• Category Archives Computers

  • Imagine a life with no computers……ahhhh……bliss…..

  • Twitter feed

    Posted on by beno 4 Comments

    Its no secret…. That despite the mocking I get from my two ….um… kids… I really do like Twitter.
    I think it fits with my desire to get to the chase as quick as possible.
    Yes, there are a lot of ‘what I had for breakfast’ posts on there (Im looking at you @thelonelypie and @pebble), but if it gets too much, drop them an email or just unfollow them….
    Anyway, point is, I like the short-to-the-point updates and news brief’s that pop up in my feed.

    My Dad was having trouble following my tweets from the blogging plugin that I was running on my site, so try and make it a bit simpler, I have embedded a Twitter widget with my feed beside my blog.

    Not sure its going to work all that well on your iphone Matt B, but Im sure you will let me know if it breaks it somehow…. I thought about putting it on its own page, but that’s yet another page that you need to click through to check for new content, I’m all about quick and simple one stop updates… so I have (crudely) mashed the two onto one page.

    Let me know how you go viewing it (or, Dad, if it slows your page load down too much) and if you think its better.


    Computers

  • My next phone does not exist. Yet.

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    Since my contract is up around July this year (2 years really is too long), I was keeping an eye on any of the announcements at the start of the year.
    One really caught my eye…..
    http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/qualcomm-snapdragon-800-and-600-chips/

    I think this will be the heart of my next phone/tablet (yes, believe it or not, but I am really leaning toward getting a fat phone, a phablet).
    Even if I have to wait a few months, I would rather wait with what I have than fold and get something that is already a year old (given that I will be on another 2 year contract).
    Its pretty impressive that its really on the past 4-5 months that I have been really feeling the need to upgrade… For example, I cant run the latest Opto software because my phone is not at a high enough version to run it.

    If all this is mumbo-jumbo to you, then don’t panic, just know this, phones and tablets are getting faster and more powerful than laptops of even a few years ago.
    Crazy stuff.

    I love technology and gadgets and I know how to ride a skateboard.


    Computers

  • Computer grades

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    Im surprised….. Looking back over my old blogs does not show up one on the topic of how we ‘bribed’ Terry to start putting in some effort at school.
    So here is a rough outline.

    Terry was getting C’s and and the odd B in his first year of high school. In other words, average to above average.
    He was doing it with zero effort at all. Not doing homework, not doing any study for the exames, just showing up at school. Thats it.
    All well and good to be be passing, but we knew that a little effort now pays off down the track.
    So we started to try and prod him a little.
    Different methods were used. To no effect. Not even offering him money for better grades was winning him over.
    Long story short, one night he was complaining about the frame rate of one of his games on the clucker computer he was using. A little light went on in my head.

    “So heres the deal mate. I will build you a kick ass gaming computer if you get me straight A’s.”
    “How kick ass?”
    “Dude, dont question my geek.”
    “Righto. Your on.”

    And so with that, he got my good computer, and I got a laptop.
    His grades went through the roof. Straight A’s for the most part. Hes doing two Advance Placement (AP) classes and two collage level classes. A little annoyed with the lack of long term savings and the amount of money spent on pixels, but for the most part, hes kept his end of the deal.
    Over time, we have expanded and upgraded the PC to keep things moving along for him.
    I have been more and more disappointed with the laptops ability to keep up with my photography and other work.
    So. I brought the Mac.

    This then is the reason why I am loading Win7 on the Mac.
    Computing wise Im just trying to get back to where I was about 3 years ago.

    But the story does not end there.
    What of Terry and his grades?

    Observe the power of the bribe……

    20121217_170028

    Its pretty cool to see your sons name up in lights.

    I have a lot more to say about the education system and the student of the month breakfast that we went to with Terry, but thats another blog for another day.


    Computers Family Life in the USA

  • Someone stop me!

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Really giving the blog some love of late… Anyone wana stop me?

    While nibbling some cheese, sipping some (Australian) red wine before my dinner of request (a hang on from my family, you got to chose what you wanted for dinner on your birthday), I fixed my Twitter feed on the side of the blog.
    It was broken due to Twitter changing their API (the way other programs accessed them), the WordPress plugin I was using was not using the correct method.
    The guy knew it was broken (after a lot of digging on the web we found an obscure forum post where he admitted as such), and yet he did not pull down his plugin, or say as much on his main plugin web site….
    So, in the end, I simply un-installed him and put another in.

    Welcome back Ben’s micro blog.


    Computers

  • Really Apple?

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    I was already ticked off and annoyed with Apple for updating their iPad range after only about 6-7 months…. Amy had saved for about 5-6 months to get one and I helped out with a few hundred dollars as a bit of a gift (and so I did not have to repair her laptop which eats power connectors monthly)…. so just 3 weeks after she buys it, yep, they announced the new one.
    Major ticked off. Its a big big purchase for her, and we don’t just churn tablets like a lot of others, we hang on to our hardware, for years and years and years and years.
    So thanks for nothing Apple!

    As you may remember, I bought an Apple desktop computer some time back in the hope that it would handle my photography tasks a little quicker/smoother.
    For the most part, its working out.
    Even before I bought it, I knew that one day, soonish, I would be upgrading the hard drive to a solid state one… that day sort of came today….

    I’m still saving for the real SSD that I plan to put in there, but I thought I would test out the install process on a smaller slower SSD drive that I have.
    So, off to the Apple store the Rangie and I go after work tonight.
    Now, to be fair, I did look on the Apple.com web site first to make sure they sell CD’s of the Operating System. Yep, 20 bucks, check your local store said the web site….
    Looking around in the store reveled nothing. Nada, no disks in sight.
    So, I ask one of the sales guys…. “You cant buy the OS” he tells me.
    “waaa?” goes I.
    “No, we used to sell them about 3 versions ago, its all an over the net upgrade now days”.
    “waaa?”
    “Hang on, I will see if there is a USB stick out the back with something on it”……
    He comes back empty handed.
    Me. “So, how do people put it on a new hard drive”.
    Him. “Oh, its a real hassle, people just have to bring their computers in and we do it here for them. We use another hard drive to copy it over”.
    “Ahhh, Ok, thanks, see ya”.

    Thanks for nothing Apple.

    As we speak, I am loading Windows 7 64bit on my Mac. (Hope you spat your port across the room Gary!).

    Again, thanks for nothing Apple.


    Computers