Marketing and Music
So that song that Geico uses for their car commercials is kind of addictive….
What I just found out is they released the full version song free…
http://www.geico.com/about/commercials/music/
Mysto & Pizzi, in collaboration with Agent Jackson music, have partnered with GEICO on our latest commercial campaign. The music in six new Kash spots is Mysto & Pizzi’s remake of Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me,” featuring singer Renald Francoeur. This 1980′s remake is fresh for 2009 and available in full length downloadable format, free, from GEICO.
http://www.geico.com/public/audio/somebodyswatchingme.mp3
I love it when companies do this!
Another good webpage is Audi’s.
http://www.truthinengineering.com/
I got a link to the music on that page, it is just some good chill background music, kind of makes you feel powerful.
If you click on “Truth in Progress” on that webpage, that song is also distributed by Audi. If you look at the youtube comments, lots of people loved that song.
http://microsites.audiusa.com/my09/model_home/downloads/us_en/NotesonProgress.zip
In addition Microsoft has great little pieces of light music. The ones in my skydrive are a few I collected, I believe the website they came from is defunct.
Being Sick Sucks II
I rarely get sick, but I got it good this time. I’m pretty sure I have the flu, the body aches are quite powerful and surprising. At least I am starting to feel better.
Exams Suck as Well
I just had a physics exam, now I have Chemical Engineering and Organic Chemistry to worry about. I’ve been practicing my H NMR stuff, I can’t seem to get it quite right still.
Someday I will conquer the world that is Organic Chemistry, and I shall win!
Email Clients Suck Too
Continuing with the suck is email clients. I like outlook, mainly because of the task list.
The problem is I experience IMAP errors with Outlook.
"Your IMAP server has closed the connection. This can occur if you
leave the connection idle for too long".
I like the look and simplicity of Windows Live Mail as well, but it does not have the all important task list, and when waking my laptop from sleep, it has this crazy “purging email” dialogue that stays around for a while, during which time the app is too slow to work with.
Zimbra Desktop From Yahoo might work out, I dunno yet. The only problem with Zimbra is I can’t use Live Calendar, and it is kind of ugly.
What do people use with IMAP? Thunderbird I hear, but I do not know if I want a client with that kind of functionality. I have filed so many bugs for Windows Live Mail and feedback to help improve IMAP support, and while it has gotten really fast, that purging issue is too annoying.
Windows 7 odds and ends.
I highly suggest everyone go through these articles, they wrote them so I do not have to 
.
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/windows-7-beta.ars/1
Windows + P looks useful , as does Windows + arrow keys.
Windows 7 Released to the Public
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx
Windows 7 was up for download at TechNet, but naturally it was hammered to death.
In any case, I am quite excited for the release of 7. The new taskbar will take some getting used to for many people, but I think many will find that it is a nice added improvement.
The speed is wonderful. Apparently 7 will turn off services when they are not being used, and dynamically start them up.
Here is what really got me though.
Little things like that make me happy.
Midi vs Live
I am a big fan of video game music, some of the best being from games like Command and Conquer composed by Frank Klepacki and Total Annihilation composed by Jeremy Soule.
Another guy, by the name of Chance Thomas also composes great music, and made a great demonstration of MIDI vs Live music.
I thought that was a neat demonstration. The MIDI instruments sounded great, but it is nothing compared to the real thing.
Random New Stuff
Since the last time I posted, Microsoft has released an updated Live Suite. The programs are quite polished and very stable. It seems that I’m always living in the Beta/Release Canidate State. It will not be too long before This “Wave 3” seems old and out dated compared to what the future holds.
http://download.live.com is where you can get the goods.
Scythe Fans
One of my case fans died, I would not have noticed if my Western Digital Raptor did not die. I replaced it with a fan that should last next to forever. http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/acc/002/sflex_detail.html Scythe uses some Sony Fluid Dynamic Bearing Technology, as a result the fan will last forever and is quite quiet while pushing a lot of air.
Velociraptor
It is well known that the hard drive is the slowest part of your PC, so I figure why not buy the fastest hard drive. Currently Western Digital Stands alone (Ignoring SSDs, which would be fun to play with, but are quite expensive) with their 10,000 RPM Enterprise Grade SATA hard drives. Their latest line dubbed “Velociraptor”.
I tell you, there is a night a day difference between using a standard 7200RPM hard drive and a 10,000 hard drive for your OS. Things just seem snappier. An early Christmas present replaced my dead Western Digital Raptor with a Velociraptor. Sadly, my original raptor had a short life, barely over a year, kind of lame. I think another hard drive manufacture needs to step in and provide some competition here.
