Zac Garrett

Matthew Helmke recently posted and article entitled What is the coolest thing you can do using Linux that you can’t do with Windows or on a Mac? This is chalked full of fallacies that are quite common in the Linux advocacy world. I am going to take a look at each one of these items and explain what I think about them. Continue Reading »

After a year of running OS X as my primary OS at home it was time to give Linux a go again. I felt that I was missing the customization of Linux and the massive amounts of free software. After getting bored quickly with Microsoft Server 2008 it was quickly time to move on to Ubuntu.

The reason for going with Ubuntu was that it is the most popular Linux distro today. Normally I would go with something a little more customizable such as debian or gentoo. This time I wanted to take a look at exactly what everyone says is the easiest Linux distro ever. Okay, that is really up for debate, but most people are talking about Ubuntu today. Continue Reading »

Playing around with Server 2008 beta in the screenshot above. Installing two copies of 2k8, Vista, and XP in Hyper-V as well as downloading Ubuntu and Fedora. Continue Reading »

After about four days of using Vista for gaming I decided to switch back to XP. The drivers for my graphics card decided to crap out whenever the settings would change. This means that every time I started a game odd stuff would happen.

One thing that I thought would be better in Vista is the performance of higher end games, namely Crysis. This game pushes every computer to the limits today. With directX 10 I was under the assumption that it would perform better, I was wrong. I get better performance with XP than I ever did with Vista. Continue Reading »

Update 12-17-2007: I Switched to XP

It has been over a year since I first reviewed Windows Vista and it is time to look at Vista seriously again. Continue Reading »

Leopard has been out for a few days now and I have to admit, I am quite disappointed. Of the 300 new features the only new thing I really see is eye candy. Let’s take a look at some of the major “new” features: automated backup, security, finder updates, GUI changes and miscellaneous new features. Continue Reading »

The left screen is my 15in MacBook Pro running at 1440 x 900 and the right is a 24in Samsung running at 1920 x 1200. On the left the wallpaper is an image I found on the web of China I believe and it is rather calming. By contrast the right screen is a photo of a nightline in Japan and is calming in its own right.

Applications running in the Dock

Finder

Firefox

Thunderbird

Minefield — Nightly version of Firefox

Adium

Terminal

Cyberduck

Azureus

iTunes

Path Finder

Grab

Activity monitor

Menu Bar Items

Adium

Path Finder

Wakoopa

Wireless Signal

Modem Status

Screen locking tool

VPN Status

Volume

This video was just too good not to share.

It has almost been a year since the release of Windows Vista to manufacturers and yet most people are sticking with XP. Why are people sticking with XP when there is something new from Microsoft? More importantly, why are people fighting to keep getting XP on new machines? Continue Reading »

Today I saw an article by Walt Mossberg, a well known tech journalist, on the subject of Linux for the average user; more specifically, the Dell computers with preinstalled Ubuntu. Mossberg covers many issues that are wrong with Linux today, from a touchy mouse to the volume program crashing. Continue Reading »