WordPress 2.7 … thinking of moving

I’m thinking of moving this blog to one of the shared bluehost server thingies. The package costs lest than my WoW account, which I cancelled, and since wordpress 2.7 just came out it should be enough fun for me to play with. I’ll keep you posted.

I wrote this interesting [geeky] poem in 2004

I’m thinking of studying,
And this thought … I’d like to keep it.
I don’t feel in place at this party;
I’d rather be doing physics.

Complex fractions and
Instantaneous accelerations oh my
Nah, I’m not drinking,
And I don’t feel like picking a fight.

The average velocity of my motions in time:
What a wonderful thought.
Maybe I could go to the other room and study
Without being caught.

If only a person to take my place
And give me a necessary substitution;
I could be doomed, but
Where there’s a problem, there is a solution.

Zip zap, let me think.
What is the given information?
Blip blop, and rink-a-tink.
I found an applicable equation!

Take the change in speed of the party
For a duration of 10 minutes, five consecutive times
Do this and compute the result, then
Compare the rate of change of those five

Now graph the result in a chart of
Change in speed vs. time
At some point the party speed is low.
Connect the points to make a line.

Look at the graph and estimate the amt of time
It will take for the next negative slope.
Pack your bags and patiently wait
For the next opportunity to get up and grab a coke.

When you find an appropriate time,
Go for a soda and then slip out the door.
If someone asks, say you’re going
Out to smoke and will be back in about four.

Problem solved, and now to get home so I can study;
Then I’ll be doing fine.
I think I’ll start on Physics, then play with some integrals
On my TI-89.

1150 dollars … 350 dollars … BYE BYE CASH – HELLO TOYS!!

HP 2500z…

I went out and purchased one of those ricer tablets (as seen in pic above) for 1150 dollars at best buy. Why didn’t I buy it for cheaper online? Well, best buy has a really great 4 year warranty and if I don’t like what I buy, I can return it to the store *cough* but there is normally a 15% restocking fee for electronics and crap like that.

So… how do I like the new tablet? I FRIGGIN HATE IT!!!! The one thing that destroys this tablet for me entirely is the friggin screen. I have NEVER seen such a ridiculously overpowered glare come from a screen. Plus, in tablet mode … the buttons aren’t very tablety. This particular tablet is more of a play thing, overheating and whatnot with it’s ricer graphix card, than a business tablet. So… I decided to return that piece of crap today.

I managed to get that 15% restocking fee waived as well, thank goodness lol.

So, my next tablet will be an IBM x61 tablet – the thinkpad tablets are just soooooooooooo much better than anything else I’ve ever tried. They are durable, sturdy, business like, and the screens are fabulous and not stupidly shiny. I can get an x61 tablet pc for 950 bux from lenovo’s refurb pile online with 4 gigs of ram, vista 64 bit business, 8 cell battery, 150 gig hdd, etc. That’s the cheapest I’ve been able to find ’em.

But, even still, I’m not going to push the button just yet. I’m going to sit on this tablet pc thought for awhile. Yes, I do have an x41 tablet but it’s just not powerful enough for me, plain and simple, so I’m letting a friend tour it for the weekend with the intention to buy – I’m selling it for dirt cheap since I got it for dirt cheap.

In other news, after getting my 1150 dollars back from best buy *ahhh*, I purchased this from the apple store for 350 bux:

bose quietcomfort 3

All I can really say about these is that they’re stupid expensive but all the headphone guru’s say that they’re just flat out awesome. I wanted some noise cancelling headphones for awhile, and last time I tried these out with my girlfriend, I was really impressed. So… decided to make the plunge.

What am I going to use these expensive thingies fur? Well, mostly for work. At work, I’m on the computer for about 50% of my time and 40% of that time the co-workers near me are talking and gossiping and generally just being leisurely. That’s all good and well, gossip is one hell of a distracter. Those guys always have some interesting crap to say and it totally throws me off task. So, i need a way to completely ignore ALL SURROUNDING NOISES when I want to get things done. These headphones seemed like a good choice, save for the price.

