Does this mean these Dell laptops will be cheaper?
Dell announced today that it’s going to provide Ubuntu Linux as an option for the operating system on some of it’s new laptops. Of course this is a free, open source operating system, so linux laptops should be cheaper by ~$100 right?
The big deterrent to Linux at the moment (for me at least) is compatibility. It does most things just as good if not better than Windows, but won’t run most Windows software without some serious hassle and hardware choices are sometimes limited. Dell has pledged, however, to develop fully supported machines that ship with the operating system effectively removing one big hurdle. It’s a big step in the right direction towards Linux being accepted as a viable Windows alternative. Should it gain a significant market share, hardware and software will only expand to go where there’s money to be made. It’s a good day for Linux fans.
Overclockin’ like a mofo.
I got my new dual core processor a while ago and never got around to posting my sweet overclock! It came clocked at 2.0 Ghz, but I got it running at 2.4 Ghz solid as a rock. So now this baby is just as fast as a processor that costs almost $100 more!
It’s pretty sweet how much smoother and faster everything is with the dual core. And Guild Wars doesn’t get bogged down anymore when my virus scan kicks in!
Legal doesn’t seem worth it.
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have much experience with DRM (Digital Rights Management). However, in my limited experience, it’s done nothing but make one wish they’d just pirated the media anyway. It’s the reason I never really wanted to buy music, a movie, or a TV show on anything other than a tangible CD or DVD disc. At least with that I have limited freedom of what I do with it. I can take the disc to a friends house and watch it on their (usually more awesome) home theater setup if I want, or I can rip it to my computer or mp3 player and create playlists and compilations. I can listen or watch the content I paid for how I wish.
The latest headache isn’t really my headache at all. Andrea’s mom, Belinda, was wanting to know where to get mp3s for her new mp3 player. Of course she can buy CDs and rip them to mp3 easily enough, but the thought of being able to go online and pick just the songs you like and pay less than a buck a piece is alluring. Since her player isn’t an iPod I didn’t recommend iTunes, I instead mentioned Wal-Mart’s music distribution service that has songs for 88 cents a piece. She finds a few of her favorites and $4.00 later, she has her songs. However, trying to play the songs only resulted in the “Blue Screen of Death” and that was that. None of the driver updates or codec packs could solve the issue. I didn’t have the time to really dive in deep and see what other solutions people had tried. But the point is, you shouldn’t have to mess with drivers or BSODs. DRM in this case is just a deterrent to legitimately obtaining the product.
It’s often been said that all these DRM measures are hurting honest paying customers more than the internet pirates. In the case above this seems to be true. But if you ask me the future of DRM is more than preventing piracy, it’s taking advantage of honest paying customers. DRM doesn’t just keep you from copying your song and giving it to your friend. I mean, that’s bad, and you wouldn’t do that anyway right? The capabilities go far beyond that. Imagine buying a movie to watch on your TV, then when you want to watch that movie again in your bedroom, it won’t work because it’s locked to the hardware that’s in your living room. You’re forced to either buy the movie again, or only ever watch it in your living room. Then buy it again for your portable video player in your car, and so on and so on. Or imagine not being able to record a tv show that you’re going to miss, because the publisher doesn’t want you to have all of the episodes recorded before the boxed set comes out. Digital distribution is the future, and your ability to actually use the products you pay for is quietly being whittled away.
Steve Jobs is lobbying for music companies to strip the DRM for their online catalog of music. However, given the music industry’s track record, I’m skeptical at best. I agree that publishers should have some means to protect themselves from unauthorized distribution of their products. At the same time, there needs to be a way to keep these guys in check. You can’t keep selling me the same product time and time again, just because a new format came out, or I got a new TV. And when I do buy that Weird Al anthology, it had better be compatible, and “just work”. Other wise, I have friends in low places than can get the job done easier, and unfortunately for you…for free.
02.8.07Words couldn’t begin to describe…
…how terrible our tech guy is at work. Perhaps he’s just phenominally unlucky, like losing a coin toss 100 consecutive times unlucky.
Computers are bitches. Especially “shared” computers where lots of people use the same computer. I know from first hand experience. Somebody visits a questionable website just once and BAM virus or spyware! They should know better, but they don’t care because it isn’t their machine. And when you have around 20 computers being used daily by a bunch of different people, eventually hard drives are going to fail, power supplies will go out. Those things just happen.
I’ll try to remember everything that’s gone wrong with our machines in the past year or two. This will be a conservative account, seeing as how I’m sure to forget an instance or two. You tell me if it’s just bad luck.
- 6 new motherboards
- At least 5 failed hard drives
- 1 defective LCD monitor
- 7 new power supplies
- Replaced entire system except hard drive because it wouldn’t connect to the network
- Replaced hard drive for above system
- 1 Non-Genuine copy of Windows XP
- Whatever I forgot
Unfortunately it’s not just an excessivly high failure rate in the products this guy sells that leads me to believe that he’s a total d-bag. It’s the ridiculious crap that he and his employees say to people around here that don’t know any better. For instance.
“I’m installing Double Density Ram, so after this it will be twice as fast.”
“You can’t use that router because it will take up too many IP addresses.”
“That Windows installation is so old, it’s probably started deleting system files.”
If the above statements don’t mean anything to you, good. It just makes it all the more clear what kind of person or persons we’re dealing with here. Every statement is completely false, and every one I’ve overheard these guys saying to someone around here that has no idea about computers. To me that’s just taking advantage of somebody, unless they truely are that naieve.
