Allegiance
Remember back in the day when the biggest debate in computers that the general public was aware of was Mac versus PC. Except back in the day IBM was synonymous with what we now refer to as a PC, or a computer with hardware based around the x86 CPU architecture. Every once in a while I still run across a person who refers to IBM�s against Macs. The majority of the non-techie public assumes that Apple lost the OS war and has had little success. This is not entirely true because of the way they have diversified their products and been careful to maintain the allegiance their viciously loyal followers. I have personally never been a big fan of the Mac because of biases from my grade school days. I had already been used to using the Win3.1 machine at home and could maneuver through it with ease. When we came to school we had to deal with the brand new PowerPC’s which I had little or no experience with and seemed counter-intuitive in many ways. I was already used to a command line at that point, although I didn’t really understand what I was doing, I simply memorized which words to type in which order to make a few things happen.
The Mac was just as unstable as the PC in many ways back then, it was not uncommon to get a ‘bomb’ while trying to write a paper. This and the fact that I could never find any games to play on the Mac tainted my perceptions of the entire product line. Now I have changed my mind, I have matured and am able to make less biased decisions about which operating systems are best for me. I really like the new OS X, which is what is on the machine I am typing this from right now. OS X is a beautiful interface with lots of eye candy yet is still efficient and not at all sluggish. It is also built on top of a Unix variant. Therefore many of the linux commands that I am familiar with work on the terminal in OS X. This makes the Mac feel less like a dumb appliance for running Photoshop, and more like a real powerful workstation for almost any application. The biggest draw-back is the price of anything related to apple, the second drawback is the proprietary nature of apple’s hardware as well as software. This is very undesirable for a person who loves the concept of free software and everything that the open-source world has to offer.
I was quite angry at the Mac’s in a lab here on campus today but that was more the fault of Adobe premiere, which I detest almost as much as the spawn of Satan called coconut. Vegas Video has treated me very well, and it is only available for Windows. Let me tell you that Vegas Video will do everything that premiere will do but it will let you do it easier and faster with greater quality results. The interface of this program is really nice and clean, and the controls are mostly intuitive.
Whatever you choose for your multimedia/graphic design needs you should really shop around and try out a lot of less common software. Adobe isn’t going to have a monopoly on their market forever, I think it is really important to learn computer skills on your own, because classes on the subject never really give a good comprehensive look at what these highly complex software programs can do for you.
Posted by
sirtimbly on 04/24/2003 at 07:04 PM
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Hail to the king�
I am the KING of no pants! It is so incredibly hot here that I have decided to forsake much of my clothing for� well the absence of it. Okay, I�m not entirely nekkid, I�m wearing gym shorts and a watch, and I�m staying in my room. That seems reasonable doesn’t it? I wouldn�t want to cause mass panic.
The saddest thing as that this is still April and the hottest most humid days are still ahead of us. Or maybe another 6 inches of snow, you never can tell. I think that the heat and wind has eroded my brain. Excuse me while I slip into gibberish�
Just today I met a little gnome, he was nice enough fella. I was lounging around on my couch watching some �Screen Savers� on good �ol TechTV when I noticed something moving in the corner of the room. Thinking that a rodent had decided to inhabit the pile of socks and empty Mountain Dew cans that has been growing over there for a couple weeks now, I threw a shoe at it and was astonished to hear a loud squeak of indignation. Muttering some incomprehensible curses under it�s breath a 5 inch tall man ran across the room and jumped on my chest threatening me with his outstretched finger. To be sure I was surprised, I hadn�t had a gnome jump on me since� well, come to think of it this had never happened before. Standing up would have tumbled the lil� guy onto the floor so I decided to wait it out and see what he had to say. Besides I was comfortable on the couch and didn�t really feel like moving. I did, however, make a mental note to throw out the remainder of the cold breakfast burritos which I had just sampled, hallucinogenics were not listed in the nutrition facts.
�Why, sonny boy do ya feel like ya do be having to disturb an innocent old gnome just going about his business.�
With a thoroughly confused look on my face I attempted to focus on this little bearded menace that was acting so confident when confronted by the ginormous creature that I must have appeared to him. �Why are you in my room, and more importantly: are you even real.�
Rolling his eyes with disgust the gnome, that I came to know as Rupert, decided to elaborate on the reason for his presence in my humble abode.
�Do you not know that I am a pen gnome?�
�A pen gnome��
�Yes, I do be one of those noble breed of gnome that has been entrusted with the age old duty of gathering the annual pen harvest.�
Unsure of what to say to this miniature apparition, I decided to remain silent and let him continue his tirade.
�We pen gnomes do be the most honorable of all the small-object-gathering-gnomes. Our purpose in life is to collect as many pens as we can for the harvest.�
Reacting in the only way I knew how I just stared and dropped my jaw.