Why did I not buy them online for cheaper? I’m just not that patient. I wanted them now, so I can use them NOW. Simple as that. SO far, they’re pretty kewl. I like the on ear design a lot better than that ear cup thing from the previous version of this headphone.

Some other conclusions:

– Vista adds awesome functionality (flicks, better fingerprint login, better onenoting ocr for whatever reason) to tablet pc’s
– The fingerprint reader is NOT useless, it’s actually great because now I can login to my computer in tablet mode
– touch screen functionality is useless for tablet pc’s except for fullscreen pdf reading
– the screen makes the tablet. if the screen sucks, the tablet sucks
– heat is actually something that should be considered when buying a tablet. if ur tablet catches fire like normal laptops, your tablet is teh suck
– 8 cell is a necessity for a tablet; the more battery life the better
– the pen that comes with the tablet is a VERY IMPORTANT FEATURE that must be considered when buying the tablet. the hp2500z pen has a CLICKING eraser on the end of the pen which sucks balls because everytime you erase something it feels like it’s scratching the screen because you have to apply waaaaay too much pressure to get the thing to click
– onenote is still king if you like to ink, if you prefer typing then evernote will suffice kinduh
– no matter what tablet you buy, videogames in general will SUCK HORRIBLY on it. the hp 2500z has a ricer video card and playing games on it still completely sucked because the screen is sooooo friggin tiny and the graphics card, although powerful compared to other tablets, still sucks. I guess my desktop has spoiled me for games since I’m on a “nice” graphics card and a two larger than necessary screens.
– these new obnoxiously wide widescreens are obnoxious. here’s what they look like:

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^see that? the screens are like 10 inches wide and 1 inch tall. FRIGGIN HORRIBLE, however the thinkpad series x40, x41, x61, all have great sized screens and not that stupid obnoxious ultra wide wide-screen crap. This is another reason why I want the x61 because it’s going to be the last of the mohicans. You see, lenovo already released an x200 with that stupid wide wide-screen crap cuz it’s in high demand I guess. And guess what, that’s friggin gay. X61 > x200 imo just because of the screen

ok, so here’s the news on onenote, evernote, tablet pc, and digital notepad

tablet pc test

movies with happy endings! is it just me …

Or, is anyone else noticing that mainstream (advertised) movies are leaning towards endings that are more true to life as opposed to your blanket “happy ending”. I generally only watch movies that are popular, mostly because they’re easy to find, and ten years ago I’d be hard pressed to think of a movie without some sort of happy ending. Yes, there are those off the wall movies but I only discover those through recommendations and such. But, for the popular mainstream stuff, this seems to be becoming a popular pattern, this unhappy ending business.

Just my personal observation.

onenote vs evernote, winner announced

EVERNOTE WINS

Why?

It works with mac and windows; you can save webclips and screenshots; 40mb/month free or 500mb/month for 5 bux a month; accessible over the INTERNET(!), obviously; I can search text in pictures(!) – that feature is in the pay/per version; I can click a checkbox for “local storage” that will not be available online or synced with their online service – this is important because I need just a tad bit of privacy for talking mess about everyone else in my handwritten journal entries; works on your ricer telephone (iphone, blackberry, ipaq); has a bar on the right hand side of the desktop application that lists the dates everything was added to a notebook – it’s like a timeline!

Onenote doesn’t do that (see above). Plus, onenote costs like 60 bux or so and has so many friggin caveats. For instance, onenote 2007 doesn’t have handwriting recognition under winxp. That feature only works if onenote 2007 is on vista or xp tablet edition, and as you know, I don’t want to fork out 700 dollars for a new computer. You could get onenote 2003 and it would work with some workarounds. Still, no online capability, can’t have it everywhere, etc.

