For the past few weeks I knew that I needed to reformat my drive and reinstall XP – explorer.exe had a memory leak, I had 8 minute boot up times, and more. I definitely needed to reformat.

Then, the Microsoft keynote came along and Steve Ballmer said the Windows 7 beta was coming, and I knew that I was going to use that instead of my XP install. I learned that only 2.5 million keys were going to be released, starting at around 12:00 PM EST. I was immediately disappointed, knowing I will be in school when it all comes out. I came home and found out the Microsoft website has been down all day, and that they keys were not sent out.

I smiled.

I learn about the direct links, and the ways to get keys – and I am off to the races. I was up until 2:00 AM trying to get a key, while I was fighting with the download to work. I had to go to bed.

I woke up this morning, and by luck, got a few keys. Then, the ISO download started working. Things were coming together!

So, after a whole day of working on it, I finally got it downloading and working.

After this BETA is over with (August 1, 2009,) or maybe earlier, I will be posting my review on it.

My first impressions are great – It’s fast, it’s new, I love the toolbar; but then again I am moving from a messed up, slow version of Windows XP Media Center Edition SP2.

We’ll see.

All of you know what Phil Schiller announced at the keynote, so I won’t go too much into it.

- New 17″ Macbook Pro
- iLife 2009
- iWork 2009
- iTunes DRM Free

More after the jump.

This was a very unique keynote in that it was the first one without any appearance at all by Steve Jobs. Earlier this week, he released a letter explaining his absence.

 

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

So, rightfully so, Steve stayed home. The whole world was breathlessly awaiting the Philnote, and greeted him extremely warm when he walked on stage. As spectacted, nothing interesting was released.

17″ MacBook Pro
Simply stated, who would buy this at this price? Someone who loves way overpriced machines with larger screens. This was not exciting at all.

iWork and iLife ‘09
Did anyone not think they would release this? I mean, some features of it are cool, but, whatever.

iTunes went DRM-free
This is probably the only intersting thing out of this keynote, in my opinion. It was fully unexpected, and fully needed. There has been some problems, though, with the price of upgrading all of your music to “iTunes Plus,” the DRM-Free versions of the songs.

 ————————————————————————————————————————————————–
This is very suprising that I am not excited about what came out of this keynote. Usually, everytime Apple sneezes, I get fanboy giggles; but not this time. It really underwhelmed me, and I was left wanting something new and inventive. Phill Schiller did a very good job, and I expect to see more of him over time.

In other news, Apple releases a keyboardless notebook.

Yes, yes, yes, I know I said that I would be doing video app reviews. I have recorded a ton of review videos, and I will work on getting them edited and posted.

Stay tuned.

2008 has been a momentous year for me.
Friends were made, friends were lost. I’ve been learning about who I am, who I want to be, and what I love. I turned 16. I got a new President. I started getting deeper into photography.

I. grew. up.

Thank you all for everything, and let’s make 2009 an even better year than 2008.

Love, Justin

So, I was looking at Loic Le Meur’s blog, and he posted a video of a Japanese TV Show that featured Seesmic users. I was one of those users – without me knowing.. haha!

Go to 1:39 about..

100,000 people calling for change showed up for the rally today in Missouri. Rally attendance doesn’t necessarily mean voter turnout, but this shows that people are dedicated and are obsessed with the idea of change. I can see John McCain in his corner, crying with his soul-mate Sarah Palin right now – with their 100 people turnout at their rallies; John – you can blame Dubya on the hate people feel for you, because even if you aren’t physically GWB, you are in every other way.

I have thought of a great direction for this website. Technology News and comments, from a young perspective. I am going to start commenting on important technology news stories. For now, though – and this is going to be a long term project, I am going to be writing iPhone/iPod touch application reviews, complete with screenshots, and possibly an audio or video podcast for all the reviews. I am going to start writing today, and you should start seeing a steady flow of blog postings!

Stay tuned.

With the rate of my postings not being very high, I am not getting many hits. This semester, I am planning on it changing. MY first hour is web design, which means access to the internet. I’ll try to post if anything is on my mind, and if not, I won’t. I don’t want this to turn into my old blog, with posts along the lines of “7:12 AM EST: I’m sorry for not posting yesterday; I had it typed, but I never hit publish. I R STOOPIDZ. Today its so windy outside, like 459072380549 mph. NO EXAGGERATIONZ. ok wots up. nuthin? dats gud. I gotta take down my christmas countdown… ahahahhahah. I’m so lazy. I’ll post later.. l\/laybe.” Yeah. That’s not what this place is for. I started a new blog in hopes of having “editorials” and things like that, instead of a “life blog.”

But, we’ll see. Hopefully, I will be purchasing “justinmorley.com” and stick this on wordpress.org, because “justinmorley.wordpress.com” isn’t too professsional.

Before I forget,I wanted to post my schedule on here, just for fun.

First Hour: Computer Apps 2/Web Design
Second Hour: (Honors) International Relations
Third Hour: Spanish 3
Fourth Hour: Algeostat 3T
Fifth Hour: Parenting
Sixth Hour: Chemistry

This year is going to be TOUGH.

I’m testing out blogging from my iPod touch.

MSNBC is reporting that NBC says that Senator Clinton is moving to end bid for Presidency on Friday.. or Saturday. Now she needs to support Obama and get her supporters to do the same.