Phoria2 and Phoria2 Inverse Beta

Two desktops I built, can be found here

http://z14.invisionfree.com/The_Graphic_Chamber/index.php?showtopic=304&view=findpost&p=8222962

They are 1024×768.

Last.fm…

Wow, I’ve been neglecting my Last.fm profile…I guess I may pay more attention to it…

http://www.last.fm/user/itoilet9/

Zune Pt. 2

So I went to the K-mart (Don’t ask) and went to the electronics department. And, oh look! It’s Microsoft’s Zune!

…Well not really. There were some Zune pamphlets there, and I decided to open one, and look inside. It starts out saying “Welcome to the Social”. Well, let’s have a look inside to see what Microsoft means by that.

“Connect your media player to the world around you. Send your friends select samples of your favorite songs, home-made tracks, and pictures wirelessly, on impulse. Express yourself through music.”

It says, on the fine print, that “Zune to zune sharing may not be availible for all songs on your device, and it works only on Zune devices within wireless range of eachother. This feature allows select tracks to be played 3 times and 3 days.”

I shortened a bit of it, but you get the point. So if you make the music, and send it, they have to buy it off the marketplace, even though it may not be availible? Umm, Microsoft?

The zune comes in three colors. Black and white, and brown. In ArsTechnica’s reviews, they actually flipped it around in their hands, and it RESEMBLES A FIRST GENERATION iPod. The headphone jack is in the middle, the hold switch is right beside it, and the dock connector is on the bottom (Actually, more resembles a 3rd-generation…)

Opening the pamphlet, and looking on the inside, we see that you usually have to buy MS points to buy music. For people who have an Xbox360 and use the marketplace, this is a good thing as the MS points can be used on the zune and XB marketplace.

(It mentions something about the zune software…I will review that in Pt.3)

Then, it has a TON of launch accessories. Has just about everything Apple’s iPod had at launch. Extra cable, earphones, car charger, A/V output cable (Released with fifth-gen iPod), and a dock.

Part 3 will look into the zune software and other stuff. Stay tuned!

Del.icio.us stuff, Nov. 20

my del.icio.us

Starting to post my Del.icio.us stuff when I put stuff into it.

O RLY?

Meh, so my tech teacher tells me NOT to install Windows on my laptop.

And he yells at me for not having a presentation today, due to me accidently installing Windows on the wrong partition, and obliterating my Mac OS X install.

And he proceeds to go to the top of his voice on how he told me NOT TO INSTALL WINDOWS.

Excuse me sir, but unless you pay me the $2500 I shelled out for this machine, you have NO RIGHT to tell me what I can and cannot do with it. I will install Windows, I will screw up this laptop, I will destroy it as I see fit, damnit.

So, tomorrow if he tries it again, I’ll throw that at him.

Proving a pro wrong.

Yay, I get to prove some bloke who gets paid a $400 an hour job wrong.

He believes that Macs can get viruses, and that they are just as vulnerable to them as Windows is. How wrong he is.

For one, no one wants to hack Unix because it has way too many safeguards in the way, and it is hard to hack into to begin with (If you hack unix, you are a god, in a way). So where is this guy getting his figures?

He claims he doesn’t use Windows, but he uses Linux. Something leads me to believe he’s bullshitting. (He also believes that 50% of iPods have a form of Linux on them. Again, Bullshit.)

Upon researching the subject, I found that, there were indeed viruses for Mac OS X. However, upon reading the fine print, those viruses are attributable to Microsoft’s own Excel and Word. Who knew?

Another thing I get to prove him wrong on. Boot Camp. No, not that kind of boot camp, but Apple’s own Boot camp with allows you to run Windows on a Mac. He says that the EFS (It’s EFI, numbnuts.) can be corrupted so that the Mac will only boot into Windows. He also said that Boot Camp has a failure rate of approx. 87%.

For someone who DOESN’T own an intel-based Mac, and has never touched Boot Camp, this sounds like pure BS.

