LH: "Simple" way to run XP within Vista

Lifehacker is one of those sites that I love going to.  It's like opening up a pack of trading cards.  Some days you'll just get commons, some days you'll get a super-rare!  Heh.

Anywho, today they've got one of their simple, yet cool posts on being able to run XP within Vista via a virtual machine.

Geek to Live: Run Windows XP inside Vista with Virtual PC

One of the things I like about the article is that it is a bit more then just a "just because we can" situation.  For a little bit, at least, there will be certain applications that will not run correctly in Vista, only in XP.  This is a situation that should help work around that.

I also enjoy how the author explains why they would pick Virtual PC versus using one of the better options out there.  "Free" is always a good reason for me... especially when just trying something out at first.

About the only question left for me would be wondering what the performance of XP running with Vista.  Obviously most of that would depend on your hardware.  But if you've already got a pretty beefy system, I'd be interested to see how much of a hit running XP would be for apps run *IN* XP.

It's one reason to be able to run XP as a virtual OS, it's another thing for it to run well.

Sounds like something I'll need to try out when I get my new PC.

--
.ungawa

-Spyke

Read more!

300: Comparison between the Movie (trailer) and Comic

Much like what some people did after Sin City came out when the compared frames of the movie to the frames in the comic book, someone made up a YTMND site that does something similar to the 300 trailer.

http://the300.ytmnd.com/

Warning with it, when the song kicks in it kicks in "louder then normal". So if you are using speakers depending on your settings it can get pretty loud.

Sin City (the comic) was built around Miller doing everything in black and white with only certain specific elements showing up in color. They managed to get that conversion to the screen nearly perfect. Whereas, in 300 (the comic) there's a lot more... esoterica... I guess you can say... It's not built around a single visual style like SC was (well except Miller's base style that he always has). So I'd say converting 300 (the comic) into a movie and keeping that Miller style was more difficult of a task then in SC.

For me, I think the production team has done an amazing job taking Frank Miller's art work and converting it into the "moving picture" form where it has managed to keep most of what makes it Frank Miller art.

Regardless of how well the actual movie does, I hope the production team gets at least nominated for some awards due to what they've managed to achieve.

.ungawa

-Spyke

Read more!

Interesting movie rating site

http://www.kids-in-mind.com/

Basically instead of just using a single rating to score a movie (as far as PG, PG-13, etc) they use three seperate numeric scores (from 1 - 10) to rate a movie.

They do a breakdown of Sex&Nudity, Violence&Gore, and Profanity. For each section they break down exactly where they got their number from.

So for example, The Messengers is scored as 3.7.3. http://www.kids-in-mind.com/m/messengers.htm Where Shrek's a 3.4.3 http://www.kids-in-mind.com/s/shrek_2001.htm They tell you exactly why they came to each number.

So far from looking through it it seems to be a valid concept as long as you do some research into their scale. 3 is VERY low on their scale. The Messengers got a 3 for Sex&Nudity simply for two things:

SEX/NUDITY 3 - A teenage girl wears low-cut tops that reveal cleavage and low-slung pants that reveal bare back to the hip and a hint of buttock cleavage.
► A husband unsnaps his shirt, makes a sexually suggestive remark to his wife ("I've been reading the Farmer Sutra") and they kiss. A husband and wife kiss.
--------------------
Now while for some of us this may seem a bit extreme, its all in context. Go find a movie with an 8 or 9 in Sex&Nudity and you're probably looking at a full on orgy with both male and female full nudity in it.

The main thing here is that by specifically showing where they get their numbers from (breaking down each point) Parents can be better informed exactly what's in a movie and how this PG-13 film is different then that PG-13 film for example. Anything that can give parents more information to BE better parents is something certainly going in the right direction to me.

Especially since it doesn't seem that they have an agenda of any type. But who knows with sites nowadays.

.ungawa

-Spyke

Read more!

Super Bowl Halftime

Regardless if you like his music or not, there's no way that someone can't tell me that Prince isn't a pure entertainer.

His half-time show was one of the best I've seen in a while. It wasn't too overdone or flashy (I liked the marching band with the tron-lights). It was quintessential Prince at his best.

Oh... the rain? That made it even better for me. Why? Because almost anyone else might have opted to fall back to a pre-recorded show... But not Prince. Those were his guitar riffs and his vocals.

Like I said... regardless if you like his music or not... That half-time show was 110% pure Prince.

.ungawa

-Spyke

Read more!