For the last 2 (or 3?) months now, Fr0stbyte has been running Vista. At first, I thought Vista was one of the best upgrades ever: you gotta love the redesigned interface, Flip 3D, Areo and all, the new task bar with disk caching that makes searching incredibly fast. Also, DirectX 10 compatibility with all the newer games is a big big feature, specially for somebody like me who used to thing that he was going to play all the newest games maxed out. I pertinently knew that Vista would handicap performance, but I was ready to accept that (my box has plenty anyways, right?) but after several frustrating experiences, I decided that enough was enough: XP x64 is going back on my main system, and Vista is going to hell.

Razrs are everywhere. My friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, septic tank drainers, pushers and hookers have Razrs. It was quite a revolutionary phone at it’s launch, but today they are some many in the wild that owning one of those will get people to whisper “conformist” to you on the streets. I’m usually more of a right side kind of person, but really, some trends, like the Razr, get to a point where it’s almost an insult to individuality.

2007 was a very big year indeed. For the sake of archiving all the memories and accomplishements of the year that has passed, this article will highlight the main events of the year 2007.

• First big event in my year, my 15th birthday on the 30th of January: one year deeper in adolescence, and getting closer still to adulthood and all it has to offer. On the personal plan, I feel that I have gone through great personal evolution throughout this year: a change in tastes, change in mentality, but most importantly, a feeling that time goes by WAAAY faster. As much as last year my weeks seem to stretch out and last forever, now it seems like my bi-weekly paycheck comes in every day.

• Once again a step closer to adulthood, 2007 was marked with the obtention of my first ever job at McDonalds, in the month of March. Being the first one of my posse to get a real job (the kind you have to do declarations for), I had no friend to give me advice on the thing, so the concept of working was totally new for me. My job helped me on many aspects, notably social interaction, negociation and diplomacy, and it gave me my first real taste of what money was really worth. The only sad thing about it is that it got me used to a certain level of comfort that makes me feel poor whenever I fall under, but hey, something's gotta give.

• Also a big first in 2007, the construction of my first custom PC, and my introduction to the hardware side that came with it. In fact, if this year were to be named after a geeky sphere of activity, it would be without a doubt be called hardware. It's pretty regrettable, but in the end DIC has been slightly shunned in the favor of OCN, and the tendancy looks like it's going to continue. Unless I decide to finally get a grip on my code, which is going just as good as the American economy.

• '07 was also the year of my first parentless trip out of Quebec. With the help of my school, various fundraisers and the federal tax-funded SEVEC program, I went to Peace River, Alberta, with a short stop to Edmonton. Although on the spot I didn't really care of what was happening to me, if it wasn't for the immersion in a totally different culture, I later realized that this trip was a very important part of my year, if not my life, for lots of reasons.

• It may sound weird, but this past year feels like the first one where I really have explored my limits with alcohol, and that it is openly discussed with members of my family. I've been drinking for quite a time (I know, teen drinking is bad, bla bla bla), but until Q3 2007, I just drunk whatever I had brought to the social event currently ongoing, or whatever was given to me or "found" in the basement fridge, but now I think I know my limits and feel like I can drink to the brink, while having drunk and still not being sick. Examples? Party of 30 at one of my rich friend's house, probably the biggest all summer, I was one of the only 3 that weren't sick. It's not something big, but it's an accomplishment that I am proud of, a skill that I think is going to be very useful in the college years up ahead :) .

• 2007 also marks my transfer to Chavigny High School from Three River's Academy. I've been at TRA (formerly St. Patrick's) ever since pre-kindergarten, so over time I've been used to my little 200 student high school, so the switch to this full fledged 2000 student institution was quite a shock. Despite my integration was quick and painless, and to this day I have no regrets about my switch.

• Also on the academic plan, 07' is the first year where I get courses relative to the job that I want to practice later on. One of the main reasons I was switching ot Chavigny this year was the Cisco CCNA course given there, in which I was accepted. At the date of writing of this article, the CCNA 1 module is one chapter short of being finished, and so far I'm doing good.

• I've gotten way better at biking in summer 07, and I've ridden over 2000 k for sure. Great use of all that McDonalds I was eating back this summer.

• I've been introduced, thanks to Mark, to Payperpost, and made a couple of bucks from it. Besides putting a little bit of money in my Paypal account, it also helped with my writing a lot. Plugging something while not sounding like a plug is kind of hard.

With this said, let 2008 kick off and be a good one! That’s what my yearly horoscope promised anyways :) .

With the purchase of my monitor a few weeks ago and new graphics card just a couple days old, I'm still pretty fresh to the way of life that is using a wide screen monitor. Although with most apps using any resolution is no big deal, as 16:10(monitors) and 16:9 (HDTVs) are supported by Windows natively, but it's really in gaming and web browsing that a wide monitor stands out. Again, on the web the format usually isn't a problem (at least not for the Firefox rendering engine; hurray FF!), but there are some problems in some games. For those trying to play older/crappier games on new monitors, I have set up a small list of games that I personally have had trouble with. Here they are.

I don’t know if the cause of this is school, lack of stimulation, change in my temper or some other factor that I can’t control, but it seems that I have tons of things currently in progress, but nothing is getting done.