Got to my desk at work this morning to find a sticky from the IT helpdesk requesting not to connect my laptop to the network until they have had a chance to check it out.... I boot the laptop and check the AntiVirus software, it has current signatures so I started a scan. Then I took the laptop on a walk down to the folks who left me the note. Nobody there. I kept checking every 20-40 minutes until around 9:30ish when someone was there so I left my laptop with him and went back to my desk to sit and be useless... But left to speculate on what may be the problem and if I was going to be in some kind of trouble...
Why did the need it? They needed to check it for network performance issues so they said... The guy claimed he didn't know much else other than the machines that needed to be checked out. About an hour later I went back to see how the update was going. It was going slowly.
The end issue turned they had found durring somesort of invintory/audit process that I had some old software that needed to be updated to the newest version to fix some things and get in line with IT policy.
So now my laptop has been updated with a new software package with extra suck power so the laptop is even worse off than it was before.
It's just a little annoying. But I'm not using it to store vast amounts of anything nor doing any super heavy processing and big deal i spent money for extra ram.
My usage might be a bit diffrent in the near future as the weather improves and I become more travel prone and start taking more photos and find my self wanting a system to store/view/edit them while away. The speed increase is fairly minor. I've got systems setup at home to store the photos on for once I do get them home and off the macbook/camera/desktop....
I put my 200mm F2.8L lens on my 30D I went off to find a good spot to setup with the tripod then proceeded to take a few shots I found some parts of the moon to be far too bright. So I switched over to manual mode and started looking for a combination that didn't render the moon too bright nor too dark nor take too long to expose causing motion blur. It didn't take me too long to find F2.8 and .8 (4/5) of a second shutter speed as a winning combination...
I'm pretty happy with a lot of the shots from my DSLR from the night. But I'm the little Nikon S50 didn't do so well, every last shot from the S50 was out of focus. But you can see the glowing blurry blob that was the moon move across the sky and eventually out of frame. Which could have been awesome if it was in focus.
I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to make an attempt this morning but the weather has improved leaps and bounds. Crisp air and clear blue sky from cold, grey and smelly. Yes smelly it smelled funny outside at lunch time today.
I'm also going to make an attempt a time lapse attempt with my little Nikon S50's interval setting. Then maybe attempt to make a little video or animation out of it if it works out.
Had my physical today.
After answering a handful of various questions regarding my family health history of which I honestly don't really know much of. It isn't something that was even a remote thought to pay attention to when I was younger. I know some broad details but nothing terribly specific, I couldn't even tell you the age at which my grand parents died or where diagnosed with something. I couldn't even tell you the age of my parents. Ya, pretty sad...
There were some general fitness questions. I was encouraged to get on a year round routine rather than my present fair weather routine. This wasn't a surprise really at all. I've thought of it my self but simply lack the motivation to cope or deal with the winter months.
I've got to do a cholesterol test soonish. It's what they start doing for people at age 25 and on.
I got asked of my immunization history. Another topic I was pretty ignorant about considering my last immunization was well over 10 years ago. To make matters worse I don't even know who my old doctor was to get hold of my medical records from. Something to look into.
The doctor provided some recommendations for diet and vitamins. Stuff like fruits are good and a multivitamins are good. Which I think everyone knows. He did say vitamin D is a common deficiency in Oregonians and recommended getting a supplement or multivitamin...
In the end I was declared healthy and congratulated on healthy habits.
I was going to attempt to make this post funny. But just kind of abandoned the idea after the first few words, this could be me taking health seriously or I'm just un-funny today... not sure... Not that I'm funny often but you know... when i can...
I'm gonna go do wash my car or something...
I've been made once before for my drawer light over at instructables...
It's fun to be a geek sometimes.
How does being on a webpage count against your 15 minutes of fame? More because of the possibility of world wide exposure, or less cause its on the internet and only takes a few seconds to view? Or does it even at all cause its not about me its about a creation of mine...
The US Senate has Caved to pressure from the telecom industry. Now it's up to the House. Hopefully they do the right thing and block telecom immunity from being passed.
I was quite upset that only one of my senators did the right thing. I sent a message to the one who didn't telling him that I was disappointed.
I got a couple emails from the ultimate frisbee organizers today.
Item one, indoor soccer starting up this weekend.
Item two, frisbee could be starting up in March.
And a third item arrived in the regular mail. It's the new race season event listing...
So now I've got all kinds of motivations to be off my butt and soon. I'm very interested in doing the indoor soccer and looking forward to frisbee again and hoping to do a couple races again this summer, maybe even with some of the frisbee crew...
