November 28th, 2009
It’s been over three years—from June 11th, 2006 to November 27th, 2006—that my trusty Toshiba Satellite has served me, but the 27th—yesterday by this time of the morning—was the day I officially retired it. I am typing this entry on the Satellite’s replacement: an HP dv6-1355dx.
Having had the machine now for less than a day, any preliminary impressions would have to be considered premature. That having been said, my initial impression is that this is a fine machine. It makes up for every single shortcoming of my previous laptop, save one: being of the 15.6″ screen class, this machine is still large and heavy (it’s wider than but slightly lighter than the Satellite). But that’s okay because I plan on picking up an Asus Eee netbook for all my portability needs. The latter will be my “pitch in the bookbag and take with me to class” computer; the HP will be my “actually get some work done” machine.
It’s very odd that I ended up with this machine, given that until today I was unaware of its existence. Because of the weight and size issue mentioned above, I had been looking at 14″ and lower computers. I had selected one Toshiba Satellite from the bunch—the M505-S4945, which was a recently-discontinued model (displaced when Microsoft released Windows 7) that Best Buy was trying to get rid of. There was nothing wrong with it, and a preliminary audition at the local BB was favorable.
Things had finally came to a head with my previous Satellite, when its battery simply refused to hold any charge whatsoever; in addition, the power cable is finicky, and I’m on my second one of those. The end result is a machine that continuously and at seemingly random intervals simply died. It was when this became unbearable that I conceded it was time for a new machine.
On Thanksgiving, when I was ready to order the M505 online (it was not available in stores), my father (who had been looking at the BB site) suggested a particular model he had seen, the Asus U50A. I explained that far from a behemoth, I wanted a smaller computer that I could carry around in my backpack and balance on a desk, yet which was still reasonably powerful. He didn’t seem to understand, probably because I hadn’t properly explained that the desks at Wayne State are about nine inches across—they’re no more than a shaped strip of wood that flips down in front of the seat. He argued that the Asus—admittedly a very nice machine—was a better computer, and that the extra inch in width shouldn’t be a realistic concern. We traded arguments back and forth until he suggested that, as backup (and in lieu of trying to get my old Satellite working again as backup) I get the Asus along with a netbook of my choice, with the intent of doing my work on the Asus and taking the netbook along with me to class.
Initially I rejected this, partially because it ended up being somewhat more expensive than I had planned, and also because it seemed I was straddling both extremes—a too-big machine and a too-small one. I had had a netbook once, but it only lasted three days before it got stolen, so I never developed a feel for whether or not I could get any serious work done on it. Plus, I had auditioned the M505 and had never even considered the Asus until that day.
Later in the day, and after a little research, I started giving the matter some thought. The Asus represents a tremendous value, and a netbook would be far more portable and manageable than even a 14″ class notebook. I decided I’d go with my father to deliver some fish to a customer the next day (Friday), and on the way back we would visit a Best Buy so I could audition the Asus and see if it there was anything about it that made it untenable. If so, my plan was to order the M505 online.
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November 24th, 2009
One is forced to ask this question every time he considers buying a bottle of lemon iced tea. I confess that I was once among those who happily consumed the Lipton “iced tea” you get from a gigantic can. Even then, I never made it “properly”—I made a highly-concentrated version with anywhere from three to six times the recommended measure of concentrate. And I also invented an ungodly concoction wherein this tea concentrate and cherry-flavored Faygo sparkling water are mixed to create what tastes like pure heaven: carbonated, liquefied blue SweeTarts.
But I digress. Over the years I have grown to appreciate what good iced tea should taste like. I’ve gotten good results making my own, but when faced with a purchasing choice I usually go for Lipton PureLeaf—it’s probably not the greatest iced tea on earth, but it’s right in that range where it goes up against the other contenders for that title. It makes a good benchmark, in other words.
Advertising is a powerful force. About a month ago a rather cute commercial for Snapple iced tea came over the airwaves. It punned on their slogan, “Made from the Best Stuff on Earth,” by depicting what would happen if they somehow found “better stuff.” I thought that was pretty clever, and so I figured I would give it a shot this evening. In the atrociously cornily named Barnes & Nibble (Wayne State’s campus store), I picked up one Lipton PureLeaf lemon iced tea and one Snapple lemon iced tea, figuring I’d set up a little showdown.
There’s no competition. The Snapple stuff is brown, tea-hinted lemonade. There is virtually no tea flavor at all; it’s as though the tea was added as a means to color the drink. To its credit, it certainly wasn’t a horrible-tasting thing, and its use of real sugar means it goes down smooth and doesn’t leave that awful film in the mouth. But it is a horrible tea. Maybe the other flavors will fare better, but at this point I can’t see that happening; the fruit-to-tea mix is so far out of whack that no matter which variety you choose I imagine all you’ll taste is an overly-sweet, fruity liquid that’s colored like tea.
