Tag Archives: Computers

Oct 27 2007
Life in general

Leopard Impressions

Ok well let me start by saying that Leopard does not offer any performance increases unless you have a 64 bit processor. This has been stated before, but it really is true. My computer is no faster than it was under Tiger, if anything its slower. I’ll get more ram and hopefully that will sort it out.

Secondly, it runs hot. Apple finally wised up and made the fan speed adjust according to temperature, but honestly I would prefer if they just let me control them myself like I did before, because averaging at 65˚ C is not acceptable.

But aside from those two factors, Leopard kicks ass! It’s really just plain sexy. I can’t wait to get some downloads-stack love from Firefox…Coverflow in Finder is awesome and very responsive (videos not as much as images), the new dock is pretty, the translucent menubar is cool, the new Photobooth features are pretty cool, Spaces kicks so much ass…It’s all in all a very solid update, methinks.

But the fans not running fast enough is getting pretty annoying…

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Oct 27 2007
Life in general

OS X Leopard Released

Yesterday at 6PM, the latest and greatest in Mac OS X was released, v10.5: Leopard.

I bought it earlier today.

It looks fricken sweet.

Here are all the features.

This is my final post in OS X Tiger. Woot.

See y’all on the other side.

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Oct 06 2007
4 Comments
Life in general

A Very Scratched Disc

My computer’s disc drive is not the most reliable in the world. I’ve found that to successfully burn something, I have to do it at 2x or 4x speed, as opposed to the 24x that it is capable of.

Anyway, when a burn fails (as they often do), I enjoy taking out my anger on the disc in question. Usually by completely maiming its pristine, shiny underside with a key.

Here’s my latest failed burn, which occurred about a month ago (I rarely burn things to disc). I think it’s actually very pretty.

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Oct 03 2007
Life in general

I Would Now Buy a Zune

after watching a video of the New Zune Interface, I can no longer claim to not like the zune. It is almost as thin as an iPod, and very sexy. They’ve dropped brown as a color choice, opting for shiny, shiny black for the 80gb version and green (olive green), pink, silver, and black for the 4/8gb.

The new ‘zunepad’ interface looks very nice, not as intuitive as a touchscreen, but more intuitive than an iPod Wheel.

But, of course I won’t be getting one. It’s not even a possibility, since Microsoft is still not offering Macs any compatibility.

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Sep 21 2007
2 Comments
Life in general

Reflections on Windows OS Upon Recieving Invitation To Beta Test Trillian Astra (AKA Longest Post Title EVAR)

I was recently invited to join the Trillian Astra alpha test. Trillian was my favorite instant messaging program while I was a Windows user, and remained my favorite long after switching to Mac OS. So naturally, I was extremely excited to be invited to the testing cycle of the upcoming 4th major release of Trilly, called Astra.

However, upon launching it, I discovered that it is not really different from the 3rd version of Trillian, just a lot shinier (COUGH COUGH VISTA COUGH COUGH). Also, I remembered that I am almost never on my Windows partition any more, and getting Trillian again is pretty much pointless.

Not only that, I began to feel critical of Windows and Trillian as a whole, all over again. The interface just seems to clunky after the Mac experience. I tried customizing windows to be more like mac (I downloaded ObjectDock to obtain a dock for windows, and a Quicksilver ripoff duplicate -ish program to get that interface as well), but in the end the best I can get is a sad, deformed version of OS X. And trillian wasn’t the beautiful program I remembered, either.

The interface seemed so bland and complicated compared to Adium, which I used to hate with a passion. I remembered having a ton of fun with it, but using it now it just seems slow and packed with features I’m never going to use.

So basically, I’m giving away my Astra account to someone who will make better use of it, Matt. He’s a real Windows guy, and more power to him for that. We’ve had plenty of intellectual debates about the rival operating systems (“omg m$ windows sux” “no fag windows ftw, mac sux ass” “bill gates? more liek dollar bill gay-ts” and so on), but we’re still friends, so I’ll trust him with my Astra account. I bet it looks better on Vista anyway.

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Sep 19 2007
Life in general

Uru Live Season Finale: Exodus

“Exodus” (beginning in mid-October)

“Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.”

The words have been repeated many times. Even while the restoration effort begun again and with the release of new Ages, the words were always said. With the resurrection of the D’ni city, the Guilds, the DRC, and new life filling the cavern again, the words continued to hang in the air above the orange waters.

What do they mean?

While many questions have been answered, there are more that remain. What effect will Cate have on the restoration now that the members of the original restoration team have returned? Where will the Bahro war take us? Is the one who originally spoke the words finished with her part in this grand story?

With the release of the new Age of Ahnonay as well as K’veer Island and Myst Island, there will be changes.

Woah. That right there is a description of Episode 9 of Uru Live, the season finale entitled “Exodus”. Check out that last line again. Ahnonay, K’veer, and Myst. Jeebus. That’s a lot of stuff. Plus these foretold changes, and the not-so-subtle hinting at Yeesha’s return, this is going to be one helluva finale.

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Sep 05 2007
1 Comment
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New iPods!

Apple announced the 6th gen iPod today, as well as the 3rd gen nano. The 6th gen iPod is actually 2 different things, the iPod Classic (almost identical to the 5th gen, except with up to 160gb of storage) and the way cooler iPod touch, which is like an iPhone without the phone part. It even has WiFi for downloading songs and surfing the net and stuff. Über. The 3rd gen nano is much wider than the 2nd gen, and has video capabilities. It’s also really really thin.

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Aug 29 2007
Life in general

OMFG SAM AND MAX 2 TRAILER

I just stumbled upon The Sam & Max Season 2 Trailer, which looks totally awesome. It has really great pre-rendered graphics, even though the actual game will look only slightly better than the original season :P…Still, the Presidential Puppet is there, as well as a Sombrero-wearing villain-type, a silhouetted murderer, and a giant robot.

All of the side characters appear in the trailer, Sybil on a date with Abe, Bosco in a strangely red inconvenience store, and Jimmy Two-Teeth (not to mention our intrepid heroes, Sam and Max). Sybil’s sign has not been updated, and still lists ‘Queen’ as the latest job. Oh well, there’s some explanation.

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Aug 23 2007
Life in general

I Found Funny Stuff

Whilst cleaning out a small cabinet in my room today, i discovered two pages of childish crayon drawings of ‘plans’ for destroying all the macs in the world (via broadcasting self-destruct programs that only infect macs through satellites and destroying the factories that make mac parts). Before about this time, two years ago (when i had a kind of blinded-by-the-light revelation on the matter), i absolutely hated macs, so much that i wanted to destroy all of them in the world 😛

The drawings are cute, showing the apple headquarters and factories as giant apples with doors and smokestacks and such, and satellites as boxes with laser guns all over the bottom 😛

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Aug 16 2007
Life in general

The CD Turns 25

The first compact disc ever was produced by Philips, a copy of ABBA’s “The Visitors”. Eugh. Well, happy quarter-centennial, CD!

(Btw, I’m in Colorado until Sunday, which is why I’m not posting much…)

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