10 posts tagged “nerd”

Ned Yost, the current (and one of the best) managers the of the (my hometown Milwaukee) Brewers, is, according to Brewers.com, a "tech geek".

He also owns an iPhone. Which, is pretty sweet. While it seems the local sports media goes nuts and calls for his head whenever the Brewers lose a game, I think Yost is one of the best ever to manage (not coach, thats an important difference in baseball) for the Brew Crew. I wouldn't mind seeing him end up coaching in Milwaukee for 10 or 15 years, like some managers in some teams.

What the local sports radio guys seem to forget, is that the Brewers haven't finish above .500 for a season in 15 years, and are currently in first with 3 wins above .500.

Ned was one of my favorite Brewers team members, and one of the best managers. His status has a 'tech geek', like me, has only solidified this. I am now a Ned Yost defender.

Go Brewers.

Well, once again, DRM proved to stop digital technology....

For a US History project, I needed to do a Power Point, and set some music to it that was representive of the idea of "Fearlessness". I picked out "Duel of the Fates" by John Williams (bit of Star Wars). I had recently gotten the song legally off of iTunes, and tried to pop it into Power Point, but guess what, Power Point wouldn't recongize the protected Mp4 format.

Well, now, I don't know what I'll do. I tried burning the song to CD, and then copy it back to iTunes, so it would come in Mp3, but iTunes 7 was janked, and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I like to fancy myself a technical-adept person (since I've used a computer since I was 3 year old, you know, but maybe I'm kidding myself).

I wanted to use a purchased song in a simple, legal, Fair Use way. I wasn't going to give a copy to every one of my friends, or put it on the internet, I just simply wanted to use it for my power point, and I couldn't because of the stupid lawyers and their DRM.

On the Zune, I believe that technically, its better that the iPod. Bigger screen, better UI, awesome Wi-Fi sharing feature, but its crippled by DRM features. I've seen a Zune at school, and its a very impressive device, but, the lawyers got their hands on it and ruined it. Microsoft's engineers shouldn't be blamed for the Zune, Microsoft's legal team should. Remember, DRM (or Digital Rights Management) isn't protecting our rights, its protecting the rights of the RIAA. What do you have when you have a RIAA lawyer burried up to his neck in sand?

Not enough sand.

Two of my friends, Jake and Bryan, stood in line for PS3's. Stupid? Maybe. We report, you decide. Anyway, I talked with both of them about their experience, and they both told similar stories.

Both of them stood inline for the Xbox 360 last year, and had good things to say about it. They said it was friendly, people playing DS, playing football, joking around, talking about what games to get, and letting people freely leave line for bathroom breaks and getting food from parents and friends in the parking lot.

Fast foward one year, and they said the PS3 line was less friendly. No joking, no football, no DS (or PSP) and arguments if you leave the line and come back ("Hey! That guy was behind me! Get back there you bastard!"). My friend Bryan said a big argument broke out between two groups of people, those people selling it to eBay, and the group who were buying it to play it.

Why is this? Well, my first thought, probably due to my anti-Sony slant the past few months, was that Playstation fans are jagged, and (pardon my French) assholes, compared to Xbox fans, but, maybe there is another angle to this.

Sony has made the PS3 out to be rarer than gold. News stories of people fetching $3000+ on eBay and this being hailed the console to end all consoles have all created a frenzy about this new console. Add in the Wii and this massive Holiday '06, and its kind of a general anxiety.

For now, I'm happy with my PC and Xbox 1.  I plan to upgrade both to a faster PC and a Xbox 360, but for now, thats good. (I recently ordered the game Oblivion. Has a fan of its prequel, Morrowind, I'm really excited. Because I had $25 to burn, and I'm impatient, I got Amazon.com next-day shipping. Coming tomorrow, ordered on Sunday. Heh heh.)

I've even got more thoughts on the Wii, where I think its going, and just thoughts. Stay tuned, same Vox time, same Vox channel.

The "power user" community has been set on fire the past week by the official release of Firefox 2. Personally, I don't see the big deal.

