nick's site

a business i do computer support for switched to macs. they seemed open to letting me fumble through but i really don’t learn much and it’s a challenge to provide support for something i know none of the nuances. using any computer is easy. administering it, showing others how to use it, helping others, not so easy.

i tried the osx86project’s tips for getting OSX booting on a PC, but no such luck.

i took some extra student-loan money this semester and picked up a white macbook, 2ghz core 2 duo, 1gb ram, 80gb drive, 6x dual layer dvd burner.. my thoughts thus far:

Cons:

• can’t right-click. I know there’s work arounds, but there aren’t two buttons. period.
• default drivers from logitech for my mx518 doesn’t detect the extra buttons. currently, the only alternative is a pay-software called USB Overdrive. the shareware version is nagware.
• sharp edges where the white plastic case meets the off-white keyboard tray/wrist rest. according to apple and the macalots on the discussion forums, i’m imagining it or have poor typing posture, especially when i’m using the touchpad. (2, 3) five minutes with a small file took care of it.
• no dedicated Home/End, Page Up/Down, or Insert/Delete keys. with as often as i write (read: hack) code, i use theys keys often
• constant sales and specials make “PC” notebooks of similar configurations 2/3 the cost
• closing the lid suspends/sleeps the laptop. i hate it. the hack/apps out there don’t work on the macbooks (yet.)
• constant harrassment from docah
• initial screen calibration washes out bright-colors. a slight tweak for “Tube” worked wonders.
• getting used to the modifier functions like apple+c/apple+v for copy/paste and how the fn, ctrl, alt, and apple + home/end page up/down arrows play together
• window resize is lower-right corner only. c’mon apple, allow me to resize anywhere!
• branding. not solely an apple issue, but can we do w/o all the flashy apple logos?
• no equivilent of microsoft’s “offline files.” i tried setting up iFolder, an opensouce application claiming to do the same type of thing. a perfect example of why opensource sucks.
• batterylife w/ wireless and bluetooth enabled

Pros:

• two-finger touchpad tapping = right-click. i tap more often than use the button anyway, so two-finger tapping is neat. i wish my work-assigned dell had this.
• two-finger touchpad dragging is scrolling. anywhere on the touchpad. both up/down and side/side.
• magsafe power connector. some claim to have cord issues. i haven’t yet.
• sleek hardware design
• exposé
• battery life is good after i disable wireless & bluetooth
• having a unix shell wherever i go

OS X and its nuances are less scary now. otherwise, it’s just another computer. firefox installs just fine. so does open/neooffice. there’s a plethora of opensource applications (like cyberduck) out there for macs, many of which top their commercial counterparts.

having another OS under my belt is always good for the resume.

OU participates in microsoft‘s MSDN-AA program. i picked a copy of vista business available to me as a student.

time to load it up on a spare drive and play!

folder redirection and offline files, along with a reasonably useable interface are among my favorite reasons to use windows. the first two resons are awesome when you want to configure all your machines to use one set of “My Documents”

i’ve gained some exposure to vista through work and will continue to do so. however, the only way to gain any true experience with a piece of software, i have to use it on a day-to-day basis.

some time ago (they deleted my bug report,) xbmc stopped displaying metadata (song title, artist, stream name, etc) when the url was http://server:port. they recoded it so that it would only display metadata if the url was shout://server:port.

most of the servers and websites out there and most of the music clients only support the http:// protocol. this includes my favorite sites like soma.fm and monkey radio.

i also keep a copy of my own playlist files on my fileserver here. it’s much easier to access the playlist files from the fileserver than to sift through xbmc’s shoutcast directory. soma.fm seems to shuffle things around regularly, invalidating my copies almost daily.

i wrote a script. nothing too challenging. php even. it opens the playlist files and saves one copy to the fileserver. it modifies another, replacing http:// with shout:// and saving that copy to the fileserver.

use at your own risk. rinse. repeat. questions?

yeah, i’m a nerd.

comcast took down (crashed?) our high speed internet. tv too. area-wide they say. 6-8 hours to fix it they say.
in the past, i would ‘squat’ on a neighbor’s high speed internet until mine came back up, but nobody/nothing else.

using the dd-wrt firmware on my wrt54g, i changed the wireless mode from “access point” to “client” and linked it to the neighbor’s wireless network 🙂

the neighbor’s high speed internet is considerably slower than ours (about 1/10th of ours), but it works. it appears they have WOW‘s 112k/112k package.

now, everything on the lan here at the apartment is online, not just me. 😀

with my wireless relegated to providing internet instead of wireless, i put up another “access point” i had laying around (yes, i had one laying around. doesn’t everybody?)

white & nerdy

don’t download this song (animation by bill plympton)

thanks kev.

a few minutes of wierd downtime** and it appears i have comcast’s powerboost (2) now. notice the download speed below.

** wierd downtime being, i couldn’t log into AIM or get to websites, but i remained logged into the network at my mom’s place throughout the last four hours

a reason to spend your coffee money at caribou coffee.. free internet for the 1st hour. any more than an hour? buy a cup of coffee or anything else valued at $1.50 or more.

solves the issue some coffee shop operators have where customers purchase one item and sit for hours on the internet. solves the other issue of the pay-to-use services like starbucks/tmobile offers.

how they validate said-$1.50-purchase is unbeknownst to me. however, a good idea.

now, if they could make their coffee taste less like cardboard, i’d spend more money there.

i re-found a link about financial advice for 20-something year olds. interesting perspective.

i wish i knew more about the messages in my cable modem’s event logs. we lost sync just now.

2006/10/10 16:44:26   82000400   1   Critical   Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance
2006/10/10 16:44:27   2242906119   1   Notice   SNMP Poll – Mac Link Down.
2006/10/10 16:44:27   2242905997   1   Notice   SNMP Poll – DS Link Down.
2006/10/10 16:44:27   2242906014   1   Notice   SNMP Poll – US Link Down.
2006/10/10 16:46:20   82000200   15   Critical   No Ranging Response received – T3 time-out.
2006/10/10 16:46:38   2242905917   1   Notice   SNMP Poll – Mac Link Up.
2006/10/10 16:46:38   2242905786   1   Notice   SNMP Poll – DS Link Up.
2006/10/10 16:46:38   2242905803   1   Notice   SNMP Poll – US Link Up.
2006/10/10 16:46:38   2242905723   1   Notice   SNMP_AGENT_COLD_START

i ‘ve been playing WoW since christmas, not so much since april. i’ve got until 11/17 until my WoW account expires, i don’t play it enough. if anyone (i know) is interested in playin on that account, let me know.