Geek Categories...

Gizmodo have published a list of geek 'types' list for all to check.
I'm sure there's quite a few people out there that fall into these categories in one way or another (unfortunately I fall into a few of them!)
Anyway, it makes an interesting read (for a laugh).

New Year, New Decade, New Gadgets...

We're at the end of our first decade of the 21st century and we've still not seen the hover skateboards, personal jet packs or flying cars (yet). But we are still seeing great innovations in the technology area (as well as much speculation, yes Apple tablet/iSlate I'm talking about you).

Netbooks have appeared to be fairly successful in the last year, but look to get even better with the introduction of new Intel CPUs and chipsets (Intel Pinetrail). Nvidia's Ion2 is set to make its debut early in 2010 and if they can resolve their 'spat' with Intel should make the Netbook/Nettop arena even more appealing to potential buyers.

The market for low cost, low power home media + basic usage boxes is growing, with more and more friends & colleagues asking me for recommendations for such boxes and a lot of talk on the Internet of similar requirements. Hopefully the introduction of Intel's new Atom CPUs with the Ion2 chipsets will mean machines with enough grunt to handle all the media related tasks, but still be up to the task of Internet browsing, Youtube watching etc. etc.

Add to that the rise of the ebooks, the supposed tablets (including Nvidia Tegra based devices), the advance of micro projectors the mobile technology gadget market for 2010 looks like it will be a good one.

Increased technology usage and etiquette...or something like that!

The English language is a marvellous thing. We can use it to convey all types of emotions and to portray complex scenes or situations.
The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" (Wiki here) is true in many cases, but it doesn't allude to the fact that those thousand words can provide an in-depth insight into the opinion(s) of the author, or that the words themselves could be viewed as a beautiful work of art.
Like all works of art (literary or otherwise) they are open to interpretation. This interpretation is incredibly important. To one person it may seem beautiful and thought provoking, to another it may appear disgusting and insulting.
Therefore, how something is written (in terms of composition: language used, punctuation, grammar etc.) is very important. A carefully crafted piece of work can be enjoyed by many people, a poorly crafted one can often provoke an unwanted response.

Unfortunately, the increase in the use of technology (mobile phone SMS, email, social networks etc.) has meant that people often revert to 'lazy' writing, abbreviating words, phonetical spelling and also writing as it would be spoken.

This last 'issue' is one that is often overlooked, but it's one that can cause so many problems. Without 'real-life' interaction, including facial expressions or being present and able to 'read' the other person's response, sentences can often be mis-interpreted. The use of, or sometimes lack of, punctuation can also make things worse (e.g. the increased use of exclamation marks!!!!!!!!) which can further compound the issue. The author will often not realise they are doing it. Because it is their words, they already have their interpretation, but will only see it from their own point of view.

The issue of anonymity also makes things worse. People writing on Internet forums (or even blogs) sometimes feel they can write whatever they like providing no-one knows who they are, regardless of who they may offend in doing so.

So with all of this in mind, are we losing our social etiquette?
Perhaps more importantly, does anyone actually care? Or providing it's in the 'virtual' world does it matter at all?
Should I stop bothering about it and not ask anymore questions?

...

...

...

Perhaps I should stick to writing about technology and stop concerning myself with the human condition.

Ubuntu ubuntu they run it in the jungle...

In the last few weeks we've seen the release of the most important operating system in Microsoft's history (in my opinion)...and it's a case of make or break for them.
Microsoft needs Windows 7 to be successful. Their reputation after the release of the abomination that is Vista, was severely damaged. However, they're hoping Windows 7 is set to repair that damage and from what I've experienced I think it just might.

In the meantime, there are other operating systems looking to take a bigger percentage of the otherwise Windows dominated market place.
The most obvious alternative for a lot of people is Apple's OSX. But that's limited to relatively expensive Mac hardware (unless you're technically literate and can sort yourself out with a "Hackintosh").
Another not so obvious choice (for the non tech savvy consumers) is Ubuntu.
From version 8 onwards Ubuntu started targetting the regular consumers rather than the existing Linux aware users. Each iteration has become more and more user friendly and is now at the point where I believe it to be a real competitor to the Microsoft standard choice.

