And Stuff?

This ad annoys me:




And yes it is a normal ad. But that one line KILLS ME.

"And maybe do a sideshow on a TV and stuff."

And stuff?!?!

Ughh *headesk*

It surprises me that they expect everyone to ignore that fact.

It shows a high level off the i-dont-know-what-im-talking-about syndrome.
I mean I don't expect Best Buy employes to be programming in Python and Ruby on Rails.

But really?????

How To Survive A Long Car Ride The Paul Copeland Way

So here I am again.
Sitting in a car for 5 hours into Toronto.
So as I pass through London, Ontario I have found my self rather bored.

In fact, Very bored.

But I have overcame this with my own geekyness.

So here we go.

How To Survive A Long Car Ride The Paul Copeland Way:

1) Use your iPod! Music is the best way to pass time. You could listen to anything, but to express your true geekyness blast techno music. To be more precise, listen to Daft Punk. Now have a miniature rave party in your head. Also, if you have a iPhone/iTouch you can watch movies, TV, and even your favorite podcasts (TWiT *cough*). Oh and a iPhone/iTouch with a bunch of game apps is a good idea too.

2) Always have a fully charged netbook on you. Its been 3 hours in the car and my battery hasn’t even dipped below 75%. Now I don’t recommend watching movies on this because it will both kill your battery and screw with your processor, video play back will be choppy and low quality. But you also need a netbook for this next reason.

3) Set up Google Reader and switch to the built in offline mode. This will pull data from the news sources (*cough*TechCrunch, CrunchGear, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc.*cough*) and bring 2000+ blog posts to read. This will take up way more than 5 hours. Trust me. Now there is a downside, no photos. So, when they refer to a graph or something you cannot tell what there saying, but oh well. I updated Reader when we got to a Tim Horton’s so I was reading for awhile.

Using these tips will not only make you not bored, but also make you more geekier in the process.

Enjoy!

Why Steam Is On The Right Track.

Its Super Bowl Sunday.

Meh.
If you PC Game then you probley know about Steam.

Its rather hard to explain...

Think of it as a:
Game Community
Game Organizer
Game Updater
Game Thingy


The one thing I love about it is the main game page.



The games are bought per account from the direct-download based Steam Store.

I usually avoid direct-download because if your computer dies the your games go with it.
But Steam had a great idea. Your games are linked to a Steam account so what ever happens to the computer you dont lose your games.

And also because is direct-download you never have to pay for the physical cds.
Its ran by Valve. The people that brought you Half Life, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, ETC.

And its not only Valve games on it. Many PC game makers have games on there.


Now for my main point:

More content makers need to do this.

If the more expensive programs (Photoshop, Firework, Vegas, etc..) had this pirating software would be non-existent.


So dear content people. Create a service like this that keeps the files per user not per disk.

Review: HP Mini 110

So I have a new netbook and being the geek I am I have to write a review of it.
I'm cool.

The laptop has a great feel of it once you get a hang of using the touch bads with the buttons on the side.

It runs smooth and also has a REALY long battery life.

So to start off lets show the pictures straight off of flickr:



The Parts:

Processor:
Intel® Atom™ N270 1.60

Quite fast but it just sips power. Battery life is so long with one of these.

Screen:

10.1-inch Diagonal SD LED Antiglare Screen.
This thing looks great in sunlight because of the anti-glare.

RAM:

1GB

Hard Drive:

160GB Hard drive (the one I have)
Or:
60GB Solid State Drive.

ETC:

SD Card Slot
Webcam with (crappy) integrated microphone.
6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery.



Flaws:

Battery sicks out awkwardly from the bottom.
Mouse pad is in a different layout.
No obvious volume control.






The laptop overall is great. It runs smooth. Weighs 1.6 pounds. And can easily make your computing experience more portable.

So check it out when your buying your next netbook. Its very well made.

Tech in School?

So if you haven't known by now I'm a freshman. Whoo...

But the State has cut budgets to create horrible layoffs and the whole school has been suffering.

And yet the school has managed to installed projectors in every room and many rooms include the expensive smart-boards and E.L.M.O's.

Ive been in classes that has had the technology and we had never used the smart-boards and E.L.M.O's for educational purposes. We just fooled around drawing smilefaces and unicorns onto the display while the teacher wasnt there. So the (approx.)$5,000 per unit spent is wasted just so kids can fool around? Not a smart idea.

And we still are laying off teachers left and right. What gives?

We NEED teachers to teach. Its kinda there job. And no piece of technology can change that.

So dear School District, things need to change.