Today I was out buying a costume from a store when I saw a Macintosh SE lying on a pile of garbage bags. Being the computer enthusiast I am, I grabbed it and took it home. Even if it didn’t actually work (Why would it? Who would throw out a perfectly good Macintosh SE?), it would still be really cool to have it.
When I got it home and plugged it in, lo and behold it turned on! Yeah. It was really cool. Not as dramatic as the startup noise of modern Macs, but the little “bing” is awesome all the same. I couldn’t actually do anything with it, since it didn’t have a mouse or keyboard, and the Macintosh mouse and keyboard I have don’t work with it. The trash can icon is full, I wonder whats in it…does anyone know where I can get a keyboard and mouse for an SE?
Also, for the fun of it, I took a picture with the SE next to Eve, my Macbook Pro. It’s very cool.
Click to enlarge
A Series of Tubes
An archive of old posts.
Tag Archives: Computers
Happy Birthday, :-)
Today in 1982, at this time exactly, Scott E. Fahlman invented the emoticon. He created the first emoticons, 🙂 and :-(. Their original purpose was to show which messages on a forum were serious and which were jokes, where joking messages would have 🙂 and serious ones wouldn’t. Happy birthday, :-)!
FTP Issues
I’m trying to get ProFTPd to limit one of my users to just a certain directory (/var/www/ftp), but no matter what i do it keeps putting me in their home directory on the system (/home/foo). I’ve reinstalled proftpd, so I have the absolute basic installation, plus 2 users (me and a friend, not the one i want to use)
Can someone either guide me through this or point me at a good tutorial on how to do it, please? 🙁
Oh I should mention that I am a sudoer on this system, which is running ubuntu 6.06 lts. I use bash. Uhh…oh I’m using ssh to do all this. That’s about it! 🙂
Vista Soda?!
You probably know about the next version of Windows, called Windows Vista, but did you know there’s a Windows Vista soda?
That’s not my image, I got it from Google Images. If it’s your image, leave a comment.
Yeah, I know. Wierd. Messed up. Why the hell does it need a soda?! If I come across some I’ll tell you how it tastes :P.
Sir, Yes Sir.
Boot Camp! Wow. What a great hack. I got Windows XP SP2 Home installed on my MacBook Pro, and it’s ver cool. I had forgotten how fun 3D Space Cadet Pinball is! The horror…
The funny part is the version of Windows I got. I bought it from eBay (It’s way cheaper), and it has all these warnings all over it. Check them out:
Click the images
I haven’t managed to get Uru to work on it yet, but not for long…
Update: Now Windows won’t install. To the comment: It is authentic, just an OEM. The windows disc is covered in large, circular scratches, and it keeps stalling earlier and earlier. Now it won’t get past the little blinky line cursor at the very beginning of the install. I’m at a complete and utter dead end. If anyone knows what to do to fix this problem, please, please contact me.
More Reasons Ubisoft Sucks.
Being a Myst fan, I obviously hate Ubisoft. For those who don’t know or understand why, it’s becuase they were the publishers Cyan Worlds was working for for a long time. They own the rights to Myst III, IV, and have the licences for V. They were the ones who originally published Uru Live, and pulled it’s funding when not enough people signed up for it.
They’re the ones who are responsible for what happened to Cyan Worlds in September of last year.
They have manufactured an anti-piracy program which has the ability to shut down your computer if it suspects piracy. And that means if you have the disc in one drive and are burning another disc in another drive, it will shut down your computer, potentially doing lots of damage.
This is the huge capitalist pig of a game publisher.
And on to today’s topic, their support. The support form I filled out to get help with installing Myst V on my mac (read the next post for info on that) is pretty good. They have a platform selector (with every platform they publish games on, which is virtually every one), and then a game selector, then a selector for the type of problem. I filled this out neatly, and proceeded to tell them my story and ask for help. I must have mentioned the fact that I’m trying to use their stupid patcher to get it to install on my INTEL BASED MAC at least 4 times.
I just now received a reply from them (very prompt, congrats), which was somewhat confusing. Here’s a sample.
– Updating your video drivers:
Please visit your sound, video, and 3D card manufacturer’s websites for the most recently available drivers for the components in your system.
Major video chipset manufacturers web sites:http://www.nvidia.com – GeForce/TNT/Riva/Vanta/Etc models
http://www.ati.com – Radeon/Rage Pro/Rage 128 Pro/Etc models
http://www.3dfx.com – All Voodoo model cards
http://www.s3graphics.com – All Savage model cards
http://www.matrox.com – G200/G400 modelsOnce you have downloaded and installed these drivers according to the manufacturer’s suggestions then follow the next step.