So there’s one of two possibilities here. ONE: That I am actually better versed in technology than this guy and his employees. Or TWO: That this guy runs a shady business selling cheap and/or second hand crap as new and bluffs his way around it when things get sticky.
Either way, given his track record, I don’t know how we’re still doing business with him. But since the people calling the shots don’t know any better, I’ll have to continue to tolorate it. Just don’t touch my laptop!
02.5.07I think a part of me just died.
Yes, it’s true. I think my Nintendo 64 has played it’s last game. I’ve been in the mood for some old school N64 gaming the past couple days, so I go to fire it up, and glorious glorious sound…but no video. I spent at least 30 minutes making sure I had all the connections right and making sure the cables weren’t bad. But nothing I could do would bring back the video.
It’s kinda sad. I mean, all the time I spent playing that Nintendo 64 is probably an easily measurable percentage of my life. All 120 stars in Super Mario 64. All the record times in Mario Kart, all the GoldenEye Fests/Perfect Dark Events. There’s a lot of my history in that little machine as nerdy as it is. So I’ll admit I was pretty sad when I finally realized that it probably isn’t going to work anymore.
So I’m going to have to scower the local game shops and see if they have any N64s. They should be pretty darn cheap. Hopefully I don’t have to resort to eBay. But one way or another, I shall game again! Luckily the console is easy enough to replace. Finding decent controllers on the other hand, that’s a challenge.
01.15.07Holy smokes!
Be careful carrying around that cell phone…because it just might BURST INTO FLAMES!
Are you kidding me? I’d say this lends credit to not pumping gas with your cell phone, but I think this is more in line with the rule, don’t pump gas with anything that could spontaniously combust.
In other news, this is expected to be one of the “hottest” new trends of 2007. FLASH TONES!
01.15.07A refreshing weekend.
So since the chance of another devistating blizzard scared the grandfolks out of heading out to Cimarron, I found myself with a weekend with nothing in particular that needed to be done. First one in quite a while. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything all weekend, it just means I didn’t do anything important. I’m used to being on a regular sleep schedule these days of going to bed around 11:30 and getting up around 7:30 or 8:00. That went out the window this weekend. I kinda reverted back to the olden days where I’d be up until 3:00 am and sleep until 11:00. Ahh those were the days. Luckily I didn’t have much trouble getting back on track and up for work today!
My 250gig hard drive and monitor got delivered to work on Friday. So after I finished up my remote at Manhattan High for the basketball game, I went home and got to work setting up all that. It takes a LOOONNNGG time to format 250 gigs. I can only imagine how long it’d take Brian’s 500 gigs (I’m guessing twice as long). I got my monitor hooked up and man is that thing nice. It’s not the top of the line Dell widescreen or anything, but I think it’s an awesome monitor for the price I paid for it. 19″ widescreen, 5ms response time, 700:1 contrast ratio for all you who are interested in specs. And the thing is freakin’ bright. I don’t know why anyone would want it on the brightest setting unless maybe the sun were shining directly on the monitor. I have the brightness set at 80% and it’s still noticablly brighter than my old monitor.
Andrea did a little splurging herself and after seeing my monitor she just had to get one for herself. She also picked up a “Wal-Mart special”computer desk for herself (finally)! She didn’t get a widescreen though. To each their own. After going widescreen, I don’t think I’d ever go back. I used to think it’d be awkward but it actually feels more natural. Go figure. But with the extra space left on my desk left from Andrea’s computer, I hooked my old monitor back up and am running dual monitors now. Just because I can I guess. I’ll try to get some pics later when I get home from work.
So after 130 screws and pieces A through L we got Andrea’s desk put together and my desk organized. Then I finally cleaned out the closet and made room for the old twin bed frame and tucked the box springs away. The room is nice and organized now. Now if I can just motivate myself to do that to the rest of the rooms…
It was nice to have a weekend where I could pour myself into something I enjoyed. I was able to be a little productive, get some video games in, and mostly just take it easy. Bring on retirement! 😉
EDIT: Here’s the pics I promised. And added one more.
My Setup
Andrea’s Setup
OMGWTFBBQ!
I just noticed today that my hard drive is almost completely full! There’s not a whole lot I want to delete, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need more than 3 gigs of storage for the future. So I ordered a 250 gig drive from Newegg tonight. That should suffice.
I’d like to think that I would never be able to fill 250 gigs worth of space, but I also remember saying that when we got our first 20 GB hard drive back in the day. *sigh*
So for now I’m just taking it easy and working on copying stuff over to the new FTP server which is up and running at ftp://kartmaster.myftp.org at least I hope. There’s nothing there yet but hopefully there will be soon. If you’re looking for a great ftp client and you use Firefox, I can’t say enough about FireFTP. Check it foo!
My New Computer
Merry Christmas me!!!! hehe Matt, being the coolest and nicest person in the world, bought me a brand new computer (most of it). He got me all of the internal parts except for the 250GB Hard Drive that I put in it. I also got the coolest lookin speakers ever! (and the sound great too)
Of course, I had to check out all of the parts that Matt was thinking about getting me. I had to make sure they were better than his! hehe
Here’s a picture of all of the parts, and it’s not a wallpaper!
desktop
i havnt done this for a while heres is yellowjackets final theme i like this one and i think it will stay like this from now on.