iMoo, a fun little iPhone/iPod app that lets you relive your fond childhood memories of a cow in a can is now available in the iTunes App Store!

With iMoo you can have fun tipping your phone over to play your favorite moo, or you can record your own moo! Pass iMoo around to friends and record all of their moos – Collect them all!

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I thought I’d post my upgrade experience from XP 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit.

I had read that I’d need to install over a clean XP, so I formatted a 500MB drive in my Mac pro and installed XP last night. That failed, because the drive was formatted as a Mac volume, and XP only reformatted the partition. My bad.

So I ran the Boot Camp Assistant and let it wipe the drive and prepare it for Windows. That install went fine.

1:30pm Today I receive my Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade from Amazon. On the front of the box, it says “Windows 7 Upgrade designed for Vista.”

Uh, I have XP. Hmm. Ok I look on the back. On the back it says:

“This version of Windows 7 is designed as an upgrade for Windows Vista(r). If you are upgrading from Windows XP, you will need to back up your files and settings, perform a clean install and then re-install your existing files, settings and programs. Visit windows.microsoft.com/upgrade for important information.”

Ok, so I have to perform a clean install. Of what? XP? 7? Can I do a clean install with this version?

Now on the side of the box it reads:

“Attention: All editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista qualify you to upgrade. You must accept the enclosed license … go to www.microsoft.com/useterms”

Ok so that is two URLs so far.

Now on the bottom of the box it reads:

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor can help you determine which features and editions of Windows 7 will run on your computer; visit windows.microsoft.com/upgradeadvisor

lol, so three URLS and two having “windows.” has the root and the other having “www.” as the root.

1:50pm So in XP I go to the upgrade advisor, which makes me install an ActiveX control, which in turn makes me install .Net 2.0. I still haven’t opened the box, mind you.

I’d be done installing Snow Leopard by now, for whatever that is worth.

Now the “advisor” is saying that I can only install Windows 7 32 bit. Which is nonsense, because I had used Windows 7 64 bit betas all year. And it says my graphics adaptor, an nVidia 8800GT can’t handle AERO, the Windows UI answer to Apple’s Aqua. But I know it does!

Ok that was a total waste of time and a total failure.

Anyway, forget that, I’ll just stick the disk in and see what it does.

The package comes with two DVDs, one 32 bit, one 64 bit. The DVDs are covered in holograms and includes “Windows Anytime Upgrade” whatever that is.

Let’s try the 64 bit disc, because I need that to access all of my memory.

The instruction manual says if I am upgrading from XP, I need to take special steps and choose Custom (Advanced) upgrade.

So let me get this straight? Most of their user base is still on XP, and they made that upgrade path the hardest?

I insert the 64 bit disc and it says:

This disc isn’t compatible with your version of Windows. For more information, check your computer’s system information. (For what? lol) To install a new copy of windows, restart (boot) your computer using the installation disk and then select Custom (advanced)

Let’s see what happens if I boot off the 64 bit installer DVD.

1:58pm I see a Windows XP screen. Oh it booted into my XP. Sigh.

Am I having fun yet?

Well, it won’t let me boot into 64 bit, when I Windows 7 beta did.

Awesome, now I get to call Microsoft.

Amusing, on the cover of the included literature it reads:

Welcome to your PC, simplified. Windows 7

Ok now I am on the phone with Microsoft.

2:17pm Ok wow, just wow. The guy opened a case number for me, didn’t give it to me, transferred me and then it said, and I am not joking, “Oh oh! Received data error!” and hung up!

So now I am calling them back. Now I have someone asking me for my 9 digit installation code? She asks if I am trying to authorize Windows. I say “No, I am trying to install” So then she tells me she’ll connect me to technical support. Sigh. Then she gives me an 800 number to call in case I am disconnected. Oh wait, that number is wrong, she gives me the following number: 866-613-0270 5am-9pm PST

2:28pm Ok, now I am being transferred, again.

2:31pm Now they are figuring out what support I am entitled to, again. This time they took my product key and are validating it. I’m sure someone at Apple is chuckling, or maybe crying, by now, at what Microsoft puts its customers through.

2:39pm Now this person authorized my retail copy of windows, given me yet another 800 number and has transferred me.

2:49pm After explaining 5 times what I am doing, I was put on hold. But while on hold, I figured it out.

I used the Windows Boot Camp Startup Panel to choose the DVD to boot from, and now it is booting off the DVD.

Ok the guy came back and informed me that they don’t support installation onto Macs.

However, he did go ahead and tell me how to complete the install, because it will fail he said.

2:56 pm First, I have to choose custom install. So I did and chose my drive. It warned me a previous Windows existed, and I said ok.

