I’m Baaaaaaaaacccck!

WOW! it’s been a while! I’ve been really busy lately, but not too busy for tech! Recently I acquired the latest Phenom quad core, used and tested numerous free pieces of software and continued in my preparation for the Great Linux Challenge! Look forward to new information on all these topics as well as my awesome “Everyday Man’s Tech Christmas gift guide.”

The Legenday Linux Challenge!

In my never ending search for the next best operating system, I have decided to put Linux (Ubuntu) to the test.  What I mean by “test” is that I will be using Ubuntu for a currently unknown duration, in a small business network environment and attempting to see if it can equal the productivity of Windows or OS X with NORMAL people.  Basically, I am attempting to see if all of the included open source programs, the Gnome GUI and Ubuntu’s compatibility can fully and EASILY meet my computing needs as Windows and OS X can. Basically I’m asking the question ” Is Linux a “fun” thing to TRY or can you, the people, actually get the job done with it?” Now we all know that Linux doesn’t need to be put to the test in stability or security but for a NORMAL everyday user can it print, design flyers, encode, decode, burn CD’s, create presentations and be compatible with the most important file formats?  Most of you may be saying, “of course you can do all that with Ubuntu”, but you are missing my point.  This experiment aims to gauge how easy is it for the normal, non tech savvy person to use the operating system in everyday circumstances.

Hypothesis:

I’m not really sure if Ubuntu is up to the challenge considering the competition (Windows/OSX).  Ubuntu may look and feel great to those of us who know something about computers but the average user will find it too difficult to even the most basic of things.  For example  why would the average user want to “sudo” and “synaptic” their program installations when they can just click and use installation packages in Windows and OS X. I am also concerned with the issue that with Windows and OS X, (for the most part) you install the software, drivers and hardware works and integrates well with its 3rd party software.  This is something that Linux has always had trouble with.  I mean when I buy a Radeon HD, I want it to work easily, seamlessly and I want my system to take full advantage of all of it’s features.  This is something I still don’t think Linux is up to.

Method:

As of right now, I have not really pinpointed exactly how long I want to conduct this experiment but some have suggested a week or so, what do you think?  Also I think I will list operating system attributes and judge them using the Likert scale modified for difficulty.  Any other suggestions are welcome.

Closing:

Overall, I’m conducting this experiment because I really like Ubuntu/Linux, and open source and really want it to be the 3rd major player in on-going OS wars.  I also want everyday people and people in the Linux community to have some more perspective on the operating system within the whole scheme of things.

KITT for your Car!

On June 24th 2008 Mio announced it’s Knight Rider GPS system. Simultaneously, I punched my friend in the

face out of pure glee. Now thats what I’m talking about! For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted the KITT system to be a reality. I even went as far as to name my first car (a 91 Acura Integra) after KITT. In theory, making a KITT system never really seemed that difficult to me. I mean come on, we have fu*king dancing Honda robots but no KITT system? Well now that dream is a reality, well sort of. This iteration is basically the normal Mio Gps but with the lights, sounds and voice of KITT. Yes, you heard right, our very own Mr. Feeny (William Daniels) will give you turn by turn directions Knight Rider Style! What more could you ask for? A low price you may say? Well not to worry, Mio has it covered. The expected price when it hits the stores in August is supposed to be around a meager $270.

AMD’s Cinema 2.0, “Show me the money!”

On June 16th AMD debuted its new “Cinema 2.0″ technology which is part of AMD’s upcoming “RV770” (codenamed teraFLOPS) platform of graphics chips. The debut, per usual, was accompanied by a shiny interactive demo displaying exactly what the chip could supposedly do.

