Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
YouTube Live
I just watched this with my niece, and thought that it was super cool. You should be able to find what I'm talking about since they'll be posting the video at some point tonight. Some of it was embarrassingly bad (fake russian accent from MC Hammer's interviewer), but some was really neat.
To me, the highlight was Joe Satriani playing with funtwo. They both seemed genuinely happy to be there, and while it had to be super cool for the kid to play with Satriani, Joe kinda took the back seat and let him shine. And funtwo took the hat off. Freddie Wong should have broken that GHWT guitar at the end of his lead-in to their performance, but he was entertaining too.
Here's the video from the event: Satriani & funtwo
I like a world where everyone has a TV station so there's no barrier to entry. Screw network television, and go YouTube.
To me, the highlight was Joe Satriani playing with funtwo. They both seemed genuinely happy to be there, and while it had to be super cool for the kid to play with Satriani, Joe kinda took the back seat and let him shine. And funtwo took the hat off. Freddie Wong should have broken that GHWT guitar at the end of his lead-in to their performance, but he was entertaining too.
Here's the video from the event: Satriani & funtwo
I like a world where everyone has a TV station so there's no barrier to entry. Screw network television, and go YouTube.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Defective product lines
I decided to compile a list of products and companies that seem to keep selling, but the products either don't actually do anything or they break constantly. I'm not complaining about random products that I've had that have broken, but instead about entire classes of products that never work so matter who seems to have created them.
The XBOX 360 is kind of on the right track, since virtually every 360 was defective. It counts for this, though I am thinking more along the lines of "diet pills" or other things that inexplicably sell time and again despite doing absolutely nothing, no matter who you bought them from.
Cindy bought a Belkin 7 port usb hub (F5U307) for her desk, and within a week it didn't work anymore. After calling support, she found out that she wasn't actually supposed to use all 7 ports because it'll fry the board, and that it also can't handle devices powered over USB being plugged into it. They sent her a new one, and by not actually using it it hasn't caused any more problems.
Let's have a big "fuck you Belkin, you peddlers of worthless shit" for this fine corporation.
Next up on the list is too extensive a list to do justice, but I want to call out about 90% of the manufacturers of wireless routers. They just do not actually do anything. They lock up constantly, require hourly/daily/weekly restarts, and this is after putting new firmware into them to get them to do anything at all. The best success I've had so far has been with Apple's Time Capsules and Airport Extremes, but every "more pricey" Netgear or Linksys router that I've attempted to make use of has left me bitterly disappointed and without a wireless network in operation. Power cycling like this is similar to buying a car that randomly just stops and needs to be restarted every so often for no good reason.
So, fuck you wireless networking device manufacturers. I hope that you all go out of business and that everyone responsible for these absurdly poor products becomes homeless. Belkin also makes and sells wireless routers, and are one of the biggest offenders here as well.
Lastly (for now) I want to offer up every single company that makes one of those USB connectors that can wind up into a spiral. If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a spring loaded reel in the middle of a plastic case, and it holds a flat usb cable. This seems like a solid idea because when you're using it you extend the cable as needed, and afterward, it'll spring back like a seat belt after a little tug. This would be fine and dandy if it actually worked. I have never been able to have one last for more than a few days, and then there would be disk read errors or transfer errors from cameras.
The 2 companies that I've seen with this product that never actually works are Dynex (the Best Buy brand, I guess) and Belkin. I do not think it's even possible to get a working version of this thing. I hate USB as much as the next guy, and think that the current state we're in with most every device employing it is a terrible thing, but for fuck's sake can we please at least get some connectors that actually work?
What has this taught me? Well, if Belkin sells a certain type of product, there is a decent chance that not only will it not work if bought from them, but that if you buy a similar product from another manufacturer it probably won't work either. I suppose it's almost like saying that everything they touch turns to shit.
The XBOX 360 is kind of on the right track, since virtually every 360 was defective. It counts for this, though I am thinking more along the lines of "diet pills" or other things that inexplicably sell time and again despite doing absolutely nothing, no matter who you bought them from.