3:04pm Windows reboots. Setting up registry settings. Starting services.

3:07pm Completing installation. It informs me the computer will reboot several times during installation.

3:19pm It is now asking me to enter my user info.

Next, he said when it asks for a product key to skip entering the product key. So I do. I answer a few more questions and it continues.

Next, he said once windows boots, try to install windows a second time and then do a upgrade install (not custom), and then enter the product key, as the product key I have is only for upgrades.

Yow. So he told me how to work around their DRM. Why even have this crap in the first place?

3:28pm At the desktop, second install started, this time an upgrade.

Another amusing anecdote. I just got an email from MS about my case:

It was my pleasure to work with you on your Windows service request XXXXXXXXXXXX. Unfortunately, we were unable to resolve your issue. However, I hope that you were happy with the service provided to you.

Classic.

Back to the second install. Still copying files.

3:39pm Rebooting to finish install.

3:52pm Another reboot, it’s transferring files and settings, I guess from the previous empty install. Maybe it is keeping my user, I don’t know.

4:04pm It’s rebooting again. It had to copy over more settings. Which it had just installed.

4:08pm Entering the product key now. That seemed to have worked ok. Logging in.

4:11pm Finally, I’m at the desktop.

I am not going to install any Boot Camp software, as Apple said support will be coming before the end of the year.

Two Hours, Forty-One minutes. Excellent user experience, Microsoft.

Aero works and I am in 64 bit. So the advisor is a pile of trash. Don’t trust it!

Snow Leopard has one installer. One. It installs both 32 and 64 bit OS and apps. It took 30 minutes to install. It does upgrade or full installs. You can change the kernel with 3-2 and 6-4 at boot time. That’s it.

These experiences are good for me as a Mac user. They truly make me appreciate how much hard work Apple does under the scenes that we take for granted. Macs are not perfect, but they’re no Microsoft OS, either. Count your blessings, Mac users.

BING! Another spammer passes their filter! BING! There is another one!

“Microsoft works to fix a bug, discovered earlier this week by Webroot researchers, that let spammers piggyback onto Bing redirects and get through spam filters”

Apparently, search results could take you to spam sites that look like the real site. Fun!

I’ll stick with Google.

Story

Just got the brand new Razer Naga MMO Mouse and it works lovely!

I did not install their kernel extension, which had features I didn’t really need right now. It has a 12 button keypad on the side, so the Mac brings up the “unknown keyboard” dialog, which I had to cancel because well, the mouse doesn’t have a shift key

But it works great!

It has a groove for your ring finger, so the hand rests nicely. The 1 and 12 buttons on the side are the hardest to reach, due to my larger hands.

The 1-12 buttons press 1 through =. There is a switch on the bottom to make it press NUMPAD keys. The Naga comes with Mac drivers, but they are not needed for basic functionality.

It works great in WoW if your spells are mapped to 1 through =. Modifiers work fine.

Combine this with mouseover macros, and you can just mouse over your target and press a button to attack, heal, buff, etc.

Photo

Naga Website

Super Duper 2.6.2 ships as a free upgrade to 2.x owners and includes much better Snow Leopard support and is much faster at backing up!

• Diagnosed Machine: MacBook Pro unibody 15″ 10.6.1
• Diagnosed Drive: Internal 7200rpm
• Diagnosing Machine: Same via external boot drive

Tools: DiskWarrior 4.2 directory repair

Results:

• Some files had bad icons
• Some files had bad creation dates
• Some volume information was incorrect

I replaced the directory to no immediate ill effects

If you’re an engineer and use svn, but have not checked out mercurial do yourself a favor and do so.

Basically, it is a kick ass source code control system that keeps everything in the working directory and supports distributed repositories. Can you say offline checkins? Sure, because there is no online! Everything is right there in your working directory.

Get back home, one hg push and you’ve pushed all of your changes to where you cloned from (say a desktop). On the desktop, one hg update and you are back in the game.

Seriously cool.

Goodbye, svn. I had just bought Versions this summer, too.

ClickToFlash is a great Safari plugin that blocks Flash from automatically loading and playing.

All it takes is a single click to play the Flash. This will cause your pages to load faster, and crash less, if you are one of the many that believe the Flash plugin crashes often.

This wonderful plugin goes even farther, though. If you are on youtube, you can use the gear icon in the upper left of the Flash window to either play H.264 version of the video in QuickTime (without all of that Flash crap on the screen) or download the video directly.

Very nice.

Ever wanted to know which files are being opened on your Mac? Try fseventer

You press the play button and it starts recording all fsevents. Press pause and it stops and gives you a tree diagram of all files accessed, renamed, etc. Every fsevent that happened!

You can then filter the results to see what files various applications are accessing.