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Another Sony Eulogy

Sunday, November 28th, 2010

I feel like I’ve written about a few Sony deaths before on this site.

But this one is particularly sad.

06.21.09_0910_small_2sony

Yep, it’s dead.

It had been acting up a bit these past few weeks, taking a few attempts to start up, but today it just kicked the bucket entirely. It boots to the Windows log-on screen, and then everything (including the login program and task manager) fails to execute due to insufficient system resources. Sometimes it doesn’t even get that far. The research I have done online suggests a faulty core memory chip, or perhaps a failed hard drive (although I don’t know how it boots at all without a HD).

So, I think the day has arrived to say the old TR-1, which has lasted me many, many years – has bit the dust.

This little fellow has travelled with me to Australia (4 times), Hawaii, Japan (3 times), Puerto Rico and England. Every single vacation blog post you have read on this blog was written from this guy. I have used him this semester more than ever for doing all of my schoolwork including (especially!) writing my lectures, and I used him for about seven years do all my VB programming on for my simulations.

This latter issue is the biggest one. I can write lectures on my Mac, I can use other computers while traveling, but I currently have no easy way to replace this guy for VB programming. Last time I tried to install VB at school it wouldn’t run at all (ours is an old version), so I guess I have to find a solution – and quickly – especially if I plan on ever graduating.

Will that solution be a new Windows laptop? Ugh… I don’t really want one. But I may have to cave and buy a cheap one just for school use… and then somehow find out how to get XP software running in Windows 7 (Bernard, is this even possible?)

What a bummer 🙁

Posted in Family, Miscellaneous, Tech | 2 Comments »

Yes, I Still Love The iPad

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

It’s been more than seven months since we bought an iPad, and to say it has changed the way we use a computer at home is an understatement. Almost 100% of our web-browsing is now done on the device, and I use it exclusively for email as well. I turn on my desktop rarely, and usually only to watch a video that is unsuported in the iOS (such as the new Ultraman movie trailer) or – ironically I realize – to update this blog.

That’s not to say I couldn’t do either on the iPad, it’s just that the WordPress app is currently woeful. Unlike the Books app, which in the last update turned the device into an incredible PDF reader. As you can see I made good use of this:

Yesterday was the long-heralded and greatly anticipated 4.2.2 update to the iPad OS. This gave the device several new features, including folders, multitasking, a new mail app, new browser functionality, the Game Center, wireless printing and a few other bells and whistles. I eagerly downloaded and installed the update, and here’s my impressions.

The shot above (the ‘desktop’ of our iPad) shows the new folders. To make one, just drag an app over another and hold it for half a second. They are an obvious feature that should have been there from the start, but I would have preferred had Apple gone even further with desktop customization. Such as adjustable icon sizes, ways to rearrange the grid or place items where we wanted (like Android does). Folders are a nice start though – the other features will come in time, I am sure of that.

Incidentally the background image of Sydney (click on the picture, I have included full-resolution screencaps in this post) was captured with the Maps app included with the iPad.

Frankly I don’t care about multitasking, especially since I rarely juggle between different apps. But it works and seems to work well. When I quit Angry Birds and switched to the browser before returning to the game had me exactly where I left off. A nice feature, but hardly necessary in the world of instant-start iApps. A bigger deal for the iPhone I reckon, for me multitasking just means a (new) slight pause every time I close an App.

The new Mail app is cool, and collects all your inboxes into one grand inbox. Thankfully this is entirely optional, especially relevant to micromanagers like myself that doesn’t want to cross the streams of my work and home inboxes 🙂

Game Center! What is this? Well, it’s a bit of an PSN for iPad, and includes achievements, friend lists, leaderboards etc. If you are using iOS, please send me – Richardjesperson – a friend request and we can compare our Angry Birds achievements 🙂

Now the big addition, for me, is the trivial ability to now search for words in-page in the browser. This has been my #1 missed browser feature since switching over to the iPad and I’m happy Apple not only added it but did in in an inobtrusive manner (since one goal of the iOS is to simplify everything). Here’s a shot:

To use it, just enter a word into the Search bar (upper right) and choose the new option to search on the page. Fantastic!