Ubuntu 9.10 ("Karmic Koala" - I love their naming convention) was released on Thursday and looks to me to be the most user friendly (and pretty) version to date. The installation is a doddle and even users who have only ever used Microsoft operating systems will be able to work it out pretty quickly.

Admittedly there will always be a few things that users aren't able to figure out for themselves, but the generous support community and various online guides would solve that. The interface shares features with both Windows 7 & Mac's OSX (in fact they're all starting to look alike...but that topic is for another time) and the usually required software comes pre-installed (Firefox, OpenOffice, Evolution Mail etc.).

So for anyone thinking what to do with an old computer or wondering whether it might run Windows 7, why not think about Ubuntu to start with. It's definitely worth a try and you never know, you might like it.

Bring out your dead....PCs...

I'm often amazed at the amount of junk that we accumulate at home.
I'm one of the first to admit that I don't throw things away easily, but there are some things that you always think you'll find a use for (at some point in time).

But old computers? Will we really ever use them again?
My father-in-law called last night to see if there was anything out of his old computer we should keep (this is an Intel Pentium 133Mhz box with 48MB RAM and a 2GB hard disk!).
Technology has become so cheaply available at ever increasing quantities & Mhz that we wouldn't even consider using the 'old stuff'. What worries me is that there are millions more machines out there sitting in people's attics/lofts that are sitting there gathering dust whilst the owner works out whether they will be usable ever again.

And I'm sure this problem will only get worse.

British Snow Leopard...

So Apple's latest OS X update arrived on Friday with a little less roar than expected.
I'm not sure I should have been expecting anything extravagant, but for £25 I did expect to notice something at least! I suspect it's like the snow we always get in the UK...which is always lacking a bit.

I was frustrated at first by the fact that my Mac refused to boot from the disc that was provided. I had to take a copy of it and burn a new one on my desktop (Windows 7 recognises it...how'd you like them Apples?).

I then spent 45 mins or so installing it (choosing an upgrade over a fresh install mainly because I could not be arsed with the set up of all my apps again).
Then it booted up for the first time and...well, it looks the same as it did before.

Apart from a bit more free space on my hard drive (around 7GB I think) I haven't seen any real difference.

Oh...there is a new default background, which is just slightly different to the previous (Leopard) default background (see below), but I'm not sure this justifies the £25 spent.

Leopard:

Snow Leopard:


EDIT: Having used it for another day, I do have to say that it feels a little nippier than its previous incarnation, and not just the file exploring. Things like the extraction of .rar files and the opening of some apps do seem to be that little bit faster. Suffice it to say, it's redeemed itself (at least a little bit) in my opinion.

Geek status creeping back up...

After my debacle with my iphone you'd wonder why anyone would trust me with theirs.
However, my younger brother had managed to smash his glass (or is it plastic?) to bits and couldn't afford the £150 that Apple wanted to charge, so asked me to do it.
Thankfully the parts are available cheaply from HK (£15 in this case), only my geek confidence was gone.

However, it seemed someone believed in me, since I successfully removed and replaced the glass (I'm sure it's plastic) front last night...so partial geek status has now been resumed!

Windows 7 baby...

Having used the Windows 7 release candidate (32bit...64bits is just 32bits too many for me) for a few weeks now, I have to say I'm impressed.

When I first saw Vista (many moons ago), it was a pile of steaming shite. It was slow to respond, a memory hog and overall just completely crap.
Windows 7 is a whole other bag. It's responsive, easy on the memory (under 1GB used when idle on my machine, with a fair few things running) and a really nice user interface.

I'm liking the taskbar application preview (something I hope Snow Leopard introduces for the Mac) and I also like the sidebar gadgets (which I know Vista has already, but it will be new to XP users).

The networking and firewall side of things isn't fantastic, but I can see why they've done it the way they have (dumb users). I'm hoping the profressional version I have on order will mean I have a few more options to switch off when I eventually install.

Anyway, for now it gets my seal of approval and I'd recommend it for anyone using XP at the moment who has a decent enough machine...2Ghz + and at least 1GB of RAM as well.

Geek status revoked...

It would seem I'm not as much of a geek as I'd thought.

Having recently got a second hand iphone 3G I was a little disappointed to see it had a load of dust under the glass. Considering I watch a lot of movies/TV shows on it, it really started bothering me.

