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Saturday,
June 30, 2007
Dawn
of iPhone
The
iPhone debuted yesterday at 6 p.m., and no, I did not get one for myself.
I have neither the money nor the need for something like that. But that
won't stop me from drooling over it once one finds its way into my hands.
First impressions are at www.macrumors.com
as well as a handful of other places. Here is PCWorld's iPhone
stress test video. Have fun!
Also,
the preliminary schedule for UCLA bball next
year is up! Check the link on the site header. No times yet though.
Saturday,
June 9, 2007
And
so, it begins. Or rather, ends. Well, something's beginning,
anyway. Fourth year in college has concluded. Most would be graduating
at this point, but I'm going for the five year plan (not Stalin's; I've
got my own). So I'll be back next year. No sappy end-of-an-era thoughts,
no grand ceremonies or celebrations, because none of it applies to me.
What does apply to me? Ahh, plenty.
It
has been eight months since my last update, and as you can see, it coicided
exactly with the beginning of this school year. I guess I've been a
little too busy to update. There is so much to catch up on, and I don't
know if I can get to everything. But I'll try.
<----NEW
POLL ADDED!!! Check out the frame to the left.
First,
the UCLA stuff:
- Football ended up 8-5 last year, losing to FSU in
the crap bowl. Luckily, this year will not be remembered for that, but
rather for stifling
our cross-town rivals SUC 13-9 in a defensive battle. New Bruin
hero Eric "McPick" McNeal will forever go down in history
as in the elite group of "Trojan Killers."
- Speaking of Trojan Killers, Arron Afflalo has cemented
himself on the roster as well, draining the game-winning jumper to beat
SUC basketball 65-64 at the Galen Center (AKA Pauley Pavilion South)
- Honorary Trojan Killer, sophomore Cliff Galiher won
the 2007 Jeopardy! College Championship right under SUC's noses - it
took place at the Galen Center as well. He beat out contestants from
schools around the country, including SUC. Way to go, Cliff!
- UCLA is the first school to reach 100 NCAA team championships!
Stanford is distantly in 2nd with 93. Congratuations to our athletic
department, our Bruin family, and the women's water polo team, whose
third straight title forever put us in the history books for this milestone.
- UCLA Baseball is moving along, and will play perennial
powerhouse Cal State Fullerton in the college playoff Super Regionals
tonight at 4 p.m.
- Basketball finished another impressive season with
a record of 30-5 and getting to back-to-back Final Fours! This has helped
recruiting tremendously...
- And finally, before the end of summer, football season
begins. Many feel that this is the year that Karl Dorrell must put up
or shut up (or rather, get out).
Speaking
of summer... yeah, that's something that's beginning.
Anyway...
Quick
Apple update:
- The much-anticipated iPhone now has an official release
date: June 29th, 2007. Yeah, I'm drooling over it too, but all I can
do is hope that someone I know gets one. Because I'm not getting one
anytime soon.
- Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) is
coming back, and will be held at its usual location, San Francisco's
Moscone Center from June 11-15 (starting this Monday).
Now
for the miscellaneous stuff:
- Babylon 5 returns!!! I'm anticipating this more highly
than any summer movie. Babylon 5: The Lost Tales - episode 1: Voices
in the Dark is a direct-to-DVD movie that takes place 10 years after
the events of Emmy Award winning TV show Babylon 5. See the links
section for more info and set your countdown widget to July 31,
2007.
- Battlestar Galactica is coming to an end after four
seasons. I guess they're trying to go out on a high note. So say we
all...
- Paris Hilton goes to jail. 'nuff said.
Site
update stuff:
- Updated the links section. Added icanhascheezburger.com,
am570radio.com and deleted, and rearranged some stuff.
- Don't forget: I have a scarcely-used guestbook
and forum.
They're here for you to use.
- Slight color changes. You may or may not notice.
Sunday,
October 8, 2006
Year
four of college (I mean university, to those who are not from here)
has begun, and I just settled into my new apartment. As this is not
exactly a personal blog, I will stop there.
