The moment you realize Google deleted all the pictures from your posts. I will try to recover most of them, but some are lost forever. I already fixed the background and header. Therefore, the rest will be fixed in the next couple of days.

In other news, I am going to get REALLY familiar with Photobucket.

State of the Blog Adress

Well, we are well into 2012, and I have been very much absent. This will change. In the coming months I will be improving the content of this blog. There will be video reviews, text reviews, and a continuation of the stream of my opinions.  What won't be here? Well, the answer is food posts, I don't see a reason a tech centered blog should have them.

So, basically I have grandiose plans, I hope they come to fruition.

My opinion on windows 8

Most of you have probably seen the Windows 8 videos and articles from the popular gadget sites, so I will just jump right in.

Windows 8 is cool, really cool. If you read my The War for Windows post you already know what I said Microsoft needed to do. I was very pleased they took some of my advice, but I was sad they didn't take all of it. therefore, in the spirit of this blog, I will outline the things about windows 8 that made me say "WTH!!!"

1. inconsistent experience: the new user interface is great, and exactly what I wanted them to do...with one exception. When you wish to use a legacy program (i.e Office, Photoshop) the U.I. switches to the "old" windows 7 U.I.. This is the most glaring error in windows 8, and I fear it will be the Achilles' heel heel of this new platform.

2. App switching: As I said before, I am a fan of the U.I. BUT, I am not a fan of the way they implemented app switching. In its current form, you must switch through each individual app one at a time. if you only use two or three apps at a time, this isn't a problem, but I have been known to use up to ten apps at a time. This seems like the kind of thing where I would be looking for the app I want, and get into the habit of just swiping continually, and then blast right past the app I want, forcing me to start all over (there doesn't seem to be a way to go backwards). hopefully, there will be a way to view all open apps at once.

At this time, these two qualms are all I have. as time goes on I will probably have more, but for now this is it. If you want to learn more about windows 8, see the links below.

Engadget, Gizmodo.

Room Renovation

Ok, I am finally renovating my room. I am incredibly excited about this, mainly because the fishing lure wall paper is coming down (the wall paper choice was my brother’s idea, not mine). I am using cheery colors, like lime green, lemon yellow, and sunshine yellow. I am going to use two of the three colors to create a chevron pattern, the instructions can be found at design sponge.  Actually design sponge and Ikea were the inspiration for the entire project, from the furniture (which I am building myself) to the pattern on the walls.

Hopefully you are as excited as I am.

The next few weeks will be mostly devoted to this project, so keep a close eye on the blog.

So, I managed to completely miss Sony's announcement about their new tablets. And I am sorry I did, because at least one of them is absofreakinlutely gorgeous. The s1 tablet is the first tablet that is better looking (in my opinion, of course) than the iPad. WANT!!! As usual though Sony will probably overprice this beautiful piece of hardware, making it inaccessible to those of us who don't have much money. But hey! they ARE trying to beat apple.

Source:PC World Youtube

Ok, so when I started this blog I said something along the lines of "I will talk about FOOOOOOD!" despite this all I have been talking about is tech news and browsers (gosh, that sounds boring.) But, NOT TODAY!!! No, today you get a fantastic hot cocoa recipe from the fantastic (and World of War Craft themed) Nourish blog. Everything about this hot cocoa is perfect; from the subtle white chocolate flavor, to the slightly spicy cayenne pepper.  I put some chocolate shavings in mine, which gave a nice little ending to the mug. oh, and you must try the Tirisfal Glade Pumpkin Cookies, AMAZING...AMAZING, allow me to say it again...AMAZING!

Firefox Review

 

Firefox started the race, now let us see if they can keep up.  The first open source browser, the first with add-ons, and the one time fastest browser has reached a new level. with Firefox 4 the Mozilla project tries to compete with the new rising star, Google Chrome.

Design

B-e-a-utiful is the best way to describe the new Firefox look and feel. By using a minimalist design Mozilla leaves Y2k and gets into 2010.  The new software mimics Chrome in the user interface, meaning it looks good…really good.  The only problem I had with the design is the us of space in the address bar, by consolidating buttons and tabs Firefox would look a lot sleeker.

features

It’s a features bonanza! If you thought Chrome had a lot of features, then wait until you try out Firefox. Firefox practically invented the browser we know today; tabs, extensions, a useful address bar…yeah, they invented that. So let us see how they are doing with inventing new features today.

The latest addition to Firefox is the tab organizer; instead of sorting your tabs into windows, this tool allows you to sort them into “groups”.  Firefox also created an early iteration of the “smart address bar” that I detailed in the Google chrome review, except it is called the “awesome bar” (I still don’t see why it is so awesome).  As with Google chrome, Firefox is customizable in a nearly infinite amount of ways through the best and most developed add-on system for any browser.

usability

One of the biggest complaints I had with Chrome was the poor tab management; Firefox has solved this problem through several methods. First and foremost is the aforementioned tab organizer. Second is possibly the most simple thing that could be done; when you have too many tabs to view, an arrow button appears.  this simple fix is one that Chrome has yet to install, even in the just released Chrome 8 (yes, it was Chrome 6 just last month). something I noticed (and appreciate beyond belief) is the tight integration with Windows 7; when you hover over the icon on the task bar it previews all your open tabs, and when you right click, you get a “jump list”, THE WAY YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO!. The new Firefox has the same interface problem I found in Chrome, the new unified options pane is very confusing, but unlike Chrome, Firefox allows you to revert to the standard “file, edit, view, tools” setup seen in previous iterations. In fact, Firefox lets you put everything back the way it was in Firefox 3. I give Firefox an 8 for usability!

conclusion

So what have we learned today? we learned that Mozilla Firefox has come a long way as far as design.  they have even maintained ease of use, by letting users revert to what they were used to using before. overall I think that this new Firefox is the best yet, and a great option for anyone looking to get out of explorer.

Editors note

this is a review of beta software; by the time the final version comes out, this review could be completely irrelevant