free

May 6, 2009

Windows 7 isn’t as free as you thought.

The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010.

via Windows 7 Release Candidate Customer Preview Program.

Bi-hourly shutdowns?

Ouch, Microsoft.

Apr 17, 2009

Legally get Windows 7 for free (or at a discount)

With many people wondering what the Windows 7 pricing will be and whether it will cost less, the same, or more than Vista, there are some ways you can legally get Windows 7 at a discount or even for free when the final version is ready later this year.

via Students: How to get Windows 7 legally at a discount or free.

Students only, I’m afraid. Keyword is legally here, people.

Summary of options:

  1. New computer. Well, duh.
  2. MSDNAA. Well, duh.
  3. Microsoft Dreamspark – your school has to be on the list, though.
  4. Don’t bother – you’re not in the US, Canada or Europe are you?

Apr 5, 2009

That’ll do, donkey. That’ll do.

Ugh.

Have I mentioned before how much I hate choosing new themes for my blog? Or for any website, for that matter…

It’s difficult because of three reasons:

  • It’s hard to find something that works for you. Being the admin of the blog, you know where it’s going. When you’re looking for a theme, you know exactly what you want – in the case of Benny Ling’s Bling, I wanted something that was simple but elegant – something that stood apart from the hundreds of other blogs out there.
  • Free is good. Unfortunately, being the poor student that I am, I don’t have much of a web budget – especially for things like WordPress themes. It’s like a wise man once said: “Pay peanuts, get monkeys”, as well as the age-old adage of “You get what you pay for”. Don’t get me wrong, though – I’d totally pay for a theme if I decided that it was going to work for me, assuming it is reasonably priced. US $50 is not my idea of reasonable.
  • Finding something that will require minimal tweaking is hard to do – especially when the theme is free to begin. It’s like the hardware and software problem – even though Microsoft make software that’s designed to work on every computer under the sun, sometimes it needs a little help. Apple, on the other hand, make both the hardware and the software – the result of which is that “it just works”.

With these three things in mind, I have managed to settle on Elegant Grunge, by Michael Tyson. I’ve had to compromise in some areas – while I haven’t given it a full test-run yet, I’m sure I’ll find something later on down the track that needs to be changed. So far so good, though – fingers crossed it stays that way.

UPDATE: No, I haven’t settled on Elegant Grunge. Instead, I’ve settled on Sator-ii, by Felipe Lavín. It’s got some pretty horrible CSS (no comments, c’mon), and has some funny spelling mistakes – but that’s okay, because I don’t think the creator is a native english speaker.

You may think I’m missing out something here – why don’t I just make my own theme? Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done – I’d have no idea where to start with a WordPress theme, let alone make a good one… Sure, I can hack my way around a CSS stylesheet, and I can diagnose and fix any formatting/styling issues with WordPress, but apart from that… Time constraints mean making my own them just isn’t feasible at this point in time. One of these days I probably should, but I’ll leave it to the experts for now. :)

Mar 3, 2009

Malaysia 2009 – Part V

800mL

So we were shopping at our local Econsave, and my cousins and I came across these wonderful things in the “killing insects and stuff” isle.

As you can probably tell from the pic, the Malaysians, they’re pretty serious about killing those mosquitoes.

Like, 800mL of pure mosquito-killing liquid serious.

Like, free Dettol hand-wash serious.

Like, RM15.90 serious (approx. AU $6.70).

Anyway, my counsins and I thought it was amusing, so I thought you might to.

But I guess it was one of those moments where you had to be there. Ah well.

Jan 2, 2009

The finer points of finding free images

Free—it’s my favourite* word. It’s probably the most popular word found in advertising to get you to buy something. But has free ever really meant free? The catch is usually that you have to buy something in order to get something else free. Or maybe you have to agree to give up your personal information, forever dooming you to junk mail, to get that free hotel stay in Vegas.

via The finer points of finding free images | Creative Notes | Macworld.

As a blogger, I’m constantly on the look out for free images that I can use in posts, to show other people, or just cause they’re free.

Sure, places like iStockPhoto.com are great – but really, it’s the internet. You can probably find most of those images for free somewhere else anyway.

For those of you after icons (for programs, etc) look no further than ICONLook (again, pun fully intended).

* edited to prevent Australian spelling shenanigans. Damn US blogs… :P