Romey’s Ramblings

I love the Windows Live Suite of software, especially when it comes to using Live Writer for blogging, and Live Photo Gallery for managing my photos.  I was using the first technical preview of Live Writer, so when it was announced that the Windows Live team released the “Wave 3″ beta, I jumped on it and upgraded all of my machines.  However, I’m not regretting upgrading my home desktop and am especially unhappy with how the installation packages of these suites work.

On my home machine I easily have 20,000 pictures and the previous version has been great at managing it.  Though after upgrading, the beta of Live Photo Gallery started to freak out on me and kept shutting down on Vista.  When I tried to remove the Gallery beta the installer kept failing, and I was forced to uninstall the entire suite.  I figured that Photo Gallery may not be ready for large photo collections and I can simply install the previous version and still use the betas of Live Writer and MovieMaker.  Unfortunately I’ve come to find out that you can’t upgrade or downgrade individual applications - it’s all or nothing. Furthermore, you can’t run both the previous and beta versions at the same time.  This has prevented in me using the Live Writer beta (which as been fantastic) on my home computer.

I realize this is a personal gripe, and of course this is part of using beta software and sure enough will be fixed soon.  I just wanted to throw my issue out there to see if anyone else trying out Live Wave was experiencing this issue?  Has anyone else had trouble with Live Photo Gallery, especially if you have a large photo collection?

Stephen Chapman of the UX Evangelist blog managed to get screen shots of the next version of Windows: Windows 7.  In the screen shot, it shows the new version of Windows Paint, using the “Ribbon” interface.

Ok, the fact that they’re rolling out the Ribbon interface across the OS applications is pretty significant.  However, what’s more significant to me is that they’re STILL spending time on paint?!? How many free imaging applications are out there for Windows?  Do people even use Paint anymore?  Maybe they could just bit the bullet and roll a great free tool like Paint.net, or better yet bring people to a web site that has a listing of free alternatives that they could install and use instead of Paint.  It just seems to me that there are lots of other things Windows could improve in Windows 7 than MS Paint?!?

Although I’ve posted since I’ve returned, I wanted to share pictures from a weekend trip to Roswell, NM.  My family and I went down there for my cousin Andrea’s wedding.  While the trip there and back were long ones, it was great to go down there.  I hadn’t been to southern New Mexico since 2003.  Before then, we made trips down to my grandparents home every summer.  While we didn’t go all the way down to Carlsbad (where my grandparents lived before they passed away), Roswell still brought back some memories.

My cousin’s wedding was great as well, congrats to both Andrea and Paul!  I took a ton of pictures while down there and have posted them to Flickr.

Two days after the Broncos huge win over the Chargers, and still everyone is talking about the “Refgate” show heard around the world.  In case you don’t follow the NFL/Broncos, head ref Ed Hochuli (who should be called “Ed Hurcules”) blew a call on the last drive. Peter King describes it best in his column:

Methodically, Cutler drove Denver downfield. On second-and-one from the Charger 17 with 77 seconds left, Cutler rolled right and the ball popped out of his right hand as he raised it to throw. He definitely was not in the throwing motion. The ball landed on the ground near the Chargers’ 10, and San Diego recovered. But wait. Hochuli had blown his whistle. The play was dead. When a quarterback loses the ball on a play like this, any whistle means the play is over, unlike if it happens to a running back or receiver; those balls can be recovered. Not this one. Denver retained possession. Two plays later, Cutler threw to second-round rookie Eddie Royal for a four-yard touchdown. Immediately, Shanahan held up two fingers.

I respect Peter King and his statement when he says in the same column “The Chargers were robbed”.  The refs did blow the call.  At the same time, the Refs weren’t the ones couldn’t stop Cutler from throwing the touchdown pass two plays later, and the Refs weren’t the ones that gave Eddie Royal the two point conversion as well.

Either way, I’ll take 2-0 and the Broncos Offense machine running on all cylinders.  The defense. well I hope they can step it up with the Saints come to town this weekend.  The Chargers have great weapons, and they were able to hold those weapons down in the first half.  However, blowing it in the second half has become all-too common for the Broncos defense.  Something tells me that this next Sunday will be another shoot-out.

As you may know I’m still on the process of trying to finish my school.  With my increasingly heavy workload at my job, I’ve been working through school at a snail’s pace, which has resulted in me taking a lot of classes that have nothing to do with my education and are generally a waste of time. Enter my latest class: Social Problems.

I signed up for this class because I apparently need an Arts/Humanities credit and figured this would have been an easy course.  Little did I know that this class is just another example of political indoctrination in higher ed, and this class should essentially be renamed “Social Problems caused by Evil Conservatives".

I try to stray away from politics in my blog, but as far as my political leanings, I classify myself as a South Park Conservative: I’m a fiscal conservative that doesn’t subscribe to social right wing views, but I despise liberal socialism.

I realize that there is a level of political complexity when you’re talking about Sociology, but I don’t understand how spending the first 10-15 minutes of each class period talking about the political candidates. We don’t discuss the issues, but more just make baseless disparagements without any claims - with the instructor making statements such as "Sarah Palin is setting back the woman politician by 30 years", but without any details.

Now we’re on the topic of Health Care, which basically becomes a Republican blame-game as to why we don’t have universally socialized medicine.  In addition, when it comes time for us to watch the movies, our instructor went to the best source he could find: Michael’s Moore’s "Sicko".  I’m not saying that the movie doesn’t make valid points, but really, Michael Moore?  And are there any plans to show any other documentaries like Dead Meat or Uninsured in America to some kind of balance?  At this point it doesn’t look likely.

I’m not naive to think this type of bias doesn’t exist on college campuses, but I am continually frustrated that this kind of propaganda runs rampant in the guise of higher education and inclusiveness, creating an aura of anything but tolerance and acceptance for anyone that doesn’t agree with them.

Call for Help: I’ve been given a pretty lame assignment in this class. I’ve been asked to ask someone about their experience receiving medical treatment in the US.  What kind of treatment did they get?  What was the end result, not just physically, but also financially, socially, etc.  If you have a minute and have a story to tell, would you mind sharing it in the comments section of the blog?  It would be a really big help, especially if it’s a positive experience getting the medical attention.