Here is my first post from my newly updated tablet. I just updated my HP tc4200 to Windows 7. The system is a first-generation Centrino with 1.5 GB RAM and a new 250 GB HDD. Overall my initial impressions are very good. The system runs smooth and the handwriting recognition is top-notch. This entire post was entered through the handwriting system.
New Tablet OS
January 31st, 2010Favicons
January 2nd, 2010I geeked out a little today and added Favicons to all my blogs.
New Project – A Picture a Day
January 1st, 2010To help with my photography I am committing to a Picture a Day project. I will be taking a series of pictures each day with both of my regular cameras (Nikon D5000 and Canon Powershot SD800 IS) and choosing the best shot each day. The days will be focused on a number of specific properties aimed at getting to know my cameras and fine-tune my shots. The new project will be housed at its own site.
iPhone Apps for this Year
December 18th, 2009I broke down and got an iPhone 3GS earlier this year. Now that it is the end of the year I decided to list my personal list of the top 10 apps I use for the phone.
1. Facebook – This is quite easily the most addictive app on the iPhone. The app allows near complete access to the social networking site and has caused me to waste a lot of time.
2. Wordpress – The newest iteration of the Wordpress app allows me to quickly post materials to my class blogs so that I can always update students while on the move.
3. Pandora – A great music app that creates custom stations based on your tastes, and it is free!
4. Documents to Go – It isn’t mobile Office but pretty good for quick work.
5. Dropbox – If you have never used Dropbox on your Mac/Linux/PC then I highly advise you check it out as a way to keep all of your files readily accessible. A hidden bonus is it allows you to display PowerPoint presentations on the iPhone (sans animations), a feature that has sorely been missing.
6. Civilization Revolutions – A great strategy fix for fans of the series, almost a direct copy of the DS version.
7. PS Mobile – A great easy photo editor to help with minor problems on iPhone photos.
8. Nikon Live and Learn – A reference program that has helped with my photography in general.
9. Trivial Pursuit – The ultimate time waster.
10. Mark the Spot – AT&T’s app to help them improve service… hopefully they will follow up on the entries I have made.
Torchlight – Game Review
November 21st, 2009First, let me say that I think the comparisons between Torchlight and Diablo II are reasonable, but also giving Diablo too much credit. The dungeon-crawling genre has been around since the turn-based, randomly generated hack-n-slash fest, Rogue (and all its derivatives). I will grant that Diablo and Diablo II took the genre to a new graphical and real-time direction. Since the phenomenal success of Blizzard’s bloodfest it has been inevitably copied and rehashed over and over again.
This most recent reiteration of the genre comes from the people that originally made Diablo and the most recent successful reincarnation, Fate. With this pedigree it is not surprising that the hack-n-slash gameplay is spot-on. However I am surprised at the lack of innovation in the title. This is not to say the game is bad or not worth the $20 price tag… far from it… but it is a little light on the cutting edge for a genre that needs innovation.
Torchlight is pretty. It does not go for the gruesome realism route of modern games and amps the characters and creatures to cartoonish levels. If you want a more realistic-looking successor to Diablo II, go try Titan Quest. This is more like the World of Warcraft version of fantasy. The textures and models are crisp and support most modern resolutions (something Diablo II has not aged well with), without overwhelming even modest integrated graphic chipsets (I use an Intel GMA 4500MHD). The game flows well and moves seamlessly between integrated story scenes and the game. The level designs are randomly generated, but flow very well together, even containing some multiple heights components. This is probably the most prominent innovation in the game. Fate used a similar system, but always felt less organic in its level design, more grid-like than the general flow found in Torchlight.
Some of the features that the reviewers have been fawning over baffle me, since they are found in Fate or Titan Quest prior to this game. The game companion is a direct copy of the feature in Fate, even down to the shapeshifting fish and remote loot sales. Fishing in the game is also found in Fate as are most of the game’s town locations and merchants. The only significant gameplay differences I found from Fate were the inclusion of specific classes (similar to most other crawlers, going back to the D&D roots of the games) and the inclusion of loot that works as groups (found in Diablo and Titan Quest). These elements are nice and make the game feel different than Fate to enough of a degree that I could justify buying the game.
VERDICT – This is the classic pick-up-and-play dungeon crawler. You only mean to play for a couple of minutes and find hours have vanished in your quest for just one more level. It isn’t deep in story or mechanics (go play Fallout 3 for that), but it infinitely replayable and viscerally satisfying.
PROS -
- Smooth graphics that run on even low-end machines with aplomb, but look nice on competent machines.
- Character classes allow for distinct styles of gameplay and give distinct, varied upgrade paths.
- All of the good parts of Fate are here.
- Mechanics are simple, but addictive
- Cheap
CONS -
- Lacks any significant innovation of the genre
Smishing
November 15th, 2009Just as a informational post I thought I would write about this. I am not a big text message user, usually only the occasional grocery list to or from my wife, but apparently this has become the new battleground for scam artists. I woke up this morning to an SMS on my phone “from” my credit union saying that my account was locked. All I had to do was call the toll-free number and verify account details. It was a pretty obvious phishing attack (called smishing if it comes through text messages I learned), but I sent a notification to my credit union so they could alert others. Always be leery of unsolicited texts or emails out there, I would hate for any of you to get your identities stolen through some clever scheme. Having had my ID stolen a few years ago (through a skimmer at a restaurant), I can tell you it is not a pleasant experience to get over.
