Tech

PS360

I’m having an enjoyable break. I still have work, but it’s work where I’m not bothered every 2 minutes, so I can actually get some stuff done.

Dabbling in drumming on my acoustic drums, which I had only played once since moving in to CSU. It’s totally different than electric drums, which have been feeling rather limiting recently. But I think that the electronics are forcing me to focus on my technique and rhythm, since they aren’t so boomy and loud to play. Less fun to play = more focus on improving my playing.
But banging the crap out of my Ludwigs today felt really good. I played some solo grooves for a while, then Rush, then The Who, then Steve Kimock. I’m in a classic rock phase where super-technical fast fills and ghost notes are less fun than just straight-up old rock beats with fat tom fills.

Having fun with Ubuntu Linux, as well. If OS X doesn’t come out for x86 systems in January (I have a completely unrefuted suspicion about  this) I might opt to ditch Windows instead of upgrading to Vista. I’ve basically decided to experiment through the end of the semester, and then migrate to the system I’m happiest with over the winter. The contenders include XP Professional, Vista, Ubuntu 6.10, openSuSE 10.2, Fedora Core 6, and (maybe) OS X Leopard.

I’m also looking at the new video game consoles, as well. For the last ten years, I’ve been a straight-up Sony PlayStation gamer. I don’t play video games too much, but all of the really fun games have come out for PSX or PS2. Stuff like Gran Turismo (I’ve owned 1-4), Ape Escape, Crash Bandicoot, and the Final Fantasy series keep me coming back (every game I mentioned has also been Sony-exclusive). The Xbox gained a lot of network play with the likes of Halo, and many “simply fun” games have dominated the N64 and GameCube. I’ve never had much of a thing for first-person shooters or the bright colors of Mario Party 36.

But now there are next-gen consoles for each system. The Xbox 360, after some rough (and fiery) starts, has emerged as a great console overall. It’s really easy to program, and great games are coming out for it. Gears of War has to be the most beautiful game I’ve ever seen. And it’s a cheaper system, too- it’s been out for a year, Microsoft has already started to turn profits on these boxes, so prices are likely to go down sometime soon.

Enter the PlayStation 3. It has come a year after the 360, and pushes hardware limits so far that manufacturers are unable to make too many at a time. We’re talking about an 8-core PowerPC-based processor, plus a crazy 533-MHz graphics system. Compared to the 3-core 3.2GHz Xbox 360, this unit blows the competition away (and three cores is nothing to cry about!)
But that’s just hardware. Programming multithreaded games- forget 8 cores – is very difficult. Basically, once developers actually learn how to program the darned thing, it will definitely blow the 360 out of the water. But it’s gonna take a lot of time.
Not to mention that the PS3 costs $600. Forget it. My strategy for now will be to wait at least a year and see if the PS3 flops or flourishes. In the meantime, it’s really annoying because I have no PS2 of my own (it was the family box and I moved away) so all I have to game on is my old PSX emulator on the laptop. Which is totally fun- I mean come on, I have Final Fantasy VII! But I want to play XII now, and have nothing to play it on. I don’t want to wait a year or more to find out about the PS3 to be able to play these games. I would almost rather buy a 360 and a PS2 now (total: $429) than a PS3 later ($600).

I have the opportunity to score a $100 Xbox this week. No, I won’t tell you how. But if it doesn’t go through (limited supply) then I will wait the extra year to see if the PS3 is worth it.

Unless I cave and buy a PS2 just to play Final Fantasy XII and Gran Turismo 4.

*chirp chirp*
Yes, I know that nobody is reading any more.

nEw br0wz4rz!!!11one [updated]

[UPDATE: It turns out that this wasn’t the official 2.0 build of Firefox. They’re working on it, it comes out tomorrow… And this one isn’t official. Though I have a hunch that it still will have those bugs come tomorrow, so my rant is still (probably) valid. ]

So the big new versions of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are out… I’ve been jumping between Firefox 1.5.0.7 and Opera 9 for a while now, with heavy bias on the Firefox side.

I had to thoroughly test the beta and release of IE7 for work (Micro$oft owns my department’s soul, so no OSS for us) and I got to know it pretty well. I was mainly just excited because this means that a bunch of public terminals will finally support tabbed browsing. I spent a good part of the last two weeks at work trying to get IE to fail, and it didn’t happen. As a matter of fact, for (heavy) day-to-day browsing it has no functional difference from Firefox for me. Sure, there are some nitpicky differences, but nothing that important. So a long story short, I really like it, at least in comparison to the four-year-old IE6. It still has a couple of problems – namely, major CSS shortcomings, and resource-hoggage. I have the same three tabs open in IE7 and FF2, and IE is taking 64MB. FF is taking 32. Oh, and IE’s rendering engine hasn’t changed since IE4. That came out with, um…. Windows 98?

Firefox 2 will be great in a couple of revisions. I think it was rushed out of the door to compete with IE7’s release last week. I have the “final version” – not a release candidate – and it’s crashing as much as the beta and RC2 did. Except that it’s supposedly a final release, which shouldn’t still have those bugs. That kind of instability in a final release is unacceptable. It’s crashed twice in the last 10 minutes on me… with simple browsing.

So for now, I’ll be using Internet Explorer 7, until I can browse happy again. I feel so… dirty. But it’s amazing that IE7 is good enough to not drive me completely insane, and still feel as good as FF 1.5.0.7 did.

iPod for sale

iPod and cases

I am selling all that you see here:

  • 4th Generation 40GB Apple iPod
  • Leather flipcase with belt clip
  • iSkin Wild Side: Verve
  • iSkin: Clear
  • Contour Showcase (Yes, it’s ugly, but so is a bulletproof vest.)

(USB cable for file transfer and charging also included)

Features: Pretty much everyone knows what an iPod does. It plays MP3’s. It plays stuff off of the iTunes music store. It is 40 gigabytes (according to apple, that’s 10,000 songs) of musical goodness. The cases all keep it safe and pretty (…except the Showcase, that just keeps it safe).

Condition: I have been super-paranoid about the iPod… I don’t shake it around, the thing’s a hard drive, after all 😛
There are minor scratches on the iPod, so the back doesn’t look like a mirror any more… Still looks great in and out of a case. Battery life is great, and will definitely last for a while. When it does die (all rechargeable batteries need to be replaced after a few years) it will be very cheap to replace- ~$30 for a new battery.

Age: This iPod is just about a year old (I got it after exchanging a defective one).

Warranty: None from Apple (like I said, this was from an exchange from a 2-year-old iPod). HOWEVER, I don’t want you to be afraid to buy this because of no warranty, so I’ll make a 2-week return policy. Try it out. Don’t want it for any reason? Give it back, no questions asked. (Oh, and I’ll refund your money if you want that, too. But I’ll just take the iPod back if you don’t want the refund 😉 )

Why am I selling it? The only reason is that I filled it. Which is hard to do- unless you’re insane like me and need to have 41 live Grateful Dead shows on there. I now own an 80GB iPod, which should take longer to fill. I figure I’ll spread the love.

Who will I sell it to? If I know you, and you aren’t going to load it up with 8 Britney Spears albums, it’s yours.

Price:

You Decide.

Leave me a comment with an offer. Sale ends when I decide so. Highest offer doesn’t necessarily win, and doesn’t have to be restricted to money- that might make it more fun.