�I do think you be in need of a breath mint sonny. You would do well to treat a gnome of my stature with a mite more respect than you have displayed thus far.�
I managed to mumble some sort of apology, and asked �why do you collect pens?�
�Well we gather them and exchange them for precious toppings. Cheese, sunflower seeds, croutons, and the most precious material in all the world, bacon bits.�
�And who exactly would exchange bacon bits for these pens?�
Well Bic of course, and sharpie, and all the pen companies pay top crouton for the pens that we gather.�
The sick scheme slowly formed in my heat addled mind. Apperantly the gnomes were payed to abscond with pens from anyone and everyone in order to keep the market of pens from being saturated. Pen companies have long since filled pens with nearly inexhaustible ink supplies so the easiest way to continue to make a profits was to have gnomes steal the pens whenever possible. The pens were returned to Bic, or whoever was willing to pay the price could continually resell pens to the unsuspecting public.
Rupert the gnome was kind enough to enlighten me to this despotic scheme and filled in the holes in my theory about the sick cycle of the selling and stealing of writing utensils.
Now the only question that remains is what I will do with this knowledge. They say that knowledge is power, then again they also say �everyone wang chung tonight�. I feel as if there is a great decision before me, a veritable fork in the road of my life. Will I choose to take the road less traveled, for the freedom to choose that path is the only real freedom that a man can long after. Often destiny and fate conspire to force a man on a path that is not of his choosing. Destiny forges heroes from the least suspecting of individuals, those that feel least qualified are those who are most deserving of the burden of greatness. For power is the truest test of a mans character. With great power comes great responsibility. To me it seems as if my role as scribe in this medium of the web is to serve as a profound pundit. You are all now dumber for having listened to me.
Posted by
sirtimbly on 04/14/2003 at 01:04 AM
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Fragrance� of DOOM!
Today I lost another blog entry that was quite excellent in my opinion. I feel so depressed after this happens that I really don’t feel up to the task of duplicating the stream of consciousness that was transcribed earlier in the day. Tonight though I will attempt to relate my earlier feelings to you in some semblance of the order in which they were originally conceived (and promptly lost due to a short admin login timeout). At the very least I can say that I have less pressure and fewer difficulties in delivering my semi-regular missives than Tycho.
First allow me to bring you all up to speed on myself and those that orbit around, and are orbited by, me. My roommate was involved in a vehicle accident, and another of my good friends was with him. They are both alive and fairly well, and now back at school with some relatively minor injuries. The cause of this accident was some bad weather we had this weekend where we had >6�? of snow just days after and days before unseasonably warm temperatures in the 70’s. Crazy Midwestern weather is always throwing new curve balls at us. Oh, and about that whole global warming and the rest of that environmentalist propaganda that children are brainwashed with. It looks like we have another case of overconfidance in our human interpretations of life, the universe, and everything.
Much of today was spent programming for my Java class. Every day I remind myself why I do not want to be a programmer. I have spent entirely too much time this semester working on assignments after the date they are due. The problem with time intensive projects such as expansive Java programs is that as soon as you get behind with one all the rest of them are pushed back as well. I will have to hope for the best and get this one turned in some time Friday. Doesn’t everybody look forward to Fridays because of the chance to do that much extra homework and work on various other projects?
One topic that I had hoped to mention here was the recent sentencing of a website operator who ran www.isonews.org and sold modchips for the X-Box. On one hand I feel appalled that the DMCA can be used to incarcerate people for experimenting with products that they purchase. On the other hand there are legitimate precedents to protect the greater good by limiting what people can do with the products they purchase. For instance you are prohibited from modifying cars and firearms in certain ways, but these are for safety purposes. I don’t feel certain on my opinions in this arena and will therefore leave the flame wars to the more ‘reputable’ sites. Of course you are supposed to believe everything you see on the internet. I have to wonder how often we see news stories on popular sites and never realize they are completely fake. Few people that are accustomed to the ease of access to information that the internet provides will make the effort to research something in a traditional method such as a library. The real world scares me sometimes�
The topic that has been tickling my synapses lately has been the concept of how we navigate the web. The structure of the web is based upon hyperlinks, and exists entirely separate from the physical structure of the network. The manner in which we as web-surfers discover new sites is usually by clicking through a link on some site. This site has links to other sites, and each site has links to still others. The number of websites out there is nearly infinite and ever expanding. The interesting thing about the web is the fact that spheres of interconnectedness start to develop. Your own personal interests largely dictate the sites that exist within your own sphere of knowledge. As we explore a few main sites that deal with topics that we are interested in we soon discover other sites that are connected to each other. One great example of how a particular network of sites can grow is the web-comic community. The growth of web based comic strips has been huge in the past few years. And I enjoy many of them because most are related to geeky things like computer games. All of this is really interesting if you can visualize the complicated connections between sites and how the click-thru traffic flows between sites to open up the horizons of people to new sites every time they sit down to browse the web. If you have trouble fully realizing this concept in a spatial manner you can take a look at this extremely cool site that uses the powerful google search engine.