Cindy bought a Belkin 7 port usb hub (F5U307) for her desk, and within a week it didn't work anymore. After calling support, she found out that she wasn't actually supposed to use all 7 ports because it'll fry the board, and that it also can't handle devices powered over USB being plugged into it. They sent her a new one, and by not actually using it it hasn't caused any more problems.
Let's have a big "fuck you Belkin, you peddlers of worthless shit" for this fine corporation.
Next up on the list is too extensive a list to do justice, but I want to call out about 90% of the manufacturers of wireless routers. They just do not actually do anything. They lock up constantly, require hourly/daily/weekly restarts, and this is after putting new firmware into them to get them to do anything at all. The best success I've had so far has been with Apple's Time Capsules and Airport Extremes, but every "more pricey" Netgear or Linksys router that I've attempted to make use of has left me bitterly disappointed and without a wireless network in operation. Power cycling like this is similar to buying a car that randomly just stops and needs to be restarted every so often for no good reason.
So, fuck you wireless networking device manufacturers. I hope that you all go out of business and that everyone responsible for these absurdly poor products becomes homeless. Belkin also makes and sells wireless routers, and are one of the biggest offenders here as well.
Lastly (for now) I want to offer up every single company that makes one of those USB connectors that can wind up into a spiral. If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's a spring loaded reel in the middle of a plastic case, and it holds a flat usb cable. This seems like a solid idea because when you're using it you extend the cable as needed, and afterward, it'll spring back like a seat belt after a little tug. This would be fine and dandy if it actually worked. I have never been able to have one last for more than a few days, and then there would be disk read errors or transfer errors from cameras.
The 2 companies that I've seen with this product that never actually works are Dynex (the Best Buy brand, I guess) and Belkin. I do not think it's even possible to get a working version of this thing. I hate USB as much as the next guy, and think that the current state we're in with most every device employing it is a terrible thing, but for fuck's sake can we please at least get some connectors that actually work?
What has this taught me? Well, if Belkin sells a certain type of product, there is a decent chance that not only will it not work if bought from them, but that if you buy a similar product from another manufacturer it probably won't work either. I suppose it's almost like saying that everything they touch turns to shit.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
New Macbook Pro and Bandluxe 3.5g Expresscard
So I got a new laptop, I've been postponing this purchase in hopes of an 8 GB laptop from Apple for several months now. For a typical user 8 GB is beyond overkill, but when you're on the road and need to do a lot of virtualization in presentations it would be very helpful to have at least 4, and since I don't want to buy a computer every 9 months I'd rather go overboard for something that'll last an extra year or so.
Anyhow, the Macbook Pro refresh was just enough to entice me, and I'll list the reasons for choosing the Pro over the new aluminum Macbook (which can also take 4 GB of RAM).
1. Firewire. I like target mode and having it on my old Macbook. My migration only took about 3 hours, where in the past I'd spend weeks configuring a new system. It took 90 minutes to copy everything over, and another 90 minutes to download and reinstall 2 crucial things that broke (FUSE and VMWare).
2. Pixels. It might not seem like a lot to some people, but having 1440x900 resolution instead of 1280x800 is a huge productivity boon, at least for me. There is less overlap.
3. Video card. To save on battery juice I have thus far run this machine only in "integrated graphics" mode, which likely gives the same performance for what I do 90% of the time as "dedicated" graphics does. However, I like having the option to play games without them lagging unplayably when connected to an external display.
4. Price. $2500 seems like a lot for a laptop, but if you configure a Dell with the same level hardware (1066 Mhz bus, DDR3 RAM, same hard drive, and so on) you come out with only about $400 of savings. I saved well over $400 worth of my time with the 3 hour migration, and plus I get the new sexy aluminum shell.
5. Expresscard/34. This slot is compatible with any number of wireless broadband cards on the market, including one that a buddy of mine has. There are other workarounds (tethering, and so on), but I like the options that the slot provides. More on this later.
Anyhow, I only got 4 GB of RAM and the machine won't even support 8, but the listed reasons were enough reason for me to dump the cash. I'll buy another one when they make the next RAM jump unless I'm in a new line of work.