Evernote is the CLEAR winner here for me. In fact, if I get it crunk enough, I might just purchase the $45/yr subscription to their online service – but I don’t think I will exceed 40mb a month at all. The only things I’d like to upload to their sharing service are my book notes that will be either a scanned image of my notes (convert pdf to jpg) or a straight up inking from the faux tablet pc like a cyberpad.

But, I have not yet decided to purchase the cyberpad. I’m kind of on edge as to whether or not 150 bux is worth it seeing as how evernote handles pictures just fine – I’ll have to sleep on that one.

Finally, what is are my big plans for this note managing application? Well, I’ve purchased over 200 dollars worth of books in the past two weeks to get ready for my big reading/studying extravaganza. And I will definitely be taking a LOT of notes, but I don’t want to have to store all that paper, blah. So, that’s where evernote will come in. I’ll stick all my notes in there and sort (tag) them by book – the timeline will take care of the part of when I took the note and blah blah.

And that’s all I want out of this. That’s it. Thank you. Of course… I think I’ll probably get more use out of it, but ‘organizing my book notes’ will be my baseline to say that this service functioned well for me.

Oh, when you upload stuff to their servers, you get a neat little blog share page for people with feed readers (you do use google reader don’t you?). Here’s an example I googled up real quick: http://preview.evernote.com/pub/erick/notes/

Now, my next order of business is to verify that the cyberpad widgets/programs/things are compatible with xp 64 bit. I use 64-bit because I made a very deliberate effort to acquire 8gb of ram all in the name of speed and awesomeness. And, well, I can never go back to less than that on my desktop. There will be no settling here.

Oh, did I mention that, out of all of the cheap tablets, the cyberpad is the winner? Well, it’s the winner because of compatibility: works with reg. paper, ink from a few dif brands of pens, onenote software, and evernote software.

Do I have any room to complain? Of course. But seeing as how that would do me no good at the moment, I’ll try to keep that to a minimum. Maybe later I’ll list out some “critiques” and a few “standing words” about all this stuff. In the meantime, I hope to decide whether or not to use a cyberpad or a regular scanner so that I can bust these books open already. My WoW account expires [because I cancelled it] on Sep 5th, so I’m getting anxious to bust open these books – actually, I’m already cheating but am holding back my notes and full dedication so far.

ps: yes I tried google chrome web browser, and no I will not be using that until it graduates from it’s baby stages – even still, I need my foxmarks synchronized bookmarks .. so unless the plan on implimenting something similar, I’ll probably never actually use it even after it graduates.

really good slideshows

There are some really good powerpoint presentations over here at slideshare. I’ve been there before but never really looked at the presentations really.

Here’s one made by apolloideas.com, with al gores name on it: http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834

MUST KNOW – POWER POINT PRESENTATION TIP #AWESOME

B

If you’re in a powerpoint slideshow, and you press B, the screen will turn black. If you press B again, you’ll see the slide you were previously looking at.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT! You can actually have a powerpoint presentation for pictures or some other visual (maybe even a chart), and then BAM, blank screen so the audience can now focus on what you’re saying instead of getting blood shot eyes from staring at your amazingly lame slideshow – I don’t care how awesome you think your slideshow is, it’s most likely a distraction more than half the time, and a seriously annoying distraction at that with a side of eye strain.

Of course, the best powerpoint presentation ever is the tip that shows you how to turn it off.

Enjoy!

LEVEL 70!!

After many many man hours, my warlock has finally made it to level 70 in World of Warcraft.

If there’s one thing that I learned from this, it’s that if I were doing anything (ANYTHING!) else with the same time and focus commitment that I gave to WoW to get to level 70, I would be pretty close to an expert in whatever that anything is.

So, lets say, the time and focus I spent on WoW would instead be spent on pro/Engineer (cad software). I would be an expert in pro/engineer by now.

And with that … I still don’t regret the time I have put into wow. It was actually one of my goals to get to level 70 on WoW, since I’d never done it before.

Geeky gamer goal achieved!