Tiger Woods
Written by cbte on June 29th, 2009
Tiger Woods 10 for Wii
I love Tiger Woods ’10 for Wii. Seriously. It’s so much fun. I’m really getting into it.
And that’s all.
IKEA
Written by cbte on June 25th, 2009
As mentioned previously, I suffer from a minor case of OCD, and I am so glad I do. chesapeake and I recently traveled to IKEA, where dreams were formed. We both share a love for lines and order. IKEA provides the tools to achieve these goals in a domicile setting. I didn’t necessarily like everything they had to offer, but I did like the ideas I got, while browsing their wares.
Well isn’t this lovely? An OCD person not only wants things in order, he/she wants to use space efficiently. This desk/bed combo does just that. I can imagine multiple ways to arrange this number in a house to maximize space and increase productivity. Perhaps a window to the right of the desk, for letting the natural light breathe in? I think so. It looks like a kiddy station here, but just imagine once I got all my tech in there. It would be madness. The only problem? The chair. That is one ugly chair. The solution?
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The SKRUVSTA chair. Apparently, Apartment Therapy has a recipe for applying new patterns to this chair. I see it as a bit feminine, off the shelf, but that’s nothing chesapeake couldn’t fix, quick as a cat can wink its eye. I love this chair, and I’m going to pick it up the next chance I get to head up to IKEA. Not only is it incredibly modern and sexy, it’s comfortable. Hey, there’s a concept! The only thing that really matters with a sitting utensil.
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This room intrigues me. It makes me feel like I’m in a hotel room. Oddly, I kind of like it. You know how you always feel safe and confined in a hotel room, but it’s not home? Well this would have the safe/confined feel, while also being home. I love the color combo on the comforter. I almost even like how the TV is off-center. I wouldn’t go for this room 100%, but it’s definitely got me thinking.
Anyhow, ideas like these lead to other creative ideas, which spurn products. Hopefully those products will make their way into existence soon, and I will share them with you.
aesthetics
Written by cbte on June 25th, 2009
Just to put you in my mindset, here you go
There’s nothing better than a trusty MacBook to get you through the day. As the title states, it’s all about aesthetics. I was browsing some comments on a website where a flame war had started – between and M$. A lot of people made the comment that is for people who don’t know how to use computers well, and M$ is for those who do.
There is a lot that goes into creating an operating system. Although computers appear to be magical devices, producing a rabbit out of a hat at the flick of a finger, there’s more to them than just magic. I’ll spare you the geek talk and boil it down to this: it’s all a bunch of switches, changing between on and off. That’s it! On, off. 1, 0. Yes, no. And that’s the base of a computer. Can you even imagine how much work goes in to translating the ons and offs to the rendering of breathtaking graphics on your color screen? To say that any (mainstream) operating system is ‘basic’ or ‘easy’ is to insult the engineers who created it.
I feel my opinion is justified. I work my OS’es out like Jillian Michaels works out fat people. I recently formatted, partition, and swapped data on four hard drives, just because I felt like it. Here’s an image of the sexiest one I have. I got that black enclosure for $7. Nice, eh?
The point I’m trying to make here is that I choose OSX as my primary OS not because it’s ‘basic’ or ‘easy’, but because I prefer how it works. I use windows too, and I like Windows 7, but guess what? When my RC expires, I’m probably not going to worry about keeping Win7. In the life of someone with a minor case of OCD, aesthetics matter. The fine folks at have taken this into consideration and created a massively powerful OS that’s so easy a caveman could use it. Why make something difficult if it doesn’t have to be?
toys
Written by cbte on June 24th, 2009
cbte is all about toys. When did it start? I’m not too sure, but it’s certainly true right now. My newest toys -
Where do I start? I got my MacBook in December 2006. It still outperforms my friends’ new Windows computers. Simply amazing. Let’s move on to the beautiful Aluminum/Plastic combo here. The G5. My dad’s company just switched their graphic designers from Macs to PC’s (wtf?), so there was a left over G5. It has a dual core PPC processor, 4GB of ram, and a graphics card. I don’t know much about graphics cards, but it’s better than no graphics card. Also – the old-school Cinema Display/mouse/keyboard combo. So retro. I love it.
