Google would do a better job of describing it than I can.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s kind of a pain if you don’t have a data plan though. There are two ways to call and txt people from your phone using google voice. You can use their web interface to do it, or you can use the 406 area code number that google associates with your contacts. It’s pretty amazing. Google owns most if not all 406 area code numbers, and when someone txts your google voice number, it forwards it to your phone from one of the 406 numbers. Then if you call that number or txt them back, google will recognize that it’s being placed from a number linked up with a google voice account. Then it will figure out who it should forward the call to depending on who’s account is calling that number.

Anyway, it’s like an automated call transfer center, and from my experience so far there’s no lag or anything. The only problem is that you can’t figure out what the 406 number for your contact is unless they txt you first. This way there’s pretty much no way to initiate a conversation using google voice if you don’t have an internet connection and the person you’re trying to call/txt hasn’t txted you before. Some sort of 406 area code number look up would be nice, Google.

But still, really. You’re all mad geniuses. Keep up the good* work!
(*amazing)

I’m using winterboard with supreme preferences, weathericon, the illumine theme and five icon dock. I think it’s pretty slick.

Ps. 66° F in July? Really?

So yeah, I’m still embracing my huge nerdness.

Yep.  Then I saw this one.

I’m not sure if I was given enough facts to vote as a responsible and informed citizen.

Looks like it’s back to Ubuntu on my laptop…

EDIT: After some poking around, it looks like it was one of my sticks of RAM. I managed to find a new stick of 1GB PC 3200 for $4.04. Nice.

I did have a plan to update the site’s design and to write some code, but it just never came about.

Not the end of the world by anybody’s standard, but slightly dissapointing to me.

Good news is that I’m taking a few courses next semester that will at least give me something to write about here. Might even give me an opportunity to do some work on the site.

This isn’t the end of Ol’ Bennie Boy. Not by a long shot.

Don’t turn off your power supply.  Apparently odds are good that it will never turn back on.  I learned this the hard way.  I actually don’t know what I’m going to do about this.

In other news, Trent Reznor released another album.  For free.  That’s right. Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV, and now The Slip in just over a year.  Check it out here.  It’s completely free so why the heck not?

So far, I’m enjoying it.  Some of it sounds like b-sides from With Teeth and Year Zero, but overall I’d say it’s pretty solid.  Of course I’m going to say that though.  I’m a huge fan.  My favorite track so far is Lights in the Sky, and since the album was released for free, and is licensed under “a creative commons attribution-noncommercial share alike license,” I uploaded it along with five others  You can check out Lights in the Sky, Carona Radiata, Head Down, 1,000,000, Letting You, and Discipline real quick if you want.

So let me know what you think, loyal readers.  And stay tuned for some stuff that may or may not be interesting to you over this summer break!

EDIT:  My exam was actually at 11:45.  I’m just real stupid.

Oh well, it’s just an mp3 player I guess.

I found this avatar on the Something Awful Forums today.  As it turns out, my friend does this with her face for at least 90% of the time I’m around her.  I guess she’s not alone.

I’m going to get this out of the way.  I’m a CS major.  I enjoy messing around with computers.  It’s what I do.  I heard that there was a new beta for a popular version of Linux called Ubuntu, or “Your Bum Tube.”  Ubuntu is really great because they give you the option to try it without actully installing it on your computer, or you could install it like any other program in Windows.

In my case, I was really tired of my fresh install of Windows XP taking 5 minutes to do anything after I log on, so I opted to do a complete install and throw XP out the window.  Ok.  That was a really bad play on words, and I apologise.  Anyway, I actually installed it on battery power in under an hour.  It’s probably not recommended, but it worked.  I can say that I did it in the name of science!

I had fiddled around with Ubuntu 7.10 a little but there were a few things that didn’t jive with me.  It was mainly the wonkey video and touchpad support.  But this 8.04 beta is much more polished.  I was able to get DVDs and set up my touchpad to my liking from the get go.

Another cool thing about Ubuntu is its many flavors.  I realized my laptop is old.  Really old.  There’s an edition of Ubuntu for that!

“Xubuntu uses the Xfsc desktop environment, meaning that it will run fast while still delivering a user-friendly interface. Older computers feel lively again, while newer ones will run faster than ever before!”

It’s not as polished as regular Ubuntu, but after a few hours of fiddling, I was able to get it to pretty much exactly how I wanted.  It runs like a charm, the only problem I’ve had is that it hangs up sometimes when you try to log off or shut down.  I can write this off to the whole beta thing.  There’s support for pretty much every program that I use on my laptop, and it’s free!  Perfect right?  For me at least.

Linux really isn’t for everyone though.  If you’re not really all that computer literate, or if you’re not willing to spend a little time fiddling with things, you’re definitely better off with whatever Windows version is out there.  There are definite compatability problems with some hardware, and it simply doesn’t have the same gaming capabilities that Windows has.  As with anything, there a pros and cons.

On to the pictures!