News Sept 15, 2005

September 15, 2005

Review: Microsoft's Vista Beta 1 Release

Today we review Microsoft's Beta 1 Vista build 5219 release. After getting our hands on a system that fulfilled the minimum requirements for running Vista (3ghz CPU, 1 gigabyte ram, 120 gig hard drive) we grabbed the beta dvd and dug in. The first thing we noticed was that setup took five times longer than any previous windows, linux or even hacked OSx86 installation. You know what that means? Five times more goodies being installed. It only took 25 minutes of activation dialogue to get past the boot screen to the GUI. The GUI upon first boot is very attractive looking much like Gnome did back in 2001. Another new feature we noticed was the word "my" prefixed on every folder e.g. 'my windows', 'my ebooks', 'my pictures', 'my system 32', 'my newnet', 'my sidesurfer, 'my trojans' and 'my gator'. Security is robust in this beta, blocking all spyware that isn't approved by microsoft. The built in antivirus is great at detecting virus's but can't remove them because SYSTEM doesn't have the file permissions to delete files installed by GUEST. Bug or undocumented feature? You decide. Driver support is still a bit of an issue. It couldn't find drivers for the sound card, video card, network card, SATA drives, USB, printer or DVD drives but it did recognize the floppy. We did manage to dig up an old PCI 10gigabit ethernet card that Vista recognized so after an hour or two we were networked. Unfortunately, we couldn't play any of the mp3s, avi's, mpeg files off the networked media drive as none of them had the proper DRM. About this time we were well into the night and figured it was time to hang it up. Can't wait for the final release.

White House Unveils Plan to Bring About Christ's 1000 Year Reign

WASHINTON, DC - In a briefing distributed to reporters this morning, the White House revealed that it had formulated a plan which will hasten the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ as foretold in the Book of Revelations. The document's prologue states "We are fully confident that the Lord Jesus Christ is acting through the President to facilitate the world entering into the 'last days' following which will be Jesus's return to earth and subsequent 1000 year reign". Key points of the plan are: Assisting global warming thereby increasing the power and number of hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts: return to nuclear testing as well as possible pre-emptive strikes which will destabilize the earth's crust and weather leading to darkened sky, blood red moon and many earthquakes: Continue to alienate and antagonize China (the armies of the East), Russia (Magog), the European Union (Beast with 10 horns) and the muslim world (Babylon, Egypt, Elam, Assyria, Canaan, Ur) which will eventually lead to an all out war in the Mideast with Israel as the flash point. The White House is fervently seeking candidates for 'antichrist' but so far none has been forthcoming.