Wednesday, September 27, 2006

not so mighty mouse

I saw this over at mezzoblue, the blog of Dave Shea of CSS Zen Garden fame.

I couldn't agree more.

Since I got my macbook pro, I've been lusting after a bluetooth mouse. After working at home with my wireless MS mouse for so long, I'm used to not having a wire holding me down, and thought that a wireless mouse would be even more of an advantage on a notebook. So I gave in last week, and purchased a bluetooth mighty mouse from our school bookstore for a cool $69. After taking it out of the box and putting in the batteries, of course the computer picked it right up. I pressed the side button(s) and expose popped up. I right clicked. I thought I was god. Wireless god, of course.

Then it started getting to me. The side buttons are *really* hard to click on the fly. It seems like I have to put thought into launching expose. The scroll wheel would scroll untouched every now and again, especially if you lift the mouse off the tracking surface. And that damned right clicking. I think my hands aren't meant for the human-ground sensors that apple uses. Every now and again I have to switch fingers when I'm using my iPod(s), and the mighty mouse is no exception. It wouldn't bug me so much except when I'm trying to right-click, the sensor doesn't register that I'm "right" clicking, and defaults to the left click. Quite annoying. It also was too much to get used to have to lift my left finger to right click; I'm used to doing a seamless right click. My last item to note - and remember that I'm no gamer - is "damn lag". Not much. Not much at all, really, but just barely enough to piss me off when I'm doing some photo editing, or going in for a small checkbox and miss it by a couple pixels on either side.

So what did I do about it? I gave it away. To my boss. (Brownie points, Laura? :) I hope she likes it. What else did I do?

I bought another bluetooth mouse. More specifically the Wireless IntelliMouse® Explorer for Bluetooth™ (that's exactly how it's written on the bottom of it) So I make the jump to microsoft from apple. Only setbacks of the new mouse are that it doesn't turn off, which came in really handy when I would toss the BTMM in my backpack, and that it still lags the same amount. Bottom line? It was on clearance at our bookstore fro $20 off, what could I do? I can't return it... so I guess I'll keep it - even if I stick to my touchpad.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

it lives again!

I got a call from the computer shop today; they had my computer fixed in less than a week. They claimed it needed a new logic board, so they swapped it out and everything is peachy now - and it didn't cost me a dime! I haven't taken this thing apart yet (which was a good thing I guess) so I don't know much about it, but I do know that the logic board is the mac equivalent of a motherboard. I also know that in the macbook pros the dual-core processor is soldered directly onto the logic board, so my guess is that I have a completely new innards in my computer, processor and all.

Whatever. They didn't touch my hard drive, so all my data is still there untouched. Needless to say I'm going to be backing up all my stuff tonight, especially all my photos.

I feel like I'm whole again.

Monday, September 25, 2006

small world

If you read my website at all when I was in Europe, you might remember that I had the time of my life at the Mountian Hostel in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. Lo and behold, I recieved an email today from a close friend of the family with an image attached to it. Take a look:



I looked at the EXIF data on the original image, and it was taken on August 30th - almost a full two months after I wrote that entry in the guestbook on July 2nd. What a trip! I don't even remember hearing about him even leaving on any trip to Europe!

I'm still weirding out about this. That hostel is in a town of ~80 people in the alps in the middle Switzerland. I am from Chico, he is from San Jose, yet there is that weird connection halfway across the world. This is too crazy. It really is a small world, isn't it?

Whoa.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

my painful realization

I woke up quite early for my typical Sunday this morning, so I decided to make the most of it and get some breakfast downtown and read a bit. Just relax, get a good book, and chill to start a lazy day. I grabbed my bagel and coffee (which is a necessary thing in the morning for me now...) and hopped on my bike. I dind't get more than a couple blocks traveling west on 2nd street when it hit me.

The 2003 Ford Focus. Actually, it was more like I hit it.

