You know, with the way technology advances and whatnot, it is kind of a suprise (and kind of not) what happens when things become more mainstream. And what I want to touch up on now is Software. I have been using computers since DOS/Windows 3.1 days and notice the good and bad of newer versions. With computers becoming more for everyone and no longer geek toys, software companies are trying to please everyone and, with a negative result imo, make an all-in-one program.

I am a big fan of upgrading. Hell, I love the newer and always go for the newer, which is why I am on Vista and not XP right now even though people complain about the problems of vista. I like the new theme and new layout, but it is, like a lot of software, bloated...

Take Windows Media Player, version 11 right now. I didn't like version 10 that much, and if I want to watch a damn video, why the hell should I let it load all of this other crap like library support and stuff. I keep my things organized and move files constantly, so that library could never stay up to day. Plus the look is too much. I preferred version 6.4 because it was basic, yet did what you needed it to do without all of the fancy look, that is why I reverted to Media Player Classic that is like the newer 6.4. Basic, yet has modern functionality.

WinAMP is another one. I have been using that program since 1.666 and have been a fan ever since. Although I do wish Justin was still on the team and it wasn't owned by AOL, it is still a good player. They began adding all of these fun features like video support, online media support, replay gain support, etc... I remove them all from my winamp, because to me, winamp is my music player, and media player classic is my video player. That way I won't lose my place when listening to a song or watching a video. And replay gain, I never understood it. I tried to because it was so popular, but it made my music way too soft and quiet. The media library is great, even though I don't HAVE to use it because my music is actually sorted, it does make things a little bit easier. And even the skin I go back and forth. I like the functionally of the new skin, but hate how big it is, which is why sometimes I go to the wasabi or winamp3 skin cuz it is small but adds the fuctionally. But with my resolution greater now than before (ahh back in the 1024x768 days) the bigger does help... a little. It is still bigger than the top bar of an appication which I hate.

Next is virus scanners. If you read my sekondattept blogs, then you know about McAfee. I was a big fan of them. I was all about their scanner, it was a great program... back at version 3. Then they got bigger, and started making an all in one package with firewall and anti spyware and whatnot. At version 11 when I was required to uninstall Ad-Aware, that was the draw point, and I gave up on them as a virus scanner because it become to bloated when all I wanted was a damn active virus scanner... not to mention the amount of memory it took up for the interface. So I switched to NOD32, a light program, but great and protects me.

As for spyware, windows defender is my new program because it is quiet and does its job and uses low resources. Sometimes I even forget it is there.

Then you have Nero, luckily there is a Nero Lite, because I dont need the 140 meg install file, I jsut need something to burn damn cds.

Ripping CDs, I don't use winamp, because winamp is my... well... audio player, so I use Audiograbber, a program that I have been using since 2000ish (AudioCatalyst then).

As for Internet explorer, I just got so fed up with the amount of memory it used during IE6 and how it would crash explorer, that I switched to Firefox. Now that IE7 is out, I still use firefox because I am not that much of a fan of the new interface, and firefox is more straight forward. and with the IE tab it has, i'm set for anything.

Now thinking of it, WMP was also, in vista, coming my image viewer, I scrapped that because it was too bloated and replacted it with IrfanView which loads much quicker and makes it easy for what I want to do... view a damn picture. I use to use ACDsee back in 2000, haven't used it tho so I don't know how it is, because this IrFanView also views videos which is damn annoying when I just want to view pictures (and your browsing a folder that has both)

Now for windows sidebar, I like it, but I am considering changing it because it is too heavy on resources. So maybe go back to desktop sidebar like I had on xp... we'll see.

Anyway, It is very taoist in my views on this... kinda... I mean I keep it simple. And if something works, then I will use it, if not, then I will scrap it. This computer was built in 2002 and still running like a champ :)