06.07.06

Mac Dual Screen Lovin’

Posted in Toys at 12:28 pm by Soabirw

Was wanting to use my MacBook, and eventually, Mac Mini at work. When coding I need lots of real estate, not just so my code is HUGE, but because I have to run so many apps at the same time and I need quick access to them. And once you go dual monitors, it’s very hard to go back. But with the MacBook and Mac Mini, they don’t have out of the box support for such a thing. So it seemed my options were to either take my 19″ LCD from home and swap it with my two 17″ LCDs from work or use the tiny 13″ laptop display along with a 17″ or 19″. Neither of those options sound all that appealing. The only thing I do on my home PC anymore is play games, so I will rarely use a 2nd display and will prefer a large 19″. And when you are runing a dual monitor setup it really matters that your displays are as similar as possible. Even a 17″ next to a 19″ can be very distracting and offsetting. So a 13″ next to a 17″ or 19″ is just out of the question. Some day I would like to get a fany cinema display, but until I can justify that outrageous cost I would rather just use what I have. Especially since I bought those 17″ LCDs not even a month ago.

I think I finally found a pretty great solution. Looks like this will work for my MacBook and future Mac Mini as well as my current Alienware Laptop. Some of the true Mac lovers scoff at the solution, because in their eyes the real solution would be to spend just a few more grand on Mac hardware that will do this out of the box. Life must be grand when you have daddy’s credit card in hand. Maybe some day instead of getting a new car I’ll put that money towards a beefy Power Mac with a 30″ cinema display. I’m sure it will be the best $10k I will ever spend.

06.05.06

Wow.

Posted in Toys at 11:45 am by Soabirw

Came accross a few videos like this. Basically they are running every OS they can on their Mac and quickly, yet beautifully, switching between them. It uses something called “Parallels”, which I haven’t found much on yet. Some guys blog claims that on the dual core Macs it uses one core for, say, Windows and the other for Mac OS. So it is the fastest and most useable virtual machine setup he’s ever tried. I was going to try out bootcamp, but I might just got this route instead. I will still need Windows for the occasional this and that, like 3DVista. I’ll always keep my gaming rig Windows, for obvious reasons, but to be able to switch to Windows without switching boxes or rebooting is just dreamy.

The Bad Pain

Posted in Toys at 9:17 am by Soabirw

Apple lied to me. They said my precious goods would arrive tomorrow, but that’s only a half truth. The keyboard and video adapters will be here tomorrow, but the laptop itself wont until the 14th. God, that hurts so much. I’m going to take a warm, candle lit bath and then take a nap.

06.02.06

Heathen Accross The Board

Posted in Toys at 11:55 am by Soabirw

Whelp, I just took the plunge and ordered a MacBook. I wanted something cheap to try out this Mac stuff, but still functional. The MacBook ended up being the same cost as the Mac Mini I was wanting since I didn’t want a totally gimped one. So I sacraficed some power for portability. I want to be able to play with this thing at home and at work as well as take it around to friends and relatives who are also interested. And I’ve always wanted something I could even take around the house for random tasks. Sure, I have an Alienware. But that thing hardly qualifies as “portable”. I think they stopped showing the weight in the technical specifications because of that. Their new ones are approaching 20 lbs. MacBook is about 5lbs. My boss has one and it is great to work with. Grabbed all the adapters I would want too. This thing can do VGA, DVI, and S-Video. I have the MythTV box, so I don’t need to hook it up to my TV. But that sort of functionality always comes in handy.

Anyhoo, hoping it will be here next Tuesday or Wednesday. If Mac really impresses me maybe I’ll go all out and grab a few dream displays.

05.30.06

Cell Phone Reception

Posted in Toys at 9:52 am by Soabirw

Anybody know of a way to increase reception? I’ve seen plenty of gimmicky products, like sticking plastic to the back of your battery that has fake circuitry printed on it. But I am curious if there is a legit product. In my basement I literally get zero bars. I can’t call out because it constantly says “service not available”. At work and when visiting friends in Salt Lake I get great reception. Even on their broadband network. I guess Pleasant Grove is still plenty podunk.