So last night I decided to open it up and clean that dust out...what a mistake.

I'd read loads of guides on how to do it, and how easy it was, so was feeling fairly confident about it. What I hadn't read about (and now obviously wish I had) was the risk of one of the little connectors getting stuck to the underside of the screen when opening it up. It basically results in the little connector sticking to the screen, the other end staying where it's supposed to be, and the little ribbon cable caught in a game of tug of war resulting in it breaking.

At that moment I felt quite a bit of panic, but it seems that it's fairly common, and the replacement part is only £7.50 (or thereabouts). It does involve soldering, which I am not enough of a geek to attempt, but a local place will fix it for £15.

With this in mind, I feel I must revoke my geek status until further notice. ;o)

32 or 64 bits...

As any true geek should be, I'm a lover of all new technologies.
This includes software of all sorts as well, and the new Windows 7 is no exception.

When they released the beta version earlier this year I jumped at the chance to download and test out this new version. I did the same with Vista but quickly realised it was inferior to the mighty Windows XP (long may it survive). Windows 7 was a different story.
It appears to be a polished and much improved version of Vista, which some may hate (true XP lovers) but others will enjoy it's ease of use and full (speedy) functionality.

So when Microsoft announced the pre-orders for it I made sure I got my order in. I was surprised to learn that you no longer needed to specify whether you wanted the 32-bit or 64-bit versions, but that both were included on the disc and you/the system would decide which version to install. With that in mind I started wondering about whether the 64-bit version would be better for me.

For anyone who knows a bit (excuse the pub) about memory address allocation, they will be aware that in order to access more than 4GB of RAM you need a 64bit architecture and 64-bit operating system. I now have 6GB of RAM installed so figured I might as well make use of it. [Pain starts here]

I have a copy of the x64 release candidate and a valid key so I decided to install it early and make sure it all worked as I expected before installing the official release. It took an age to install the OS with lots of periods of blue screens appearing for minutes on end with no sign of progress. But eventually it worked.
I'm aware of the issue of hardware support (devices need specific 64-bit versions to work) and was not surprised when my webcam wasn't supported. Luckily everything else works perfectly.

Start-up/Shut-down times appear to be good (as fast as, or faster than XP) and the general usage speed is spot on.
I'm now working my way through the list of software I regularly use to ensure that they all work as expected and configuring accounts and document directories etc.

For now the 64-bit experience is a pleasant one and will hopefully continue to be so.

Normal service resumes...

It's been a while since I posted. I've actually been out and about doing 'normal' things (normal to non-geeks that is).
Things like going on holiday, visiting friends (real ones, not virtual) and family etc.
So unfortunately I have neglected my geek duties. Do not concern yourself, I am about to bounce back with a geek-vengeance!

A virtual life...

With an ever increasing reliance on our computers and t'Internet, at what point does that virtual 'life' take over what's happening in the real world?

I (along with many others I'm sure) live very much in a digital world.
Where movies, music & photos exist in the digital ether. Where we communicate with online 'friends' on our 'social networking' sites, or contact them via email from a multitude of email accounts (one is just never enough is it?).

But...I also have to work...and in the "Real World" (I capitalise it because it's apparently important...it's where the physical, truly important stuff happens...or so I'm told).

However, I for one am finding it increasingly difficult to manage this physical/virtual life balance. I'm constantly trying to keep up with what's happening out there in the IT world, whilst at the same time perform well in my role at work and maintain real-world relationships with my wife, friends, family etc.

For example, just maintaining my video, music & photo collections must take at least 5 hours of my time a week, and for someone who is out of the house for 12 hours a day (Mon-Fri) that's a significant amount of non-work time to be used up.
I admit that I've a bit of an obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to these things (quality has to be right, naming conventions need following etc. etc.)...but then if I wasn't, I'd be lost trying to find stuff amongst the 800GB of files I currently have.

Then there are literally hours minutes wasted on Facebook etc.
There's also the PS3 games that need to be played (well they're not going to play themselves are they!).

So do I want to give all of this up and concentrate more on the 'important things'?...Nah.
It's all about priorities...and unfortunately, being a geek, mine are all firmly fixed in the world of technology.

Geek Helpdesk

Why is it that all family members assume that because you work in "I.T." you are able to answer every single question they may have about their PCs?

