windows 7, eh?

well after the fiasco that i've heard is called windows vista (i've never used it, and with any luck never will), microsoft is trying to redeem themselves somewhat with a new release of their windows operating system, called windows 7.

the windows 7 release-candidate was let loose about a month ago, and you can download and play around with it for free :) it's actually not that bad, as far as windows goes. based on my low expecations when it comes to windows, i'm mildly impressed.

in order to install win7 on my macbook, i had to play around with the partitions on my hard drive. having played with them a few months ago and screwing it up, i thought it best to back up all my things and do a clean reformat, repartition, reinstall of everything.

(my partition table got mussed up because i had played around with linux a little on my macbook, and it seems that apple's use of an efi partition table doesn't play as nice as it should with "normal" partition tables.)

my partitions looked something like this:

1. mac os x (30 gigs or so)
2. mac /Users filesystem for personal data and so on (200 gigs or so)
   
3. windows 7 (20 gigs)

i was surprised that mac os x didn't straigtforwardly support mounting a partition at boot time like i wanted (and like i have set up on all my linux machines, to separate my user data from the system files, making reinstalling a new/different os or distribution easy). i played around with it and read some forums that said it wasn't possible, but..i did it and it works like a beauty.

after reinstalling mac os x and restoring my backed up data, i started up boot camp assistant, which was 100% unhelpful, because it doesn't expect a customized partition setup like i have. so, i just put in the win7 dvd and booted up from it. having never installed windows on a mac i wasn't sure what to expect..i know installing windows xp when linux is already on the hard drive blew away your linux, but i had my stuff backed up in case win7 got any ideas...

the install process took a long time, and had to be restarted a couple of times. it just seemed to stop at 12% and not do anything, so after about the third reboot i decided to just let it do its thing for a while, and when i came back a few hours later it was at 98%.

so now i'm up and running in windows 7 on my macbook. beauty, right? well, i'm immediately turned off by the fact that the trackpad doesn't do right-click, even with the option selected in the bootcamp drivers configuration window. with the amount of right-clicking required in windows (surprisingly annoyingly much, by the way. i didn't notice it much until i used a mac for 6 months or so), the lack of it scared me away (windows was even more useless than usual to me). of course my fiancee irina promptly pointed out that i have this wireless mouse i never use (a logitech mx1000- very nice mouse by the way) because the macbook's trackpad is so sexy. i still didn't use my new windows 7 for a few weeks, regardless. i don't have much of a desk for putting a mouse on anyway, and who wants to leave the sexiness of mac os x for windows anyways?

well here i am again, i thought i'd give it another try for a while. i'm thinking about updating a project i did a few years ago involving some of microsoft's development tools, so i need somewhere to play with them anyways. my mx1000 is a laser mouse, so it works well even on my current desk (which is my bed). i just ran apple's software update tool, and there's a driver update for the trackpad that might fix the right-click issue and one or two others. we'll see how it goes when i reboot...

update: the driver update from apple fixed all the trackpad issues i had noticed. hurraah!

a real facebook "virus"

well, virus may not be the right word. but it's definitely an attack. on you. and me..

within the past couple of hours i've gotten several messages from several friends on facebook with the subject "Hello", telling me to check out "kirgo.at" or "areps.at", and so on. having just read this: http://namb.la/popular/ about the myspace "worm" back in 2005, i wonder if someone is having their way with facebook this time...

".at" is the country domain for austria, but both kirgo.at and areps.at are registered to russians in moscow.

when you go to the pages, a page roughly resembling a facebook login page is displayed, indicating that the russians are trying to steal your facebook login info.

interesting...

the dentist

i went to the dentist last week, and the nurse took some x-rays of my teeth like they usually do at a routine tooth-checkup. they put those little things in between your teeth to make the x-rays work, know what i mean? they taste horrible and tend to have sharp edges that hurt.

every time i go to the dentist, they try to stick those things in, and they always end up saying over and over again, "bite down, bite down!". they can't tell that i am biting, i am biting, because my front teeth don't touch when i'm biting down all the way. i think what i have is called an overbite. right? maybe. the point is, my teeth don't touch and when they realize that i am biting down and that the teeth in the back are touching, they say, "oh..." and leave me alone about it. except for sometimes they ask if i've seen an orthodontist about it.

as it happens, i have seen an orthodontist about it. he explained the procedure to me, and it goes like this: first they wait until my jaw stops growing, when i'm around 19-20 years old. then they take me in for surgery, break my jaw, rearrange things, sew me up, and send me home. for the next several years i wear braces, a face thing at night, and so on.

i'm not sure if and or why anybody would go through with such an operation, but they sure do try and convice you that it's something you badly need. i didn't fall for it.

the only thing that bothers me about it is that eating sandwiches or meat can sometimes get a little messy, or not go well at all. since my front teeth don't touch when i bite down on a sandwich, i often end up dragging the insides of the sandwich (cucumbers, pickles, and meat products are most often victims), onto my plate, lap, face, or other surface. other than that the only side effect is that some unusually perceptive crazy people think i have a problem with my face. and dentists yell at me.

infected! (facebookt again, eh?)

"Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you." - facebook virus id 234894

you've probably seen the latest facebook virus that's going around..you know, the little "25 random things about me!" thing. i felt neglected for a long time because i hadn't been tagged. but then i got to thinking...these little notes are strikingly similar to computer viruses. watch out, you're profile is probably infected!

in fact a lot of things on facebook are like that..you get a little invitation from a friend saying they sent you a hug using some facebook extension or another. when you click on the link that extension adds itself to your profile! whaa?

the little apps are a little different from the notes strain of facebook virus, in that you don't have to do anything but click on buttons to get one. notes viruses are even more advanced..they actually take over your brain for a little bit as you, in shameful resemblance to...something that has no brain and no capacity to think for itself...create your own new note, make up 25 ridiculous things that people neither know nor care to find out about, and post it, additionally marking more potential victims. shame on you!

whoever started the whole 25-stupid-things note virus is probably laughing at how many people have his little virus on their profile. just like people who write real viruses do..

just wait..one day there will be virus scanners that scan your facebook profile and try to get rid of pesky things like these.

uta bus routes

UPDATE: this project kindof died when uta bus routes appeared on google maps, and also when i spent the summer *not* in utah and *not* riding UTA busses.

public transportation where i live kinda sucks. there seems to be a general attitude of not caring about it around here. mostly because the majority of people have cars. i don't, however, and the lack of information around here frustrates me.

when i got a job that's about 10 miles away from where i live, i needed to find out what bus can get me there the fastest. of course, not knowing the geography of utah too well it would be nice to have something convenient on google maps or something..but of course there's nothing (yet). the utah transit authority, the people who run the buses, have a website with a horrible little route search and some hard-to-read maps, which aren't very helpful at all.

so in the past couple months i've been using the buses i know work, and when i have time i experiment. today i found a bus that brings me about 3 blocks from home in about 20 minutes, while the bus i had normally been taking takes much longer. wish i had known that before, eh? i almost missed the stop it got me there so fast compared to the other line.

so i decided to work on a little project in my spare time, google-izing all the poorly-organized information there is out there. even if something like this has already been done somewhere on the web (i have found a couple of places where it has been, but not very well), it will be a good excercise in web development, programming, and the google maps programming api, which is always interesting and good!

you'll be able to find updates on this here: http://john.cheslicious.com/utaroutes.

if you ride uta buses, trax, frontrunner, or anything else (that isn't a car) and want to help me, contact me and i'll let you know when i can use your help (when i actually start the project...right now it's just in the idea/planning stage)

yay for knowing how to program, eh? :)

keep it simple

i remember in 5th grade, when i was living in st. louis, missouri, my entire class had a week-long camping trip instead of school. all the 5th grade kids from my school district and the ones in the area, i think, but that part's not important. we did fundraisers before hand, learned to square dance (i remember all the boys were really nervous about dancing with girls. eww.) anyways, the time finally came for us to go. we came to school monday morning with our bags all packed up and ready to go.

i think the teachers went through a checklist of required items. sleeping bag, flashlight, and so forth. that took a while, but we finally got onto the buses and went. of course, the buses didn't bring us directly to the cabins we would be staying in, so once we got there, we would have to hike a little bit, carrying all of our things.

me...i took my bag, walked the 1/2 mile, claimed a bunk, and waited while the other kids made 3-4 trips to get all their things from the bus. i probably chuckled to myself watching them. maybe even took a nap, i don't know..i definitely could have.

i don't know if it's a genetic characteristic, but i definitely either learned or inherited this self-containedness from my dad. i remember my first camping trip when i was 12..."keep all your stuff together johnny, or you'll lose it!", he encouraged me. well i didn't want to risk losing anything, and i don't think i did.

in the programming world there is a little saying that goes like so: "keep it simple" (some people add "stupid" on there, but i think that sounds stupid). in programming, you can imagine, keeping things simple makes life a lot easier for any programmer. i think the same concept applies to day-to-day life just as well. keeping things simple makes things easier. why complicate things?

some more examples from my nerdiness

the most beautiful things in life are simple, and elegant. for example, take a look at apple's computers. i haven't met anyone who has ever said "apple makes ugly machines" because face it..they're sexy. but they're also very simple. take another look at google and some of the products they've made. simple. and powerful. and sexy.

these beautifully simple designs and concepts aren't just beautiful and awesome; they make money. a lot of it. google reported revenue of over $5 billion last year for the 3rd quarter. they're doing something right, eh?

