|
|
Ever since the countdown of the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time, I felt a little cheated. I reckon some songs shouldn’t have been in the list, and here is a list of songs that should have been in there! (Note: these songs probably shouldn’t be top-10 or anything – but they should have been in the list somewhere) None of these artists even made it to the list – which is a little unfair when some bands have multiple songs on the list. (If a song title appears in brackets it means I personally prefer the song listed but the song in brackets would probably be more popular)
Josh Abrams – Addicted to Bass
The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist
Basement Jaxx – Red Alert
Fatboy Slim – Weapon of Choice
Regurgitator – Black Bugs (Polyestergirl)
They Might Be Giants – Dr Worm
Spiderbait – Buy Me a Pony (Black Betty)
The B-52s – Rock Lobster (Love Shack)
Bloodhound Gang – Fire Water Burn
The Whitlams – You Sound Like Louis Burdett (No Aphrodisiac)
The old Athlon XP 2500+ died last week, so it was time for an upgrade anyway. The old beast hadn’t been upgraded for a while. It did have a new monitor, keyboard and hard-drives, but it was getting slow. The case was cheap in 2002 so probably the whole thing was running a little hot. It had 80+320+120GB hard-drives, 1GB DDR RAM and an AGP video card (ATI 9200 from memory). It was only crashing in the week before it died permanently. I was planning on buying a SATA PCI card for it so as to get more space, so I’m glad I didn’t now.
I went ahead and bought the parts to build a brand new tower: Q9400 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 2×1TB SATA2 drives and 9600GT PCI-E video card. It is contained within an Antec Three Hundred case, which is nice. This is the first case I’ve owned that hasn’t cut me during installation! I’m also running the Windows 7 release candidate on it, which is actually working out pretty well. There was a problem with XBMC (on the old Xbox) not being able to connect to it over the network, but upgrading XBMC fixed the issue. I’ll probably use this until March 2010, when it will start shutting off after 2 hours. I could either go back to Windows XP or Ubuntu, or work something else out.
The computer scores 7.2 on CPU and memory speed and 5.9 on the other benchmarks on the “Windows Experience index”, which isn’t too shabby. I’m not sure how to improve on those scores, other than spending (too much) money. Sometimes it does feel sluggish, but after it gets going it is much faster. It seems hard-drive speed is the biggest bottleneck at the moment.
The solar people finally got around to installing the panels on the roof! The original install date was meant to be in January 2009; they were installed on 29 May, and we are still waiting for the solar hot water to be installed. The company is not very good at giving reliable timeframes for installation of things.
These cells are meant to save us “up to” 25% of our electricity bill. They put a big inverter at the side of the house. The highest amount I’ve seen it put out is about 300W, though it is winter so the sun’s rays aren’t at full strength. It has a nifty LCD display to tell you stats.
The hot water system will slash our hot water bill to $0! I used to live in a share house where the landlady was a bit crazy and didn’t let anyone turn on the electric booster: though we never ran out when I needed the hot water and it was always scalding hot! (I was once told of a story where they ran out and tried turning it on when she was out: it didn’t work anyway)
Taking a day off work for the plumber to come around to install our new toilet after the old one cracked and became loose. I don’t get a lot of time by myself these days so it’s good to just chill out around the house. However, I need to go out today and buy some things with my $900 stimulus money. I’ll go into what I’m buying after Wendy’s birthday. 
I’ve also had a toothache for the last two weeks. This morning it isn’t so bad but I can still feel it. A few months ago I went to the dentist for the first time in about six years, but they checked out ok, except for one deep filling. The dentist was a little concerned while filling it that it might need more major work (eg root canal) but it was fine for ages. Only the other week drinking some cold water set it off and it has been sensitive ever since. I haven’t been as productive at work as I could have been because I was writhing in pain. I was having Nurofen plus and paracetomol which did help a bit. Hopefully the dentist can fix my tooth this afternoon.
The Hood is back, though I’m still recovering data from my last attempt.
They got in, not sure if it was through the theme or OpenID…
The HTC Dream running Android and the Apple iPhone are both available through Optus in Australia, so it is easy to directly compare their plans and coverage on the same network.