OK, it's later. The Expresscard in question is a Bandluxe 3.5G model, and I'm using it right now to make this post. It obviously works, but it's a pain in the ass. Why? Well, the card has a very "convenient" feature where it contains a CDFS file system that its software incessantly tries to mount. I'll go out on a limb and wager that they never even tested this version of their connection software on the mac, since macs can't mount CDFS file systems whose sessions have not been closed. I don't even need anything on that volume, but it keeps trying to mount it for some SMS integration thing.
The only way I can use this card without it popping up a billion dialogs (several per second) saying that it can't mount the volume is to run disk utility and minimize it. That, for whatever reason, suppresses the dialogs.
This is partly Apple's fault for incorporating a focus-stealing dialog into Finder that could ever present a problem like this (I hate focus stealing), and partly the vendor's fault for either not testing their device or for not caring. It seems like Mac support would be becoming a bigger issue for companies of mobile devices since Apple sells more laptops than anyone, but I guess you can't teach people who have been writing code for Windows new tricks overnight.
Anyhow, if anyone has a better fix for this error barrage (The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer), please share. I just want to ignore this specific error at all times and have it not prompt me.
Anyhow, the Macbook Pro refresh was just enough to entice me, and I'll list the reasons for choosing the Pro over the new aluminum Macbook (which can also take 4 GB of RAM).
1. Firewire. I like target mode and having it on my old Macbook. My migration only took about 3 hours, where in the past I'd spend weeks configuring a new system. It took 90 minutes to copy everything over, and another 90 minutes to download and reinstall 2 crucial things that broke (FUSE and VMWare).
2. Pixels. It might not seem like a lot to some people, but having 1440x900 resolution instead of 1280x800 is a huge productivity boon, at least for me. There is less overlap.
3. Video card. To save on battery juice I have thus far run this machine only in "integrated graphics" mode, which likely gives the same performance for what I do 90% of the time as "dedicated" graphics does. However, I like having the option to play games without them lagging unplayably when connected to an external display.
4. Price. $2500 seems like a lot for a laptop, but if you configure a Dell with the same level hardware (1066 Mhz bus, DDR3 RAM, same hard drive, and so on) you come out with only about $400 of savings. I saved well over $400 worth of my time with the 3 hour migration, and plus I get the new sexy aluminum shell.
5. Expresscard/34. This slot is compatible with any number of wireless broadband cards on the market, including one that a buddy of mine has. There are other workarounds (tethering, and so on), but I like the options that the slot provides. More on this later.
Anyhow, I only got 4 GB of RAM and the machine won't even support 8, but the listed reasons were enough reason for me to dump the cash. I'll buy another one when they make the next RAM jump unless I'm in a new line of work.
OK, it's later. The Expresscard in question is a Bandluxe 3.5G model, and I'm using it right now to make this post. It obviously works, but it's a pain in the ass. Why? Well, the card has a very "convenient" feature where it contains a CDFS file system that its software incessantly tries to mount. I'll go out on a limb and wager that they never even tested this version of their connection software on the mac, since macs can't mount CDFS file systems whose sessions have not been closed. I don't even need anything on that volume, but it keeps trying to mount it for some SMS integration thing.
The only way I can use this card without it popping up a billion dialogs (several per second) saying that it can't mount the volume is to run disk utility and minimize it. That, for whatever reason, suppresses the dialogs.
This is partly Apple's fault for incorporating a focus-stealing dialog into Finder that could ever present a problem like this (I hate focus stealing), and partly the vendor's fault for either not testing their device or for not caring. It seems like Mac support would be becoming a bigger issue for companies of mobile devices since Apple sells more laptops than anyone, but I guess you can't teach people who have been writing code for Windows new tricks overnight.
Anyhow, if anyone has a better fix for this error barrage (The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer), please share. I just want to ignore this specific error at all times and have it not prompt me.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Still working on it
I was working for several weeks and when I got back my mom had had 2 more weigh-ins. We still see a lot of progress as far as losing fat and building muscle, but not much as far as actual weight loss. It's neat to see that my mom now has more lean body mass than normal people have body.
Anyhow, here's the pic.
Anyhow, here's the pic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