UCLA
Football is off to a 4-1 start, after having defeated the craptacular
Arizona Wildcats yesterday. Basketball is just around the corner, with
the exhibition game against Cal Poly Pomona just 25 days away. I'm frakkin'
fired up for that.
Speaking
of frak, Battlestar Galactica's third season premiered this past Friday
night. Boy, was I blown away. I knew the writers were capable of pushing
the limits of drama and character and story writing, but I didn't think
they would go this far. You'll have to see it to know what I mean. If
you haven't seen the show at all, it's about time you started watching.
SciFi.com has a nice featurette on The
Story So Far, along with some webisodes that lead directly into
3x01.
The
new basketball schedule will be up soon.
Monday,
July 3, 2006
Just
replaced my old clunky 19" CRT with a brand new 20.1" LCD!
Here are the pictures:
Up
close | Three-quarter view | Portrait
Mode | Portrait Mode again
This
is a Samsung 204B. I'll post more impressions later if I feel like it.
By
the way, the 19" CRT is for sale. Let me know if you're looking
to buy a large monitor with great picture quality.
Wednesday,
June 21, 2006
Just
posting the link to UCLA's
2006-2007 basketball schedule.
Friday,
June 16, 2006
School's
out, summer's here, etc. etc. etc. The work continues, though, with..
uh, work, and summer school. But it'll be different - living at home
again, and doing lots of driving. Sounds like last summer.
We didn't get to 100 (see May 26th entry), but
it's only a matter of time. There's still next year. Hopefully it'll
be another great one all around.
Bill
Gates has been talking recently about taking a more diminished role
in the day-to-day operations at Microsoft. I don't know the details,
but I'll be interested to see the impact that has on how the company
operates. A different attitude, perhaps? Maybe a new mentality toward
business. Or a new name for Vista.
Well,
since summer's here, I will have a little extra time to spend catching
up on my shows. Here's my progress so far:
-Battlestar
Galactica: 2x02
-24: 3x01
-Lost: 2x09
-Stargate SG-1: 1x01 (Never gonna finish this one...)
-The Dead Zone: 4x05
-X-Men (yes, that kid's cartoon): 2x09
Movies
that have been released that I supposedly have to see (in no particular
order):
-Underworld
and Underworld Evolution
-Almost Famous
-Syriana
-Kingdom of Heaven
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
-Sin City (almost halfway done; it's not very palatable)
-War of the Worlds
A
big "thank you" to everyone who voted in my poll. I don't
reach a large enough audience for it to be a real sample space representive
of any particular population, but it was interesting to see what people
thought. Here are the results:
The
Playstation 3 was, understandably, the most popular one; it follows
right on the heels of the ultra-popular PS2. I wonder if these people
knew that it's going to cost $500-$600. The XBox 360 was the least popular
system. I am actually somewhat surprised at this result, because I would
think that many would have jumped on the new system right away. The
Nintendo Wii is quite possibly the stupidest name for a console, EVER.
It came in second in the voting, with twice as many votes as the 360,
but less than half of the Playstation's votes.
Right
now, as well as during the time of voting, only the 360 is being sold.
When the PS3 and Wii are released, I believe that sales figures will
not be reflected in the results of this poll. Of consumers buying only
one console or computer, I doubt 63% (I did the math, and that's what
it is if you don't count the "None of the above"s or the Intel
Mac) would be buying the PS3. Loyal fanbase, yes, but the Wii's enticing
pricetag of no greater than $250 will help boost Nintendo's
sales over Sony's significantly. I might end up getting a PS3 eventually,
though. Only time will tell. Of course, the XBox 360.. well, I can't
really comment on its current state. The competition's coming, though.
Check back later for another, totally unrelated poll.
I
think I should add more pictures. It makes the site look better. But
what to use? Let me know in the forums.
Friday,
May 26, 2006
Jamba
Juice for president! Okay, now that didn't make any sense whatsoever.
