2009 Corner Desk Build

I’ve made a new desk, and man was it a lot of work (2-3 weeks). I want to point out some things…

  1. The monitors raise and lower both manually and through a motorized system. My dad was a big help with the motor system.
  2. I wanted it to be easily portable, so everything is “pinned” together with 1/4″ stainless rods (including the compartments).
  3. The shelves are adjustable.
  4. Four 40mm fans run along the right compartment for cooling the electronics. Also, a 120mm fan cools the PS3 from the back.
  5. The keyboard tray can go up and down, swivel left and right, tilt up and down, and move in and out.
  6. The black paint finish isn’t quite complete. Eventually I will need to sand it, wax it, and buff it up to a mirror finish.
  7. Everything is made of 3/4″ and 1/2″ mdf, and the trim is solid oak. The front curve was a crap load of work for a noob like me (see worklog).

Continue reading 2009 Corner Desk Build

Trillian 5

I recently (yesterday) discovered the Trillian 5 beta for Windows. Immediately I noticed, from the tiny thumbnail of a screenshot, that it didn’t look like a pile of vomit splashed on my computer screen, amiss to previous Trillian outings. Okay maybe that is a little harsh, all I know is I hated Trillian.

For those not born on the internet, Trillian, much like Pidgin, Digsby, and Miranda, is a universal IM/social media client that allows you to connect with MSN, AIM, email, Facebook, and Twitter among many other services all from one application on your computer.

Why Trillian 5 is Good

  1. The GUI looks exceptional.
  2. The tonal audio is pleasing.
  3. It has Skype control.
  4. Multi-login – I can be logged into Trillian on my BlackBerry, iPod, laptop, and desktop at the same time. Every message can appear on every device.
  5. Customizable interface.
  6. No ads.
  7. Can dock contact list to edge of screen with drag and drop.

Why Trillian 5 isn’t Perfect

  1. If I am logged into several places, I receive “unread” messages on every single device, even if I read them on something else.
  2. The pop-out menus when hovering over contacts and mail feels a little clumsy and loads a little slow. Optimization could probably cure this.
  3. As far as I can tell, there isn’t an option to disable notifications from certain services.
  4. It would be nice to be able to bookmark specific locations in conversations.
  5. Lacking a video chat option for Live Messenger.
  6. The Skype client needs to run in the background for Trillian to support it. Also, video calls open up a Skype client window. Any Skype support at all is still pretty good.
Trillian 5 Contact List and Conversation Window
Trillian 5 Contact List and Conversation Window
Trillian 5 Pop-out menu
Trillian 5 Pop-out menu

Update: I’m not sure why really, but I switched back to using Digsby. Trillian didn’t feel right for me.

Expensive Electronics I Hate

1. BlackBerry Bold 9000 and BlackBerry Bold 9700

I went through two Bold 9000’s. The trackball on both of them ended up becoming completely unusable. My friend also owned a 9000 (owns a new one now) – the standby button broke and then later on the trackball went as well. My dad also had a 9000 work phone – the trackball went on it. I thought that the Bold 9700 would remedy my issue, since it does away with the trackball. Well, the tracking is no longer an issue, but after a couple months of use my screen randomly goes all effed up; that’s the only way I can describe it – here’s an image. On the other hand, I’ve owned an iPod Touch 2g since before my first BlackBerry, and I have never had an issue with it, and the App Store completely destroys BlackBerry App World. Needless to say, I plan on getting an iPhone 4 in the coming months.

2. Razer Mamba

Before I purchased this $160 mouse I read countless consumer and professional reviews, all of which stated this mouse was the second (first) coming of Jesus Christ, more or less. It’s an OK mouse, but I wouldn’t pay more than $50 for it. When in wireless mode, the battery lasts about 5 hours. Even in wired mode, I occasionally (not often) experience a complete loss of mouse movement, and I need to unplug the mouse and plug it back in – it’s a software issue, not a USB cable or power issue. Speaking of software, the Razer control panel is a piece of garbage. Profile management is completely broken; in order to add a profile I ended up having to add a text entry in one of the .ini files. After having more than one profile, I realized the auto-switch upon loading a game rarely works, and if it does work it doesn’t auto-switch back when the game is closed. The macro functionality doesn’t work either, at all. I can’t describe how utterly useless this Razer control panel is. What I can do is change what every button does, change the dpi and scroll sensitivity, polling rates, and lighting. There is an on-the-fly display for the DPI settings; unfortunately, it doesn’t overlay on top of DirectShow – i.e. you can’t see it while playing any games. The button location for DPI changing is at the top left of the mouse. Half of the time I find myself left clicking while I stretch my index finger over the top to change the DPI settings, even after months of practice. On my old Habu, the DPI buttons were behind the scroll wheel – a perfect fricking location. On top of all that, when I restart my computer the DPI setting defaults back to 5600 DPI. That being said, the mouse looks awesome, and I am convinced most reviewers are deceived by the eye candy and the amount of money they blew on it. No one wants to admit they wasted money. Please don’t buy this mouse.