I used IE until 2003, when on a bet I tried Firefox and feel in love with it. Now, I'm not an open-source guy. I DISLIKE most open-source products for various reasons, but Firefox and Thunderbird are ones that really just click with me.

Now, I think most Firefox users are smarter than the rest, if only by a small bit, but, honestly, they are overreacting. I tried the IE7 beta just a few weeks before I tried Firefox 2 RC1, and honestly, it seems like they copied each other.

The Twitosphere said that Firefox 2 seems "Vista-like" and not having tried Vista, and only checked a few screenshots, I can't say, but I've got this hunching suspicious that Firefox 2 is very IE7-like. No idea why I think IE7 was first, maybe because I tried it first, but they are VERY similar, except for the IE7 rendering engine.

That rendering engine is the reason that I'll be sticking with Firefox 2. The new engine is BEAUTIFUL. Web pages look great. I don't know what it is, but the font just looks brillant. The IE7 internet looks better than the Firefox 2 internet. That being said, it still renders slower. A LOT slower to this broadband Firefox user. The reason I use Firefox is not because its customizable, it does a billion things, or because its powered by the "infinite power of community." Its simply because my favorite web pages load faster.

I run no plugins on Firefox 2 (now, Thunderbird I do, but I digress). and I just surf. Even Opera seems a bit slow for my tastes. We all are a little ADD, and me, if it takes 10 seconds or 3 seconds to load Wookiepedia matters to me.

So, until the IE team overhauls their rendering engine and makes it faster, I'm riding the Firefox bandwagon.

Today, Leo Laporte, head of the TWIT Podcast... Netcast Network, (I personally, hate the word netcast, and I'll blog it in an upcoming entry, but I'll try to keep it on topic today), teased that This Week In Tech, the flagship of his TWIT network, and my favorite audio podcast, may be coming to an end. Here's what Leo said, to put it in context.

I'll decide what happens to TWiT, the show, when I come back, but at this point it looks like it's on life support and the heart monitor is flatlining.

Well, I agree with Leo that it doesn't look good, but I'm basing my comment on his comment. It appears that he is saying that because a lack of getting people on twit to talk.

This breaks my heart, I think twit is an amazing podcast, the best I've ever heard. It has just enough everything, and comes out to a great podcast. If I graded TWIT on the same scale I reviewed Windows Weekly on, then it would get a 10/10. Its just that damn good.

But, I can understand Leo's position, but I think he needs to reform TWIT. I love the current format, with Leo, Dvorak, Patrick Norton (or Wil Harris, my new favorite), and maybe Prager, Heron or somebody else thrown in for good mix, but I understand that the current format won't work for Leo, and probably not with the audience forever.

It seems, early in podcasting, many were simply people getting together around a mic (this is pre-Skype, mind you.) and blab on about a subject. Leo's other twit podcasts started (or maybe it all came about at the same time) a trend in podcasting where it became more like a radio show, a host and an expert, discussing a list of pre-planned topics, for a set peroid of time. The only one thats done it successful this far is Diggnation, and thats because the 17-year old open source Linux geeks love watching a drunk Kevin Rose almost spill beer all over his MacBook and talk about how he slept with an underage girl once (but mind you, the older podcast fans will not put up with it forever.)

So, I present, what I think twit will have to be to evolve. On Sundays, Leo gets one guest on the old Skype-a-phone and they discuss a list of the top stories of the week. Preferably a current twit-star. It would basically be Windows Weekly, or Inside the Net, except with a rotating guest, and I'd say only about 30 minutes.

Honestly, my suggested format isn't a path to success, and when I wrote it down just now it didn't seem to be perfect. If I was Leo, that is what I would do, however.

I just don't want twit to end, and I hope Leo finds a way to keep it in business. Only time will tell. Indeed

I'm under the weather today kids, so my blog entry will be a bit subdued to say the least.

Today, the Apple iPod turned five, which may seem a few years longer than you remember, which is about right for me to. The iPod was introduced in 2001, to some critism, it only worked on Macs, only had a Firewire connection and had only had 10 hours of playback. Despite these, it was a technical marvel, a very very small hard drive.

