6/12/07

I am disappointed by WWDC07. I was hoping for new hardware. People who say it is just a developer's conference, there shouldn't be hardware, are right. But i have a right to be hopeful because there was a new Mac Pro introduced at last year's WWDC06. I tried safari for windows, and it looked nice, it froze up on me though. I am not a fan of apple's decision to put safari on PC. Maybe it is faster. Then just give us those facts and let the PC users feel bad. Oops, I meant to say make them feel like switching. (he he, no i didn't) I don't use safari anyway, and I don't intend on switching anytime soon. Although I have used it in the last 3 months. I haven't touched IE in like 3 years. And that was because I came across something that could not run in firefox, but now with the IE tab add on I can do everything in firefox, so I leave it alone. I have to say IE is the one of the things I hate the most about Microsoft. But everything Microsoft has built a pretty good reputation for sucking really bad. I have a PC in my room. It is a Gateway laptop running XP, it has a 1.3GHZ processor. I installed Ubunto and was up until 5 in the morning installing it the other day, and when you boot into it, the computer shuts off. I saw the video of WWDC07 and I saw Leopard. A quick thank you/shoutout to Apple Inc.

Apple, I want to thank you.
I want to thank you for making your software seamless.
I want to thank you for making your machines beautiful.
I want to thank you for Aqua.
I want to thank you for leopard which appears to more beautiful than all versions before it.
I want to thank you for being so reliable and a 6 year old mac that runs bug free to this day, and a 17 year old Performa that is now retired but ran just as well.
I want to thank you for giving me an alternative to crappy Microsoft products.
Thank you Apple.

I could continue with a list of things I wish Apple could improve on, but I dont have the time. I spent 2 hours trying to get a Linksys WRE54G to work, and it turns out, just like everything else I have ever ordered from Linksys, the install CD is a piece of shit and should be recycled. The directions do not tell you how to set it up at all. They just assume you have a linksys unsecured router. And that it is right next to were you will be putting this, (not sure why it would be, it is a range extender, it should be far away. So i gave it a poor review on cnet, and that is actually were I got tips and hints to hacking this thing to work. Ahh well, it works really well so far. I have a 90% signal right now, and I am 2 stories and a few walls away from the router. I wonder if the microwave is still going to kill my signal. gtg, I am back in school, and have homework again. ttyl.


-Ryan

6/10/07

too, but they just are not the same. Maybe one day I will love Oh, what an exciting day. I didnt really do anything exciting, but I feel excited. I have Ubuntolinux installing on the gateway at the moment. And I am ordering a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive for all of my storage needs (i could use a couple terabytes if I were to use it for ALL my storage needs) and that makes me very happy. I will be moving it alot though, and I know that is bad for a spinning plate hard drive. I will be moving it from computer to computer with gigantic files. Wait, i am thinking as i write this, i could network it through the imac in the basement, and just put it behind the desk in the basement, and access it over my wireless network. I am so smart, i just have to lay my ideas out on paper, or in this case lay them out on an LCD screen. I saw Pirate of the Caribbean today, it was the best pirates I have seen so far. But you might disagree. And I dont really care, so dont bother to tell me. I have noticed that I have a whole shitload of typos on the gateway, but one in almost every word on a desktop keyboard. But I almost never have one on the MacBook keyboard. I think we are a perfect match. It is to bad we are not. She may have a great keyboard, but I need way more power. I need an Nvidia graphics card with plenty of Joost power. And a processor that is 2.2 GHZ. I need a MacBook pro. I know there are people complaining that their macbook pro's batteries are blowing up, and dumb stuff like that. But i am choosing to ignore that and just pretend that we really are meant to be. I was researching the server that my home school uses, and it as an Apple X serve. Which are truly awesome servers and I honestly believe are the best way to network a large group of computers. Linux based servers are second, and microsoft ones are third. They have two G5 processors, which I hold a special place in my hart for. I love the PowerPC processors. If I had money to throw around I would buy a mac pro with a G3, another with a G4, and another with a G5 and just put them away in storage to seal that wound in my heart that longs for one. I may keep the G5 Mac Pro out for its power though. I like the intelsintel . . . what the fuck am i saying. Shut up ryan. You cant love intel. Intel processors are not made with that apple touch. They are just, well, made. To work. Like I said, I have Ubunto linux installing on my gateway. I have an 18.6 hard drive on that old thing, and 4.2 GB free, and u need 5 gb free to install this thing, so I went into CCleaner and got rid of everything and anything that I didnt think i needed. And then I emptied the recycling bin, and now i have 5.6 GB free, so i decided to go ahead with it and get an external HD because I cant live off of 600MB of free storage. I have more on my flash drives. BTW, I put an encrypted disk partition the size of my 1gb flash drive and used 128 bit encryption, which i am sure can be broken, but it is currently the standard for the FBI to use. So it would take many years, or a super computer to open it. And there isn't anything inside worth anything anyway, i just did it cause I can. but if you have a mac, and needed a place for some files. A place nobody can ever see, do this. Get the usb drive, plug it in, clear everything on it, and check how much memory there is one it. Then open up disk utility and click new image. Save it on the desktop, and name it whatever, but were it says 40mb, change it to what ever the free space on the usb is, and then click make, it should take a few minutes to make it, it will ask what pasowrd, (btw, click for security AES 128 bit) and enter whatever password u want. It will make, and then go to were u saved it and drag it to the usb. Eject the image, and the usb, and then put it back in. Open the usb, click the image, enter your pass, and then you are in the vault. Eject it at anytime to lock it again. It is your private storage location. I may do that with the 320GB one. idk yet. anyway, ttyl.