Admittedly I do know a fair bit about hardware and software, but I'm by no means an encyclopedia of I.T. knowledge. But I am pretty good at "Google'ing" (the sacred art of putting a few words into a search engine to find an answer to make you appear more intelligent/knowledgeable).

Damn you Google for being so good at answering my questions!

Apple'gasm

With the Apple WWDC just days away the Apple faithful are in full foreplay mode ready for the build up to their 'Apple-gasm' at the arrival of highly anticpated new products/software.

Now don't get me wrong, I like Apple products. I just don't get as excited as some people out there appear to be about them. But Apple must love this sense of sexy devotion that they have somehow managed to instill in their fans/fanboys. It's obviously good for profits since they're doing better than ever, so why stop now eh?

Anyway, I look forward to the new iPhone announcement(s) coming (excuse the pun) soon...just won't be exploding in my pants over it!

She has'ne got the power Cap'n!

Technology has a horrible habit of going wrong every now and again. User error??? RTFM!

I came back from a weekend away last Tuesday and turned on Old Faithful (the PC, not the wife) only to have sparks fly and a loud bang, followed by a nasty smell (I'm still talking about the PC here).

It would seem it was my PC's power supply which had finally bit the dust (I say finally like I was expecting it, but in truth I'm not sure I was).

When I tried to work out what had caused it, I realised that I had possibly over-loaded the wattage usage for it. It was a 380W power supply, and I think (by using an online calculator e.g. this one) that I was using around 370W or so (minus USB attached devices).

Now I'm not the biggest tree hugger out there, but I thought 380W was quite a bit of power to be using. Obviously it won't always be using that amount (under normal/idle usage), but under full load (i.e. playing an intensive game) it could well be using that.

I thought that with the new Intel C2D or C2Q CPUs etc. the power draw of modern PCs was supposed to be pretty low. Admittedly I also have 4 hard drives & 2 DVD drives in there, but that's not the point ;o)
It seems the graphics cards these days are the biggest power hungry components out there. Even the (relatively) old one that I have uses around 150W (under full load).

Thankfully most of the time I tend to use my laptop for the usual tasks (email/web etc. etc.) which even when charging only uses up to 90W, so a much more eco-friendly way to 'compute'.

I dread to think how much the 'leccy bills are for those guys using the 1000+ watt power supplies who are gaming for whole weekends etc.

Isn't Technology Great...

I'm constantly amazed at new inventions and people's abilities to spot new things and new ways of doing things we already do.

Today I found a new application that replicates the PSP's ability to remotely connect to the PS3 so you can launch games, movies, music etc. remotely on your PC (well, Mac only at the moment).

Given that the PSP & PS3 are (supposedly closed platforms) - someone has done a lot of reverse engineering to enable this and I for one am pretty impressed.

For anyone interested, you need a PSP running custom firmware and (at the moment) an Apple Mac...although I understand a PC version is imminent.
Link to the necessary details/files -> here

Generation Y?

Evolution is a funny thing.

As a geek I tend to like Sci-fi TV shows and films. So shows like Heroes and movies like the X-Men series tend to tick my boxes (so to speak) as well as prompt an interest into the science behind them.
So, (Jesse voice) this week I have been mostly reading about evolution.

We've been taught in school (except perhaps in the more religious schools) about Darwin's theory of evolution and how our species evolved from the primates into homo-sapiens...but that was a while ago...what's next for us as a species?

Evolution as I understand it is about a species adapting and evolving based on their environment and the challenges it brings. The environment for us as a species has changed very little (for the things that will really affect us) in the last thousand years or so and apart from having to dodge traffic whilst crossing the road, there aren't a huge number of environmental challenges for us to evolve for.
And with an increasingly mobile global population, genetic diversification is becoming a rarity.

Our use of technology has also shaped our evolution, reduced it in fact.
We have used our knowledge of technology and tools to achieve things that were never possible before - and by doing so, removed our need for evolution to achieve the same goal. So are we in fact stagnating in terms of evolution?

Some might argue that we aren't and that in fact evolution is taking an almost hidden road forwards. For example in the case of disease resistance. There are cases of people in Africa who are naturally immune to the HIV virus. These types of people are the "fittest" from the classic Herbert Spencer quote "Survival of the fittest".
We will hopefully see more of these beneficial genetic abnormalities in the future, but just don't expect anyone to be able to blink really hard and stop time...not yet anyway.