So today, I sucked it up and waited in that dreadful line to buy a Mango-a-go-go
from said establishment. It didn't seem as dreadful this time, however,
since I wasn't really in a hurry to get anywhere. Service was great,
and the smoothie was well-blended. Smooth - that's how I like it. Incidentally,
I walked by Tropix today, as well, and a new sign said that they were
opening up some health foods store in its place. Good for them.
The
University of Champions in Los Angeles continues to succeed athletically,
having won the men's volleyball championship a couple weeks ago, and
the women's water polo championship as well. So.. we're
on our way to 100! Will it be #1 ranked softball? Baseball? Tennis?
Golf? We'll be keeping close tabs on this.
Oh
hey, here's another neat thing about the Mac. Presenting: the Smacbook
Pro! Basically, the hard drive has a "sudden motion sensor"
to protect against data loss if the computer is bumped too hard, or
dropped. Someone has developed a way to utilize the SMS to change programs,
and even operating systems. So you give your computer a little tap,
and it'll switch to whatever you've set it to switch to. Click the link
and watch the video for more information.
Went
to the midnight showing of X-Men: The Last Stand. Without giving it
away, I'll say that it was amazing. There are lots of surprises, and
tons of treats for fans of the comic series and casual moviegoers alike.
We got a look at the Danger Room. We get to see more of Colossus. He
doesn't seem to be Russian, but he's still really cool. Go see it now.
Friday,
May 19, 2006
Jack
Bauer for President! I know, that's Dennis "Hayes-bear" Haysbert's
job, but I heard someone say that last week. About a week ago, I went
on a "24" viewing spree, watching about six episodes in a
night to finish off Season 2. I haven't done that since two years ago,
when I rediscovered Deep Space Nine for the first time (Shut up, that
made perfect sense). DS9, of course, is still way better than 24, but
I have to say... while we're in the 21st century, "Jack Bauer for
president!"
Okay,
enough silliness. As you should probably know by now, I'm a student
at UCLA. And UCLA has tons of perks for its students - best public university
in America, great diversity among the population, #1 athletics programs,
etc. etc. etc. I'm not bragging; just saying I'm very lucky. But it
was missing one thing... Jamba Juice! That is, until now. For years,
we've had this place called "Tropix," which satisfied my periodic
urges for smoothies. It filled its role quite nicely, but it wasn't
the same. When I'd heard they were building a Jamba Juice on campus,
I was overcome with happiness... until I realized that it was silly
to be so happy about a smoothie place. Well, actually, it's not. Jamba
Juice rocks, and if you disagree, well, shut up and go buy a Jamba Juice.
The
other day, one day after the grand opening of Ackerman Union's Jamba
Juice (which has replaced, or rather displaced, the arcade) I began
to wonder how the competition brought upon by Jamba Juice's arrival
was affecting Tropix's business. So I stopped by the ol' smoothie place,
and was met by an empty stall and a single sign saying something like
"Tropix is now closed. Thank you for your continued support all
these years. Go buy a Jamba Juice." Well, okay. Goodbye, Passionfruit
Mist, hello again, Mango-a-go-go.
Apple
released the new Macbooks.
These are not to be confused with the Macbook Pros that they released
a couple months ago. Gone are the awesomely-named iBooks and PowerBooks.
The iBooks, which were the low-consumer-end line, have been replaced
by the Macbooks, and the PowerBooks, professional level laptops, have
been replaced with Macbook Pros. Okay, so I've actually gotten used
to the new names... and the use of Intel chips in our Macs, but there's
still the issue of differentiation. There's a lot of room for error
where someone might mistakenly say "Macbook" when they mean
to say "Macbook Pro" and vice versa. Oh well... nothing I
can do about that.
And
once again, I've said very little using very many words. So I'll be
off... for now.
Monday,
April 24, 2006
So
much to talk about, so little time, and so little room. It's been 22
days since that fateful night at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, where
our team's season was cut one win short of the national championship.