Slowly over time, small improvements brought iPod to the front of the MP3 player field, a very simple control interface, and the great iTunes application, and the move to allow use on Windows. No MP3 device had really taken over the market.

I own an iPod and love it.

Meh, this entry is so bad. I shouldn't even post it. The fact of the matter is, I'm kind of blogged out. I've been blogging some in-dept posts for what, three days straight, and I feel am burned out on blogging. Personally, I don't know how I can keep this up. I'm not really 16 anymore... (Yeah, like 17 is too old to blog :) )

Well, I'm sure I'll find a way to keep this up. Later.

Well, for the past 17 years, I've been blissfully unemployeed, living off handouts of cash from my parents, grandparents, and other family members. However, since my 15th birthday, my parents have been getting more and more strict, saying "Get your own job," or something to that effect. Yikes. Back in the day when I collected comic books, I had to save up my lunch money all week just to get enough cash to make my monthly run to the comic store to pick up my latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man.

Well, I've finally decided I've got to take the plunge and get a job, so a few week ago, I put on my brave face and my stern voice and went into Kmart and caught myself an application, and went back, carefully filled it out, then turned it back in. I waited two weeks, and finally, called Kmart at 3:03 in the afternoon and I was told the "hiring lady" had left. I called a few more times, but apperantly, the lady leaves before I get out of school (just like my teachers... :) ) so I gave up on Kmart, I'm looking at a Pick & Save (Wisconsin grocery store) and a Blockbuster, both on my way home from school, and both supposedly cool places to work from friends who work their or previously worked there.

Anyway, the point of my store is what fine item I'll chose to buy with my $6.50 an hour pay check (minimum wage in Cheeseland is 6.50, nice eh?). The one item that convinced me to take the plunge and get a job was a Xbox 360, and the game Dead Rising particular. I'm a huge fan of my orginal Xbox, and I love everthing zombie. But, I've been thinking, and I was instead going to build my own computer, then an Apple MacBook, but now I've decided.

I'm going to get a... Dell Desktop. Thats right, possibly the oddest thing I'd ever choose, but here's why. While I've always wanted to build my own PC, its just more expensive than Dell's production line machines, even one cutomized to my tastes (high mid-range gaming stuff, and a TV tuner so I can have a cheap TiVo/DVR) comes in at just under $1500, while a similar system, built from parts at newegg.com comes in at just over $2200.

Why not an Xbox 360? Well, it would be stupid to just buy it for one game, and besides Dead Rising was critically acclaimed when it first came out, but now, my friends are frusterated with it, and are getting pissed. Why not an Apple MacBook? While its true, I am a huge Apple fanboy (who doesn't even own a Mac), I really want to play games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 (plus one more game that is my secret gaming fetish, I'll reveal it in an upcoming blog, stay tuned). My PC runs both of those games, but either at poor visual settings, or poor framerates, or maybe both, but my customized Dell I've picked out (its what I'm calling high mid-range. Its not a screaming new 7950GX2 card, but its not a 6200GS, either), will play most current games without trouble.

So, I'm losing some major nerd street cred here by picking a Dell Desktop over a Xbox 360 (minus points from the gamer crowd) and a MacBook (minus points from the Apple crowd), but maybe those items will be after my Dell. I'll post more stuff about this future Dell rig after I get my job and get closer and closer to getting enough money for it.

Later, guys.

The following is a non-rhyming poem/short story.