It's a whole other language...

The world of the geek can be a confusing one for 'normal' people.
For starters there's the strange behaviour and social reclusive style, then there's the language.

It's an acronym jungle out there folks, so for those who often get confused about what they all mean, the guys over at Tom's Guide have created a Geek's Dictionary. It looks like a work in progress job, but may help to explain the often lazy expressions that are used in the geek's world.

So excuse me whilst I LOL & ROFL reading it.

The rant of the PC geek...

As much as I think I know about computers sometimes they really bemuse me...and f**k me right off!

I've just bought a new 1TB internal SATA drive (to have some kind of back up for my external WD 1TB drive - that I'm using to rip my entire DVD collection to).

Prior to this purchase, in my PC I had...
2 x WD 250GB SATA (striped RAID array - using the Intel controller)
1 x WD 400GB SATA (also on the Intel controller)
1 x WD 120GB IDE (on the JMicron controller)
1 x DVD drive IDE (basic IDE controller)

The new drive (as mentioned) is SATA and is supposed to be replacing my 120GB IDE drive, but on first glance my motherboard (Asus P5W DH Deluxe) doesn't appear to have enough usable SATA ports on it.

There are 2 orange SATA ports (using a Silicon Image controller) which are hard-wired for RAID0/1 (called "EZ-Backup" by Asus) - but apparently it's bloody slow (compared to the Intel/JMicron controllers).
There's 2 on the Intel controller and 1 internal + 1 external on the JMicron controller.
So I'm already using the 3 internal ones.

I stupidly figured I could use one (or both) of these orange ports (on the Silicon Image controller) as standard SATA ports and connect my new 1TB drive to it...I spent 4 hours f**king about with it before I gave up trying. I even considered just using the EZ-Backup RAID instead of my existing array just to get the bloody thing working!

This morning I was just about to give-up totally and order a PCI SATA controller (didn't really want to spend any more (wasted) money on this PC (since I want to buy a Mac Pro at some point)...then I read this page which says:
If you remove both EZ jumpers you can use the right EZ-Backup port as the 4th ICH7 port.

I tried all three combinations of jumper settings...EXCEPT removing both jumpers!!
F**KING computers really piss me off sometimes...and I'm a proper PC geek!
(I've also managed to piss my wife off by spending all evening messing around with it and swearing constantly - so apologies will be needed for her today).

Patience is a virtue...for those on dial-up

Is technology and our ever increasing desire for faster everything, making us lose patience? We seem to live in a world where we assume everything can be done in the blink of a virtual eye - or at least perhaps I do.

Today is a perfect example for me. Recently I was given a cheque (that's a "check" for the American readers) - which as we all know are fading away with the revolution that is online banking. I went to the bank to deposit it only to find I had to fill in a deposit slip with God knows how many different parts to it. For some unknown reason I became very frustrated at having to go through this process and also at the person who wrote the cheque for making me go through this torment, even though in reality it didn't take me a huge amount of time to complete.

When most other things in our lives appear to be accomplished with relative ease/speed it simply highlights the things that seem to take a long time (when in fact they've probably always taken that long, but it's never been noticed until everything else sped up).

As our lives get more and more used to having so much "on demand" it's more likely that we will begin to ignore things/processes etc. that take that little bit longer to get/do because we will be frustrated by the amount of time we have to wait for them. Perhaps this is a good thing, perhaps not. Only time will tell.

Mini Geeks In The Making?

In a world that appears to be getting more reliant on technology by the day, the exposure of children to this technology is inevitable. However, what amazes me is their inherent ability to pick up this new technology and master it without issues.

Recently I was at a friend's house and my wife had taken her compact camera with her to take a few pictures of their three children (2 months, 20 months & 3 years old). The 3 year old enjoyed the photos being taken and (like all young inquisitive minds) wanted the camera to take the pictures by herself.
My wife showed her how to zoom in/out and how to switch over to playback mode - once and only once. She immediately picked up the camera switched to record mode and zoomed in on her younger siblings and started clicking the button. Then switching back to view the picture before deciding she wanted to take another.