I am fine, the car looked fine aside from a small scrape left by my bike. It was werid though, one of those slow-motion things. Something I know I should have been able to avoid. It was alright though. Neither of us were at fault - I should have been paying more attention, and she should have made a complete stop at the light before turning - so I didn't feel any need to exchange info or anything. It was funny though: I got knocked on my ass, my bike flew to the center of the northbound lane, and there I was still holding my now half-empty coffee and bagel. She stopped, jumped out of the car. I convinced her I was okay (she was almost in tears), then she hugged me. Not that awkward "you're my friends friend" kind of hug you might give a random stranger on the street, but she was really truly glad I was okay. She was so concerned for me. I felt like I should be hurt just to justify that, but I spent the next few minutes trying to calm her down before I *walked* my bike away.

Just as I was leaving she stuck out her hand and said "by the way, I'm A.J."

I felt like she was my best friend at that moment. Life is so weird sometimes.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

macbook pro... RIP?

So there I was sitting in my room, browsing through my most recent set of pictures from my latest shoot downtown on the Adobe Lightroom beta on my slickashell 2.16 Ghz two-gigs-of-ram MacBook Pro, when all of a sudden...

The screen goes black. What. The. F*ck. I played with the brightness/contrast controls a little bit, thinking the screen turned itself off (it tends to do that sometimes) because the backlit keyboard was still illuminated. Nothing. Then I smell it. That ugly, horrible, gut-wrenching smell of burning electronics I have become oh-so-familiar with over my years of tinkering with circuits. After my initial thought of chucking the computer across the room for fear of exploding batteries, I quickly pressed and held the power button while disconnecting the AC adapter (which was really easy due to the MagSafe™ power connector). Once off, I took out the battery and took a deep breath... this all happened in under a half-minute or so. After inspecting for any physical damage, smoke, burning, etc... I found nothing except that lingering smell of torched chips. I slowly put the battery back in and pressed the power button. The hard drive spun up for 2-3 seconds, then disengaged and all was quiet again; the screen never even initialized.

And that's how it's been the last couple times I've tried to boot it. The damned thing won't even start in target disk mode. I've given up hope on saving it myself; I'd rather not screw anything up when I can send it to Apple to fix or replace. I guess it's time to kiss my files goodbye as well.

So now I write from my archaic PC, booted into... *gasps* ...windows as my primary OS for the first time since I got the MacBook Pro just over a month ago.

God, I hope Apple has a quick turnaround time with their RMA's. I don't know how much longer I can live without my precious MBP.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

weekend with the uncle

I took some much needed time away from Chico last weekend and spent some time with my Uncle Randy. Okay, so he's not really my uncle, but whatever, but he may as well be family. He was kind enough to come pick me up at my house and drive me all the way down to Vacaville in his fancy Lexus LS 430 with the "ultra luxury package". I still get a kick out of the bells and whistles that car has every time I see it. We picked up my sister from Davis and continued south until we reached Mt. Tamalpais, just north of San Francisco. We got a beautiful view of the city and the bay, but what caught our eyes was the beach down below. We headed down to Stinson Beach for the rest of the afternoon. Armed with fish and chips, long pants (great planning...), and sunny skies, we relaxed until it was time to get Sheryl back to work.

Now, there's something about Uncle Randy you should know. The word audiophile doesn't do him justice... he is so much more. Here's what he had to say to my dad a year or so ago:

I have been very amused since we were in Walmart
looking at the quadruple blade shavers. I tried to
convince you that it was just a waste and that 3
blades even was probable overkill and that it didn't
make sense to pay $14 or whatever it cost for the
blades. I continued to amuse myself after I went home
and started listening to my stereo. I had to first
turn on the sub-woofer amp, then one of my stereo's 4
power supply filters to turn on the other two amps
(two amps are necessary so one amplifies the high
frequencies and the other amplifies the low
frequencies....except for the super low ones which are
handled by the subwoofer amp). I decided which one of
my two Super Audio CD players I would listen to (I
have a third Super Audio/DVD player in the family room
but that isn't part of my main listening system).
After having all this warm up, I decided instead to
listen to my headphones (at least one of my four pairs
of headphones) through my headphone amp. It was much
easier to relax listening through my headphones and
really contemplate about how I helped you to avoid
such an extravagant and wasteful $14 mistake. Since
that time, I have purchased two additional monoblock
amps (so each speaker gets its own amp......sometimes
sharing is not so good) as well as an AC power
regenerator. Wasted too much time with all those
separate filters so now I will be able to regenerate
clean electricity at home and be able to bypass some
of the filters. Should have a much quieter musical
background so I can more easily contemplate how I can
help you be a more responsible consumer and more
mindful of the economic resources and the ecological
manifestations of your purchasing decisions.

