Links

by | Nov 19, 2002 | Imported Entry

With the exception of the other day I haven’t really done any big “links” post lately. I figured I’d take the opportunity to mention a few things that I enjoy, can’t live without or just find interesting in general.

First up is Y’s Dock. It’s simply THE BEST Mac OSX Dockbar for Windows XP. Currently in 0.3 beta it’s already past my two previous favorites in terms of dockbars. It’s insainly fast, clean, super easy to use and doesn’t take up much memory. If you’re like me and enjoy a OSX theme for you desktop then this is a perfect addition to your collection. Official Page here.

To go along with Y’s Dock, you’ll need icons in PNG form. In that case you should check out Clotz Icons. Now, these aren’t officially released by their authors for technically Clotz shouldn’t really be doing this but since he’s taken the time to convert a great deal of these from ICO to PNG, I’ll mention the link anyways. Otherwise you’d have to convert them yourself from your favorite icon collections or find them somewhere else. Link.

Moving on, if you’re looking for techie news, look no further than GeekNews or Neowin. Each have their upsides and downside but they both cover the world on electronic news fairly well. Of course if you actually want to read the sources that they’re quoting you should probably read The Register or CNet News… but who has time for that 🙂

Speaking of The Register, this story appeared today and I couldn’t think of a more perfect example to demonstrate my discust over the direction that Microsoft, Intel and their lackies are going to take the computer industry. It’s about how the XBox Live service is banning unique XBox IDs for life if they’ve been modded. See… now do you people believe me that hardware IDs are going to doom us all? Can’t you see where this is headed? I digress…

I have addictions… they are bad. Please help.
–Civ 3… again.
–Neverwinter Nights …please, someone stop me now.
–Natural Selection … funtastic!
–Subspace …it’s like Highschool all over again!

That’s about it for now. I’ve got to get back to my finals. As a personal update, I’ll be heading home for the holidays next week. I’ll be sure to let you know more about my exact schedule once it gets ironed out but I can say for sure that I’ll definatly be home by the end of next week. That means I’ll be looking to hang out with you good folks from NH that weekend. Get the hint? Later.

Happy Happy

by | Nov 16, 2002 | Imported Entry

I did fairly well today as far as getting things accomplished. I managed to get 4 prints done for next week as well as turn in 9 (!) to be printed digitally. They’ll be $6 each but it’s still a savings if you realize that it would have been $15 each plus extra time if I did them by hand.

I’m also happy because I stumbled across something that I thought was long dead. Subspace, the video game, it seems it’s really dead after all. It’s been brought back to life in much the same way Total Annihilation was. Now it’s under the subtitle of “Continuum” or as I’ve seen if more commonly referred to as “Subspace: Continuum.” Head over to SubSpace Central to get a new download and some server files. The “community” appears to be alive and kicking as well and there’s even some clans/groups floating about. Awesome. Consider me RE-addicted.

That is all.

Waiting

by | Nov 15, 2002 | Imported Entry

Hey, guess where I am again. If you said the photolab, you’d be right. I’m waiting up in the digital lab for a scanner. Not you’re everyday run of the mill scanner of course, no… these are massive 24,000dpi “drum scanners.” Basically, it sucks the negatives up into the machine itself and then makes a very very slow scan at insain resolutions. Shit, a preview takes about a minute and a half. But that’s ok. The main reason I’m up here is to save some money. You see, all of my work this quarter has been on slide film. Slide film is a bitch to print, it just never looks good. The costly solution to this would be to scan my negatives, invert them, have them digitally burned onto new negative film and then hand print them like they were the originals. Fuck that. I’m taking the easy way out. I’m scanning them and having them digitally printed at the only photolab in town that does a good job, and we’re not talking Kinkos here. Taking the long way would cost… well, lets see… $8 to get the possitives developed, $15 to have them reburnt as negatives, another $8 to get the nagatives developed and then I’d still have to print them myself. Instead, I paid $8 to have the developed, I’m scanning them for free in the schools lab and then having them printed for $2.50 each at the photolab. Aren’t I thrifty. The downside to this is that they don’t look as nice as real hand-done prints but you know what… unless you really really look, it’s hard to tell and I just don’t care anymore.

Hmm… both scanners are taking a shit load of time. I hate stupid people. You’d be surprised by how stupid some people can be when it comes down to something as simple as scanning a negative. Honestly, I don’t see why the entire process shouldn’t take more than an hour a piece. And that’s assuming you’re scanning a shit load of negatives. I scanned 10 in an hour, had them burnt to a cd (man I love TOAST for Macs) and was done. These people are lucky to get 1 done in the same time frame. They take their sweet ass time aligning the negative ever so perfectly in the slide tray, spraying canned air at it to get rid of dust, color correcting it in the preview window before finally scanning. Then it’s a brain-fart when they get to Photoshop, since that’s what the scanner dumps things into. They think they need recolor-correct, recalibrate, etc. Some little ass-hats actually have the nerve to sit there and spot tone or heal-brush AT THE SCANNING STATION! The point of having a scanning station is that you scan, move it across the network to a work station AND FIX IT THERE! Man I hate stupid people.

Well, someone’s almost done with one of them which means I move up in the line a little. I think I’m still 2 people away from it though. I realize that these things are $15,000 each, but you’d think they’d have more than 2. Anyway, after all this I get to have a wonderful dinner out with my Lauren. I can’t wait. I think we’re getting Italian which makes my stomach dance with delite. We haven’t been “out” in a while because we’ve been busy with classes and homework but tonight we’re going to relax a little. I can’t wait. Later.

Bullet Points

by | Nov 14, 2002 | Imported Entry

No, I’m not talking about a new video game. I’m merely trying to save time and squeeze a full update into a few short sentences. So, for the moment, savor these mere bits and pieces of an update and be assured I’ll update in a more robust fashion as soon as time permits. That said…

-The website went over well in class. Actually, better than well, everyone loved it (as far as I could tell). I apparently have 1337 skillz.

-I love my car. I probabaly haven’t mentioned that in a while, but I really do. It’s just so much damn fun to drive.

-I’ve decided not to bring back my newer, more powerful coputer with me on break. There’s not really any point. The old one is fast enough to play CS, check email and surf the web. That’s all I really need. Plus it will save a whole lot of room in the car this way.

-Kazza users are morons and apparently bitter when they don’t get their way. Just a few minutes ago I was messaged with 6 seperate notes which contained the following: “hello”, “you have , I want it”, “why won’t you share with me?”, “Are you blocking your files?”, “Fine, feel my wrath!”
At that point, McAfee popped but saying I was being infected with W32/Pate.b but that it had blocked it. I didn’t take kindly to that. I pulled out NeoTrace, traced his IP and contacted his service provider. The sad part is, the only reason he didn’t get to download a file is because my que was full. What’s the world coming to?

-I went to Tony Roma’s tonight with Lauren and Brittney. It’s this BBQ and rib place downtown. Damn it was tasty.

-Soldier of Fortune 2 sucks, Mafia is so-so, Hitman 2 is so-so and Neverwinter nights is my fantastic new addiction.

-Classes going well. Photo’s are coming fast and furious. Ok, not fast and furious but they’re at least turning out well.

-Lauren bought me Jelly Bellys today. I love Lauren 🙂

-I have to print A LOT this weekend.

-I’m broke but I just got a new loan approved.

-I’m sleepy.

That is all.