I don't know a large number of 3 year olds - but this seemed remarkable to me. That she was able to pick up this amazingly small piece of technology (which would have been considered ultra-advanced merely 15 years ago) and use it with such ease.
I've also been told that she's quite good on the PC (using the mouse and identifying where to click on the Cbeebies website etc.).

With all this technology surrounding us it's inevitable that the younger generation(s) will become increasingly more techo-versed (I know it's not a word but it sounds right) than their parent's generation, but does this mean we're going to see lots of mini-geeks in the making? Or will 'geekdom' become the norm?? (Damn - that makes me cringe!)

"We're gonna need a bigger boat"

Since my first year in University where I discovered MP3s (old school - '95 baby) I realised that we were all going to need more storage.
Jump forward 13 years and that need has grown exponentially.

Right now I have at home (excluding flash drives and SD cards etc.):
1TB in my Main PC
160GB in my laptop
500GB (mirrored) in a NAS box
250GB in my PS3
250GB WD Passport drive (for backups)
320GB WD Passport drive (for general use)

And I think that's still not enough.

I already have all my CDs ripped to MP3/AAC formats and stored on my PC (currently 80GB or so worth) - but my new plan is to do a similar exercise with my DVD collection (around 400 movies).

Estimating around 1.5GB per movie that will result in at least 600GB of required storage.
That's ignoring the fact that I'll undoubtedly want to back them up (I'd hate to spend all that time ripping them to lose them all) - so that's 1.2TB of storage.

I know I'm not alone in attempting such a project either, so I think of the amount of storage that's out there at the moment and the amount that's needed and it's mind blowing (for a geek anyway!)

FInally...Cut'n'Paste

Cut & Paste - It's been one of the most widely used functions in all operating systems since they were first used in anger.
But Apple in all their wisdom (or perhaps lack of it?) decided not to include it when they first released their all singing all dancing (slow jams only baby) iPhone.

However, they've announced today that it will be there in the next major release of the software (3.0) - due some time this summer.
We'll also be getting MMS (well, those with a 3G iPhone will) finally.

For details of the release see here.

1 Billion Seconds...

Yestetday was a momentus occasion (for me). At some point in the day I reached 1 billion seconds on this Earth. My mother can't remember exactly what time I was born (I'm one of 5 so can't really blame her for that) so I had to make some assumptions about the timings. Nevertheless, 1 billion seconds old was I.

For those wanting to calculate their own billion seconds date (it's when you're around 31 years and 8 months old) I'll upload a calculator for it soon.

In the meantime, I'm off to buy some candles.

What a Twit(ter)

Even with Stephen Fry's (poorly worded) declaration of love for 'Twitter' today (see BBC website) I still fail to see it's usefulness as a service.

This may of course seem rather hypocritical when written on a 'blog', but at least I can write in the full English language using more than 160 characters on here.

For me, Twitter appears to be simply a magnification of the Facebook status message. Where everyone wants everyone else to know what they're thinking or doing at any moment.

What concerns me is that we are heading towards a world where privacy (or failure to publish your every thought) will be viewed with suspicion. Failure to tell all and sundry (your 'friends') about what you're currently doing will lead them to suspect you have something to hide. And of course there will be so much 'noise' that people will shout louder (by being more outrageous) to be noticed and the situation will decline even further.

Of course I'm not the first one to have considered this, Ben Elton (as he so often does) has written a very clever and witty novel portraying just such a world (link to follow - damn you iPhone for your lack of cut-n-paste!).

(EDIT: Link as promised: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Faith-Ben-Elton/dp/0593058003)

But in an ever more virtually connected world the temptation to join in with these Web 2.0 trends is getting harder to resist.

Mojo baby yeah!

As a skier and gadget freak I was really impressed to see this advertised in the pamphlets littered around my hotel...

It's the perfect utility for someone as crap at skiing as I am (compared to a lot of people anyway!). However, at £293 a pair, I'm yet to be convinced that it will really make that much difference to my skiing ability.

Perhaps going to the gym before I went might have been a better idea.

Withdrawal Symptoms...

I really don't know why, but every time that I'm away from home (without my laptop) I get withdrawal symptoms.
It's stupid and ridiculous and all those other things that sound like that, but I get them nonetheless.