One day, there was a boy named Kevin.
He loved all his Microsoft products.
He conquered dragons on his Xbox, and organized files on his Windows XP.
He surfed the net on Internet Explorer, and even had MSN.
He loved Microsoft, and didn't even think about anything else.
When he saw other Mac users at school, he would point and laugh.
"You silly hippies! My PC is faster and cheaper than yours!"
When Dvorak ridiculed the Mac users, Kevin clapped in his office chair and agreed.
Then, one day little Kevin had a teacher who taught his web design class.
The teacher had cool screen shots of his websites, yet they were in a cool web browser.
"What cool browser is that?" Kevin would ask.
"You silly sheep, that is Safari in Mac OS X!"
And so it began, little Kevin began down a long path to freedom.
Kevin found the GUIdebook, and more and more cool pictures of this new Mac OS X.
It was versatile, beautiful and breathtaking.
And Kevin continued this trek down the Mac Path...
Kevin did more and more research, he surfed Wikipedia for hours, explored the online Apple store and more.
He used iTunes, and started listening to MacBreak Weekly.
He watched Mac commercials on YouTube, and read the Cult of Mac website.
He watched the Stevenotes and cheered along with the onscreen crowd, happily stuck in the RDF.
Then, one day in his graphic arts class, Kevin finally lose his Mac virginity.
They were four-year old eMacs, slower than dirt, but Kevin didn't mind...
Then, the other kids cursed them. "How do I right-click! I can't copy and paste! These computers suck!"
And without thinking, Kevin shouted, "You fools! Its CONTROL-CLICK!"
And they said, "You silly hippy! My PC is easier to use than this Mac!"
Kevin realized, he had become the very thing he once hated.
He had become a Mac lover.
So, he went to the Wisconsin Apple Store, and bought an iPod, and talked hardware with the employees.
And so it was good.

Alright, I just listened to the second episode of Windows Weekly. Windows Weekly (or WW), is the latest podcast in Leo Laporte's "twit.tv" network, with a focus on Windows.

Alright, the first 'webisode' of WW was... um... uncomfortable. I don't know what it was, but just simply... odd. I've been reading Paul Thurrott's Windows Supersite for about five months, and so when he teamed up with one of my favorite podcasters netcasters, Leo Laporte, I was pretty excited. The 'atmosphere' between Leo and Paul was... odd, and sometimes the conversations got... cold. The two didn't seem to 'click' and I was pretty disappointed, it looks like WW might be a flop.

Well, the next week, Thurrott made an appearance on TWIT, and he was pretty good. I'm a bit of a TWIT traditionalist, I only like when its regulars on the 'cast (Dvorak, Patrick Norton, Robert Heron, Prager, etc. etc. etc.) but with Thurrott, he already felt like a regular, and the 'cast was a good listen.

This past weekend, Leo had a problem with his servers or something, so I didn't get webisode #2 of WW until this morning, so I popped it onto my iPod and listened to it on my walk home from school. First thing I noticed (and loved) is the Windows login and logoff sounds bookmarking the 'cast. Brilliant, just brilliant touch. I couldn't help but smile when I heard the sounds. Most positively a Laporte-like touch.

The actual 'meat' of the podcast was much better. Laporte and Thurrott clicked unlike the first episode. The topics were interesting, and the banter between them was enjoyable has well.

So, I'm going to give the Windows Weekly podcast 8 stars out of 10 stars.  I'm assuming the first episode's faults were simply just growing pains, it was the "pilot" of sorts. So, looks like another great podcast netcast from Leo and more great Windows info from Paul.

One more thing I'd like to touch one, more and more often, people are complaining about certain twit podcasts, calming that even though their taglines say "with Steve Gibson/Amber MacArthur/Paul Thurrott" that they are becoming more and more of Leo's podcast. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, and I don't think its necessarily true. Its a bit overblown, and I think Leo kind of like the Ed McMahon to Amber MacArthur's Johnny Carson... ok, maybe thats not the best example, but Leo just brings up topics and "drives the boat" while the respective "expert" discusses the topic with Leo. So, thats all I have to say on that.

The really really last thing, I just want to say that Leo is trementous netcaster/broadcaster. I'm listening to MacBreak Weekly right now, and he can switch between a Windows guy and a Mac guy flawlessly. Now, I think from listening to his little bits on twit that he is probably a Mac guy in his personal life, but on Windows Weekly, he didn't sound like a Mac guy playing a Windows guy, or a general computer guy playing a Windows guy. It probably is harder than that may seem.

OK, now I'm done.

External Links: Windows Weekly Homepage