You know, I never did like iTunes. I'm a WinAmp doggy myself, but my iPod forces me to incorporate all my music into iTunes. (Yes, I know there are add-ons for other programs so that they can sync iPods, but I had so much trouble with add-ons at the beginning that I'm just too scared to try it.)

At least I can now say that iTunes is proof that Apple has Windows on the back-burner, and that Apple users need to shut up about how Microsoft has THEM on the back-burner. How long has Vista been out for corporations? 2 months before public release? Something like that... Has Apple taken the time to make sure iTunes works in Vista? Maybe, maybe not. Does iTunes work in Vista? Nope. Sure, it'll work for about 10 minutes before it'll just randomly generate a mass of GUI errors and then freeze up solid.

I haven't run into any other problems like this... Just in iTunes. Oh, and did I neglect to mention the fact that if you try to sync your iPod with iTunes, it doesn't work? At all? Permission errors. My iPod's been having trouble with lost clusters and minor file errors, so I think I'm going to reinitialize the entire thing. Hopefully that'll fix all these dumb iPod vs Vista errors. Ugh.

Okay, to everyone using my primary GMail address, here's a little word of advice... You don't own "germanshepherd". I do. Not you, not TW, me. It's mine, I use it and it belongs to me. So whoever's trying to use my address to sign up for Everquest, YouTube and anything else, and whoever's trying to actually get GMail to let them send messages from "germanshepherd"... Just remember that YOU don't own it, I do.

I simply cannot count how many times people have tried to sign up using my address! It's insane! Nobody else I know seems to have a problem with this... I'm all the time ignoring emails asking me to confirm account creations for things I haven't even heard of, much less signed up for! I mean, how hard is it to realize that you don't have access to this email account?!

I'm not getting rid of it! I got this address when GMail was still closed beta when each account had only 5 invitations. Stop USING IT!

(Actually, I really don't care... I find it highly amusing. I'm not some moron who's going to go "oh wow, someone signed me up for this!" and go randomly clicking links in emails I didn't ask for... You can't phish anything out of me that way, but it's fun when people try.)

Just... be careful what you say or it might backfire.

GermanShepherd: well, the listener seems to call sheetChanged every time something.................changes
GermanShepherd: unless you mean listeners in general
The World: I dunno, you seem to get it. you get an A+. go.......dance in traffic now
GermanShepherd: yay!
GermanShepherd: *macarinas naked in the interstate*
The World: ..........................
The World: OMG *sniper shoot*
GermanShepherd: BOOM headshot
The World: if I had a blog......... that'd go in it
GermanShepherd: aw, how sweeeeet
GermanShepherd: if I had a blog, that'd go in it, too...
GermanShepherd: oh wait................. I DO

I am writing to you from my new Windows Vista installation! (You can click the banner to see my uber awesome desktop in 3D window switching mode.)

So far, it seems to be working out very well... With the exception of a few third-party screw ups, namely Creative and their 3 month old Beta drivers for my soundcard, and nVidia and THEIR 3 month old Beta drivers for my videocard. Apparently, my Dell videocard isn't recognized by nVidia's regular drivers, and I don't think Dell releases like... nVidia's ACTUAL Beta drivers, which are only a few days old... I still need to do some reasearch.

My PC Card Audigy soundcard doesn't have any of the advanced features working properly, due to the new driver and DirectX environment in Vista, but Creative is notorious for making crappy drivers, so that's not at all Microsoft's fault. The drivers they have up right now are working well enough... The built-in soundcard on my laptop hisses and crackles like mad, so even a dumbed down Audigy is better than THAT.

The only Vista-related problem I've encountered is a problem with copying files over the network via Vista... That is, when I use Vista to try to copy files over the network, it'll freeze and lock up. If I share a folder on Vista and use XP to move files around, it works just fine, so it's not totally busted... It seems Microsoft already knows about the problem, but the hotfix is still new and not yet released, so you actually have to call them to get the fix. I wouldn't say I'm "severely affected" by it, so I'm just going to wait. I don't really have a bunch of files to actually copy/move over the network, either, and streaming videos seems to work as normal, so that's all good.

Other than that little snag, everything seems to work properly! Firefox, Internet Explorer, instant messengers, iTunes, Last.fm, xFire, Hamachi (after some extreme tweaking with TW)... VLC didn't work at first, but after some messing around with the output modes, I got DirectX to process everything properly. It looks different, though... There's no smoothing going on when you run it full-screen, so you can see the pixels. I'm not sure if I like that or not. I'm not used to it in movies, that's for sure, but I definitely prefer it in videogames, so maybe I just have to learn to like it.

I may install XP Pro as an emergency backup for games that don't work. As far as school and work goes, Vista is going to be juuuust fine. Heck, TW and I have been playing Starcraft lately and Vista runs that perfectly! (In connection with Hamachi, which gave us a ton of trouble for about an hour before we perused the forums and applied some tricks.) I haven't tried any advanced games like Half-Life or World of Warcraft or Oblivion... I'm not really in the mood for games like that right now, though, so there's no pressure.

So after 3 months, Nintendo has sold over 5 million Wiis [vgcharts.com] and they still can't keep the thing in stock... It literally flies off the shelves and sometimes it flies off before it even GETS on the shelves. So much for the gimmicky console, eh, Sony?

