So everyone’s been talking about the hype of Windows 7 ever since the beta release dropped this past year. And then people really went crazy when Microsoft released it for real. And then university students discovered you could get Windows 7 for very cheap or even free! (Cockrell School of Engineering students, check out this link).

This is how my install went… If you just want the screenshots, scroll to the bottom :)

I decided I’d go ahead with a reformat and install Windows 7. My Sony Vaio 645P came installed with Windows XP, so I held off installing until I was totally sure I wanted Windows 7. It’s running 2 Ghz Intel processor, 2 Gb RAM, 160 Gb hard disk space. I’m really into customization of my desktop, and XP was much better for that than Vista. Upon running the install, I discovered that the installer actually saves my old “Program Files” and “Documents and Settings” folders. This is pretty nifty for saving all the music, pictures, fonts, program configurations, etc. I backed those up on an external anyway. Total install time took about 30 minutes.

First thing people will tell you about Windows 7 is that it boots up very fast. I’m used to the three minute wait on XP, but I could definitely get used to booting up in about 45 seconds. The aero theme is one of my favorites, and I always tried to emulate it with WindowBlinds on XP. The user interface is pretty much the same, just a lot prettier. But dig deeper and you’ll realize that Windows 7 has a lot of improvements in how it runs files too.

I had to pause the honeymoon for a moment because I had to install my drivers. Most people will find that Windows 7 does a very good job of discovering what drivers are needed and automatically searches the Internet for them. Sony Vaio drivers, however… You’ll need nerves, patience, tenacity, and determination. But hey, that’s the whole reason you got a Vaio, right? With my Vaio, I have a wireless switch, a Memory Stick reader, video card switch, Fn keys, and two macro buttons. Time to hit up the Vaio support site and get those drivers. Well, first things first, I had to install the latest nVidia driver for my GeForce 8400M GS. Latest one, check. Restart, Windows doesn’t detect it correctly so Aero is still disabled. Wtf? I search Google for a fix, I find out I have to install a modified nVidia driver. So, download, unzip, install, repeat. I finally find one that works. Aero graphics activated. Suite. In the process I had also downloaded and installed a utility driver update from the Vaio support page that makes all my hardware stuff work. I restart, everything is gravy. Until I check my wireless and it’s disabled. What… the fuck. No matter what I do, I can’t re-enable it. I download a ton more drivers, uninstall some random crap but I just don’t know what to do. Well, I do, there’s only one choice left. Full format of the drive. At this point I could care less about all those fonts I didn’t back up or the config files for some programs. I have all my music and pictures backed up, who gives a shit. Five o’ clock in the morning, I’m getting hella tired. Move my wires and stuff to the nightstand, put in Windows 7 disk and reformat the entire drive. Sleep.

Wake up. Okay Windows 7 is back and so is the wifi. Drivers are all gone, so let’s go again. At this point, I didn’t realize it was the utilities driver messing it all up. Vaio has a program that works with the wireless switch to enable 2 Ghz, 5 Ghz, and Bluetooth functionality. I think it got set to 5 Ghz somewhere along the way and I got owned. So I install utilities again and my wireless works fine. Oh well. Pop up. Battery is detected as not correctly inserted? Wtf. It’s in there good. One of the utilities is the battery light. Uhhh this pop up won’t go away. Choices are “Restart” or “Restart.” I try to hide it to try and find a fix but it just re-focuses itself every 15 seconds. Okay! Shut down, check battery connection, everything is fine. Boot up, battery problem again. Oh carp.

Where’s that Windows 7 disk… Full reformat, again. This time not installing utilities driver. So now my battery light doesn’t light up, bluetooth is always on and my S1 S2 buttons don’t work. Not like I used them or anything. Now, I get that video driver installed and aero enabled.

So right now I’m itching for some Team Fortress 2. Haven’t played in like… two days. I have all the files backed up on a drive, get it installed. Run. Everything boots up perfect, until I spawn and I get a ton of lag. I’ll save you the bloody details but I was just being a dumbass and not disabling Aero graphics. I get all the essentials installed: Photoshop, Winamp, Chrome, Office, Digsby, and uTorrent. At this point I’m itching for some customization. Windows 7 does has a really cool feature that allows it to change the background every now and then. For someone who changes their background way too often, this is perfect for me. I look online for some visual styles. I install a bunch.

Then I discover all those themes just look like crap and the only theme that has everything I want is the original Windows theme. It takes me a whole week of tweaking and configuring to discover that.