The cheapest plan available with both phones is the $59 per month plan which includes $350 of calls and 500MB of mobile internet data. The rates are all the same (35c flagfall, 40c per 30 seconds call rate, 25c SMS). However the difference is in the cost of the actual phone: the 8GB iPhone is only $3 per month extra on the 24 month contract; whereas the Dream is $15/month on the same plan, making it $288 more expensive over the course of the contract.
The $79 plan makes the iPhone free on the 24 month contract and the Dream still costs $13/month, making it $312. This plan includes “unlimited text” and more included credit and mobile internet data. The most expensive plan ($129/month) gives unlimited talk and text and 3GB Mobile Internet data: the 16GB iPhone is free where the Dream is still $3/month.
I like the idea of an actual keyboard, plus the “open source” nature of Android (although the term “open source” is fairly meaningless these days). There needs to be justification of the extra cost though, but the details on the Internet seem a little thin. I’m currently using a Nokia 5500 Sport on the “yes” 30 plan from 2001, so any new phone will be a change in plan and use! For the moment I’m going to leave it as I’m saving up for the Japan trip.
More planning for our upcoming Japan trip. To those who don’t know the Wife and I are going to go to Japan for two weeks near the end of March. My sister is currently teaching English there so it will be a good opportunity to have someone “on the inside” as it were.
A few of the places we are planning on visiting:
Looking forward to it, even if it going to cost twice as much as originally planned. Stupid dollar!
I’ve finally gotten around to doing some stuff to this blog. I’m trying this theme and so far I’m happier with it. I’ll be doing some more customisation shortly!
Obsolete browsers
I have decided that I won’t even test my personal sites in IE6 any more. There are a few features I’m planning on adding which I know will be a pain to make sure IE6 will render them correctly. (Alpha-channel PNGs and position:fixed for starters)
Do yourself a favour and download (one of, in order of preference) Firefox, Opera, Safari or Chrome. You don’t have to get rid of IE to use an alternative browser. Use IE for your silly Intranet sites but use the alternative browser for your daily browsing. Firefox has a wide range of plugins which will make your browsing experience much better. I’ll describe the plugins I use in another post.
(My corporate sites, unfortunately, will have to continue to support IE6 as too many corporations and governments are dragging their feet and are sticking with the 7+ year old browser.)
Interesting fact: on our consumer website after a few months in operation the browser break down is approximately 40% IE7, 32% Firefox, 16% IE6, 7% Safari, 2% Chrome, 2% IE8 and 1% Opera. I haven’t analysed the Operating systems used yet, but there is a fairly large minority of Mac users. These numbers (mostly) don’t include the people in the office as we have a separate server for our own development/testing use. These are per-user stats, not per-hit, taking the most recent log-in only.
There has been a lot of talk about the best modern portable computing platform. Things like the iPhone are really popular, as are “traditional” laptops. By “traditional” I mean the clamshell which opens up so that the display and the keyboard are both protected during transit, but both are usable when opened. The new “netbooks” take the traditional laptop, shrink it down both physically and to the specs, which is really a neat idea if you think about it.
What everyone wants is a computer which doesn’t cost too much and can do everything they want it to do. Both of these parameters are different for every person, so here are mine!
My ideal notebook is what I use to entertain myself when I otherwise have no access to computers. I would use it to listen to music, watch videos, maybe even read books and websites. It should even have some development software, so I can do some programming on the move. I will not be editing video, or even major development.
Must haves:
- Ability to run Linux. Ubuntu is nice and I have been using it on my laptop since 2005.
- 10-11 inch screen. I don’t need a huge screen when out and about. I have large screens for serious computing at both home and work and anything bigger than this can get in the way.
- Screen resolution of 1280×800 (minimum).
- CPU that is at least as fast as a 1GHz modern one, as long as speed can be controlled to conserve power
- 1GB RAM. I know this isn’t a lot; see previous point.
- 32+GB solid state permanent storage
- Keyboard I can use (big enough keys and including F keys up to F12). I don’t mind weird key placements as much as others, and I can even live with Fn combos for some things.
- At least 3 USB 2.0 ports
- Wifi. This must be built in so that nothing will be sticking out at weird angles
- Bluetooth. This must allow connection with a mobile phone to get onto the 3G data network when truly out and about. It will avoid a need for a separate data card as these tend to change often. (eg GPRS vs EDGE vs WCDMA vs HSDPA)
- Card reader. SD(HC) and xD is what I care about, but others would also have their merits.