05.25.06

Mobile Soa

Posted in Toys at 10:24 am by Soabirw

I don’t really understand this mobile text message stuff. I signed up for the mobile service on MSN, but that doesn’t seem to automatically send all messages to my phone. In the MSN client I had to assign a mobile number to the offline contact. So this isn’t working if you use something like Trillian. So that sucks. Any tips or tricks are welcome. And if you want my MSN and/or new number, e-mail me or talk to me by whatever medium you normally do.

Edit: This thing comes with AIM, Yahoo, and MSN. So I don’t have to do the awkward IM to TXT setup. I actually sign on with my phone and will show as online to any app. Have a contact list and all. So just let me know if you want my MSN and it should just work. Now I just need to figure out how to check e-mail.

V Is For Virtuous

Posted in Toys at 8:56 am by Soabirw

Now that I have meetings and other things to remember I deced to get a fancier phone. In the last two weeks I’ve been late to or completely forgotten at least three meetings. I have a mild interest in PDAs, but I don’t want to carry a PDA and a phone. PDA phone’s are just too damn expensive for something I’m not sure I want or need. So I went with The V, made by my favorite brand, LG. $150 is a much better price tag then $600 plus that come with the PDA phones. Doesn’t have as many features as a PDA phone, but I didn’t want them anyway.

I haven’t been able to play with the more sophisticated stuff like Bluetooth yet. I forgot to get Bluetooth stuff for my PC too. Never used Bluetooth so I’m a bit clueless. Any recomendations would be appreciated. Most the things I’m loving about it right now are appearance related. Dead sexy. Has the usual very bright and colorful front display with basic menu navigation. But when you flip it open and get the larger display all your menu options double or triple. I don’t remember seeing anything extraordinary in the menus besides a much better interface then my last phone. Especially with the contacts manager. Having a full, non squished QWERTY keyboard has been nicer then I expected too. I don’t mind T9 since I still only have to push each key once, but this is definitely better. I think I might actually use this thing for e-mail and such if I am out of town. I will even be able to post via e-mail. I could via browser, but even with the larger screen I’m thinking browsing the web wont be all that great. Might even set it up to work with IM clients. But not sure, since last time I did that MSN freaked and showed me as offline to random people all the time.

Speaker phone seems much more usefull on this model too. When you flip it open you have a nice, steady base and the incoming sound comes out the “stereo” speakers. You can do MP3s and videos and stuff like that this way too, but I’m not interested in that either.

Last feature I’ll talk about is the camera. I’m not that interested in this either, but I might use it now and then. I do like how they laid it out though. The back of the phone actually looks like a real camera. It uses the front display as your preview and the camera buttons are on the side/top. So it really feels and functions like an honest to God camera. Has that micro dealy that helps with close up pictures too. Not that it will make 1.3 megapixel images look less like ass.

All in all, very happy with it. Just wish it wasn’t such an ordeal to get it. It’s well known I there is no love loss between me and FedEx. Especially if you have seen my wonderful commercial (maybe I’ll link it later… maybe). I was supposed to recieve two packages yesterday, one from Newegg and one from Verizon. When I got home Verizon left a note saying they left it in a secret place, but then it also said they were unable to deliver it and I needed to drive my ass all the way back to Orem to get it. Found that confusing, but after checking their hiding place I understood the problem. The Newegg FedEx guy loves to play games with his deliveries. Each time it is in a new and adventurous place. When I got my last 19″ LCD it took me 30 minutes to find it. This time he put it in the place Verizon claimed they were going to. My theory is the Verizon delivery man left in a huff because the other delivery man stole his awesome idea. Sounds like a good script if I ever make another spiteful commercial.

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