Now that you got past the tl;dr part, here are some screenshots for your viewing pleasure!

Son Dambi

Just really useful

Aero Peek allows you to hover and thumbnail that window. It’s so simple yet so entertaining. Photoshop is minimized in the last picture, but if I hover the Photoshop button on the taskbar, it will show Photoshop’s original position and hide the other windows:

I also discovered a way to make the taskbar even smaller than when having the option “Use small icons” is checked. It looks a lot like the old taskbar from Windows XP. I was fiddling around in the appearance window, and I found that “Caption Buttons” not only controls the size of the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons on a window but the size of the taskbar also. So to make your taskbar even smaller: right click your desktop > Personalize > Window Color > Advance appearance settings… Then change the “Caption Buttons” size accordingly. 17 pixels is the smallest it will go, any smaller won’t make the taskbar smaller, just the action buttons on your windows. Only downside is that your system tray icons are really tiny.

Left: small taskbar. Right: original taskbar

While all this was happening, I found Nujabes’s new compilation album, “Mellow Beats, Friends & Lovers.” At first, I thought it sucked. And then I listened to it again. And I found this song. Reformatting and installing Windows isn’t so bad when this song is stuck in your head. Granted, there are a bunch of good songs, and there’s something for every kind of Nujabes fan. Great driving music.

No.9 – After It
http://limelinx.com/files/d87f211d54ffe62f8daf25004815d2bd

Taiwanese American Students Association had a party go down tonight. It was awesome. Off the chain. Bomb. Happenin’. It was great, and I hope they hold more of these. I’d actually join the club if I didn’t have class every Wednesday from 6-8. I was informed that they needed some music, so I happily packed up my laptop, made a playlist, and lugged my huge ass speakers along.

So I set up in the small corner and everything is going good. I’m playing some Justice to get everyone going while people show up. Some guy shows up with his laptop, and asks me if I’m playing the music. I’m like yeah, what do you wanna hear dude? He tells me he made a playlist, I ask him what’s on it. He says, “Just rap.” Is that what the idea is nowadays? Just pack as much rap into a playlist and it’ll be party music? I ask him, “Define rap. Are we talking Wu-Tang or Soulja Boy shit.” He responds, “I got that new Drake and some Jay-Z.” Okay, that’s fine. I take a look at his iTunes playlist. Rick Ross? Dr. Dre? Are we in the year 2005 again? No lie, I’m not dissing his music tastes, I blast Dr. Dre in the car all the time. But that’s exactly what it’s for. Just cause a song sounds good doesn’t mean it’s for a party. Rap is good, but you need house and Top 40 shit. But hey what do I know, I don’t know what they play in nightclubs.</sarcasm> Okay what am I thinking, I’m not even in this organization who am I to say that. I tell him, “Yeah I got most of this and I’ll play it for you.”

One song later, he comes back saying, “Hey, I got some people who wanna hear the songs I got in my playlist.” Like he spent a lot of time making it. I mean, he obviously really wants to play his music. Okay. I’ll back down, it’s your show. If people wanna hear music, and you made a playlist, why the hell am I even here. I won’t even bring up the obvious fact that the speakers are mine, they’re already here, it’s all yours dude. I pack up my laptop, forget about the music, and just get on with the shenanigans. Everything up to this point isn’t blog worthy. I’m not here to be a huge dick and force everyone to listen to my music if they don’t wanna.

So I’m discussing with my friend Joe about some good house music. Daft Punk, ATB, Aphex Twins. I thought, okay fuck this rap shit. From across the room, I shout, “HEY DJ! Play some techno for me, man! :D” This motherfucker looks me in the eye, says, “Nah man,” and waves me off with his hand. That is the most disrespectful thing anyone has ever done to me. And I’ve been puked on before (shout out to Patrick for getting someone else’s vomit on him for the first time). If you’re gonna be the music guy at a party, at least play something that somebody requests. And I’m not some drunk ass chick asking you to play some Flo Rida. I just wanted one song. Waving me off like that tells me that I have no idea what I’m talking about and you have no time for me. Don’t factor in the fact that I thought I was playing music or I brought my speakers, but could you at least do me a favor, music man to music man? You got a playlist full of fucking rap music. This ain’t a middle school dance. The reason I’m perturbed about this is that if I took over the music from somebody and that person asked me to play one song, I’d happily play it. Maybe he just doesn’t feel that way.

