Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

Geekery

3D Star Wars, House Finishing, Ordinations

Categories Geekery, Life

Lots of big events this week!

The first big one was a Star Wars movie back in theatres and in 3D no less. Yes, I know it was 'only' Episode I, and how much that is the worst Star Wars movie (no arguments there), but I still nevertheless enjoyed it. I'll never pass up an opportunity to see a Star Wars movie in the cinemas, and this was no exception.

Although the 3D projectors at the cinema I was watching it in I don't think were aligned properly (it was a little out of focus in 3D), it was definitely … Read more →

Computer Cleaning & Rain Delays

Categories Geekery, Life

Like most people I really dislike the chore of cleaning, but it probably shows how much of a geek I am when I admit that I really don't mind, heck even partly enjoy, cleaning my computer.

Most people don't bother cleaning their computers, but I like to run a well oiled machine (minus the oil of course). Typically it involves at least pulling out the dust filters and giving them a vacuum, but if I'm really in the mood i'll get an anti-static cloth and wipe down the fan blades (there are four fans in the Antec 902 I own), … Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2011

Categories Gaming, Geekery, Life, Movies

So my traditional critical wrap of the year is once again upon us. As a result of all the house building, this year I haven't really played many games at all, so that part of this review might be a little underdone. Balancing that out, this year Des and I went and saw a lot of movies, both theatrically and at home. At my count (which I think is still a little short), we've seen 35 movies released this year.

Anyway, here we go:

Movies

The Adventures of TintinBest Movie: The Adventures of Tintin

This one was a tough one because no movie … Read more →

The Home Stretch

Categories Geekery, Life, Technology

It looks like we're entering the home stretch in the construction of our house (see what I did there? ;)). Although it didn't look like it two weeks ago, everything seems to be coming together and most will be done before Christmas.

I really can't wait for it all to be finished (it's looking like we'll be moving in in January), the early starts and now the increasing temperatures are starting to take their toll. Although, the past week has been awesome in terms of temperatures, apparently we've had one of the coolest starts to summer in recorded history, and … Read more →

Google’s New Look of Doom & On Virgin

Categories Geekery, Rants, Technology

Google has been busy rolling out it's new look, and even after using it on a few products for a while now, it isn't getting any better for me. As i've ranted about before, the grey-washing of colours across it's services (most eye-soringly in Blogger entries) is truly perplexing.

But I can live with bland and unlively colour changes; what is bugging me the most is basic usability impediments. Google used to be really good at this type of thing, making highly usable and accessible services. Just to use the new Reader look again as an example:

Google Reader snapshot

Other than the … Read more →

New Mobile: HTC Desire S

Categories Geekery, Life, Technology

HTC Desire SIn what is probably the shortest intervals between new mobile phones since I started using them, and barely a year since I got my last new one, I have a new mobile.

After going up to Bribie earlier this month for a break, my Vodafone based mobile had no access to data at all, and I found myself having to use the Mrs' iPhone to check emails. During the last year on my small Android phone, I have noticed a lot of developers neglecting the small screen size (and associated resolution) in terms of developing apps and features. Plus … Read more →

Terrible Reader Updates & NAS, Media Player Gadgetry

Categories Geekery, Internet, Rants, Technology

A few months ago I criticised Google's upcoming interface design for Gmail as being bland and not user friendly. It seems in the past week that in rolling out this design across all their products Google has taken the remodelling knife to my beloved Google Reader.

I've loved using Google Reader for over five years as my main web and RSS aggregator, but their recent update has really irked me. I was expecting the colour-washed interface (which is still terrible btw), but to the point of making link colours the same as normal text, terrible text-size scaling, and the … Read more →

Star Wars on Blu-Ray

Categories Geekery, Movies

Star Wars Blu-ray set coversThis week the complete set of Star Wars movies was finally released on blu-ray. Like the eventual release of the original trilogy on DVD all those years ago, I was of course quite excited.

As is usual with each new release, George Lucas had included a lot of mostly unobjectionable minor changes that might make a little sense, some ones that are completely unnecessary, but also at least one major change that has people scratching their heads in frustration and millions of geeks posting on forums their fury on how their childhood has been ruined (see the 'Han Shot … Read more →

Rant: Why Wash the Colours Away?

Categories Geekery, Internet, Rants

iTunes left menu interface comparison, new washed out version 10 colours on the left, the previous version on the rightIn terms of computer and application interfaces (either hardware or software) I'm pretty critical of a lot of 'fashion' or 'trendy' changes that have absolutely no practical improvement, and especially those that are in my opinion completely unpractical.

Years ago I criticised Apple's fashion of white that permeated to most other technology manufacturers and into society in general.

Now it seems there is a general shift to washing away colours from program interfaces. One thing we were taught in interface design at uni (although that was a while ago), is that in addition to logically and easily shaped and recognisable … Read more →

VMware Geekness, EPL, Cowboys and Aliens

Categories Football, Geekery, Technology

VMware PlayerOther than for work, I've been playing around with virtual machines for quite a while. I use them mainly to test out operating systems that I am interested in, notably on this blog the release candidates for the previous two Windows releases. I also use them to try software and other stuff that might be dodgy so I don't expose my 'real' computer to threats.

I've been using VMware Workstation which is VMware's flagship and somewhat-costly product for workstation testing and trialling. However, I didn't know that sometime recently that VMware opened up their free 'Player' software to include a … Read more →