- Good power management. Some power management systems are a little flaky, especially on Linux. This needs work
- At least 5 hours of battery life doing normal tasks such as watching a video or playing a game, and 8 hours doing things like reading static text. Always want more time!
- Weight less than 1.5kg
Things that could be very handy:
- Screen resolution of 1280×960 (yes! not wide-screen). Smaller pixels means it’s harder for shoulder-surfing and you can fit more stuff on. Higher than this might start to cause troubles.
- Linux Open BIOS so that it boots almost instantly
- Software that can run directly in ROM, so no loading time at all! I would like to discuss this further later on.
- Switchable video cards. Switch to an “integrated” video when you don’t need the fancy graphics.
- Reflective screen mode. In high-light situations this will be very clear and use virtually no power (talking microamps). I don’t even mind if we have to drop into a monochromatic mode. This could potentially provide weeks of use on a single battery charge if only reading text off the screen!
- Ability to turn it into a “tablet” with your choice of portrait or landscape.
- Less than 1 kilogram, but not if it skimps on batteries
- Aluminium case so that fan cooling will not be required.
- Charge from a variety of sources: at least mains (100-250VAC) and 12V DC from a car.
- Modular battery packs. the idea is to be able to change packs without shutting down and without AC power, for those really long trips.
- Battery technology. The ideal battery will be small and light, while providing power enough. It will also handle being abused (such as being left fully discharged, or constant discharging/recharging). Li-Ion is close but still not there… I guess these batteries will be useful in electric cars too.
Things that I don’t really care one way or the other:
- 16:9 or 8:5 or 4:3 or 1:1 screen ratio
- Built-in webcam
- Built-in microphone
- Even a built-in sound card. USB headsets are fairly common these days at that will provide sound when required. Either that or bluetooth headsets if they can do the quality for music.
- Multi-touch. This can be useful on a small screen without a keyboard, but not really needed at the moment.
- Optical drive (eg DVD burner). I can use an external one, or another computer’s one. Get rid of it to save room and cost, although sometimes it is useful to have one to burn off something, if you have the media on you.
- x86 compatible CPU. Having a non-Intel-compatible chip should reduce costs and getting rid of some of the baggage may make it more efficient. Most of the software I use every day is open source so this will be trivial, although some useful propriety software may suffer (Adobe Flash is the first to spring to mind)
Things I don’t want:
- Windows. I rarely boot my laptop into Windows anyway.
- Huge Harddrive. I have other computers for storage. A few gigabytes will hold days of compressed video, plus a SD slot will provide more storage if needed in the future.
- Big and bulky things:
- Case
- Power adaptor
- Accessories
My current laptop meets some of these criteria. In fact my old 486 laptop meets some of them too, especially the size ones! I have been eyeing off the Asus eeePC since I first heard about it. It, and its followers such as the MSI Wind and Dell Inspiron Mini meets some of my criteria, but none of them seem to sell the Linux version in Australia. Plus the 9 inch models have keyboards a little small for me. Both of those features make them a show-stopper.
Expect this post to be updated as I think of more stuff (to add and remove)!
I have been eyeing off several mini “netbook” computers to replace my old laptop. The battery is starting to wear out and a full charge will generally only last an hour now.
The one I wanted was the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and as I’ve been running Ubuntu for years it was good to not have to pay the “Microsoft tax”. 
Alas trying to order from the US with an Australian account site actually crashes the Dell site! Even trying to “chat” doesn’t work, so I left them a message. They actually called me (to their credit) and told me that there is no market for Linux in Australia.
I find that interesting given that almost all the reviews on their own site complain about the lack of Ubuntu!
I want everyone to do the same and let Dell know there is demand for Linux in Australia.
I have a spare $600-800 that I’m looking at spending soon. (I have an “ideal netbook” post in my drafts I’ll publish when I finalise it…)
Update: I just got an email from Dell telling me my order is about to expire, but when I try and log in it can’t find my account. It must have a confusion somewhere as it wouldn’t let me save my order, but apparently it has.
|
|