-Ryna

6/6/07

I realize I have not posted in a while, I have been busy. If I told you what I was busy doing, you would call me lazy. But I can take it, and I need something to write about, so I will tell you anyway. I have been finishing up a year of school. I will never again see many of the people there. Some I have known for 2-3 years. So that has been sad. I have done a lot of sleeping (that is the lazy part) but only because I am very tired from being up late and getting up early waiting for news to break. Specifically Apple rumors. There was a rumor that there would be new MacBooks yesterday. That was not entirely accurate, there were however updated MacBook Pros. Which is cool. I am waiting for an upgrade to the MacBook line that includes a 15 inch screen and 2 gigabytes of RAM. It is true, that I can get all that in a MacBook Pro, but I don't want to pay extra for all of the extras included that I don't need in the MacBook Pro. I need a better graphics card than is offered in the MacBooks as well. So I might just end up getting a MacBook Pro anyway. But it would be nice if they made better MacBooks, The MacBook Pro line is designed for media editing professionals. The MacBook is designed for the consumer. This day in age, people do more on their computers than what the current MacBooks are built to handle. I could settle, if they added a better Graphics Card, and a 15" screen. I like the aluminum body construction of the Pros, but I can settle for a pretty little white book. Anyway, It is 2:55PM, and at three, next years cab driver is supposed to show up and talk to my mom and i can meet him if I were to want to. I am hoping very much it is not a minivan, I drive far too much to sit in an uncomfortable minivan to and from school two hours a day. I hope he has either a Ford Crown Victoria, or a chevy caprice classic. I prefer the ford, I have had drivers with them before and they are the nicest and closest I am going to get to riding in a Lincoln Town Car. They are built on the same platform, (not the same comfy suspension though.) Ahh well, I have nothing t talk about. I have a week off before summer school starts. I shaved my beautiful mustache off. I did it after the year ended to avoid all the attention I would receive. It looks good, I don't think I look as old anymore (or as masculine) but I like the way I look.