3. Nintendo Wii

Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out and I wanted it bad. I bought a Wii, a couple controllers, and Brawl. It was an impulse purchase. After a month of Brawl I was bored. I ordered a mod chip – and I did enjoy installing it and troubleshooting my problems – probably the most fun I’ve had with my Wii. Anyway, I downloaded loads of games, the only one I liked was Super Mario Galaxy. A couple months ago my friend told me about how he had all his Wii games running off of an external hard drive. I bought a new external to do the same for my Wii. I downloaded loads of games again, about 25 in total. I thoroughly enjoyed New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I also enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy 2, although I haven’t played very much of it. All the games I have downloaded are considered the “best of the best”, or “crem de la crem” for you Frenchies out there, and I like about 4/25 of them. Needless to say, the Wii sucks because almost all of the games suck, really, really bad.

4. TI-83 Plus

I can’t believe high schools force students to buy these over priced, out dated, massive pieces of shit. For $100 you get a 96×64 monochrome screen, a 6MHz processor, 512KB of ROM (of which about 350KB are used by the OS), and I think they might give you 4 AAA batteries in the box if you’re lucky. Hell, if you already own an iPod Touch or iPhone you can get a virtual TI-83 from the App Store. For $220 the Touch will get you a 480×320 LCD screen, 833 MHz processor, 256MB of DRAM, 8GB of storage, internal Lion battery, and all the other shenanigans like Wifi and Bluetooth. Oh, and it comes with a cable to connect it to your computer – you have to order one separately for the TI-83.

Downloading

I am sometimes asked where I download stuff, so here are my favorite websites that aggregate content from all over the web.

Newly Released Movies and TV Shows
rlslog.net

This is probably my favorite site to visit. It’s laid out in a blog type format and the commenters of each post provide the links to the content. Although it sounds very unsafe, in my experience I have never had a problem. I recommend looking for megaupload.com or hotfile.com urls – they are popular and have high bandwidth rates. Being in the Mountain time zone, I can almost always watch an entire TV show before it even airs on local TV.

Live TV Shows and Events
atdhe.net

This is hands-down the best place to find live TV streaming of sporting events. I use it to watch live hockey, football, and MMA fighting – oh man I am into violent sports.

Educational Text and Solutions
pdf-search-engine.com

I find this website useful when looking for educational material during school. It’s a helpful study aid.

Everything and Anything Else
Warez-bb.org
ForumW.org

These websites are laid out in a forum format. The downside is you need register (totally free of course) in order to search, view and comment on the posts. Similar to rlslog.net, I mainly look for megaupload.com [MU] or hotfile.com [HF] links. Unlike rlslog.net, the original poster provides the links, and the commenters merely provide a “Thanks”, “Links are broken”, or “teh crack doesnt work”.

Download Clients
JDownloader
CryptLoad

If the content is large, the links are split into several WinRAR parts. For this, I use either JDownloader or CryptLoad – they are able to automate the download process and enter in passphrases for popular download sites like megaupload.com, hotfile.com, and rapidshare.com.

Last Resort
Torrentz.com
Mininova.org
isoHunt.com

If I can’t find what I am looking for through direct links, I resort to p2p (peer to peer) downloading – torrents. My favorite site to find torrents is Torrentz.com since it aggregates links from several other torrent sites. uTorrent is the best client to download with. If the download is very large (4GB+), torrents are usually a better alternative compared to direct links because there is less of a chance the torrent will die, and most direct download sites have bandwidth restrictions. I don’t regularly use torrents because new content has a low seeder-to-leecher ratio (slow download). Also, my ISP knows something is up if my upload bandwidth is through the roof.

Boring…

I haven’t written anything in a long time, so here’s… something.

Exams wen’t pretty well; depressingly though, English 199 was my best grade. I took a week off after coming back to Lethbridge to relax, play some hockey, video games, fix peoples broken computers (because  knowing how to fix my own computer makes me super-pro at fixing other peoples computers…), fail hard at making a Seagate drive work in a Western Digital hard drive enclosure for my Wii, and play some tennis. Oh yea, and take some 4.5 hour safety training for my summer job.

Starting last Monday, I began working for an electrical contractor as an electrical apprentice – for experience, and because I am ‘good with my hands’. Currently, and presumably for most of the summer, I am working on a soon-to-be nursing home. So far all I have done is mount data trays; they are used to carry low voltage wires such as ethernet, cable, and telephone lines. Actually, for the most part, all I have been doing is fixing trays that were mounted in the wrong locations. I shouldn’t complain though, I imagine I’ll be pulling wire for a long time once these trays are done. Most of the electricians think engineers are assholes/idiots who don’t know how the real world works – I think maybe the electricians are following the blueprints a little too closely, although there may be some major design flaws, I really don’t know. I know when I create a plan for something, my plans always change a bit in the building process. Maybe that’s just because one day I will be an asshole engineer as well.

Yesterday was pretty fun; after a hard days work I went and played some street hockey with a bunch of friends. It was pretty intense; needless to say, my team dominated. Following that, we had a barbecue while watching the Flyers pull off the unbelievable: come back from 3-0 Boston series lead, and come back from a 3-0 Boston game 7  lead, to win both the game and series 4-3… Hollly crappp.

Here I am now, sore as hell from a week of hard labor polished off with 3 hours of street hockey.