Sunday, August 30, 2009

Windows 7 rocks!

Well, after playing around with a few different linuc distro's I figured I'd give Windows 7 RC 1 a try (after all, hey, it's free!).


I'm really digging it. It does everything I need it to, has been fairly stable and is backwards compatible with my older software. Plus, if I did decide to get the proper Windows 7 when it comes out, I wouldn't need to buy a complete new machine again.

At the moment I have two and half ciompoters lying around. I need to get mum's upgraded, but I might hold off putting the half to work until furhter down the track.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

District 9

Heard markedly different opinions on this one. Some people saying it was so bad that they walked out of the theater. Some people saying it was the best film they'd seen all year.

Very violent film, not for the kiddies.

Me? I'm mixed. There were a few things that seemed to not follow an internal consistency. Plot seemed a little thin. The effects were pretty good, almost to the point where the aliens blended in seamlessly with the live actors.

Didn't really like the style, though the fast cuts definitely showed a history on the part of the director / editor to have come from an advertising background.

Overall, I'd say it's the kind of film one really needs to see at the cinema (I think most of the budget went on special effects), but if you weren't already planning on seeing this film, I wouldn't try and change your mind to go see it.

It's one of those films were you either like it based on the trailer or you probably won't like it.

Me, an author? Epic fail.

Well, for a while now (since I participated in the 2007 NaNoWriMo) I've been trying to get into writing. I've set myself targets, gotten supplies, set aside time and even bought an ergonomic keyboard specifically for this - and I'm not getting too far.

Let's see - in the past twelve weeks, I've set myself the target of 20,000 words for June (as a warm-up towards JuNoWriMo), 50,000 words for the July WriMo and 20,000 again for August to keep ticking over on the way towards this year's WriMo in November.

How many words did I actually write?

Zero.

Oh yay me - that is truly a distinguished effort which greatly exemplifies the term "epic fail". If I'd gotten only a few thousand out each month then that would be just plain old fail. But to have achieved absolutely nothing? That takes a special kind of non-effort right there.

So the current goals are being re-evaluated and I'm locking down time and resources to devote to this. I have at least two sites (more like three) that I have running devoted to this project(s) and they have stalled for quite some time now.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

In related news, I'm looking over the idea of buying a graphics tablet again. No idea why since I don't have the skill or discipline to draw properly anyway.

Well, since I should be writing - I'm off. To go watch a movie. District 9 actually.

*sigh*

Worked out the remote

Playing with my 300D I finally figured out how to use a little cheapy IR remote I picked up off eBay.

The trick was telling the camera to accept IR - done via the normal / timer button on top of the camera. It should also be noted that the IR receiver on the camera is covered by the fingers in a normal holding position so that the remote will only control the camera when it is on a tripod or on a desk.

Now I just need a subject to photograph...

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Saturday, August 8, 2009

First Post from BlogEntry on Ubuntu

Test post - let's see if this works.



Might be a little easier to do it this way than to be making emails and sending that. Not sure how it'll work for images and such though - need to look into that.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Still going with the A/V system

Boy, am I a glutton for punishment.

Having spent all that time working on getting the tv system all set up I am now about to go and pull it all apart again.

Actually, it's not that bad. I'll be adding a PC loaded with movies to be a poor mans Media Center and it's just a basic re-wiring of the connections. It should just be a matter of connecting it to the back of the telly, but it does not have enough inputs.

I picked up a little switchbox to connect everything together, so we'll see how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Monday, August 3, 2009

New project (yet again)

Well, the new project, Orbital Cauldron is coming along nicely.

It's nothing flash yet, but it is shaping up to be interesting. Not much to report, just a quick note today.

To-do list

Okay, have a few projects on the burner at the moment.

I need to pick up a few cables in order to get the media PC hooked up to the tv, I want to grab a shelf (or something) to stick said PC on and I want to get a footrest so that if I am spending large amounts of time on the computer writing then I can get a better seating position.

The new gOS is working out okay. It's not the fantastic thing I thought it was going to be, but I'm still willing to stick with it a while longer and see how it goes.

The main thing I am on the lookout for at the moment is a quick and easy way to upload blog posts here to blogger. I find the login system on the site to be a little clunky and if I can find a way to be in an editor and click on button to send the post to the site then that would be awesome.

Not a whole lot new going down, but slowly plodding along.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

From GMail

Let's see how this works. This is a post made via email from GMail.

Hand-coded link: <a href="http://www.google.com.au/">Link to Google</a>. Same, but using editor: Google

Would try an image, but don't have a little one to try out. I won't put the closing tag to see if GMail adds anything to the bottom.

Orbital Cauldron

Well, I've picked up the site Orbital Cauldron. I've started working on it to try and make it into something that people might one day want to use.

I doubt that it'll be anything particularly fancy, but so long as there is some participation going on, then I'll be happy.

gOS

Just installed the spanky new gOS - the supposed "Google" Operating System.

Technically, it's a distro of Ubuntu but it is geared to integrating with a lot of the applications and services offered by Google. This means that the computer it runs on can be less powerful (I've put an old PC to work) and it uses the new "cloud computing" fancy stuffs.

Half the point of getting it was to make it easy to use Blogger, but the "Blogger" function in the system just launches Firefox to the blogger site.

We'll see how it goes.