Paul Copeland's Blog

Children of the Internet.

2010-06-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

Good morning people. Due to my inability to sleep tonight I decided to write a post for you guys.

I was born in November 1995.
The Internet was created many years before that.

You see I dont know a world without the ablitity to access information when ever I want.
I don't even remember much when I had dial-up.
Ive spent thousands of hours in front of machines with flashing LEDs and CRT/LCD screens.
Ive seen the creation and uses of Web 2.0. Ive seen the start of YouTube, Flickr, and heck, even Blogger.

Ive always wanted to learn and share opinions with other people. Its accualy a big part of my life. I spend hours creating youtube videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/smellsliketech) and I love it when I talk to my veiwers.

Alot of people quote me when I say this:
I learn more from the Internet then I ever did in school.

And is that a bad thing?
Heck no.

People are normally scared of the things they dont know about. And alot of people dont even want to get started with the Internet because they are to scared to open the door or travel farther in than they have.

I think the sharing of information is one of the scariest.
Using sites like Twitter and Foursquare really tells people what you are doing and where you are. And people ask the question "Who cares?"

You would be suprised.

And for the people that say they don't want to join Twitter because its a "stalker site" you are wrong. Dont judge a book by its cover.

I find the media tends to make the Internet look like a scary place and make it say its unsafe. The internet is acualy one heck of a safe place if you use it wisely.

Know when your in trouble.
Know when your getting scammed.
Know when your getting phished.

The Internet connect people to others and creates the perfect canvas for transmitting Ideas.

Don't be scared. Its a great tool.

Be safe guys,
Paul Copeland
@Paul_Copeland

"Tech Guys"

2010-05-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'd be the first to admit.
Fixing computers is hard. Very hard to be exact. Many things can go wrong and a common way to fix the computer is to buy a whole one entirely.

But you can basically classify the problem to a certain part.

If your brakes are not working in your car you look at the brake systems. Right?

Well thats not what happened to my mother.
She owns a HP Pavilion dv6000. Her network card seemed to had been malfunctioning.

She brought it into [Computer Store] and they looked at it.
There diagnosis?
More RAM and a virus checkup.

Totaling over $200.
Yeah.

Scam much?
Using the idea that viruses are out to eat your living soul and cause your name to be changed to Reggie they feed upon the novice minds of there customers and make them pay overpriced parts that they don't need.

That needs to change.

She complained to me the next day that it was still not working. I did an easy google search to find out that Pavilions with AMD possessors have an overheating problem that causes the motherboard to fail. Basically saying that with in the next months she needs a new computer.

How the heck is RAM supposed to fix that?

[+1 if you found the Weird Al reference]

iPhone 4.0 Opinions

2010-04-08T23:26:00.000-07:00

Hello Internet.

Its late at night, I cannot sleep. But that’s nothing new.

We know about the iPad, you may know that I dislike it, but things are calming down.
Thank god.

Today was the announcement of iPhone 4.0, with 1,500 new APIs for Devs, 100 new user features, and the important “7 Tentpole Features”

They are:

Multitasking:
AMAZING. Most smart-phones have it already but they just drain the battery life and clog processor speed. Apple seems to find away around this. And it looks great with the beauty of the O.S. it self. This is exactly what iPhone needed to keep itself cutting edge. The streaming audio and VOIP look and sound great. Background location doesn’t make much sense because they were talking about triangulating your location with cell towers, but cell towers are not accurate. Push/local updates haven’t changed much. Apps swich rather fast so this looks great.

Folders:
Organizing apps is important. If you saw my app screens you would realize that I never clean them. This automatically names the folder and keeps the screen nice and neat.

Mail:
Not much changed here. Unified inbox is nice. Fast inbox switching is nice, but most of the things he said doesn’t change much.

iBooks:
Interesting. But I don’t think I want to be reading a book on a really small screen.

Enterprise:
Data protection is ok, MDM is nice, Wireless App Distribution is good, nothing real special.

Game Center:
Basically a big Xbox Live, or if your me Steam. Just making the gaming social.

iAd:
Oh great. If apps needed advertising they could make it themselves. I don’t want my small iPhone screen taken up by HTML apps, poping up when I don’t want them too. This really bugs me, it might not to you, but this could really get out of hand. The big free apps will just say “Why not?” and put them on the apps. This will cause problems.

Overall:
Meh…
There is one good point and one bad point. I don’t know where this will go. But we will find out in June.

By the way:

Check out my newest video.
iPad From The Teenager View.

Teenagers will do what they do.

2010-03-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Anyone tried FormSpring.me?

Yes? No?

Basically its a website were you can put questions to ask people.

