Windows 7

About a month ago I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7. Now, before I go into what I think of Windows 7, I should mention two things so you know where I'm coming from. First, I really enjoyed Vista, and I wasn't plagued with problems as it seems a lot of people have been. I don't know if I just got lucky, or if most people are just a bunch of babies who whine all the time, but either way, I was generally happy with Vista. Second, I did not pay for Windows 7. I got a new laptop at the beginning of this school year, and it came with a coupon for a free copy of Windows 7 when it came out. Okay, now time for my thoughts on it.

One of my favorite changes in 7 is the new taskbar. Since the taskbar has been basically the same for many many years, at least since Windows 3.1, it's nice to see them finally update it. Basically, the long, text buttons have been replaced by icons similar to shortcuts on your desktop (except without the text). This is the obvious difference, and is very nice because it frees up much more room on your taskbar. This is particularly important because of the next new feature: you can pin programs to the taskbar. This means that a pinned program's icon will stay on the taskbar even when it isn't open. If the program isn't open, clicking the icon will, of course, open it. If it is already open, clicking the icon will bring that window to the front, just like on the old taskbar. And don't worry, it is easy to tell which programs you have open, because when they are open, the background behind them changes (and how it looks varies from program to program, in a very asthetically pleasing way, but that is just an added bonus). I love this feature, because now I can just pin the programs I use most onto the taskbar, making it easier to access them. There are other nice features about the new taskbar, like being able to easily rearrange the icons on it, whether pinned or not, and recent popup menus, but I won't go into all of them. Suffice it to say, the new taskbar rocks.

There are two other new features that I find particularly nice. These are called Snap and Peek. Snap is where you can snap a window to the left or right side of the screen. Doing this will make it resize to fill up the left or right half of the screen. This is very handy when viewing two windows at once, which I do a lot. Also, it is very easy to do this. All you do is drag the window to the left or right until the cursor is touching the edge of the screen, and then release. You can also drag it to the top of the screen to maximize it, but this isn't all that useful since there has been a button to do this on all windows for a very long time. Peek is not quite as useful in my opinion, but it can be nice. Imagine that you have many windows open, of all different sizes and located all over your screen. Now, with Peek, if you hover your cursor over the icon of an open window (on the taskbar), all the other windows will disappear, leaving only the outlines of them behind, and you will be able to see the window of the icon you are hovering over. I imagine that I will use this more often as I get used to it, (and as I remember that it exists more) but either way, its kinda cool. There is also something called Shake, but I haven't found it useful at all and I don't really like it. Basically, you click on a window, shake it (move your mouse back and forth rapidly a few times) and all other open windows will minimize.

There is one more feature that I really like. Vista brought about the days of UAC, which, if you have ever used Vista, is the thing that makes the screen darken and asks you if you really want to do what you just told it to do. If you haven't used Vista, just think of it as something that triple checks if you want to do anything (that is an exaggeration, but you get the idea). This feature makes things a little more secure, because it helps prevent programs from making changes to important stuff without your permission, like if you have some kind of virus or spyware/shareware, etc, but it does get annoying when it asks if you really want to delete a shortcut from the Start Menu. In Vista, this was either on or off, but in 7, you have some control over what exactly it asks for confirmation on. This allows you to keep the extra security without being asked five times if you really want to do what you just said to do.

Overall, I really like Windows 7. It has some nice new features that make things a little easier and faster. It also works with most of my programs (I even have a Windows 95 game running on it, though it doesn't run perfectly). At the same time, I don't think these flashy new features make it worth the $100+ price tag. It seems to me to be just a nice upgrade of vista. If I had not gotten it for free, I wouldn't have gotten it. My advice to anyone considering buying it is this: don't buy it to upgrade a computer you already have, but if you are looking at buying a new computer, make sure it comes with Windows 7. I hope you found this helpful.

What Are You Focused On?

About thirty minutes ago I was walking back to my dorm after talking to one of my professors. As I was walking down some stairs, I was thinking about something I wanted to do. I had to step around a woman sitting in the middle of the stairs. I was really focused on what I wanted to do and--wait, a woman was sitting in the middle of the stairs. That was about how it was for me. I didn't even give her a second thought until someone going up the stairs asked her if she was okay. And then it hit me--she must have fallen while going down the stairs. Granted, she said she was okay and she didn't need any help, but still, I didn't even notice her. I was so focused on myself that I didn't notice a woman who had fallen on the stairs. I guess this made me realize that it is easy to be so focused on your own wants and desires that you miss the opportunities that God provides for you to make a difference in people's lives. Needless to say, I will be paying more attention to the people around me from now on.