The PureLeaf, which I opened afterward for a single comparison sip, was as good as always. I highly recommend any flavor of this line of tea—you might even get the unsweetened version and add your own digs, as the tea flavor itself is excellent. Raspberry is a bit sweet, but it’s still pretty good. I’ve never liked peach tea much (sorry, my love), so you’re on your own to decide there. And I’ve always hated sweet tea, so that’s outside my sphere of objectivity as well. But once you start with a good base, usually any product made from that base will be at least tolerable.
But enough about tea. Lately I’ve been busy, sick, and also busy. School is going well enough; I scored a 490/500 on my second paper for the “Hardest English Professor at Wayne” (evidently, see his score), to go with the 470/500 I got on the first one. I have something like a 96% in the class. I can see how those who aren’t familiar with argumentative writing (or writing in general)—basically those who learned the wrong way from high school—would have a bugger of a time with this guy. Me? I had Alwardt. He was my high school AP Literature teacher. I learned more from this guy than from any other teacher I had ever had, and each and every day I’m grateful for it.
Aside from that, I’ve been busy with miscellaneous projects here and there. Recently I’ve been attacking the company website again. This time I finally think I’ve got a good design. It certainly looks better than any of the crap I had put up in the past. It’s in a secret directory so the general public cannot discover it the way you just did now by clicking on the link. Go on, I dare you. I know it should have occurred to me, but I learned relatively late in my web-designing lifetime that many websites use pre-rendered images in their designs. The current incarnation of the site therefore has a pre-rendered header and footer, generated on each page by a separate JavaScript (so I can easily change them site-wide). If you’re using a Gecko- (Firefox or similar) or WebKit- (Safari, Chrome) based browser, you’ll see this site in its full glory, with rounded corners on the tabs and drop shadows on the tabs, headings, and behind the pictures. If you’re (gasp) still using Internet Explorer, do yourself (and me) a favor: switch. When Microsoft finally learns it needs to play nice with web standards (sometime around Internet Explorer 3,702.5 or so), maybe I can let it slide. Until then, bring on Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera…anything but Trident-based IE.
In other news…well, there isn’t anything. Anything I can freely say, at any rate. An insane ninja-stalker might find this site and then there’ll be hell to pay. I’ve been busy, busy, busy. I deactivated my Facebook last week, as it had become a time sink. Plus, it’s like Pink Floyd said, if you build a wall, the other people can’t reach you. Or should that be ρ!ηκ ƒζσγδ, lest Roger Waters find me and decide to sue me for typing “P!nk F!0yd.” Din’t do nothin’, Rog. No þλο1∫ ʞµιδ here.
But enough. I started this entry full of purpose. I end it with no purpose whatsoever.
November 19th, 2009
By this I don’t mean to imply that I made this theme. No, this is the first theme I ever had for my WordPress blog. This was the first blog I set up, over a year ago, and this theme—Egecia—was my first choice. Unfortunately, there was an odd issue that was never solved wherein clicking on an individual entry would break the theme. I had made a custom banner and everything, and it was quite disappointing not being able to continue using this theme.
While putzing around in my Admin section I came across this old theme and decided to search for it in WordPress’s repository. It’s not there anymore. Alas, its creator seems to have abandoned it. However, a Google search turned up a thread where a solution to the breakage problem was offered. I applied it and it worked. So now I get to have my original theme back, complete with the modifications I made to it (the custom banner and background).
It’s amazing how silly little things like this make me so happy. I have this thing with nostalgia, and I fondly remember setting up this blog the summer before last. Getting to fix an old problem and finally display my custom banner and its original theme is just the bee’s knees, as far as I’m concerned. It takes me back to that time, a year-and-a-half ago, when I first began this blogging journey. In many ways I haven’t really left the starting gate; I come here far too infrequently, and I never really did much with the other blogs. I might at some point attempt to realize the dream I had at the beginning, but at this point it feels like too much work.
WordPress had an update waiting for me when I arrived. It seems like, for the first time ever, text input isn’t agonizingly laggy. The WordPress Admin console has been notoriously bad for this in the past, so it’s quite a welcome change if indeed I’m not simply lucky. I’m glad that updates are automatic now; manual updating was a pain, and I usually avoided it for point releases.
I still never did find what I was looking for in the Admin console—the control section for a plugin I recently installed. I’ll find it eventually.