I haven’t used (or even discovered, to be honest) any of the other new features in the iOS, so I’ll end this review/tutorial here. I know quite a few of you use iOS on phones or the iPad, so I’m curious as to your opinions of the update (or the device in general).

For me the iPad has become all but irreplaceable, and 4.2.2 just makes a great thing better in my opinion.

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech | 2 Comments »

To me, it will always be Ayer’s Rock

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Since I know that none many of you are avidly ignoring following the progress of my MTG basic land collection, I have an exciting announcement!

Recently, from a source that will remain un-named, I came into possession of the best land card ever printed. I present to you, the APAC Blue Plains:

MAGPRM108

Yes that’s a real card. And yes I love it. And I’m guessing you do too 🙂

Posted in Family, Games, Otaku | Comments Closed

Here is what my brother is getting me for Christmas

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

To those that believe handheld gaming began with the Gameboy, I bring you the VFD electronic game:

The sights! The sounds! Especially the sounds 🙂

That video shows a game called Alien Attack, released by Tomy in the early 1980s. It was licensed by many other manufacturers, and in countries where copyright wasn’t so strong it was renamed Scramble to capitalize on the arcade game it had ripped off.

We owned it, and we loved it! Here’s a shot of what the game itself looked like:

GrandstandScramble

It was technically portable, since it could be battery powered. VFD displays however are notoriously energy inefficient (at least the early ones of those days were) so we usually played using an AC Adaptor. Our version was differently coloured than the UK version seen above. If I recall, it was blue, orange and (mostly) white.

With one game and two players the situation was hardly satisfactory, and was shortly remedied with the aquisition of this guy:

CGL-PuckMonster

Yep, Puck Monster by CGL! This was, as the name would imply, an excellent rip-off of the arcade game Donkey Kong Pac-Man. For me, it was even better than Scramble and I played the thing like I was possessed.

Here’s what it looked like in action.

I can remember playing these in bed with the covers over my head. I can remember playing them in cars during trips, playing them at the table during meals and even bringing them to school and playing them (or swapping with other people to play their games, such as Frogger or Dig Dug). I can even remember opening them, removing the screen and electronics, and playing sans case. These were all the rage from about 1981 to 1983, and were perhaps my favourite toys in those days.

So what happened to our VFD games? Perhaps my brother remembers?

And speaking of him, many of you probably know he lives in Silicon Valley. What you may not know is that Silicon Valley is rumoured to be the home of the world’s best used electronic stores specializing in 1980s games. Since this is the case, I figured I’d be easy on him this Christmas and rather than expect him to go and hunt for something impossible-to-find for his impossible-t0-buy-for brother, he could just nip down to one of those stores and pick me up a VFD game or two. In working order.

And boxed, of course 😉

Posted in Family, Games, Otaku, Tech | 1 Comment »

Return Of The Wildlife Camera!

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

It’s been a while, but the wildlife camera returns!

This time I put it at ground level, looking out onto our back patio. The camera functioned for less than 60 hours before the batteries died, but even that relatively short span was enough to show our backyard is a veritable animal highway.

Let the evidence begin:

That is a grey squirrel, one of the many that live here. They are in fact so common that I think the squirrels are as much inhabitants of our property (albeit the trees outside) as we are!

The elusive chipmunks. They have tunneled a city-state under our house, but are seen all-too-rarely. This guy is hoovering up sunflower seeds (that we scatter onto the patio) to fill his winter larder.

Good to see the deer are comfortable enough in our backyard to lie down and relax. Note also those images are several hours apart. One of the deer photos taken had 3 (possibly) 4 deer in the one shot.

As I have said before, I’m no bird expert. But a brief spot of researching online reveals that the guy on the left is a hoopoe and the black and white guy on the right is a shearwater. I’m not sure what they are doing in our backyard but… the camera doesn’t lie!

The strangest photo is this one (and the only of it’s kind):

And thus, any doubt about the chance of a hoopoe visiting my patio was well and truly dispelled when it turned out that The Exmoor Beast called my backyard home as well!

🙂

Posted in Family, Pets, The Unknown | Comments Closed

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