*cross-posted on my JCC blog for safety concerns*
Vaccines
November 6th, 2009
It is that time of the year when I get my annual dose of frustration. Even with the overwhelming evidence supporting the value and safety of both childhood and influenza vaccines the vocal and irrational advocates of the antivaccine movement have come out to spew their vitriol in the media. The recent media frenzy over the Wired article by Amy Wallace and the half-informed “discussions” by various TV “news” personalities about the H1N1 vaccine only show the power this uninformed group has over a national health priority. The problem is that the whole movement is driven by fear and a fanatical belief that remains firm even in direct opposition to cold, hard facts.
Let us start with the most obvious fact, children have been vaccinated against multiple diseases since the 1960s (with the MMR vaccine licensed in 1971) and yet the rapid “increase” in autism cases doesn’t appear until the 1990s. Is it more likely that the increase is due to vaccination protocols that have been used for decades before the perceived rise (even though vaccines were added to the schedule, others were removed) or to the increased diagnosis of a confusing and heterogeneous spectrum of related disorders. Likewise, the idea that the preservative thiomersal is responsible for the rise in autism rates does not hold up under scrutiny. The preservative, while present in some of the influenza vaccine preps, was voluntarily removed from childhood vaccines during the 1990s, yet we have continued to see dramatic rises in autism rates. Again, we are forced to ask the question of whether it is more likely that the rate is due to the limited chance of receiving thiomersal in the annual influenza vaccine (which has a significantly lower use rate than childhood vaccine) or that the preservative is not a causative factor (an idea supported by multiple studies directed at this specific question).
The most insidious manifestation of autism is late-onset, where abilities regress suddenly. This happens at around two years of age, about the same time as the end of the US vaccine schedule (first part) and coincidence equals consequence to people desperate for an answer to why their child has been affected. Unfortunately there is no simple answer as to why autism occurs. So many disorders are listed in the autism spectrum that a simple etiology is impossible and it is likely that most of them are due to multifactorial causes (a mixture of genetic, environmental, and/or infectious factors). While I empathize with these parents, I temper my empathy with the realization than regular and consistent vaccination of the children in our country has prevented at the very least thousands of deaths and countless incidents of hospitalization and needless suffering. I also recognize that these diseases are not eradicated (a feat only ever accomplished with smallpox) and that as vaccine rates drop due to the anti-vaccine fear-mongering these diseases will reemerge. It is already apparent that this effect has hampered the worldwide effort to eradicate polio and has slowed the eradication effort for measles (a virus that has a 30% fatality rate in developing countries).
There is no illusion that this is an argument that a single blog post can win, but it is important that those who understand the science speak out. I might not be a Hollywood celebrity or a faux news personality, but I have read the studies and I have looked at the facts and it seems abundantly clear that the evidence points to the safe and effective use of vaccines.
School Tech – Fall Semester 2009 Edition
September 22nd, 2009I have made a few changes to my tech line-up for the new term. In some respects I have slimmed down the kit I carry and in others I have substantially upgraded my kit.
Backpack – Targus Laptop Backpack – Same reasons as last time.
Primary Computer – Dell Studio 15 (Best Buy Edition) – Again, repeat from the last list
Secondary Monitor – HP 20 in Widescreen LCD (1680 X 1050) – I have moved to using my primary laptop as my primary computer in my office. To help with file and window management I have taken to using my old 20 inch LCD monitor as a second monitor in the office. This serves as the primary monitor and the laptop screen in an extended desktop for things like Outlook or heaven forbid Facebook.
Phone/PDA/MP3 Player – iPhone 3GS – I have finally succumbed and purchased an iPhone. With the latest hardware and software I find it to be a ready upgrade to my Zen/Axim/SE phone triad of before. Now if they would just get Flash working on it…
Camera – Nikon D5000 – I have started to get into more visual work for my courses and needed to upgrade from a point and shoot. I find the Nikon D5000 to be an excellently balanced DSLR that allows for ease of use and complete control when desired.
Software – Same as before.
Multimedia Techie Heaven
August 30th, 2009We just rearranged the living room and my wife wanted me to get rid of the computer armoire we had housing the desktop. I like my desktop, it is my gaming machine and very current with tech, and was loathe to get rid of it. I decided to retask the machine as our new multimedia computer. Our HDTV has a VGA input so it is an easy connection and the modern black motif of the HP computer matches well with the Ikea media table we got. The upside is that the desktop came fully equipped as a multimedia machine with a MCE remote and tuner card. The machine works great for the lower cable channels, music, and DVDs, though it takes some tweaking for other multimedia. A quick search of the web led me to plugins that allow me to directly access Hulu, BBC, IPTV, and different video formats (including my favorite XviD). Now I can directly access all my multimedia with a single system (except the higher cable channels).