I'm off on a skiing holiday later today and whilst I am very excited by this (I do love skiing - possibly even more than I love technology ) I still have that nagging feeling that I will be 'offline' and it fills me with a little bit of fear!

I'll still have my iPhone and have already investigated the Wi-Fi hotspots where I'm going (God I am sad aren't I?!) but I'll still have that itching feeling that I'm missing out on something when I'm not connected.

I suspect that proper geeks never have this issue as they don't get out much (except in "Second Life", but that doesn't count does it).

Ah well, I'm sure I'll cope somehow, and possibly end up annoying my wife by having to check my emails every 5 mins just to see if CDWow have sent me yet another £1 off voucher (things must be bad - they're almost a daily occurrence now).

That Friday Feeling...

Oh what it would be like to be in a job which you enjoyed so much that the 'Friday feeling' would actually be one of sorrow (because you weren't going to be working for 2 days).
Unfortunately, I don't fall into the category of being in one of those fantastic jobs. I fall well and truly into the "please get me out of here" on a Friday!

But it does make me think about the whole "live to work" / "work to live" argument and also the fact that I probably have at least another 20 years of work to go through before I could officially retire...damn, that Friday feeling is receeding already.

At least I know I have another 20 years of pension contributions to build up my fund to a full £10 worth. That'll buy me the equivalent of a penny sweet I'm sure!

Sync sync sync...ZZzzzzzzzzzz

OK, so I know its boring (well to most people)...but the world of backups (read 'sync') is a really important one to everyone, whether they realise it or not.

So on that topic, I've just found out that the wonderful Google (you've gotta love them for their brilliant ideas!) have now got a free 'over the air' sync mechanism set up for contacts & calendars on the iPhone. I think its been around for a while on other platforms (e.g. Crackberry) but only recently been released (in Beta form) for the fanboy loved iPhone.

http://www.google.com/mobile/

I currently use a lovely piece of software on the Mac called "Spanning Sync" which does a fantastic job of synchronising my contacts & calendars between the Macbook & my Gmail account. But I then have to ensure I plug my iPhone into the Macbook to then get that sync'ed up. Using Google's new mobile sync will 'hopefully' mean that this won't be necessary.

I'm sure I'll probably be eating my words when I actually get around to trying it out and realise that its completed f@cked my contacts & calendars, but hey, good on Google for trying to help me back my sh1t up.

Sync It Up...

So this issue has bugged me for a while and I never got around to sorting it out for myself.

I have multiple machines at home (Mac & PCs) on which I want to have the same files.
My primary option is a NAS box, but the tree hugging hippy in me feels bad about leaving it running 24x7 (it may be only 25W, but its 25W more than I really need to run).
Of course with a NAS box you just ensure you're always updating the NAS based file rather than a locally based one.
However, the downside to that is that you can't really take the files out and about when you go without sorting out some sort of sync program for when you get back home.

What I stumbled across last night (whilst reading some obscure technology post) was that Microsoft have introduced "Windows Live Sync" (albeit fairly quietly I think)....and the best news is that they've made a Mac client as well! (No sign of Linux unfortunately).

Essentially you run the client on the multiple machines you want to share across and log in using your Hotmail/Live account. You use their web interface to manage the sync'd directories on the specified machines (you can also 'share' directories with other people).
The software then ensures that you have the latest version of the files (in specified directories) on your multiple machines.
I've only done initial tests on this, but so far I'm quite impressed - especially considering its free!

So for anyone struggling with managing files across multiple PCs/Macs then this might be worth looking at.

Friday 13th (2009) - Geek Style

OK, so today is an important day for geeks around the globe.
Today is the day that the UNIX timestamp hits: 1234567890
(I know, you're probably now in shock...don't worry, it will pass).

Basically, at 23:31:30 today (GMT I hasten to add! That bit's important...apparently) that's what the UNIX timestamp will be. 1234567890.

For those not in the know (how could you not know such a thing?!!) that timestamp is the number of seconds since 00:00 on the 1st Jan 1970 (where the hell do these guys come up with this sh*t?).

For those who want to work it out for themselves, I salute you for finding something to help with the insomnia, but there's a website for it:
http://www.unixtimestamp.com/index.php

This is right up my street...

I think this could have been made just for me! :D



The only question is, where can I get one! :D

Houston we have a problem...