ttyl,

Ryan

5/13/07

Alright, I will make a post because apparently this one kid is complaining tat I don't update enough. I didn't think anyone read this, but oh well. First of all, I would like to make the fact that anything I say in this blog is off the record. And I would appreciate it if what is said on the blog, stays on the internet at least. If you have anything to comment on, just leave a comment on the post. Lets see, what is important in my life, I want a new laptop, I want an HDTV, a Blu-Ray player, and HD comcast. I also want really fast internet. I have the fastest available in my area, but that is not good enough. I am looking forward to summer, even though I will only have like a week off before I then have to start going o summer school. But that is probably enough tie for me to gather my thoughts and compose myself. I bought a straightener yesterday, I straightened a strand of hair and thought it looked kindof funny. I am considering straightening my entire head. But I do not know if that would look good so I am hesitant. I broke into my grandmother;s house yesterday to take measurements of her stairs because we are going to install a people lifter thing because my grandpa can not walk up the stairs. It was kindof exciting, the breaking in part. Sneaky Sneaky. A funny kid whos name will not be mentioned because I dont feel like typing it and dont want to risk misspelling it, made a blog a few days ago, (because he wants to be just like me. I'm flattered) and I have subscribed to it on google reader. But sometimes I get bored reading it, and I have engadget to read too, and they have pictures and cool technologies, and I am a little more fascinated by that. I always have over 100 news articles to get through every day plus e-mail. So I am a busy bee. I fell asleep watching youtube and making an avatar of myself last night on the MacBook, and I woke up to see that I had used the 4 hour battery up completely. Which was kindof depressing. I like that laptop because it's batter never seems to run out. I got an Apple e-card with a MacBook on it from derek, (wish you had given me a MacBook Pro) and thought, awwwww, how sweet, and then I thought, wait a second, i never gave him my e-mail address. But then i realized i gave it out in this blog. So I am not too creeped out. My laptop has a 14" screen, i feel deprived, the HP i want has a 15 inch screen. Meh, the MacBook has a 13" screen, so why am I complaining. The macbook pro I want has a 15 inch screen. The macbook pro that I would love to have for around the house has a 17" screen. I remember when I got the gateway for the 1st time, and I had had a Toshiba satellite with like a 12" screen for like 2 years, and I thought that 14" was freaking huge. But it is considered pretty average today. Although 15.4" is the standard, 14 is designed for travelers. I do not travel with my laptop though. I seem to see the BSOD alot more when I am moving around with it. The mac has no problems with moving. The mac has a sensor to tell if it is falling so that it can lock up the hard drive if it might fall, and you can use it to your advantage, there is an add that you can install and than you rock the laptop back and forth, and you see a picture of an identical laptop on the screen mimicking your actions. It is pretty cool. How is this useful you ask, well, you can use the motion sensor to switch between desktops as well, by smacking it. Like a SmackBook, not a MacBook. Here is a link to a video showing how it is done. Click Here For Video.
Well, that is all i got for now, have a nice resto of your weekend all. Oh wait, before I go, is anyone else jumping up and down screaming inside at the thought of a sixth generation ipod with a touch screen and a wide screen. Well I am. And. I am going to die when one comes out. I hope it doesn't cost too much, because I absolutely have to have one the second they come out.

4/30/07

Ok, so it has been a long time, Mackenzie "broke up" with me because she was under the influence that we were going out (not sure how you mistake that being as we have NEVER gone out) and thought that I was hurt that she was leaving me. How strange, scary, funny and everything else. Speaking of strange, scary, and funny, I have been listening to more ICP, I have always loved Tech N9ne and his style of music, but I never really put 2 and 2 together, they both are extremely similar, so I did some research, some listening, and I enjoy them very much. Just gotta make sure they do not influence me (that will be pretty easy, they are insane). I have seen the blue screen of death many times in the last few hours, but I have only really used this laptop a few times this week, my mother has let me take her MacBook and I have been using that lately. Cnet has been boring, (nothing new or overly interesting) and Google Reader has been just as boring. I was listening to BOL today, and I heard that it is not exactly unheard of to loose your google homepage, or g-mail account (my primary e-mail) so I got all scared, ( I get scared when something I rely on just might go away). I have been wanting to get Thunderbird, I have never really used an e-mail client, but I really wanted to play with it, 2.0 just came out and was supposed to have all these cool features, so I downloaded, it knew the special settings for gmail for me, all I needed was login and password, and 712 messages were downloaded to my inbox. I had to enable pop on gmail first though. I made all new folders, and sat down and used the search feature to make sorting the messages into folders a 20 minute job. I am very happy. I just wish I knew how to then transfer to another computer with thunderbird when I get my new dell. Yes, I have decided that paying half and being a little more complicated and uglier is worth it. I will buy the dell over the macbook. It has a bigger screen too, and that alone is a big seller or me. I just do not get why Apple ONLY sells 13" macbooks, they used to have options, 12" or 14" they should have 13" or 15". And It would make my decision to switch to dell even more difficult. But they don't, so I am like meh. But yea, I want to transfer all when I get my dell, and I would like help. If anyone reading this has any clue, please let me know. I would absolutely love to know. I wouldn't normally do this, but since I have a great email client now, I can handle lots of messages, my e-mail is ryanbrooks33@gmail.com or you could comment this post.

