I just spent the last ten minutes playing around with the Technical Refreshed release of Beta 1 of Office 2007… most specifically, I was poking around PowerPoint, of all things. I know… it’s not the typical application for a Test/Dev type to be playing with, but I spent a lot of time with PPT when I was teaching and I wanted to see what was different.
My reaction? Wow. Just… Wow.
I’ve had enough of supporting multiple feed types, so I’ve said “screw it”. I mean I had 0.91 as index.xml, 1.0 as index.rdf, 2.0 as index2.rdf, and ATOM as… I don’t know what ATOM is because I haven’t publicized it. I think it’s atom.xml.
To subscribe to this blog via RSS, please use this link: https://www.randyrants.com/index.xml in the future.
I’ve also left out the old files with “stubs” telling you where to find the new link, but it’s hard to say how well that will get picked up by Feed services: right now, NewsGator is only offering me really old articles via index.xml so it could take a few days for it to properly pick up all the changes…
Blah.
Who’s Paul Dini? He’s a writer that has given us a bunch of excellent story lines over the years… check out his “resume” of sorts at IMDB – I had no idea the same guy was behind so many different cartoons that I’ve followed over the years, but it would makes sense, wouldn’t it? And what’s more is that he blogs at LiveJournal.
Thanks for the entertainment, Paul – you’ve got some mad skillz.
You know the drill – I’ve got six four twenty-four invites this time… leave me a comment below!
Furrygoat.com: Now that the February CTP for Vista is public and Windows Sidebar has been unleashed to the masses, I thought it might be fun to walk through creating a simple gadget. And since I recently joined the cult of the XBox 360, why not put together a gadget that showed my XBox Live gamercard.
Sweet! I’m guessing the gadget will have a game card that looks like this, hanging off the Sidebar. If you follow Steve’s instructions, that is. I think… I gotta install the Feb CTP for Vista and spend some quality time with it, soon.
w00t!
A while ago I compiled a CAB file for my MPx200 that removed all of the cheesy AT&T Wireless images that appeared on all of the confirmation dialogs with the original “standard” Smartphone images. All of the original images were in the ROM, so it was just a matter of changing a bunch of settings in the registry; using a CAB file was the best way to do this, since an uninstall of the CAB would restore the OEM images.
It worked well on the MPx200 and the SMT5600 – was so-so on the T-Mobile SDA. One of the GIF files that was included in the last three releases of Windows Mobile was left out in this release, or at least in this OEM’s release. This caused me to update the CAB file.
Sorry – the update has been lost!
In spite of a previous post I have a new T-Mobile branded SDA sitting in front of me. I knew the local TMo store had them in stock, but they were mean to me when I walked in to check out the size of it: they offered an additional rebate on the phone in exchange for a two year commitment with T-Mobile. Dirty pool!
And in spite of my reservations about another candy bar phone… well. It’s a better upgrade than I thought it would be. Much better – so much so that I don’t even have the typical “I bought WHAT?” feeling this morning!
Continue reading Praised Be The Phone Gods!
The new SDA is available at the local T-Mobile. Yet, as I told Anna, I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t need it, and I told Steve, I’m doing everything in my power to keep my fat ass in my [office] chair. Here’s the punch line: it’s because I bought a new vacuum yesterday.
Um. Like, w00t or something?
Continue reading When Knowing Isn’t Half The Battle
Xbox: Master Chief Dual-Wields His Way to Windows Vista “Halo 2,” the award-winning sequel to the instant classic “Halo: Combat Evolved” to make its PC debut on the Windows Vista platform “Halo 2,” the game that redefined first-person combat and multiplayer action for millions of gamers worldwide, is set to explode onto PCs exclusively for Windows Vista. “Halo 2” for Windows Vista will be developed by a dedicated Microsoft Game Studios team in partnership with Bungie Studios.
In a word: w00t.
Just a couple of notes – if only to myself – that have a high rate of Geekiness to them… cool stuff, actually.
Continue reading Random Geekness
GeekStuff for a razor? Yeah, it’s got a battery, so pftftft.
Well, it can have a battery, as they have two models this go around, much like there’s a Mach 3T and a Mach 3Power… Since I’ve been using the Mach 3Power thingy since it came out, I went with the battery based Fusion. Five blades… I figured that would be overkill, but each blade on the Fusion is much smaller than the blades on the Mach 3 line, so it’s not that extravagant like I thought the Schick Quattro was. And to combat goatee and sideburn errors they put a single blade on the flip side of the razor head: the thought is you can use the single blade for touch ups.
What I think of it?
Continue reading Gillette Fusion
I finally broke down and decided to record some shows that I should have been watching for forever but always forgot about and I noticed that the Comcast DVR was acting weird. Oh it was working just fine, but the “Season Pass” that I set up was giving me some strange channels in the “upcoming episodes” section of the DVR. Like for Cartoon Network, it’s showing channel 42 which is normal but it’s also showing 742. Same thing for TBS: one in the two digits and another in the 700’s.
That’s when I did some digging in the Guide: Comcast is up to something. The difference between 42 and 742 is that 742 seems to be much brighter. Of course on my rear projection display it makes for a worse picture, but I’m beginning to wonder if they’re about to kick off a “All Cable Channels in HD” bit. There’s no 700 counterpart for the channels that are available via regular broadcast, but that makes sense: the ones that have HD variants are already in the 100’s. It’s just the cable channels that are being shown as nn and 7nn. I dunno. It’s very odd.
One other thing is that they added a HD channel for TNT in the 600’s which is near Discovery Channel HD and inHD 1 and 2, which offer the best picture of all the HD channels… very neat.
Donut 04 D0nut o1 is no more!
Thanks to a new option in the 360 dashboard, I’m now D0NUT O1 Randy No Arms! Well, d0nut o1 for those that are l33t-ly challenged:
It’s neat actually… you use 800 points – and since there’s 1600 points per pre-paid card at $20/card it costs about $10 – to make the change on the 360 and it’s effective instantly. For my old Xbox, I had to go through Account Recovery – which is always scary since I never remember which credit card I used or if my address information is up to date – but that worked too. That was it.
Fun!
Jensen Harris: The good news for fans of usability worldwide is that an historical moment is upon us. As of Tuesday [17-Jan-06], we have officially flipped the switch to turn off Personalized Menus by default for all apps in all future builds of Office 12.
…and there was much rejoicing in the streets!
Continue reading Wow. Just Wow.
Bradbury Software: FeedDemon 2.0 Beta 1 is now available.
Looks good. Looks very good, in fact – but with any beta there are a few hiccups…
Continue reading FeedDemon 2.0 Beta 1