But this plan went horribley wrong when teenagers came in.

Lets break off for a sec.

High schoolers are rather dumb. They hate on other people to make themselfs feel higher. But it never really works...

When you can put this online and direct them towards someone anonymously it leads to failure.

I have friends whos formsprings a full of words I would never post on the internet let alone say it to someones face.

Mine is clean because I luckily don't have too many enemies. But some of these are harsh.

If you wouldnt say it to there face in person, don't say it on the internet.

P.S. I'm Not discouraging the use of Formspring.me, It has alot of potential when used correctly.

You can find my formspring here: http://www.formspring.me/websurfer

Uhhh Apple? You missed some.

2010-03-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

Sick today. Whooo!

So if you may not have known Apple removed all of the "sex related" apps from the App Store.

But apparently this are not sex related?

So of course Apple saw these and for some reason thought them to be suitable.

I don't realy see why Apple said these were fine. Some apps were worse than that and I completly understand why Apple removed them. There was way too many and it was out of control. Every other app on the top downloaded was one of them, only to continue to be bumped up by 10 year olds with iTouches.

The aproval prosses if stupid in the first place. But I did like of this new rule. Anyone else agree?

And Stuff?

2010-02-25T17:22:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-13T05:35:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-02-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

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?

2010-02-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Why NOT to hate the iPad. And why TO.

2010-01-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

So you've may noticed I do not like the iPad.
But there is some quality's that people would like but do not apply to me as a tech savoy teenager.

For people who don't have a iPhone this might make sense. Though being way to large it can run all the apps that a iTouch has and a few the iPhone can run. A large chunk of people would only use the Mail, Internet, and Game apps that are avalible.

Now this therory (is that what you would call it?) makes sense it forgets a large part of using a computer.

Flash

The iPad would have made an exelent communitcation device IF it had a front-facing webcam.
If AT&T did not want to have the network load of people video chatting then they could talk to there Oh-So-Good friends at Apple to block that in the app store. Though I'm sure that someone would jailbreak it to be able to video chat.

The iPad would make a great tool for people who do not use computers often
(Grandparents, The Amish, and that teacher in 5th grade who thought they were the devil...) but it is still to restricted to let people do exactly what we are looking for.

2 posts in 2 days.

2010-01-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

"Dear Microsoft,

You suck."

I see people say this all the time.
Mostly this is true.

But Microsoft will just sit there and twiddle there thumbs.
Why?
Because think about there market share.

96.1%,.
Heck. That's almost a monopoly.

If a bunch of people from the tech field that understand whats happening says that they disagree with Vista or Windows 7 the average consumer will not care. PCs are cheaper. Macs are overly expensive.

Microsoft will sit on its throne as King while watching Apple attempt to steal the its power.

And while this is VERY stupid and morally wrong I'm almost fine with it.

In fact I bought another PC today. A netbook. A HP Mini 110.

And if Apple wants to stay on it game then it needs to create a netbook.

Not an over-sized iTouch.

A cheap ($500-$600) netbook running OSX that has the beauty of a Apple made product.
I do like apple.
The choose style over price.

But only %3.9 of the consumers want that.

And Apple needs to understand this.

I am disappointed with apple.

2010-01-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

Realy Apple?
Realy?
The iPad is going to flop.
And to find out why we turn to Hitler...

So what exactly does Hitler have against the iPad?

“The iPad won’t support multitasking”

“They didn’t give it a camera, fine. But it’s on AT&T! How am I supposed to use their crappy network?”

“eBooks? If I wanted eBooks, I’d buy a Kindle.”

“It could have single-handedly destroyed netbooks. But what do we get instead? An oversized iPod Touch!”

“It can’t even make phone calls!”

“I wanted to watch videos of lolcats while laying on the couch. But no, they won’t even give it flash support.”

And all these are right. I spent five hours yesterday taking notes about the device. (yeah I'm that lame)

The iPad will fail like the MacBook Air did.

is in Montreal

2009-12-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

Hey.
Yo.
Sup.

It's 7:40 in the morning and what am I doing?

Writing a blog post. Ohhh I'm so cool.

Well this blog is almost to 200 veiwers... Awesome.

So before my trip here I Accualy loved AT&T. My service was great and the 3g was fast...
But roaming is the worst!

Fifteen bucks per megabits????????

Realy At&t? Realy?

Anyways... I just changed my Twitter username. You can find me at:
@Paul_Copeland

I also have a Posterous: websurfer1232.Posterous.com
flickr: flickr.com/photos/ websurfer1232

Feel free to comment :D

is an iphone addict

2009-12-15T15:59:00.000-08:00

AGHH!!! I haven't made a blog post in a month. Sorry....