You are all great, (not that many if anybody reads this)

-Ryan

4/8/07

Goodness, my blog got away from me again. I guess I will start up from what I remember from a few days ago, and today. A few days ago, I figured out that I will be shadowing at the west campus (my high school) on the 18th of this month. I also was informed that there is a major rivalry between all the staff at my current school. Apparently, my homeroom teacher is a Nazi, according to another staff member. And everyone just hates everyone. I am was unaware of that. I mean I knew they hated each other, but I assumed they were mature enough to keep it to them selves. So that was extremely interesting. I had to walk laps in gym last week, around the building, which is no fun, being as lazy as I am. I dug deeper into that guy that added me as a friend on twitter. It turns out he lives in the same metro area as I, and he listens to Buzz Out Loud. He likes awesome cars, and he sent me a Joost Beta invite. Joost is cooler than I expected it to be. All of its programing is watchable and fun, and it works with my Apple Remote. So it is like having on demand comedy central and Laguna Beach and everything else at my fingertips. Easter was today. But I guess I should start with 2 nights ago. I snuck into the storage room and I saw my wireless adapter I asked for fr my laptop. I brought my mother's MacBook pro up to my room and used it's built in wireless all night because I was not aloud downstairs. I was watching Joost and playing around with it into the night. I eventually shut down and went to bed. Then this morning, my mother came in and told me it was time to wake up, Lauren wanted to go downstairs. So I got up, went down, ate a peep while looking at the PC card. Then I put it in, and set up the connection. It works great. So I am happy. That makes 3 of 4 or our Internet connected computers wireless. My father does not trust it for reasons unknown. So he will not let me set it up on his Dell, which has it built in. The card is not as bulky as expected, and it seems to be doing just fine. It is not flimsy, but the gauges are upside down because my PC card slot is on the left of my computer so I had to flip it. Oh well, now I can take this anywhere so I am happy. Then I got in the car and my dad and I just drove west. We drove a little past the Belvedere Assembly Plant (makes the jeep compass and the dodge caliber) and then came home in time for ham in the dining room. This is were my mother said she would like to do a vacation to Colorado and make it completely outdoors. Camping, skiing, biking, hiking. My idea of a nightmare in a nut shell. So have to talk her out of that now. I am hoping visiting the Grand Canyon will be a good compromise. Anyway, I am going to haul my seven pound laptop up to my room now, wish me luck, I may fall on the stairs it is so heavy. Anyway, that was my day. ttyl,