“With Cinema 2.0 you won’t just play movies, you’ll play in them. Imagine the ability to look around the environments in a sci-fi movie, put yourself in the driver’s seat in a race scene, duck behind things and pop up to see what’s going on in an intense firefight — all of these things are possible with Cinema 2.0,” said Charlie Boswell, director, Digital Media & Entertainment, AMD. “The challenge for any director has always been taking a wonderful vision in the canvas of the mind and translating that to film for the audience to see. Cinema 2.0 breaks down the time and cost barriers of getting a scene or shot that’s ‘just right’, and what’s better, allows audiences to dive deeper into the experience to explore every part of that director’s vision.”

Hot Hardware

As a self admitted AMD fanboy, I really hope this “Cinema 2.0″ stuff is true. Yet in my over 18 years as a gamer I have heard the terms cinematic, photo realistic and true-to-life thrown around more times than “flip-flopper” was thrown around in the last presidential election. Pretty much all I have to say to this is, “a technical demo is one thing but what I actually end up playing time and time again is a whole different situation.”

When it comes to games and graphics, “Show me the money!”

The 2nd Amendment is NOT hard to understand!

You Tube and Lisa Nova Collab Video

Here is a You Tube, Lisa Nova (as seen on Mad TV) collab video that I did as a joke. It was filmed on a Canon HG10 in the “SP” mode, took about a day to shoot and a week of on again, off again editing. Oh yeah and I used Sony Vegas 9 Pro. It is meant to spoof those cheesy law commercials that we all tend to see on daytime TV. The whole process of making this video was so much fun up until the point where I had to upload it to You Tube. I had never actually used You Tube before that point so I really didn’t know what to expect. Evidently I should have expected very little. To begin with, You Tube profile updates such as your user picture or any other changes can take up to hours. Not to mention that your user picture can only be 75x100x pixels! What happens if your picture doesn’t meet this criteria? It is resized, resulting in a mutated picture of you that could only be duplicated if you were on a 3 day acid trip. Those are just the small  problems, the largest issue is the upload time. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a 3 minute, 90 megabyte video, would take 4 hours to upload! The despair of the 4 hour wait was compounded even more by the multiple failed upload attempts and the resulting video quality after the upload is finished. Anyway, enough about You Tube, my video can be found below. Hope you enjoy!

Taking the plunge

Well after 6 years of deliberation and a month of designing, I finally took the plunge and got a tattoo. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with the results. Not only do I love the design but the fact that I made it from scratch makes it that much better. So what is this mysterious tattoo you ask? It is an alchemical circle with symbols that represent the 4 elements, sun, earth and some minerals that make up the human body. To me it represents how the elements came together to make me and how they will return to the earth when I am no longer here. The funniest thing about the design of this tattoo is that it was designed in Microsoft Word. Whenever I tell people that, I usually get the response; “Microsoft Word? Really?” Which is understandable because I often have to fight to get a document indented correctly let alone design a tattoo. Once the tattoo was designed and I was determined to get it, I then had to find an artist that was up to the challenge. My friend suggested a great tattoo shop that did a great job on his tattoo six years earlier so I decided to go with them. Upon arriving and proposing my design, I received looks of nervousness. Everybody though the design was amazing, but told me that perfectly symmetrical circles were a tattoo artists worst nightmare. Originally I wanted to get the tattoo put on my chest but I was told that with such a design, trying to properly draw it there would be difficult. So I opted to get it at the top of my arm. Cliche, I know but still OK since it won’t always show. After a bit of pondering, sizing and resizing, the artist was finally confident that he could complete my masterpiece. The process itself was relatively painless (contrary to popular stigma) and took about an hour and twenty minutes. Overall I was amazed at the level of perfection that the artist was able attain. With a design like that, if one circle or line is off, the whole tattoo would have been ruined. All things said, I had a great experience and I’m very happy with the results.

My inception

Well here we are.  A place where I can finally make good on my promise to let people know about good music, technology and other things that everybody seems to always ask me about!  For those of you who know me, you WILL see those infamous questions I always seem to ask that promote deep conversation and eventual throat punching.   I will also have random opinions and personal reviews on music, technology, video games, restaurants and lots of other things I like at the time.  Enjoy!

-Knowledge-