But I am in love with the phone. It has exactly what I need and is very high quality.
I actually got this the day AFTER the DROID came out but I don't think I would want it. The 20,000 apps don't even compare to the 100,000

One problem.
Next week I'm heading to Montreal.

And one problem.

ROAMING

Ugh.

So that means a whole lot of setting I need to change OR I switch SIM cards...

Besides that the IPhone is a great buy for your "residential tech support".

is a proud iPhone user

2009-11-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

Hey.

Read the title?
That's right.
I now own A iPhone 3gs :D

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! :DDD
so I've had it for over 24 hours so I feel like it's my job to rate it

9.95/10
the only downside it batterylife but I've been on it non stop.
Infact.....
I'm on it now.
yeah I'm writing this on the iphone.

Ok i'm going to go because my fingers kill... But expect more tomorow.
I'll write while on the bus.

is skypeing

2009-10-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Its 9:38 on Sautrday October 31.

And I'm sitting infront my computer eating fruit snakes.

IM THAT COOL.

That is all.

is rethinking blogging

2009-10-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

So I was clearing my youtube subscription box and one of Chris Prillo's (@chrispirillo) videos and I came across a video with Micah Baldwin

He was talking to blog for no profit.
Why blog for no profit? Because your blogging for the fun of blogging. Its much better to read than paid blogs.

The video:

I abosulty loved his 3 rules to blogging.

1. Write like no ones reading.

2.Write when you want to write.

3. The moment you think "that would make a good blog post" is when your a blogger.

And this is COMPLELTY TRUE.

Funny thing is I write that way anyway.
I cant expect to have 1000s of people read my blog. More like 5...
And 4 of them are me...

Hey 1 person.

But when you write like this you write the truth in your mind.

#2

Agreed. This blog isnt updated on fridays. everyother day. Or every 3rd birthday of my cosin.

Blogging doesnt work like that.
It never will.
You end up just writing crap (because my blog ISNT crap... eh....) and waste your time.

I swear #3 happens to me all the time. I just cant get around to it.. >.<
The same thing happens to my vlogs (insert self promotion here: http://www.youtube.com/user/websurfer1232). I always forget to upload... So I have like 40 videos sitting on my computer fully published just wasting up space...

Ehhh...

(Oh P.S. if you type #1 douchebag on google you get that same guy. Internet influence people, Internet influence)

is having two blogs now

2009-10-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

I now own 2 blogs.
Websurfer1232 for personal stuff
Smells Like Technology for um... Tech stuff.

Why?
Because people dont care about my personal life if there just there for tech stuff.
And people that are coming for personal stuff dont care about tech

Heres the link to the new site:

http://smellsliketechnology.blogspot.com/

cannot type a good essay for the life of me

2009-10-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Whoa. Sorry I left you guys. But i realy hate high school.

To make it up to you I'll show you one of my marketing papers.

Here you go:

And heres the link for the High res photo:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2585/3984502807_62ef03eece_b.jpg

Good thing this paper was based on a presetation insted of the paper itself... >.< If you want to know what I actually look like (stalkers...) you can find me on DailyBooth:

http://dailybooth.com/websurfer1232

is a freshman, yay...

2009-09-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

Wow. I havent made a blog post in forever....

Yay for being freshman....

So bing...

Bing, bing, bing....

Is it good?

Its fine. Better than google... But what is google going to do? I know that they dont rely on searching for money and there coming out with a new name but still.

I'm still using google. Mainly because of stubbornness but hey. That's pretty much me.

is rethinking all of the emotions he felt this summer

2009-09-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

*warning: personal blog*

If my life was said in Boy/Girl form it would go like this:

Meet boy.
Meet girl.
Boy meets girl.
Boy likes girl.
Girl does not like boy but does not want to hurt his feelings.
Boy askes girl out and girl says yes because she doesnt want to be mean...

Girl dumps boy.
Boy gets mad.
Boys says stupid stuff thinking it would just make the sutuation better.
Boy is stupid himself.

Boy comes back to girl.
Boy finaly relizes that he still likes girl.

Girl goes off to another school.

Boy is sad.
Boy keeps in touch with girl over text.

Girl flirts with boy.
Boy thinks girl likes him.
Girl doesnt.

Boy spend whole summer thinking that one day she would like him enough to say yes when he askes her out.

Boy is wrong.

Girl finaly tells Girl's Friend to tell boy that girl does not like him.

Boy is sad.

FML.

is wanting the things to be the way they were...

2009-09-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

I have a dailybooth! http://dailybooth.com/websurfer1232

__________________________________________

This is the point in a blog I'm thinking: Personal Blog or Tech Blog...

