Tag Archives: bsod

16 Links – The Catchup Edition

Right, so I actually hate it when I leave my computer alone for a day. It pretty much gaurantees that I’m gonna have 1500+ RSS items to read the next time I’m on, which means a solid hour of looking through them, trying to find ones good enough to post up on here. In any case, I’ve somehow managed to find 16 that are worthy of your attention today, in between all the Uni stuff, and all that. So enjoy. Or else.

6 Dreams Jobs That Would Actually Suck
Yet another list from Cracked. Interestingly, it’s all on the one page, instead of the idiotic “12 items spread over 4 pages” deal that they usually do. Props to them.

Usability Analysis of Apple.Com
It’s not so much usability, as it is transparency. If a site is usable, then all those “features” of usability will also be transparent to the user – if some site is harping on about how “usable” it is, then it probably isn’t.

A Pic of Some Girl’s Tee
While some would consider this inappropriate, what’s so inappropriate about a girl with a T-Shirt that says she loves G9? I have a couple of mates that love the Logitech G9, as well. (Thanks, Digg). Bonus points if you thought the other meaning – then noticed the amount of tatts on her arms. Ugh.

A Sith Lord Timeline
As much as I hate to admit this, I’m not that huge a fan of the Sith. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re all evil, or maybe i’s because all of them seem to adorn strange headgear – either way, the Dark Side just doesn’t do it for me.

I Survived The Bush Administration
…and all I got was: (tick all that apply)
crippling national debt
diminished civil liberties
illegally wiretapped
my shoes stolen at the airport
cavity searched
invaded
imprisoned without charge
abducted, then tortured
an economy in crisis
…AND this lousy T-shirt. (Thanks, Digg.)

How-To: Watch Movies In Your Terminal Window
This comes to you courtesy of Stupid Geek Tricks. The quality is horrendous, I wouldn’t recommed it. Also note that this trick is for Linux users only.

BBBBBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAIIIIINNNNNSSSSS!
Funny. Comic.

The 30 Best Features of Windows 7
Most of these are actual valid features, unlike the “Why Windows  is better than Mac” article from the same people. Most of these features are also the reason that I’ll be running a Windows 7 gaming machine. Ooh, yeah.

iTunes App Sorting Concept
Apple – this would have worked from the beginning. Please, I’m sick of manually sorting apps on my iPhone, and it’s a major pain when you’ve got a couple of very full homescreens.

7 Ways To Make Your Laptop Battery Last Longer
Seriously? I expected “hacks”, not a list of common sense reasons.

Top 10 Halo 3 Kills, #15
An excellent montage of excellent Halo 3 kills. I had no idea some people could be so accurate with the sniper rifle!

The Kogan Agora, Android-phone.
Is it just me, or does that look like it’s made of incredibly cheap plastic? Fail.

Googly-Eyes Clock
If I could only figure out how to tell the time on them.

AT-AT Boombox
It’s awesome.

Space Invader Ice Cubes
Because you can, that’s why. And personally, why the hell not?

Why does this iBook have a BSOD?
Who knows. In any case, it’s a marketing fail. Everyone knows that iBooks can’t run Windows, therefore, no BSOD is possible.

Phew – that’s it. Apologies if my comments were getting a little rash as I approched the end – sometimes, you just have to click on the link to find out for yourself.

Comments below.

aXon Ube|2gasm LANs are AWESOME!

Long story short: My week this week consisted of a trip up to Devonport to stay at Rob’s place.

On Saturday, we went to the aXon Ube|2gasm LAN – a LAN party of epic proportions.

Some highlights:

  • Martin W’s computer wouldn’t start. That thing seriously has issues. I managed to get it started by holding down the power button after it crashed, and then starting it normally again. This wasn’t tried before – and none of the other solutions worked. Mind you, this was after we had been at the LAN for 4+ hours – and only about 3 hours before we left. Notable quote: “I’d pay just so I could leech.”
  • Martin P also had computer troubles – his computer managed to BSOD on him not once, twice, but thrice. CS: Source also wouldn’t open in Steam for him – so he managed to get an aXon version which worked perfectly. Notable quote: “I’m giving up.” (After a particularly vicious L4D session).
  • James G will never live down the fact that he had over 300GB of files queued for download in DC++, a file-sharing utility. 300GB! Notable quote: “But it was downloading stuff I didn’t want it to!” – Yeah, right. Anyways, he was the man who forgot any sleeping gear of any kind, as well as bring no monitor. But really – he did try to download 300GB with only 190GB total HDD space…
  • Rob K was kind enough to lend us his computer while he was away, as well as his internet, hot water, toilet, house, cat, vast media collection, etc. He’s a top bloke. He enjoyed playing some particularly quirky games at the LAN – Savage, COD4, as well as CS:S. However, his computer did manage to chuck the BSOD – twice, but not while he was using it. Alas, it was the 300GB James G…
  • Benny L didn’t use the computer he brought up. Instead, he used Klutz’s machine – which was more than capable for CS:S and L4D. Huge thumbs up to Klutz for trusting us with his computer. I also managed to bring down more gear than I brought up – care of a 20″ BenQ monitor I bought in Launceston from a fellow MacTalker. It’s quite awesome. Notable quote: “It’s harder than it looks!” (Epic Lego Star Wars on the 360), and “<3 flashbangs” (while NoSpoon was getting pwned in the CS:S tourney).

It was unfortunate that the NoSpoon clan got pwned in the CS:S tourney at aXon -we got really, really pwned. It was embarrassing.

Anyway, Rob will have photos up soonish – so I’ll just link him here: www.jawapro.com

X-Plane 9 is AWESOME!

There’s just something about flying that makes me want to post about it.

Sadly, I can’t because I don’t have the time nor the money – so the next best thing is flight sims. I’ve always said that I should get into flight sims, and as of two days ago, I have.

X-Plane, currently in it’s ninth iteration, can be an FAA-Approved flight simulator for training purposes – that’s how realistic it is.

It contains over 60GB of worldwide scenery, and you can pick and chose which scenery you want installed. I chose to install the base and Australian scenery, which worked out to be some 4.6GB – not too bad.

There are TONS of addons, plugins, and extra planes available on the net for you to download, and you can fly planes like Serenity from some movie, and a whole heap of others.

Now I didn’t have much faith in X-Plane working on my paltry MacBook with it’s integrated graphics, but surprisingly, it does – but only under Mac OSX. Under Bootcamp’ed Windows XP, it just dies a gory Blue-Screen-Of-Death. However, under Mac OSX, it works fine – reasonable frame rates (enough to get 25+fps, which is all humans need for us to depict constant, smooth motion).

In fact, X-Plane 9 is so good that I’m thinking of buying a joystick for it. I’ve been looking at the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro – but I’ve read reviews on the net that scream “Crap build quality” and “A complete lemon” so I might hold off for a while. If you’ve got any joystick recommendations, I’d love it if you could stick them in comments. Seriously, though, it’s nearly impossible to fly an F-22 Raptor with your mouse. It’s just too fast!

And landing – ugh. I tried in a Chinook V-22 Osprey, and even that was hard! I have no idea how people can land Raptors and X-15s, and X-30s, especially when the X-30 can go over 730 (insert arbitary units here, I don’t have any idea what the readout on the dash is!)

…Helicopters are a pain to fly as well, because apparently I don’t know the concept of lift. Same deal for VTOL aircraft, such as the Harrier.

Flight sims for the win. X-Plane 9 wins over Microsoft’s Flight Sim X any day of the week, no matter which way you look.