One of the most powerful tools for quickly expanding a sphere of linked sites is the new blogging craze. The fact that blogs allow people to write down their ideas and provide extended information that is not their own creation. The consumption of information becomes a monumental task if you consider the amount of raw opinion and data that is available within only a few clicks off of any one web-log site. Some feel that blogs are the new thermometer for social feelings and crazes. This is likely true but I feel that blogs offer a truly diverse network of information that people can have access to and can discover through blogs that deal with related topics. The sphere of interconnected blogs that each person is aware of will depend greatly on which person’s journals they consider most worthy of their attention and repeat visits. The sites that people enjoy visiting the most will be the sites that offer the best links to related information that will be useful. The networking of information is a complicated concept to unravel. In the future this abstract idea of interaction of data on a human level may offer insights on the way that the human mind processes and remembers data.
My roommate informs me that this entry has stretched out to an excessive length. Therefore I will cut myself off and leave you all to digest the crazy rant that I have unloaded on you all this time.
Posted by
sirtimbly on 04/10/2003 at 03:04 AM
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Captains Log (supplemental)
Maybe I should stop watching so much Star Trek TNG on TNN. Hmm, well I will actually post a real update here in a few hours, in the meantime let me suffice it to say that my current excapades into the land of linux and the province of video cards requires that I place this link on my site for me to retrieve later. Enjoy this quick little confirmation of my survival of the week. I wasn�t sure if I was gonna pull through there for a while.
�Scroll down further for non geek rantage�
Well now, it�s later. And that link above is really useless to me. I think I�v decided that I�m just not going to get my current box to run Linux. Besides, I dont really need to use linux, but I do need to use WindowsXP for the video gaming and multimedia creation capabilities. Dual booting was all well and good when I had a geForce2 video card that would correctly install and run with openGL support every time I installed a linux distrobution. My distribution of choice is Mandrake an all around wholesome distrobution that purports to be userfriendly. Whatever, it�s kinda user-friendly, but still just as frustrating as any other. My problem now is that I have a nice ATI All In Wonder Radeon 8500DV video card. A really wonderful card with mediocre software provided by ATI, that does great things for video content creation. Unfortunately Mandrake 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1 have all been unable to start X after installaion. Somehow the installation program can always run in full GUI glory, but I am unable to get a flicker at even the lowest resolution settings. This is frustrating because I really enjoy using Linux. I have come to the conclusionthat it would simply be much easier to simply build another machine and just run Linux on that with a more generic and well supported video card.
To all of you out there that are not fluent in geekese. This is probably pointless to you. The above paragraph is tantamount to admission of treason against my geek brethren. I am making a dangerous declaration with this decision to just not have linux on my personal computer.
Okay, finally something not computer related to talk about. This previous week was a little hectic, I ended up working on a video project monday at the last minute. I stayed up until 5:00 editing and re shooting and it still ended up pretty crappy because of equipment failures. Then my alarm clock got unplugged somehow and I slept stright through the class where I was supposed to turn it in. The teacher was not pleased and this really hurt what I thought was going to be an easy A. I am learning that there is really no such thing as an easy A. I should probably learn to manage my time a little more wisely. Yet I have to ask myself what is going on, I don�t drink or party and yet I have trouble managing all the stuff going on in my life, yet somehow the people around me that screw around so much and tell me to �loosen up� they don�t seem to have much trouble keeping up with everything in school. Maybe the difference is just that they don�t really care about what happens in the classes. Honestly I am just a touch on the lazy side, I have been given a really easy life with few major problems, yet I manage to screw up a lot of the stuff like school that is just a matter of focusing my existing capabilities on a goal. Wow, I had intended to stop this crazy rant a few sentences ago, now I am on a roll. I think that I will try to make some goals for my life. I really don�t have many, other than a vuage notion that I want to graduate ~2 years from now. After that I assume I will find a job doing some multimedia work. Hmm� perhaps a statement of my aspirations would be a good thing.
It�s amazing how inspirational spending a few minutes in the party room down the hall was. Being around people that are caught up in the moment and not worried about anything beyond tonight is enlightening, yet introspective thougts only come to fruition through the medium of the written word. Translating your thoughts to a permanent and organized format seems important to understanding ones self. The inner processes of the human mind are unremarkable only as long as they remain the sole domain of our own minds. As soon as the complexities of the thought process are exposed to the harsh light of reality, we perceive the remarkable abilities of reasoning humanity possesses. Each person is a waste of the great potential that we were imbued with at creation. The power of the human mind is only limited by the boundaries of the human will.
These deep thoughts are brought to you by the relaxation that only Radiohead and Morcheeba can bring, exhaustion, and the letter �H�. (for hunger)
/me is away: body in motion, mind halted
Posted by
sirtimbly on 04/05/2003 at 04:04 AM
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