I can honestly say that this week has been one of the most traumatic and emotional weeks of my life (so far).

I won't go into the reasons why (on here at least) but suffice it to say it's going to take a while to get over it.

In the meantime, the geek in me lives on.
I'm trying to come up with "geek treats" to buy to cheer myself up, but so far all I've managed to order is a gaming mouse (fear me now HL2 playas!).

I'm still waiting for more details on the Nvidia Ion platform (and potentially in a new Mac Mini)... because I'd be very tempted by one of those. Now I've got the wife hooked on my Macbook I might even be able to swing it past her ;o)

I'M ON THE TRAIN

This particular geek is finally dragging himself into the mobile data's 21st century... blogging from my iPhone!

However, I'm still old school enough not to shout out my phone conversations on the train. I wish the same could be said of my fellow travel companions. You'd think that headsets might have improved people's phone conversations, but it has in fact made things worse. I think that there are far too many people who are oblivious of the fact that they have two headphones in their ears and that they're shouting into the attached microphone.

Thank God for geeks, who mainly just IM or email! (Facebook is for people with friends ;o))

Electric (Wet) Dreams

Every week I read about a new technology that always amazes me and leaves me thinking how much I want it.

This week was the turn of Nvidia's Ion platform with the promise to deliver great power from such a small machine.
This video from CES 2009 in Las Vegas shows the platform in action and just makes me want it now!


Of course I don't actually need it, but that's not the point.
I'm a gadget/technology whore pure and simple. I'm lucky enough to be in a decent job with no dependents (yet) and can afford to treat myself every now and again. But I'm also lucky enough to have that little voice of reason (aka 'The Wife') asking whether I should be buying that gadget or not...otherwise I'm sure I'd be completely broke already.
Still, I can always dream ;o)

EDIT: A detailed look at the Ion platform is available over at Tom's Hardware (an awesome site for the geek in us all link here

In the land of the stupid, the four-eyed geek is king

I'm curious...why are there so many stupid people among us?
Is it inbreeding? Is it too much Jeremy Kyle viewing?
Or is it not stupidity, but a general lack of care for their (& everyone else's) wellbeing?

I've been watching out of my kitchen window (Neighbourhood Watch stylee) and viewing the world of moronic drivers. Those who thought it not necessary to clear their windscreens of snow (who needs to see where they're going eh?) and those who drive like its a perfectly dry sunny day (30mph on snow/ice with cars parked on both sides - great driving!).
Surely these same people will have (at some point in their lives) walked on snow/ice and realised that it is in fact a little slippery and pretty opaque?!?!

Do Geeks Like Snow?

Personally I LOVE the snow...but usually only on the mountain slopes!

Being only a pretend geek, I'm not averse to a little exercise (especially skiing) but I'm sure that the majority of proper geeks will still be sitting in their (parent's) basements, blissfully unaware of the travel chaos and imminent fun that will be had out in the snow.

However, where are all those geeks when we need them to solve the travel chaos that a little frozen precipitation causes us in the UK!
Is it because they don't like it that they don't want to spend the time analysing it?!

For those who might be interested in the science behind snow (what are you doing reading this?!)..then head over here

Geeks Anonymous

Hello my name is Milo and I'm a geek!

There, I've said it...it's in the open and I'm free to express my 'geekness' in all its four-eyed, pencils-in-pocket, lab coat wearing glory!

Actually, I'm not a proper geek, not in my eyes anyway.
I'm sure compared to your average Joe Bloggs (sorry to use you as an example again Joe, it must really piss you off that you are Mr Average) I'm probably a complete geek. But as soon as I start looking into anything technical in detail I realise that I am merely brushing the surface of geekdom.
Of course, to my friends and family I am simply Mr Geek - who is called constantly with questions of "why did my computer do this?" etc. etc. However, what they don't realise is that my real talent lies in knowing what to type into Google and analysing the results very quickly!

I also read a lot of technology news sites so when people ask about a new technology I appear to have already owned it, stripped it down to core components and rebuilt it even better than the manufacturer did in the first place...but then I'm only a pretend geek really. As soon as I meet a real one in person I'm shown up as a fake!
Of course this very rarely happens because veryone knows that geeks never go out! ;)

The picture below is a perfect example of that! (It's not me by the way...my underwear is never that clean)