The main difficulty is distance. But it didn't really stop me last summer from going up nearly every weekend. Also soccer would only be for 8 weeks and it would cost $60ish bucks, so I'd feel obligated as I spent money to do it, and I would have a team team kinda deal so I wouldn't want to let any of them down.
So its been a few days of having a Macbook. So my thoughts so far.
Front row is fun...
I've never seen a machine wake up from sleep mode so quickly. You get just enough time to get your hands on the keys or trackpad before the screen comes back to life. I've had a few laptops and none came out of sleep anywhere remotely as quick. I mean its up and going like a 6 year old on Christmas morning. I wouldn't even think it was actually asleep if it wasn't for the funny quick little mechanical yawning sound from the optical drive it makes as it wakes up.
The keys feel good even if they do look a bit funny, compared to any other keyboard you may use regularly, even if it is missing a few important keys.
No insert, home, end, page up or page down keys. Some of these can be done with key combinations, others not so much, or are yet to be discovered. I use the home, end, pg down and up pretty regularly... I miss them.
No right click with out using two to three fingers*. Annoying but not the end of the world.
I found a nifty tip to fix the auto dimming display that automagicaly lowers the display brightness if you are off the keys or touch pad for 30 or so seconds, very annoying. From the terminal/console "sudo pmset -c halfdim 0" -c is for while on AC power -a is for all and -b for when on battery and -u for if your on a UPS system...
The display is bright beautiful and crisp.
Would I do it again? I think so.
*I just tried to get to the end of this line with the end key that isn't there. **
** I just tried to get to the start of that line with the home key which is also missing...
I've got checkup coming up. The doctor kind of checkup. I haven't had one since... since.... well its been a long long while. I'm certainly not dreading but I'm not expecting great news. I've been on my butt more the last 6 or so months getting further and further away from anything resembling fit. Which I can say I was much much closer to about 6 to 7 months ago. So I'm expecting highish blood pressure and heart rate, and maybe even perhaps a bit too much body fat too...
My energy has been steadily declining for a few months now as I continue to not do anything about my fitness. I can make excuses 'til the cows come home. Fact of the matter is my dislike for the cold and wet outweighs my desire to run or be outside, which doesn't say much for my self discipline.
I do plan on doing more in the coming months as it warms up and stays lighter longer. However that isn't going to help with the checkup...
So one of my friends has been razzing me a little bit about getting a mac book. I expected to get some of this, especially from this friend. Fact of the matter is I know he isn't entirely serious it's just not something he would choose for his own personal reasons.
I chose it for my own reasons. Not because I think it's vastly superior to others, they simply are diffrent it is a matter of taste really. Not because its trendy or hip/popular, I'm not gonna go get glasses I don't need and a some turtle necks and start drinking weird coffee drinks that I am unable to pronounce and hanging out in starbucks. Not because they look better, prior to deciding on the macbook I was looking at IBM thinkpads, which I have much respect and admiration for as they are very well built and usually preform well, but they are far from being prettiest.
I wanted a change. I've been using windows some version or another for what seems like a hundred years now. I've been using and learning linux for the better part of 10 years now. It is time for me do to something a bit diffrent. Something that isn't either one of these. I've got my bash shell for geeking out and doing fun/weird things, I've also got an accelerated elegant graphical interface. Yes I could have these things with linux or windows to some degree, but I don't want to upgrade every three to six months to get the latest packages to work or to have to compile drivers to make acceleration work only to have to recompile or reinstall them after a kernel update a week later, and I don't want to go near vista.
OS X, Windows, Linux all have their strengths and weaknesses but fact of the matter is you can do everything you want on any one of them with the right programs, applications and knowledge. When all else fails you can always use something like VMware or Wine or cygwin to run what needs to be run to get the job done.
I will continue to use linux on my servers, and keep using Windows on my desktop at home. I am going to learn and try something new with my new laptop. So I'm not really switching as much as I am expanding my knowledge and satisfying curiositys.
I got a macbook yesterday. I didn't spring for the pro but it's got plenty of bells of whistles for me. I did opt for two gigs of ram rather than just one. I think I will get vmware fusion later on so I can run windows apps as needed. I don't think I will be needing boot camp to dual boot, considering the way I use a computer and things I will do.
I think I've wanted an apple laptop for something like 5 years now. I've admired OS X from afar closer to 8 years.
I'm still moving in so to speak, getting stuff installed and configured.