Quarterly Linux Round-Up
August 10th, 2009As much as my school makes it painless to succumb to the siren song of Microsoft with free OS updates and Office loads I cannot get past my love for the open source Linux platform. Usually I use my new Dell Studio 15 for work (Vista with Office 2007) and I am quite happy with its performance, especially the battery life, but I still take the time to try out new linux distros. I load them onto my old Compaq laptop as a test of how well the new distros run on less than new machines and how much they rejuvenate the systems.
The system I use has the following specs.
- Dothan Core Pentium M (1.5 GHz)
- 786 MB RAM
- 40 GB HDD (5400 RPM)
- ATI Mobility 9200 (64 MB)
- WSVGA 15.4″ Monitor
I chose three new distros this round to compare to my current favorite Ubuntu 9.04. First I chose the XFCE spin of Ubuntu, Xubuntu 9.04, to try a leaner variant of the original. Second, there is OpenSUSE 11 (with the XFCE environment). Finally, Fedora 11 the most often hailed competitor to Ubuntu.
Xubuntu 9.04
The Ubuntu family has been around for a while and has been very good about providing spins of the OS in each of the dominant desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, and XFCE). I typically use the Gnome variant, but wanted to try the XFCE version due to its lighter memory footprint. Installation was the typical graphical Ubuntu affair, meaning very user friendly and easy to work well with other partitions. To give each OS its best chance I always install them fresh on full partitions. I am slightly disappointed that the Ubuntu family still sticks with the ext3 format instead of the newer ext4 format, but there has been talk of some incompatibilities with the new ext4 format and older programs. I will assume that the new Karmic Koala (9.10) release will address this. Installation took around twenty minutes and went without a hitch, autorecognizing everything on the system and allowing full use.
The system boots smoothly and relatively quickly, though not any quicker than the Ubuntu version. The desktop for Xubuntu is a little disappointing in that it reminds me more of a minimal Gnome desktop versus a real XFCE desktop. I don’t mind the look, but that is because I am more a Gnome guy myself, but those looking for a minimal desktop will have to do some tweaking. Fortunately XFCE allows a lot of tweaking and it doesn’t take long to get the desktop to whatever look you want.
The selection of software is good, but has some holes in the default install. I love Abiword and Gnumeric for general office work due to their small memory footprints and excellent responsiveness, but they are not an integrated package. The most glaring omission is that there is no presentation software (i.e. PowerPoint or Keynote). While you can argue the benefits of presentation software, but they are necessary. In the end you will have to add OpenOffice just to get a complete office package. Fortunately the 9.04 version comes with OO 3.0 so it is a fairly peppy version. This is one of the places the Ubuntu family shines, the ease of adding new software. The builtin ‘Add/Remove’ function is second to none and makes it easy to add anything you need.
Overall the system felt peppy and had very little lag on my slightly older machine. However there are some problems with compatibility to simple programs I need like Dropbox. Finally, though Thunar is a good file managment system it lacks network compatibility like Nautilus and makes it a poor business model.
Final Verdict: Good and runs well on my antique, but lacks anything to pull me away from the Gnome version. I would recommend it as a basic system for low-end systems, but still prefer the Ubuntu version.
OpenSUSE 11
I have always heard that I should try the open versions of the thousand pound gorillas in the Linux world, SUSE and Red Hat, so I started with the OpenSUSE release. Previously when I have attempted to work with the OpenSUSE distro I have run into major compatibility problems (usually wireless problems) and have dismissed them as immature in execution. Now that there is a new release I downloaded the new DVD image and tried it out.
The installer for OpenSUSE has matured quite a bit and does a decent job graphically. I enjoyed the benefit of getting to choose from a number of desktop environments (even some less common ones) and I chose the Gnome environment (of course). On the downside I found the partitioning system to be inadequate in its flexibility. It took me a while to get the hard drive in the proper shape and I would say this is something that the developers should work on in the next round.
Once installation was complete the system booted just fine. While compatibility has drastically improved since the last release it is still not perfect. The flaw this time is mainly with small things such as the trackpad and ancillary controls. While none of them are game-killers it is still an annoyance that should exist for a machine as old and commonly equipped as mine.
The default software load is spartan to say the least, but at least most of the additions you need are on the DVD and do not require network access. I would still argue that the deafult load should be a little more complete to compete with the other distros.
Performance was adequate, but in no way special.
Final Verdict: OpenSUSE still needs to mature and really is still not a top notch distro for those looking for a good easy to deploy solution.
Fedora 11
Red Hat is one of the real monsters of Linux. In the Open Source community Fedora is the Red Hat branch. I always have high hopes the Fedora spins, but have yet to be won over. In the end this release did nothing to change that assumption. Installation was good, though suffered the same issues that OpenSUSE had, poor partition control. Why neither of these commerical derivatives cannot learn this leasson I will never know.
The system booted fine and recognize all of the systems components. The Gnome environment was well laid out but in no way unique and performance was standard. The install was standard and adequate for most business uses (my personal measure).
Final Verdict: Adequate and good. If its installer was better it would be on par with Ubuntu, but to rise above it there needs to be some wow factor, something that Ubuntu doesn’t offer.
In the end I will be sticking with Ubuntu for the time being.