Caught In The Whirlwind
Uncategorized
Forum Software Upgrades
02107 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Warning…tech-y alert 
Over on the X Syndicate website (the City of Heroes/World of Warcraft guild thingy I help maintain. Well, the CoH party of it anyway), I use phpbb as the backend administration thing which takes care of all the logging in and user administration stuff. I then built the rest of the site around that.
So it was with great dread that I await the release of version 3.0, because a lot of stuff had changed. However, I just installed beta 2 over on a test server to check it out and it looks like everywhere that I look in the database has remained exactly the same between the two versions.
Yay for minimal changes! Of course I need to completly redo the forum skin. Oh well.
The RIAA Backs Off
02107 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I had posted earlier about how the RIAA was harassing the family of a deceased defendant in one of their file sharing lawsuits.
Boing Boing posted an update today saying they had contacted the RIAA through e-mail and were told they were dropping the case
Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss. We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family. Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.
Uh huh.
Just an update anyway.
Apartment Pictures
02107 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Well, my apartment was clean so I figured I would document the occasion by taking some pictures of my living area in case anyone was wondering what my surroundings look like. I apologize for the quality…the camera in my Treo 650 is not the best thing in the world.
My Living Area
Shown here is the view from my kitchen looking into my living area. Note the wonderful cooling system for the summer months (Open Window + Fan). Tux, the linux penguin is also making an appearance. Up on the wall behind the TV is a picture of one of my characters from City of Heroes which was commissioned by me.
Computer Setup
And here’s my computer area. Highlights include Two LCDs (One 20.1″ Widescreen Viewsonic VX2025WM as the primary and a 17″ Dell display) hooked up to my desktop. The 15″ MacBook Pro sits to the right of where I normally am and handles web browsing, news reading and instant messaging tasks while I’m home generally. My keyboard is a microsoft one and the mouse is a Logitech MX 1000. Other highlights include the iPod between the two LCDs and my non-functional Canon S630 printer
QotD: Check the Mailbox!
02107 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
What magazines do you subscribe to, and why?
I’m currently not subscribed to any magazines, so I’ll go through the list of the ones that I would be subscribed to if I had the cash for it
- PC Gamer - I’ve always been a gamer at heart, and PC Gamer is by far the best PC games related magazine out there. It doesn’t try to be all in your face about stuff. It’s very professional, and yet, entertaining at the same time
- Maximum PC - A very cool magazine that delves more into the more complicated tech aspects of computers. Motherboard reviews, overclocking, tweaking, you name it. It’s kinda thin though, for the price, but good content anyway
- Wizard – THE source for news on what’s going on in the world of mainstream comics. The coverage is pretty Marvel/DC centered, but there’s some other stuff in there too. Plus it’s an entertaining read.
A Very Long Day…
02108 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Well, I’m pretty bored at the moment. I’m currently really the only one here in my department at work. Everyone else has the day off. I’m also currently in one of my slow periods where I don’t really have a specific project to work on. So I’ve just been doing a lot of reading up on stuff (like continuing my quest to learn ruby), as well as tinkering my other site (Hey, it’s PHP work…it’s called practice!).
I’ve been trying out this vox thing…It’s a really nice service, very easy to use, lots of AJAX-y dynamic stuff. The integrated image/video/audio gallery system is very, very nice. I’m not to keen on the google ads at the bottom, or having my personal thoughts and posts walled away in a proprietary service. I’m still debating if I’m going to move over here, simply because of how easy it is to work with, and for the social network aspect of it. It seemed kinda pokey too, which is another negative. It’s got a bunch of positives though. Argh! I can’t decide.
QotD: Easy Like Sunday Morning
02108 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
What do you usually do on Sunday?
Well, I don’t go to church (for reasons which I really don’t want to get into here), which kinda shoots all sorts of holes in any sort of Sunday ritual I have.
I generally sleep in until 8 or 9 or so, get up, eat breakfast and then do whatever. It’s just another day for me. Occasionally Sunday is laundry day, so I get to spend an hour or two doing that. I try to do that on Saturday though (I go to the laundromat, due to not having my own washer/dryer in this apartment, so it’s a weekly thing to save time)
OS X Leopard Screenshots
02109 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
It was only a matter of time really. Apple gave out developers copies of Mac OS X Leopard to all the attendees of the World Wide Developers Conference, so it figures that there’s going to be some leaked screen shots of the new features.
There’s a forum post over at AeroExperience which has a whole bunch of screen shots.
I’m eagerly awaiting this update, as I just jumped into the world of Apple in April with my MacBook Pro (possibly the best laptop I’ve ever owned). I’m really looking forward to the Spaces virtual desktop stuff. I already use Virtue to do it, but it has some rough edges that I hope apple will address.
The RIAA’s at it again!
02109 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
From the Recording Industry vs. The People webblog centering around the actions of the RIAA comes a story which is just…bizzare.
In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to “grieve”, after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury’s children
Now, I’m not sure how anyone else feels about this stuff…but…that’s just stupid. I’m not entirely sure the people over there are thinking about PR at all when they’re doing this sort of stuff. 60 days of grieving time before we continue to sue the pants off of you. Real nice gesture guys…
QotD: My Intro to the Big Screen
02109 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
What was the first movie you remember seeing in a movie theater?
Question submitted by mainmor.
I’m pretty sure the first movie I ever went to see was The Land Before Time (the original), however, considering I was 4 at the time…That experience is kinda fuzzy.
So instead I’m going to answer with the one I actually really remember: The Rescuers Down Under. We used to have these hardcover books, in the vein of the Dr. Seuss type shape and size. One of them was The Rescuers, which followed the plot of the original movie. Well, I loved that book, about the two mice who tried to save people. So when I saw on TV that they were going to be making another one, well…I REALLY wanted to go.
I was a bit of a…troublemaker in elementary school. Well, really, I got picked on a lot and hadn’t developed the necessary ability to deal with it without over-reacting to people. So my parents made me a deal…I behaved in school for a certain amount of days and I got to go to the movie when it came out. If I remember correctly, it was a double feature. They stuck a little Mickey Mouse short called The Prince and the Pauper, which as a child confused me to no end. I thought we were going to see the Rescuers!
Happy Birthday IBM PC!
02110 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
According to the fine folks over at Engadget, the IBM PC turned 25 years old today. So happy birthday to the IBM PC!
Over there, they took the time to mention some of their first PCs, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a trip down memory lane.
My first PC was an 8086 that my dad got. Amber screen, unknown amount of memory (hey, I was pretty young at that point ). I remember playing Math Blaster and such on that thing way back in the day. I can’t remember if we had our first mouse on that particular computer or the one after, but in any case, I also have fond memories playing with Print Shop of all things. Making banners and newsletters about…odd…things.
The second PC I remember a lot more about. It was a Leading Edge, 386 SX (the crippled one) with a whopping 80MB hard drive. And color! We got so much mileage out of that PC. That was my first introduction to microsoft windows, which I figured out how to use before my Dad figured it out (it was his computer after all). We had windows 3.0 and we liked it back then! We also had some major addons as far as that one was concerned. Adding in a sound card an a 1x CD-ROM drive that connected through the serial port was my first introduction to games..and well…sound. I remember Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego had a really kicking soundtrack. That was so incredibly exciting when all of this stuff was new back then. Amazing actually, living through the time when computers were developing into what they are today. Eventually we got a 400 baud modem for that computer and Prodigy for an online service (they weren’t ISP’s back then), which was my first exposure to what would become the internet.
Now I’m typing this entry on a computer that could beat the crap out of my first ones without even really trying. Progress is amazing, isn’t it?
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