Or maybe I’m just expecting too much. I mean, it was just a party at a small apartment in West Campus. I shouldn’t be expecting high quality DJ shit. I just sit here and think about it, what a fucking dick. I hope you read this you piece of shit. Unless, “Nah man” and a “shoo” with your hand means something I’m not familiar with, that shit is unforgivable.

Maybe I’m the dick. Truthfully, do you think I was expecting too much, or was that just disrespectful?

Here is an example of an excellent song, but not one to play at a party. Well, it’s not rap. This is like… strolling music. Something to listen to while you gaze solemnly into the distance. Anyway, give it a listen.

Miike Snow – Animal (Peter Bjorn and John Remix)
http://limelinx.com/files/01a423f6f433c71aae2ed1bef947840e

I haven’t gone out to a party in Austin in a really long time. I hardly ever go out.

So last night I was feeling in the mood. I get to the club around 11. I check out the place with Pat, and we discover that we know the bartender on the third floor! He went to our high school, but he couldn’t hook us up with drinks because the TABC was in this weekend.

So I’m on the viewing platform and there are only a few people on the dance floor. There is this one fobby looking girl dancing with this Asian guy. Not a surprising scene because it was TASA’s event that night. The surprising part was that she was gettin’ really freaky and this guy is so awkward. I can see that it’s probably his first or second time dancing with a girl. That girl was getting down, bent over and shit. I said out loud, “Does anyone see this?” To which the people next to me laughed.

Let’s pause for a moment. I am going to tell you a story. It’s a story of how I’m best friends with Jonathan Vigil and Chi-Che Ma. I think I was 16 at the time. We’re rolling in Jerry’s new Rav, thinking we’re really cool. We get to a red light, and we see this cute girl about to cross the street with this guy. I don’t even remember what she looked like, I don’t even think she was cute, actually. I’d say a 7. So we already pass her, taking the left turn onto Bellaire. We are already almost to Jerry’s house when we were like “…should we go back and try to holla?” Wherefore we made a U-turn and hauled ass back into Chinatown. We went through the Welcome parking lot looking into restaurants and stores, but nothing. We went back to the same red light where we first saw the couple. We make the left onto Bellaire for a second time, and just as we’re passing Welcome again, I spot her sitting at the Metro bus stop. We pull another U-turn and get into the far right lane. The light is red, and we’re RIGHT next to the bus stop. I roll down my window and I ask, “Hey is that your man?” Both of them looked at me and didn’t say anything. I shouted again, “Is that your boyfriend!” This time, he gave me the universal finger salute for “Fuck you.” We laugh and I roll up the window, and we drive off. We were such teenyboppers, but we’ll ride till we die, son. I told Vigil about how I would blog about this, and he said, “Didn’t you blog about it already? Like on Xanga?” I went and looked through my old posts… and I found it! I talked so weird, and this was three years after I had started my Xanga. Check it out!

Back to the club later that night, I spot that fobby couple again. By now the dancefloor is packed. Please keep in mind that I didn’t have anything to drink. I wish I did, I would have done it much sooner. I work my way towards her. By the time I’m practically grinding on her, I say “Hey is that your boyfriend?” For a second, everything stops, and in the midst of the entire club, I think of my best friends. After I said this, she immediately stops dancing. Stands up. Steps next to her boyfriend. To which he put his arm around her. Right now I’m totally expecting him to give me the finger. I’m not into the whole beef on the dancefloor thing, so I say to the guy “Dude, your girl is freaky as FUCK! You gotta get on that shit!” He laughed and said something back, but I didn’t hear or care. Mainly because he absolutely has no moves, and you don’t need moves to dance at a club…

This one little incident made me think of the bonds I have with my friends. Just doing random crazy stupid shit, actin’ a total fool. We’ve been the same clique since 6th grade plus or minus a few members, but we’re in different cities, but it’s still ride till we die.

By the way, check out the new song, it’s sick as hell. Give it a listen!

I’m officially a Longhorn Confidential blogger! That doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon this blog though. I have to blog about campus related activities on there, so everything that isn’t campus related will go here! I want to make the UT blog about food and all the different places to eat here in Austin. Just some ideas, I happen to be out of those for the UT blog.These past couple days, I’ve had some serious reflections about myself. What do I want in life? What is my goal? Where do I want to go? How will I get there? What will I be like 10 years from now? How will I have changed the world?