I was going to write something about that early on, but each time I
tried, I decided I didn't feel like it. And now I still don't feel like
it. Maybe next time.
Anyway,
to take a little break from bball, there's some other news to announce.
Today,
Apple announced the release of its new 17-inch Macbook Pro to complement
the 15" model released a while back. Those who actually care about
the new specs can go to Apple's MacBook
Pro page. Now, if only they were free...
In
related news, two huge programs have been released this past month that
have the potential to significantly rearrange the face of computing.
Note that I say "have the potential," because only time will
tell exactly what kind of impact they have. Oh, I haven't even said
what they are.
Apple
Boot Camp: This program is in Beta, which means it's not a final
product, and they still have some bugs to work out and features to complete.
It allows Intel Macs to run Windows alongside the Mac OS in a process
called "Dual Booting." This means that a user can choose what
operating system to use, restart the computer, and, viola, they're in
it. Now, as you know, I'm an avid Mac fan, and so you may be wondering
why I am excited about this. Why would I want to sully the good machine
by putting that other operating system on it? For me personally,
I would use it for all those niche programs that there aren't Mac counterparts
for, as well as some games that don't get ported to the Mac.
Apple's
reasoning? Apple's not here to sell or promote Windows. I can tell you
that. Not now, not ever, even though this action on their part can be
misconstrued as such. Instead, they made the move in order to lower
barriers to switching. Hundreds of thousands of Windows users use PCs
for simple things like browsing, word processing, Internet, and the
like. Most of them are satisfied, despite the problems they encounter
everyday. To be honest, a truly savvy PC user is generally able to cope
with and avoid the problems that plague Windows PCs. But not even close
to half the population is that savvy, and unless they really have a
thing for Windows, they need to be using a Mac. Hands down.
And
many of these people have Mac friends, or have seen advertisements for
Macs, and they consider switching because they hear it's better on this
side. There isn't much that a PC can do that a Mac can't do, but for
everything else, there's Boot Camp. Maybe it's a little tool or an accounting
program. Maybe it's a utility for converting strange audio formats.
A little restart can take the user back into Windows for a little tooling,
and then another restart will bring them back to their glorious new
Mac OS. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The
second program I mentioned is Parallels
Workstation. It uses technology called "Virtualization."
This may get confusing, so for the faint of heart, you may want to brace
yourself, or skip this fascinating blue-colored section. Some may have
heard of "Virtual PC" in the past. This is a program for Mac
users (The Windows version does something completely different, so I'm
not going to go over it here) that emulates a Windows
PC. This is basically a simulation, in which the software (the actual
program) pretends to be the hardware of an actual PC. Since it's not
the real thing, it does the job very, very slowly. The innards of Macs
and PCs were so different that this was the best solution we had.
This
new idea, "virtualization," has come about alongside the switch
to Intel chips, which I highlighted a few months back. Basically, now
that the new Macs run on Intel chips, the innards of Macs and PCs are
very much the same, so that the reason that Boot Camp lets you boot
Windows is the same as why Parallels Workstation lets you run Windows,
albeit slightly differently. Users might be able to relate to Boot Camp
more, because a straight restart is simple and more familiar. Parallels
is similar to Virtual PC in that it's just a program that runs on the
Mac OS, just like other programs: Word, iTunes, etc. But instead of
emulating Windows like VPC, Parallels Workstation is actually running
Windows on top of the Mac OS - at the same time. The difference
is speed. The nice thing about Virtual PC is the ability to run them
side by side, which is helpful in many ways but I will not get into
them right now. The key here is speed. Parallels Workstation gives us
the speed of a true PC (which you get with Boot Camp) and the functionality
of Virtual PC.
Did
I lose you back there? You didn't understand that? I hope you're not
a big computer enthusiast. Here's something everyone will understand.
Here, a Die-hard
Windows user criticizes Microsoft on their treatment of their still
upcoming new operating system, Windows Vista.
More
later, if I'm lucky.
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