I installed OSX Server 10.4 on it, and I was planning to use it for hosting some of my sites, but that’s really not a great idea, since commercial internet providers (Time Warner, etc) have very slow upload speeds. It would take forever to load pages over the net. Instead, I’m going to use it as my creative machine. Sure, my MacBook is also a creative machine, but it doesn’t have a 20″ Cinema Display.
It’s definitely not as fast as my MacBook. Damn you, Intel, with your fast and efficient Core2Duo processors. I did a presentation about the Intel Core Microarchitecture last semester. It might be boring, but I put some SWEET animations in it. I’ll put some timers on it and throw it on youtube in a few days here. Anyway, the G5 goes fast enough for me to not worry about it. But what if I’m downloading massive files on it, yet I want to watch Hulu on my laptop while someone surfs the net downstairs on the desktop… how am I going to achieve this without slowing everything down? New toy #2:
The Netgear WNR834B wireless-N router. That’s right, wireless-N. Super-fast. Do I need super-fast? Not really, because I can just plug into ethernet when I want, but why not have it? The best part is that it can run DD-WRT. I don’t really know what all of the features do on DD-WRT, but I know that it’s highly customizable. I can set the router to only allow a certain amount of bandwidth to every device in my house. Amazing. I can also give myself VPN (Virtual Private Network) access, so I can log in to my home network from anywhere in the world (with WiFi access).
I get excited when I’m jailbreaking things. Let me tell you something, this is jailbreaking season, and business is good. To end on a happy note, even though this post is rather optimistic as a whole, I leave you with an image of efficiency bliss. Spaces. It takes Exposé to a new level. I love my Mac.
update
Written by cbte on June 17th, 2009
Nobody likes the ‘update’ posts, but give me a break. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. I’m feeling my way back around the environment.
Let’s start from the beginning. Right now – TV-off, PS3-off, Z5500-off, iM7-on(w/Touch) – playing ‘I Just Knew’ by Better Than Ezra. That’s MSP and my song. It’s pretty fantastic, and to be completely wordy, when I heard it, I just knew it was our song.
So today I took a look at some of the new stuff on the Android Dev Guide online. They have a bunch of examples of layouts for Android apps. I started going through each one, but then I thought – if it’s already here, why don’t I just copy/paste it when I really need it? The problem I have with writing Android apps is that I need to actually WRITE one, not learn HOW to write one. The ‘how’ part comes with the ‘writing’ part.
I’ve been doing some web design as of late. My most recent (and only, so far) work is for my brother’s new company, Envious Custom Coolers. I’ve had a lot of fun designing buttons, logos, flyers, and the website for him. It really makes me think… what holds people back from doing what they want to do – permanently? Do they think that some day they won’t be good enough? Well, yeah, probably. I feel that way sometimes. I think this is the biggest obstacle to overcome for my generation. So many people think that getting a 9-5 job with a boss is crucial to a successful life. What about not doing that? Everybody talks about how college was so much of a waste; why not use the knowledge gained there? Yes, you did learn something there. Nobody goes all the way through without learning anything.
Anyway, my main thoughts on future life (career-wise) are as follows. I want to do many things. I don’t ever want to be able to tell someone that my career consists of one thing. Here are my main wants:
- web design
- graphic design
- music composition
- private music instruction
- mobile device application development
At this exact point in my life, I want to do all of these things. To make a living, to make me happy, and to supply the world at large with my talents. The only thing holding me back is my lack of free time. Right now, I go to work from 8-2, most of the time go to the gym after that, then come home to practice my horn, practice the piano, and eat dinner. By this time, I’m not really in the mood to do productive work any more. If I could have that six hour slot earlier in the day for productive work (rather than my current job) I could totally produce some awesome stuff.
So there it is. Come July 2, I will be dedicating about 6 hours a day to improving my HTML/CSS/Android skills. I know I’ll master these things some day, but it’s tough waiting for that time to come.
I know this much though, I’m happy right now. There are unaccomplished things that I want accomplished, but as a whole, I’m happy with where I am. I know I’m on the right track, and the rest of my life starts right now. Today, I’m the best at everything I do, and I have so much more to learn, to experience, to love (wink).