Right Place, Wrong Time

Or should it be wrong place, right time? Actually, either one would work in this case. Two weeks ago I had a rather interesting experience. It was a little before 10 o'clock in the morning, which was when my first class started that day. I strolled into the lecture hall and sat down. I took out my notes and my pen and got ready for class to start. Nothing weird about that. A woman walked in and said "Good morning!" (quite a few of the professors say that at the beginning of class). Most of us said good morning in reply, but there was something wrong. The woman who had just greeted us wasn't my professor. That made me wonder if I had somehow ended up in the wrong class, but I thought it through and was sure that I was in the right place. So I figured she must be taking my professor's place for the day.

I decided to wait a few moments and see if she would teach the right subject, and sure enough, she did. That confirmed to me that I was in the right class. Everything seemed right, everything lined up--except for a comment one of the guys in the class made. He told the woman that her hair looked like she had actually washed it today, implying that this was not the first time he had seen her. That comment continued to bug me in the back of my mind as I took notes on the lecture. About 35 minutes into the class, I suddenly felt my stomach drop. It had dropped because I suddenly realized that I really wasn't in the right class. It was the correct subject, the correct lesson, the correct place--but it was the wrong time. The time I had that class was 2:30 in the afternoon. I was in the right place, but at the wrong time.

As I said at the beginning, it could also be wrong place, right time. This is true because I did have a class at 10:00, just not that class. So, I ended up standing up in the middle of class and walking out, which, believe you me, makes one feel very conspicuous. I then had to walk into my other class 40 minutes late. Overall, it was a rather stressful 40 minutes or so. And I am actually glad it happened that day and not the next day I had those two classes, because the next day was when I had tests in both of those classes. Needless to say, being late would have been really bad.

Google Does Math!

I don't remember how I found this out, but sometime last week I stumbled upon the fact that Google does math! I have not tested it thoroughly, I only fiddled with it for 5-10 minutes, but it seems that this only works if you type the math problem in the little search box in the upper-right corner of your browser (and of course you must have Google selected as the search engine). I guess this is best explained using an example. If you type in "2 + 2" (without the quotes), it will pop up with suggestions, like normal, but the first suggestion will be "= 4". You could also write it as "2 plus 2". You cannot, however, write out the numbers in word form, like "two plus two". Only numbers work. This works with subtraction, multiplication ( * ), and division ( / ) too. It even works with exponents ( ^ ) and roots (the symbol for roots would be ^ as well, except you would use fraction powers. square root of 4 would be 4^(1/2) ). All these work in word form as well. It also does sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, arcsine, etc. I have not found a way to make it do derivatives and integrals, so I don't think those work.
Anyway, this has made me wonder why Google decided to add a calculator to their search engine. What is the point? Maybe just because they could. Maybe to bug the people who figure it out, like me.
Since this post is about Google, I feel obligated to talk about googol. A googol is an actual number, 10 raised to the 100th power. That is, a one with one hundred zeros after it:

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A googolplex is even bigger. It is a one with one googol of zeros after it. I can't even imagine trying to write that out. So, I don't know if Google got its name from the googol, but it probably did, since Google searches googols of websites to find the ones you want.

A Long Silence

Well, it's been a very long time since my last blog post. I have no good excuse for not writing, except that I got lazy and life got busy and I just forgot about it. But as you can see, I remembered my blog today, and I decided to post again. My goal is to start writing new posts fairly regularly, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, time to get to the topic of this post: people. Specifically, people at the college I attend, but I think this can apply to the general public of the United States.
About a week ago, I was walking across campus to my dorm, having just finished my last class of the day. As I walked, I observed all the students whom I passed. I began to see them differently, not just seeing their outward appearance, but seeing the emotions that were likely hidden underneath. What I saw was a lot of lonely and hurting people. I immediately thought of the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby, which talks about "all the lonely people". And I thought about how what everyone is looking for is God, even though they don't know it. They are lonely and hurting because they continue to try to find meaning in the things this world has to offer. I've tried that too, and I realized that the world will always leave you thirsting for more. Only God can quench your thirst. Though, after you get a taste for God, you end up needing more and more of Him, which is a good thing.
So, something I challenge myself, and anyone who reads this, to do, is to be brave and smile at people as you pass them in life. Make eye contact, show them that someone notices them. Also, if you see someone who seems in need, in any aspect, don't just pass them by, help them. We are so consumed with ourselves in the US, and all that does is hurt everyone in the long run. I think it's time to change what it means to be a typical American. Just a smile can go a long way.

p.s.

This whole thing has inspired a short story, which I hope to have done by the end of October, if not sooner. When it is done, I'll probably post at least part of it here.