– Updating your Directx:
Download and install DirectX from http://www.microsoft.com/directx. For more help with this, please search the Ubi Soft Database for how to update drivers.– Please check to see if there is a patch available for your game at http://support.ubi.com/patches.php
This is ridiculous, because my software updater automagically updates my drivers (all of them). That’s a link to www.MICROSOFT.com, the guys who make WINDOWS?! Oh wait, theres a patch available! Oh that’s right, THE PATCH IS WHAT I’M COMPLAINING ABOUT. Another sample:
– Try running the game from the executable
Instead of starting the game from the start menu or the Autorun menu, try running the game from the executable file in the game’s installation directory.– Close all programs running in the background
To do this in XP:
Go to the Start menu, and choose Run. Delete anything on the Open line that you’ll find there, and type in the work MSCONFIG. Click on OK, and that will bring up a program called the System Configuration Utility.Look down the list of startup items (not the tab labeled Startup), and choose Selective Startup (if it is not already selected). If you don’t see this, make sure you’ve clicked on General, near the top of the window. Once you’ve chosen Selective Startup, uncheck ‘Load Startup Items’, and leave ‘Process System.INI file’ and ‘Process Win.INI file’ checked. Once you’re done here, click OK, and let it reboot your computer.
Look at that. Last time I checked, Mac OS X does not have an Autorun menu. Last time I checked, there is no Start Menu or an option called Run to choose. Last time I checked, Process System.INI and Process Win.INI didn’t exist on my computer, and last time I checked I WAS RUNNING OS X 10.4.7, NOT WINDOWS XP, YOU STUPID MORONS!
I read the e-mail carefully, and not once does it mention Mac OS X.
Adium X Sucks. I miss Trilly!
Ok I’ve been using Adium X for a day now and I already hate it. You can’t nest folders, you can’t rename buddies, some buddies refuse to be moved to other folders, and it doesn’t have any extra emotes. On the plus side, it supports Gtalk. Other than that, Trillian beats it by far.
Does anyone know of another app that’s Mac-compatable and has those features? (Or at least supports renaming buddies?)
Update: Thank you to Justin who suggested that I try Fire, I love it so far. It lacks substantial emotes, but aliasing works fine and buddies stay where I put ’em. Nesting folders doesn’t work, but I’m ok without them. Thanks, Justin!
Setting Up Eve
Eve is now a fully operatable machine. She’s been configured correctly, I’ve installed all my instant messengers (for all its features, Adium X lacks sufficient emoticons, it (like my arch-nemisis, GAIM) uses the standard for whatever client you’re messaging in. Oh well, I only use 😛 anyway.
My friend DI left me in charge of his computer while he’s away, and that includes his monitor. I did what any geek with an extra monitor would do, and rigged a dual-monitor setup. It’s great, except for a few hitches. One is placement. The monitor can only go as low as about 3 inches off the ground, so I turned it on its side to match better. Also, the monitor is actually smaller than my laptop screen (the laptop being 15.4 inches diagonally and the monitor only being 14), and has a lower resolution (my laptop screen is 1440×900 and the monitor is only 768×1024 (turned on its side)), resulting in strangely enlarged windows. Oh well, it’s still great.
As for the overheating problems with MacBooks of the Professional variety, so far I’ve only experienced minor overheating, nothing that makes it unusable, though. The caps lock key is annoying, though. It’s larger than is standard, I think, resulting in a lot of capital letters when I want A’s. Oh well, I’ll get used to it.
A few things I like about the computer are FrontRow and GarageBand. GB is one of the reasons I bought a mac, I love the ability to write music with little loops and clips of other instruments. I haven’t done anything phenominal yet, but I’m working. FrontRow was an added treat. It’s like going to the movie trailers page on Apple.com, but without all the frivilous stuff. I haven’t tried watching any real movies yet or looking at photos, but I bet they’ll be just as good. The remote is awesome, I love it 🙂
The tiny camera at the top is remarkably high quality, and comes with some effects that are very nice, the distorts especially. Comic Life (which I hadn’t even heard of before) is very fun, it allows you to make comics and stuff, providing you with the boxes as well as speech bubbles that stretch and that kind of thing. Very nice.
That pretty much sums up everything I’ve done up to this point. Overall, a great buy. Well worth the money. 🙂
Eve is Here!
My new MacBook Pro (which I’ve named Eve, keep reading) 15.4 inch is here. After travelling through China, Alaska, and Indiana (not to mention Western Massachusetts), it is finally where it belongs.
Why the name? Two reasons. One: Adam and Eve? Eve is the one that takes the apple? Apple computer? Get it? Har. Two: AppleGeeks. In the comic, Hawk (the protagonist), created a robot girlfriend powered by an iPod named Eve, and since Eve kicks 4$$, I figured that the name fit. 😛
TO GARAGE BAND!