Unfortunately, people are starting to get upset that they can't find a Wii and are starting to blame Nintendo for not keeping them in stock... Because we all know Nintendo has a habit of holding back shipments to drive up demand... Right? Oh wait. That's Sony. Sorry, my bad.

People whine about how they don't have the time to camp out or glue themselves to the internet to see where some appear. Well, let's put it this way... If you do have the time to do that, you'll get one. If you don't have the time to do that, then you'll have to wait. The Wiis are there, they just sell incredibly fast. Nintendo has to make and ship these all over the planet, remember. They didn't decide to abandon entire regions of the world just to let a certain target get all they want. Blaming Nintendo for the shortages is really stupid and short-sighted of you. I don't think even Nintendo realized how popular they were going to become with this thing, and after pushing for the PS3 all these months, everyone's wanting a Wii and they're angry at Nintendo because they jumped on the bandwagon later than the Nintendo fans who were waiting in line on release day.

It's almost funny. Almost.

Or, spelled out in its entirety? Stupid Daylight Savings Time.

Mark your calendars, folks, for the United States government has decided to change DST from the first Sunday in April to the second Monday in March! Why? Nobody knows for sure. There's some talk about how it helps save energy, to which I let out a great laugh. Come on, seriously? To save energy? How do you figure that?

In March, for my area, sun set is at 6:39. That's fine and dandy. Now let's say you get off work at 6:39 and you come home and turn on the lights because you can't see. Well, you're using electricity, right? Using power. Well, see, if we come along and change your clock and set it forward an hour, suddenly, you get off work at 6:39 and sun set is now at 7:39 and you have an extra hour at home before you have to turn on the lights! That's good, right?

Okay, now let's take a look at the OTHER side. Sun rise in March for my area is at 7:14! Let's say you have to wake up at 7:14 to get ready for work. You don't have to turn on any lights to see because the sun is already up, right? Well, see, here's where we run into a little snag. To "save energy", we set the clocks forward an hour so you turn the lights on an hour later when you come home from work! So what does that do? It makes the sun rise at 8:14 instead of 7:14. Are you still following me? So now when you wake up at 7:14 to get ready for work, the sun doesn't rise for another hour and you have to turn on the lights now.

What this essentially does is transfer "lights on time" to the morning instead of at night! Are you saving power? No! You just have to turn the lights on in the morning instead of in the evening! Are you using the same amount of power? Think about this very carefully, because not even our federal government can figure this out.

The answer is: Yes. Even with Daylight Savings Time, you're using the same amount of power as if you weren't using it. Only this time, you have a heck of a lot of confusion going on because not everyone remembers DST comes on! It changes nothing else.

Stupid? Yes. Pointless? Yes. Confusing as all get out? Definitely.

So let's make it even longer than it was before! Thank you, America!

I saw this last night and wasn't sure what to make of it, but after a night's sleep, I re-read all the related articles and came to the conclusion that Digg is being Digg and blowing everything out of proportions due to biased, sensationalist reporting.

So in this incredibly one-sided and biased article [threadwatch.org], GoDaddy.com is being implicated with stealing someone's domain and making money off of it for themselves. It, of course, reached Digg and the masses jumped on the anti-GoDaddy bandwagon without actually thinking through the processes of owning a domain name. Seriously, you'd think that all these self-proclaimed geeks would know how something like this could happen, and GoDaddy themselves say happened, so it makes sense when you're not going "OMG OMG GODADDY STOLE NO MORE BUY FROM THEM LOL".

In a slightly less biased article [domainnamewire.com], they actually cover how something like this could happen. See, when you register a domain name, you have to provide 100% accurate contact information. If any bit of it is inaccurate, on purpose or on accident, you need to correct it immediately because it's technically illegal to do. Not only is it illegal to do, but it's just common sense because this is the only thing GoDaddy has to contact you with!

GoDaddy responded to domainnamewire's questions and some more things become clear. Apparently, the email address used to register the domain name was wrong, and GoDaddy used that to try to contact the registrar. Whether or not they knew it was inaccurate at the time is left to speculation. The biased article says they knew before, and the others say they knew, but not when. After eight weeks of no contact from the domain name owner, they cancelled the registration and turn it into a parked name... Technically, GoDaddy owns it, although it appears that someone had backordered the domain name before this all happened. So the general consensus is that someone tried emailing the domain name owner, got no response, backordered the name, and then told GoDaddy about invalid contact information. GoDaddy gets no response, GoDaddy cancels domain name (because it IS illegal to have outdated and inaccurate contact information on a domain name), and parks it. Whether or not they actually gave it to the other person was never really clarified.

Should GoDaddy have tried to communicate by something other than email? Maybe they should have at least tried to call. But then again, it's the responsibility of the domain owner to keep their contact information updated and it's clearly in all the license agreements to do that. GoDaddy may have been a little hasty, but one thing stands perfectly clear to those who are smart enough to get around all the sensationalist reporting:

Always, always, ALWAYS keep your domain name contact information updated and always, always, ALWAYS regularly check the email you registered it with. Seriously, it's a domain name! I don't understand how someone could neglect something as important as that. I wouldn't say GoDaddy is trying to cheat anyone out of anything. It might have been prudent to contact the owner another way, but it's just as much the fault of a lazy owner than it is GoDaddy's.