-Ryan

3/24/07

Hello, another posting after seven days of nothing. Not a whole lot to catch you up on. I will just cover the key points I guess. I talked to miss d. She called me a hacker for using the neighbor's wireless Internet. Which I do not consider private if they do not secure it. It is just like public wi-fi if they do not secure it. But I got a wireless g router at circuit city Friday night. And I DID secure it. I brought it home and began the setup process which lasted about an hour and a half. Because the main computer I was setting it up for was My MacBook. And airport recognized the wireless connection, but when I entered the long series of letters and numbers I was given as a password, it would not let me in, so I called Linksys and was on hold with some lady that spoke in monotone, (maybe she was Asian) and she finally let me in on the little secret that they do not put in the instructions for whatever reason. You need to put the dollar sign before your password when you are using a mac. But after that, My wireless Internet is working wonderfully. The same as the Ethernet before it did. I do not have it on my gateway yet. I am not sure if I have it. I opened up the slot were the wireless chip should have been, and it was there, but I can not seem to get a connection. And If I could, I probably would not be able to very far. The gateway is like 4 years old, so It would have 802.11b built in if anything, and the range for that is like 20 feet. So I am going to get the PC card adapter anyway for Easter. Then I will be able to brows myspace and gadget blogs and look at the blue screen of death other places in my house. I need a MacBook Pro really bad, but I think I am stuck with this gateway for a little while. At most, I will get a new vista laptop :( because they are more in my price range. As much as I put Windows and Microsoft down, they will always hold a special place in my heart. My first computer ever was a Toshiba Satellite laptop running Windows 95. My next computer was an old, old Packer Bell running Windows 3.1. I still admire and think about that one every day. My next computer, which is the worst one and the best one I have ever had, was a Fujitsu LifeBook. That originally had Windows 98, but I upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional. I designed websites, edited photos, I pretty much became a Power User on my lifebook. But then one day it crashed never to restart again. Then I sought out a new computer, apparently someone my mother worked with found out and mentioned that they had a very old mac @ home. So i had that. It was one of those old Macintosh Performa 6200 desktops from the early 90's. I liked that computer allot. I never had a problem. It was my first mac. But it did not do allot. I could not do word processing in MS office or anything compatible with office, and I could only print half of the time, but that was the HP printers fault. It had a TV tuner, so I could watch, and record TV, like a tivo. It had a CD-ROM drive, and could play Cd's, the perfect Media Center computer of the day. I had it in my room, but I did not use it all that often. I used my mother's Gateway to do everything because it had windows XP. And the Internet. I used that for a very long time. All the while there was a 500MHZ G3 iMac 15" CRT Blue with 64 megs of RAM in the basement that was becoming harder and harder for kyle and Lauren to do their homework on. So we replaced that a couple months ago with a 17" Intel 1.83GHZ iMac. And I got the G3. I used the Intel Mac allot, and still do, and my mothers Gateway at this point was almost a lost cause. It could not print, and when it did, I did it wrong, it chose when it wanted to go on the Internet, and when it didn't. We saw the BSOD almost every 10 minutes. I told her that I would be able to take it and overhaul everything and make it work reasonably well again but she would loose everything. She didn't want that. So we went to the apple store one day and came home with a 13" 1.83GHZ Intel MacBook with 512MB of RAM. It is slow and not all that powerful, but it was better than her gateway, and was from apple, the most reliable computer manufacture. And all apples have OSX, the most secure operating system that is worth using for everyday computing. So she was set. I had to get everything from the gateway transferred over, so I had to do a lot of rebooting in safe mode, but I finally got all that done, then I put a fresh install of XP Home on the gateway. And now it is my old, very slow to boot, 1.3GHZ 14" screen, 256MB of ram short battery life laptop. But it works, most of the time. And that is good enough for me, at least I will always know that I have a MacBook, and an iMac in the house, wireless, and a museum of ancient computers in my storage room, and a G3 iMac that I have all of my music in and it plays as I sleep @ night. I have ituneson it. Yes, iTunes did exist back then, there just wasn't an iTunes store. So did Quicktime, and there was iMovie, a movie editor. You could plug your digital video camera into one of the 2 firewire ports and edit your movies, add intros, change scene order, and so on. Then you can burn it to a CD, or a DVD if you had the super drive. Which I do not. But yea, it runs OS 10.0.4, which is not what it came with, It came with 9.2.1, and I upgraded to to 10.0.0, the BETA of OSX, and eventually got to 10.0.4. It is still new enough to run Tiger (10.4.9), but that would cost me $129.99. So yea, I got off of school yesterday, and it is spring break, I am not sure what I am going to do, I would like to go to Chicago. I want to see the two story apple store there. I saw Wild Hogs today, and it was a terrible movie. But the trailer looked good. Oh well, I am going to go think about a way to pay for a Toshiba laptop i may get sometime this year. It is expensive, because I can not do anything I would want to do n Vista Basic, and if I upgrade to Vista Premium, I have all this shit pre-installed that slows me down big time so then I have to upgrade the RAM, and that costs quite a bit too. PC is just way too complicated. And by the time I get to what I really need on the PC, I a at the same price as a MacBook, but what I need in a macbook, costs $380 more, and I would just wait till I could get the 15" MacBook Pro then. So as you can see, it is a very good thing that my birthday and Christmas are far away, because I have a shit load of thinking to do. Hopefully I will come to blog more and more often. I know, seven days is pathetic. Sorry, I am lazy. If I am ever going to get a job reviewing things and different technologies, I will have to overcome this laziness I have.

-Ryan