Bottom line, if you are looking for an great upgrade for speed, the 10,000 RPM hard drives are not a gimmick, they really make a difference.
Fear 2
I love F.E.A.R. , it is probably one of the best games I’ve ever played. The single player was fun, the AI was great, and the slo mo was done quite well. Plus the game was pretty scary, kept you on edge. Sierra also decided to make a free multi player version of F.E.A.R. available, F.E.A.R. Combat. That was quite fun as well. Now adays the game is kind of old and neglected.
Wonderfully, F.E.A.R. 2 will be here soon. Looks like the Multiplayer is getting more attention this time. I loved the Multiplayer before, because of the gun feel and beauty of the game, but now this only adds to the greatness.
The Armor looks interesting. The gameplay should be best as just a normal first person super soldier though.
FlashDetection.handleEmbedCode(“71f91279-60af-4b73-b8dd-cd4e06fae204″, ‘\x3cembed src\x3d\x22http\x3a\x2f\x2fwww.youtube.com\x2fv\x2f4eVcQ2PWR8o\x26amp\x3bhl\x3den\x26amp\x3bfs\x3d1\x26amp\x3bap\x3d\x252526fmt\x253D22\x22 type\x3d\x22application\x2fx-shockwave-flash\x22 width\x3d595 height\x3d350 pluginspage\x3d\x22http\x3a\x2f\x2fwww.macromedia.com\x2fgo\x2fgetflashplayer\x22 allowscriptaccess\x3dnever allownetworking\x3dinternal\x3e’);
Can’t wait. The game is released February 10th.
I am of course getting it for the PC, as should you!
Windows 7
As you may have heard, Windows 7 Beta invites were sent out. I think this is an exciting time for Windows, things only can and will get better.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/
(Image from WinSuperSite)
7’s libraries and New Taskbar are great usability enhancements, also something that I bet will create a lot of resistance.
I never thought Vista was slow, but from what I hear, 7 will blow it away in terms of speed.
Tooth Fragment Extraction
Well, I am glad that I have no tooth extraction issues. I had a fragment left over from my wisdom tooth extraction a few years ago, I finally had it taken out. It is quite painless, though I cannot chew on that area. I will spare you any pictures of such procedures.
Foxit eSlick
Foxit, out of all companies, released a new e-book reader, the eSlick.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/
This e-book device, eSlick, is priced at $229.99 for direct purchase ($259.99 retail), quite competitive compared to Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader at $359 or Sony’s PRS-700BC e-book reader at $399.
Screen: 6" E Ink® Vizplex screen 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 166 dpi, 4-level gray scale
Size: 7.4" x 4.7" x 0.4" (188×118×9.2mm)
Weight: 6.4 ounces (180g) battery included
Color: Black/Gray/White
Connectivity: USB2.0
Operating System: Embedded Linux
Supported Formats:
- eBook Formats: PDF, TXT, Any printable document(after converted to PDF using included software)
- Sound Formats: MP3
Internal Memory: 128MB
Storage Memory: SD Card (2GB included. Supports up to 4GB)
Expandability: SD card slot
Controls:
Buttons "ON/OFF", "Up ", "Down", "Right ", "Left", "Enter ", "Delete", "Menu", "Music".
Plugs: Euro 2Pin, UK 3Pin, US 2Pin
Battery:
Rechargeable Lithium-Battery
Processor:
Samsung® S3C2440 ARM 400MHz
I wonder if this can replace my heavy book bag of books. I just do not know how it would work out, but it would certainly be welcome.
Call Of Duty Godliness
So Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War seem to work well with me…
This is mainly a post to test out Skydrive’s new Slideshow Pictures feature. Works quite well.
http://cid-0b55a365b7176d9f.skydrive.live.com/play.aspx/Game%20Screenshots/Call%20of%20Duty?ref=1
Transitioning
I am currently switching from my old “Live Passport” Account to my new one. I am trying to keep this blog cleaner and more simplified.
My Old Blog is located at http://trix-rox.spaces.live.com/
I need a good unused url name…. http://<Something>.spaces.live.com
Any ideas?
Windows Live Spaces was updated, along with a lot of other neat things. I plan to actively use the following.
Check them out…
Being Sick Sucks
I got some random viral infection, either the Flu or Viral Bronchitis, either of which last 2 to 3 weeks, and in some cases months 
.
Anyways it causes heartburn, but I can’t take my bismuth infested friend Pepto Bismol, it has a Reyes Syndrome warning with all viruses.
I want to post some more videos of this new PC from Max/Microsoft, a few benches and stuff on power consumption. The power consumption I’d have to say is top notch with a 45nm processor and a 55nm videocard.
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