advantage. It could play a big factor into who goes to the Super Bowl.

But here’s the thing: It doesn’t really matter. Sure it’d be nice to gain home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Sure it’d be nice to stop Indianapolis from winning ANOTHER game. But the Patriots still have a chance to get the #2 seed, and will most likely still win the division. Indianapolis has a good chance of winning the rest of their games. They really could. And if they lose a single game throughout the rest of the season, then that would be a missed opportunity at the #1 seed.

But what matters is that the Patriots went into Indianapolis, and thoroughly outplayed them. They had the game won in many different ways. The fumble by Maroney at the 1 yard line. The 4th and 2 that was converted, but the ref decided that he wanted to show off his ball-spotting skills by dramatically moving the ball back an entire yard too far back. The third and 2 that should have been run instead of passed.

The Patriots should have won. But, they didn’t.

The reason this is fine, though, is that the Patriots have now tasted a come-from-behind defeat. They know what it’s like to have the game in hand, and let it slip away. They have experienced what playing 60 minutes really means. This will be immensely important when the Patriots play the Colts in the AFC Title game (and yes, they will play in the title game against them). The Patriots have let two games get away in 3 years, and will not let that happen again.

Mike Singletary I think sums it up the best for me:

Bob Sanders isn’t coming back for the Colts. Sammy Morris is coming back for the Patriots. Fred Taylor is, too. Julian Edelman is going to be that much more acclimated to the NFL. So too will the rest of the young guys.

When the Patriots come back to Indy in January, they will be this much more prepared to do what it takes to win the game. They will be this much closer to Super Bowl XLIV. They will be this much better.

Oh and by the way, I’m tired of hearing the argument that Bill Belichick was showing a lack of confidence that his defense could stop Indianapolis. He lead his team all game in stopping the Colts pretty effectively. If anything he showed more respect for his own defense, as he was basically saying, “if we don’t get this first down, we can still stop them ourselves.” I know it’s hard to make an argument that punting is disrespectful to his own defense, but if going for it on 4th down is disrespectful to his defense, then punting it on 4th down is equally disrespectful to his offense. What coach doesn’t believe his team can make those 2 yards?

Besides, the true test to see if Bill Belichick trusted his defense would have been his decision to go for it on 4th down with 4:12 on the clock. If they were to make THAT first down then the game would have been over too. There would have been an excellent chance the Patriots score a touchdown, and at the very least a good amount of time would have run off the clock. It still was a 2 possession game with or without the field goal, so if he truly doubted his defense he would have kept his offense on the field on all of the 4th downs, not just the final 4th down.

Either way, it’ll be fun in January. Go Pats!!

So it looks like he’s back, huh? 5 TD’s in the 2nd quarter is just insane. Of course the Pats defense had a LOT to do with that, so it’s more of a team accomplishment. But still. It seems like he’s finally back.

All this year he has seemed to make fewer and fewer poor decisions. For the most part he has seemingly just been that tiny bit, “off.” After watching this performance, though, I wonder who can stop us, other then ourselves.

Going forward, it’ll be all about the defense. We’ll go as far as the defense takes us. Anyway, until next week…