Isaiah's Tech

If you use Gmail, i have some good news for you. Google is working on a new video chat plug-in that will change the resolution of your video chatting from 640 x 480, all the way up to high-definition. It'll be interesting to see how "high-def" it will be, but i'm still excited for this feature. I read a couple of days ago, that Gmail had to go with a lower video quality because they were taking a "quantity over quality" approach. Moving on to more new Gmail features. There will be a contact manager, which will remove your duplicate contacts. Google may also be working on being able to attach bigger files onto your e-mails. We'll see what happens in the Gmail world, soon.

This is a scary picture, representing a guy's timeline, playing WoW. He increasingly gets fatter over the months / years. I found this on Digg and the title was, "How WOW Changed My Life." Apparently, this picture is a fake because his ear spacers actually get smaller throughout the years, but that's besides the point. The Digg title really had me reflecting on how WoW changed my life. It all started on Feb 1st of 2007. My friend told me to try out a 10-day trial on WoW and i told myself, "What the hell? I have to pay every month, what a rip-off." But, like many users, i was addicted as soon as i logged on. I bought the original game and the expansion (The Burning Crusade) the next day. I started out as a Dwarf Hunter (Arnaridis) on the server, Hellscream. I hit level 70 and still didn't know much about the game (L2P). My girlfriend (at the time, Hazel) usually called me while i was raiding and i'd tell her that i was playing WoW. I was playing about 8 hours on a school night, back then. As i said, my girlfriend would call me and would always tell me to stop playing or, "Get off for like 5 minutes," but i'd refuse because you can't just leave in the middle of a raid. I played WoW for a bit over a year and a half because one day, i realized how much money i've spent on the game. I was sitting in Religion class when my buddy asked how much i've spent on WoW. After calculating how much i've spent (around $360 CAD), i quit the game, when my play-time finished. Oh yeah, i also starved myself everyday to play the game because i didn't have a job at the time. I saved up the $20 CAD every week, which i got as lunch money from my mom. My girlfriend, Nikki, also had a [small] part to me quitting WoW, so i'll also mention that. WoW greatly altered my grades and had me sleeping about 3-4 hours a day (that hasn't changed). Ever since i started WoW, my body has become used to sleeping late nights and i actually like that. I was an hooked on WoW until i started, until about a month before i quit. But, i realized that i can't be going into University playing this game or it will ruin my future. That's where Nikki comes in, she made me realize that there are more important things to life than that stupid (forgive me WoW) game. Anyways, that was me rambling about WoW for a bit, let's move on to Windows 7. I may continue this WoW-rant one day.

Windows 7. I did my first impressions on it yesterday (here) and it was all smooth. Windows 7 is running completely stable on my laptop and desktop. I'm loving the new "Homegroup" option in the Control Panel because instead of downloading the same program over and over, i can now download it once and share it across my network. This is useful for me because if i download too many things, i will go over my Rogers 60GB download limit a month. But now, i bring my laptop to school, download all of my essentials there, and then share it, using Homegroup, to my desktop and my other laptop. I do have an issue with Google Gadgets on Windows 7 and it's because of the new taskbar. There are just some minor visual issues when displaying the Google Gadgets icon as a "Deskbar." Other than that, Google Gadgets itself, works fine. The boot-up on my Vista laptop is much, much faster running Windows 7. Currently, i do not know how much Windows 7 improves on the laptop's battery, but i will find out soon. Oh yeah, i also love the Windows Wallpaper slideshow. There is a new Windows 7 feature that enables you to automatically change your wallpaper after a certain time (you can change it). For me, i have 3 wallpaper background that change every 10 minutes. I am still looking for a couple of more nature-based wallpapers, to add to my collection. Another problem with Windows 7 is driver compatibility. This is a small issue and it doesn't really have anything to do with Windows 7 itself, but instead Windows Vista. Since, Windows 7 uses Vista-based drivers, my old webcam is currently, not supported. The video capability of the webcam is working, but it's integrated microphone doesn't work at all. I've been trying to find an alternate solution, but as of right now, i haven't found one yet. If it matters to you, the webcam i am using is the Logitech QuickCam Messenger. Luckily, i have 2 webcams and the other one works perfectly fine. On my laptop, i am using "Small Icons" on the taskbar because the bigger taskbar covers up too much of the screen. On my desktop computer though, i am using the regular icons because i have enough room on my screen for it. That is all for my Windows 7 review of the day. I will talk more about it again, if i have anything interesting to mention. My friend, Richard, mentions that Windows Media Center got a good overhaul, but i haven't checked it out yet.

Gmail; New Features: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/01/upcoming-gmail-features-contact.html
How WOW Changed My Life (and picture): http://digg.com/pc_games/How_WOW_Changed_My_Life
Windows 7 Boot Screen picture: http://www.askvg.com/download-new-windows-7-beta-boot-screen-for-windows-xp-and-vista/