I looked on Apple’s forums for proof. None to be found. Only thing I found were driver issues, which were usually easily fixed with a few workarounds. Nothing major.*

So, another IT guy who thinks he knows EVERYTHING. Jeez.

* = Information may change by the time you read this.

Phailure.

Okay, so I guess I’m staying. 10MB of webspace? Pfft. I can’t breathe in that.

We’re moving.

To http://home.earthlink.net/~itoilet/

I think a dedicated site would be better anyway.

Zune. First impression.

Look what I happened upon today. http://www.zune.net/

Let’s have a looksie.

http://www.zune.net/en-us/meetzune/device.htm

Now, these are the actual tech specs. First off, 14 hours of battery life, 13 if Wifi is on? The new iPods have that poor puppy beat on the outset in the battery factor. And the charge time is 3 hours? One more hour than it takes my fifth gen iPod to charge.

Battery verdict: iPod has the thing beat.

The video resolution is the same, and it plays everything the iPod can, so they are quite equal in that respect. Judging by the photos, that thing is MUCH thicker than a fifth-gen iPod.

Lets go to what the iPod DOESN’T have. http://www.zune.net/en-us/meetzune/zunetozunesharing.htm

This from the page:

Best of all, the song you sent isn’t just a 30-second preview­—it’s the whole song! Your friend can sample the song up to three times in three days, flag it on their device and then, if they like it, they can buy it later from Zune Marketplace. It’s all connected.

Nice marketing pitch. 3 times in 3 days? Of course, this is Microsoft. They are going to discourage sharing as much as possible. The only reason I think it’s there, to be frank, is because they don’t want to come off as being really restrictive. We all remember the initial release of XP (With Mp3’s disabled).

Now let’s look at the software.
http://www.zune.net/en-us/meetzune/software.htm

Subscription?! I thought that was tried and failed. Why couldn’t they take a page out of Apple’s book and have it so that once you buy it, it’s yours to keep. One more way of Microsoft controlling what you do with your Zune. Even worse, I see no way (as of yet) to be able to copy YOUR OWN stuff to the zune.

You know what the real kicker is? The fact that PlaysForSure media is NOT COMPATIBLE with the Zune. Read that again if you have to.

The system requirements state that the zune software will require a 1.5 GHz processor. Sweet shit! Just to transfer music!? That’s overkill.

Also, the Zune is compatible with the Xbox 360 and PC. Looks like Microsoft is abusing it’s dominance in other markets again.

Looking at the accessories, the Zune datacable REALLY looks like the iPod’s dock connector. And all this stuff listed as “for zune” really is just standard stuff that Microsoft touts as being zune-branded. The Monster Cable stuff there works with iPods, it isn’t for the Zune.

All in all, the Zune so far, is a snore. The iPod stomps all over that thing, and iTunes Music Store has a friendlier system.

Something to piss on my good mood

Well, upon calling the Apple Store, it turns out they may not have ANY 15in MacBook Pros in stock by saturday.

NOOOOO!

Well, This G4 absolutely sucks right now (slowness, breaking down, freezing, etc), so if I must settle for a Core Duo 15 incher (Actually, I’ll go for 17in if it comes down to THAT), I will, damnit.

A moderate halloween

This Halloween was quite good for me, this time at least.

Went trick-or-treating, as usual…trying to enjoy my last Halloween before I become an adult…

I went with my friend and her friend Angie…it was fun. We decided to get in a candy bag deathmatch in the middle of the road. Definitely a tradeoff for having to listen to rap/hiphop all day, and almost being brainwashed into getting a myspace.

The myspace thing…My manhood took over there.

My friend’s cousin wanted to dress up as Tinkerbell for holloween, and damn, she’s HOT. She wore a tight green suit that was way too small, and wore REALLY small shorts that almost looked like panties. I must say, damn, she is HOT as hell. Definitely enough to shut down my thinking cap for a minute.