A little of both shall we?

Tech Blog:

I thought Snow Leopard was going to be cool...
I thought Snow Leopard was going to an awesome upgrade. (not new OS)
I thought Snow Leopard would be worth 30 bucks.
I thought wrong.

Turns out Snow Leopard is basically a service pack at heart. Last time I checked; I dont pay money to microsoft for them... Why apple?

Personaly; I dont need to make the desktop icons 512 pixels. sorry.

Dont buy it yet....

Personal Blog:

I just wish i wasn't such a screw up...

Im a freak at heart. I overthink. I overreact. I overmessup.

End of personal blog....

is breaking everything he touches

2009-08-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

BLAHHHHH.

Im usualy good at electronics.

No. Im Great.

Epic?

The best?

Hmmm...

But anyways I broke my headphones. Leaving the rest dug into the meadphone and microphone jack BUILT IN to my computer.

So how does one take it out?

(the first thing my brain thought of was grab a magnet. i fail)

No idea.

*switching subject*

So today was high school orientation....

I am now officially a freshman *insert mediocre yay here*

So its me, plus 250+ people sitting in the auditorium. Me sitting by my self (what did i say. my life sucks)

And I relised I have had no human interation with in the last 3 months exept with family, alex, and some girl in austrailia in witch we discussed customs. I know. Cool right?

*sigh* I fail.

is in the car

2009-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

So right now I'm sitting in the car, we dropped my sister off at collage. but once again I was thinking (shocker! i know). The Palm Pre was being tinkered (coolest word ever) with by a hacker and he found something interesting. The phone was sending packet of information to palm every night.

What was in those packets?

GPS info telling Palm every were you went every 15 minutes...

Now I know the cellphone companies can see that but it is used with the police and it is only accurate to 1000 feet.

Why send it to the manufacturer? What do they do with it?

Now I have nothing to hide but thats just crazy.

I'll stick to my LG Shine.
And my dreams of an IPhone.

Edit: Those dreams have came true. Now go read some of the newer posts.

is laughing at cheese snacks

2009-08-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

Cheddar Ducks = GoldFish

is thinking of that sugar cookie I had this morning...

2009-08-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

What can I say? It was good.

Anyways...

I was looking at fridges at sears (PAUL WAS OUT OF THE HOUSE???) and the sales lady was running around trying to get us to get the most expencive fridge.

The difference from the one we liked and the one she was pushing us toward was LED lighting.

Price difference? 300 Bucks.

Yea. Crazy. Thats like 10 dollars, but bumping it to 300? $290 for air.

*switches subject*

I tried starting a server for teamspeak, failed.

Ventrillo, win.

Problem: People dislike Ventrillo. Why?

User interface.

Teamspeak:

Ventrillo:

Proves how interface is very inportant.

is bored

2009-08-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... I think I will do every title like that......

I was thinking about how we "invest" in websites.

Think of it like this:

____________________________________________________

I just uploaded something on youtube (seen here: http://tr.im/wXUC)

If I delete that .wmv file off my computer (was planning to do) I just invested TIME into both youtube and google. Ether one of of those goes out of business (yea right) and I lost that file.

*insert more thinking*

Tr.im "went out of business" earlier this week. With in a few days its back (weird eh?). So all those people who have a link book marked... Those don't work at all.

Think about that.

is late for the train

2009-08-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

Uhg... I'm late. Blogging is like what... 3 years old? Hmmm....

To get you used to my random crap heres a few facts about me:

-Im a highschool freshman (whooo...)

-Im (obviously) addicted to tech, things tech, and aviation.

-My life sucks (theme to the blog)

-I like the colour maroon. (makes me weird?)

-My life sucks (so bad I had to say it twice)

Yea... Makes my life sound soo cool...

Paul Copeland's Blog

Children of the Internet.

"Tech Guys"

iPhone 4.0 Opinions

Teenagers will do what they do.

Uhhh Apple? You missed some.

And Stuff?

How To Survive A Long Car Ride The Paul Copeland Way

Why Steam Is On The Right Track.

Review: HP Mini 110

Tech in School?

Why NOT to hate the iPad. And why TO.

2 posts in 2 days.

I am disappointed with apple.

*is in Montreal*

*is an iphone addict*

*is a proud iPhone user*

*is skypeing*

*is rethinking blogging*

*is having two blogs now*

*cannot type a good essay for the life of me*

*is a freshman, yay...*

*is rethinking all of the emotions he felt this summer*

*is wanting the things to be the way they were...*

*is breaking everything he touches*

*is in the car*

*is laughing at cheese snacks*

*is thinking of that sugar cookie I had this morning...*

*is bored*

*is late for the train*