Get the idea? You should see his room... seeing all that equipment in one place is a humbling experience to say the least.

Anyway, he had ordered yet another new Super Audio CD player to tinker with and it was scheduled to arrive via FedEx, so we stuck around for it to get there. When it did, he was (okay, we both were) more than eager to open it to see what it looked like, and - more importantly - how it sounded. Of cource he had to plug it in via a power filter, regenerator, preamp, and amp before the signal could be sent to the 7 foot tall, 4 inch thin Magnepan MG 20.1 speakers, not to mention the subwoofer which has it's own preamp and apmlifier. The verdict? It sounded better than his old Sony SACD player, but still not as good as his turntable. I wish I had taken a picture of that turntable... I don't even want to know how much it was (but it sounds damn near perfect!)

Alright, audio technomumble aside, I also got a new toy. It is a 2006 Trek 4300 Disc mountain bike from a local shop. I figrued that it may be a while before I get a car, so I might as well spend a paycheck on a new bike instead. It's nothing too special, but it works for me as an entry-level mountain bike I can futz around on and decide I want to get a real full suspension trek or specialized down the road. I took it up to upper park on friday and earlier today, and am more than happy with it. I'll take some pictures with it on top of the north rim trail or something :)

Until next time...

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

new toys

Yesterday I recieved a package in the mail with the infamous little arrow on the side that can only come from amazon.com. I ordered my very own Nikon SB 600 which I have barely had time to open.

Okay, so I opened it when I got home after midnight last night, knowing full well that I had work at 8am this morning. A few dozen or so shots later, I figured out how to use Nikon's TTL metering, set up the SB 600 as a remote slave flash (which is SO cool!), as well as press just about every other button on the back of the unit. I can't wait to actually set up some decent studio shots and post them!

On the Apple side of things, I'm pretty disappointed at their "special event" today. I mean, yeah, cool new nano-pods in pretty colors, brighter screens on the video-pods, and eager anticipation for the set-top unit coming in January, but... I guess I was expecting more. I was really hoping for some new revolutionary iPod like everyone else in the applesphere (damn these words!), or at lease the core 2 duo macbook pros. Actually, no, I'm glad I still have the fastest laptop on the Apple lineup :) And honestly, who wasn't expecting a video store? Bah. $9.99 my ass.

I'm really stoked about iTunes 7 automatically downloading album art and integrating coverflow as well (although it still doesn't do fullscreen. hm.) But it's ... oh, I don't know what I was expecting, but somthing more I guess.

Back to work.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

i got nuthin'

I am really hating school this semester for a few different reasons, none of which are terribly valid. I think that there's something about me that just doesn't like school of any sort to begin with. Despite the fact that I'm taking some really tough classes, it seems like I'm always doing homework, and never actually getting anything done.

Like calculus.

When I look back, I have learned so much about math in college it's amazing. (I love the human brain) But it still seems like I'm a couple of weeks behind everyone else... like it just comes naturally to every other person in my class. I feel good in my programming classes... it comes naturally to me. They're computers. They're what I "do". But math. And engineering is math. And physics. Physics is math. And engineering is physics. It all comes down to math.

That's why I hate my life right now - because I'm going to be doing calculus until the day I leave this god-forsaken college, which seems like another day further away with each day that passes.

Anyway, onward from the depressing subjects. I am going to the download festival whatchamacallit in a couple weeks with my new roommates and some new friends.



I can't wait! The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beck, The Shins, and MUSE?! (and Coheed) (I guess)

We're planning a fun road trip around it, and might be able to meet up with my sister and all, plus spend a day (night?) in Santa Cruz.

But hey, at least I have happy thoughts going into my calculus class at 10.

*sigh*