I guess it’s why I’m here in Austin. It sounds hella cheesy, but I want to raise a family. But to do that I’m going to have to find a successful job. To do that I’m going to need to get a degree. I looked over my next three years as an aerospace engineering major, it’s nicely packed. I want to graduate and be like, “I’m a rocket scientist ;)” It’s hard to think about the rest of my life when I’ve got so much to think about in the now. I’ve met a lot of interesting new people here in Austin. Of course, I’ve made closer bonds with the people I knew back from Houston.

That’s it for now. My schedule is pretty easy going, 9:30 or 10:00 am classes everyday, I get out about 3 except the days I’ve got physics TA session or physics labs. Those are later in the evening. On the up side, I’ve only got one one hour class on Fridays. It’s just back to the daily grind of class.

Something I’ve never talked about on here is girls. Maybe I’ll feel better after typing this. For the past couple days I’ve just had this girl constantly on my mind. I met this girl over the summer. My first impression was that this girl is hella smart. She knows what she wants in life. Oh, on top of that she’s cute too. Those of you know who know me, well, I’ll just leave it at that. She’s seen the way I talk to other girls and I think she feels like she’s just another girl in my life. But that’s exactly how I don’t feel, I can’t even concentrate in class. All of my friends who have met her all approve, saying she’s very nice. I can honestly say, yeah I do like her. As the situation always is with me, I’m never sure if the feeling is quite mutual. I find that we just don’t have enough in common; I’m way too geeky, but I always find that true in any relationship or friendship. On top of that, my sense of humor is still too crude and immature to be considered a sense of humor. It’s like those times that I feel like I’m overlooking the ways that we don’t click. I just like being around her. Whenever we hang out I never think of the ways we don’t click because she’s comfortable company. She’s very outgoing and being from Austin, has tons of friends who she visits on weekends. She doesn’t live on campus so it’s hard for me to hang out with her. Right now I just don’t know what the fuck to do. Maybe I’m just tripping. I don’t know.

As summer draws to a close, summer freshmen here at the University of Texas at Austin begin slowing down and preparing for the upcoming finals. It’s everywhere you go. Besides the occassional Michael Phelps discussion, it’s all studies. These finals are important to semester averages, and ultimately, GPA. Of course, the people already doing poorly in a course are dropping classes, but for summer session, the drop deadline is much later than in fall and spring.

Like everyone else, I’ve calculated the grade I need on each of my finals to get a good grade. I need an 85 on the calculus final to maintain the A average (which is good, considering I took calculus AB in high school). The only downside is that the final is not cumulative and covers the hardest part of the semester, the part most people didn’t learn in high school. There is an optional final this Thursday, but it doesn’t need to be turned in, if it’s too hard, you can always wait till the real thing which is on Monday evening. In chemistry, the fourth exam is Thursday and the final is on Saturday. I’m most worried about this course because I need to get two A’s on both to scrape by with a B-. The final exam can be counted up to 50%, up from 30%, if I do well on the final. The lowest exam grade is also dropped, so if I get over an 80 on the exam tomorrow I should be set. It’s just sad that the numbers are against me. As for American studies, liberal arts classes never give out too many A’s. It seems like everyone in the class has a mid to high B. The final on Thursday is all short answer paragraphs. It’s just the fact that I’ve got to study important people and facts and events and themes in the Gilded Age all tonight. I’ll need an A on that final to get an A in the class.

It’s not too bad, sometimes I get a little pessimistic. I mean, getting a C in a class isn’t too bad. Some say it’s not worth it, that you should just drop. But for me, I need at least 8 hours of credit in the summer to maintain the engineering contract, and I’m enrolled in 10 right now. Even if I drop one class, that sets me at 7 hours, which isn’t enough to fulfill the requirements. It’s time to buckle down tonight. I’ve got my work cut out: thermodynamics, integrals, and the Gilded Age. I’ll be packing the Red Bull tomorrow morning…

It’s August 13th today. It’s hard to imagine that high school was only a little over two months ago. I’m jealous of everyone kicking it at home, having a good time before they all leave for college. The summer of senior year is supposed to be the most fun, no summer school or homework, no worries. In a flash, the fall semester begins in two weeks. I’m moving out of here Monday evening, going back to Houston for about a week. I can’t wait for the fall semester to start because then everyone I know will be here. And all the freshmen won’t know anything, like where certain buildings are. On the flip side, once fall starts, there goes my summer. Then it’ll be back to the day-to-day drill of school.

Hope everyone out there is enjoying summer, watching the Olympics, and having a good time.