and from my other, (not as) nerdy side

an example that i think everyone (well..almost..) can relate to is relationships. why do they have to be so darn complicated? maybe because you're dealing with people and feelings and deep-down emotional things connected to the very soul of each person involved. it's bound to get a little messy down there, but why not try and make it as simple as you can? there's no need to complicate things by being dishonest, hiding things, not being both a) trusting and b) trustworthy and c) expecting the same from your partner, and the list goes on and on and on. lying, cheating, using, etc only make things more complicated and set people up to get hurt and/or actually hurt them.

i've only ever been in one serious relationship that involved a girl, and guess what? honesty, trust, patience, kindness, communication, love, and so on (all those warm fuzzy things) are what you find at the foundation of that relationship. nothing else. it's amazing and simple. i highly recommend it.

on the other hand, i've known people whose girlfriends were constantly checking their instant-messaging history, emails, phone calls, and being very possesive and untrusting. i don't think either of them were very happy in that relationship, because while one side was trustworthy, his girlfriend didn't trust him. we reommended he dump her. i'm not sure if he ever did, but i hope so! nobody should ever be like that! dishonesty and/or distrust ruin things.

that's all i have to say about that.

keep it simple!

apple

for a long time i've adored apple computers. goggled at the sweet stuff on apple.com. i once went to apple's online store and "window-shopped"...bought all the computers and ipods i could ever want. i think the pricetag on that shopping cart was somewhere areound $20,000. maybe one day i'll be able to satisfy that desire and actually pay for that many sexy gadgets.

so when i got back from my mission in romania, i figured it was a good chance to finally bite the bullet and buy a computer that i knew would bring as close to true computing happiness as possible, and i bought myself a macbook. the only thing i upgraded on it was the RAM, to 4 gigs (i couldn't help it).

it's been about a month now, and i can honestly say that i am very happy with it. today in one of my programming classes the kid behind me asked me what editor i use on my mac for programming. i think i use about 2 or 3 of the programs that came installed on it. the rest are things i've installed. i realized that i have customized my apple machine pretty extensively over the past month. without mucking around in obscure configuration files! fancy that, eh? well..i did do a little of that too..

it's pretty cool walking around campus and seeing how many people around here actually have macs these days. they're starting to take over! it's amazing. every single program that i've needed, wanted, craved or desired (or just had to install for a class) has a version for mac that works great. there are even sweet programs only for mac that are...well, sweet!

here's a list of my favorites...

1. firefox - safari is cool, but it crashes on me... a lot. well, not anymore because the first thing i did was replace it with firefox
   
2. aquamacs - native mac version of my favorite editor. it's a beauty
   
3. adium - chat program that can connect you to gmail, yahoo, msn, and even facebook chat
4. vlc - a nice player for videos quicktime won't play
5. MagiCal - puts a cool little calendar in the menu bar. a feature i missed from linux
6. visor - assign a keyboard shortcut and you've got a terminal window that hides and appears at your bidding
7. nocturne - switch the dislpay into night-vision mode to avoid blowing your eyes out all night. now i need a version for my linux machine...
   
8. quicksilver - spotlight-like tool for quickly searching and accessing things..all things

basically my mac and all macs are amazing machines that everyone should at some point treat themselves to the pleasure of. there are only 2 things that slightly bother me:

1. no focus-follows-mouse option like there is in linux. so, i can't keep firefox physically on top and type into another window by moving the mouse to hover over it. it means more clicking and interrupting my workflow, so it's a slight annoyance.
2. the keyboard doesn't always act like i expect/want. i.e. the command key isn't 'alt' in emacs or other programs, option is (it even has a little 'alt' label on it). i suppose that could be remapped, but i haven't gotten around to it yet.
   
3. i guess there are three things. command-tab and command-` do the same thing as alt-tab in windows/linux. so on mac it takes 2 key combinations and slightly more thinking as to which one you want to use...is that window i want to switch to from this same program or sould i switch programs? i mostly solve this problem by putting things on different spaces and switching using other shortcuts.
4. come to think of it #3 fits in with #2, so there are only 2 things that bother me...the keyboard and the mouse.

on the other hand...there are tons of things i love about both the keyboard and the mouse (the trackpad, that is..is amazing and sexy) and everything else. i'm constantly wishing my other keyboards were self-illuminated and i could scroll and click things as easily as with the trackpad on my mac. luckily i don't do much work on other computers, eh?

last thing to love about the mac...it's a story.

the other day i was working on homework without being plugged in. the battery was pretty low by the time i finished, but i just packed her up and went home. when i got home she wouldn't turn on! the battery was too low to start it. my heart sank as i realized everything i had had open (homework, programs, websites, etc...) would be lost. so i plugged her in and turned her on. guess what? everything was still there! i almost prayed thanks to the god of apple, i was so impressed.

well there you have it. get a mac!