Year of the Code Monkey

I found an old video card around my house last night, so I swapped my current one out for it. I was able to boot my system, but upon entering Windows, I still see graphical trash. That indicates to me that the motherboard is most likely to blame.

After doing a little bit of hardware research last night, it appears that my CPU is still among the best, so I doubt I’ll replace that after all. And seeing as my graphics card might not actually be to blame, I’ll probably hang on to it as well (it, too, is still fairly decent). The motherboard definitely needs to be replaced, and I’m thinking about going to DDR3 memory instead of DDR2 (though if I stayed with DDR2 I could get by with just purchasing a new motherboard).

So, long story short, the situation doesn’t appear to be as dire as I had initially thought. It still bites that I have to deal with this though. Why can technology just work?

My desktop computer at home has been giving me some occasional graphical problems ever since I updated to Windows 7. I have the latest and greatest drivers for my graphics card, but every so often I get graphical trash on screen that, usually, corrects itself. Tonight, it seems to have died for good. I can’t get the system to boot reliably, even after trying to reseat the card. To add to my woes, I’ve also been having the occasional “double-beep” at startup, indicating that I have a memory problem. This has been an issue ever since I switched to the abit motherboard I’m currently using.

Anyways, I’m going to bite the bullet and buy a bunch of new hardware to fix all of this. New motherboard, CPU, memory, graphics card; the whole shebang.

If you have recommendations as to what to buy these days, I’d sure appreciate it. I’ll be putting in some orders ASAP, so the sooner you can recommend something, the better.

I’ve been slightly overweight for quite a long time. Two months ago, I decided I would start tracking my weight daily, in an effort to try and motivate myself to shed a few pounds. Desiring a tool to make this easy, I immediately searched the Android marketplace and found Libra. This incredibly handy tool uses a weight trend line as described in the excellent book The Hacker’s Diet.

We Interrupt This Post…

Allow me to quickly talk about The Hacker’s Diet. Written by John Walker, founder of AutoDesk, this book tackles weight loss as an engineering problem. The author is funny, to the point, and provides a careful analysis of how weight loss works. The briefest summary: you will only lose weight by eating fewer calories than you need. Exercise won’t do it (though it helps), and weird diets (Atkins, South Beach, et al.) won’t do it either. Read the book for further discussion and analysis of this viewpoint. The author presents a pretty solid case that’s hard to argue against. Best of all, the book is available for free as a PDF!

The trend line in a weight chart tells you where you’re headed: am I gaining weight (line going up), maintaining it (horizontal), or losing it (line going down)? With this simple tool, I was able to see in no time at all that my weight was going upwards at an alarming rate. After waking up to my weight gain, I set a modest goal of losing 9 pounds (I was 9 pounds above the “overweight” line for someone my height).

After reading The Hacker’s Diet, I made one simple change to my lifestyle: I altered how much I eat at each meal. I didn’t change what I eat; only how much. And wow what a difference that has made! Today, I weighed in at my goal weight for the very first time! Here’s the proof:

As you can see from the chart, I started heading up, turned the corner, and have been headed down ever since. My trend line hasn’t yet hit my target weight (as of today’s measurement, it’s scheduled to hit the target on August 21), but at least it’s heading in the right direction. It was a great feeling to hit my target this morning. I’m looking forward to shedding a few more pounds and maintaining a healthier weight.

This weekend, for my mom’s birthday, we took a trip over to Greensboro, NC to visit the Greensboro Historical Museum and the Guilford Courthouse Military Park. Having never visited Greensboro proper, we didn’t really know what to expect from either.

The historical museum in Greensboro is way larger than it may look from the outside. We easily spent two hours wandering through the various exhibits, some of which are tremendously large. More time could easily be spent here; the rainy weather limited our outdoor experiences (a few exhibits are outside the building). I was surprised to learn about the history of the area; a number of corporations were founded there, and several prominent events have occurred over the course of time. Best of all, the visit is absolutely free! I came away from the museum very impressed. It easily rivals the state museums in Raleigh.

Guilford county courthouse, site of a pivotal battle in the Revolutionary War, is equally as entertaining. Again, the rainy weather limited our outdoor activity at the park, but it should be noted that there are miles of hiking trails and a number of memorials around the park. The visitor center has an excellent 30-minute film describing the events of the battle. A number of artifacts from the battlefield are also on display; from rifles, to cannonballs, to belt buckles, it’s all here. The collection is truly gigantic. Again, the visit is completely free. This is a park I will definitely return to.

If you’re ever in the Greensboro area, I highly recommend both destinations. Both provide a relaxing environment, and a historical perspective on the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

I needed a quick and easy way to burn an ISO image here at work, so I took a look around and found ImgBurn. A Windows-only app, it’s small, easy to set up, and took no time at all to get working. The only annoyance was that the installer included an option to install an “Ask” toolbar in IE (along with a few other advertising options). Thankfully, you can disable them all at setup time.

Exactly five years ago today, I bought a used NEC 22″ monitor for my personal computer at home. It has served me well for that time, but I’ve seen it act up a time or two recently. Seeing as LCD technology has progressed much over the past few 5 years, I feel like it’s finally time to bite the bullet and join the mainstream. As such, I’m starting the hunt for a new display. Here’s what I want:

• Real Estate: I run 1600 x 1200 at home, and I’d like to stay in that neighborhood
• Fast Response Times: The display would primarily be used for gaming, so fast response times are a requirement.
• Vibrant Colors: Some LCD displays have pretty weak white-balance; I want something with nice color reproduction, since I’ll also be doing occasional photo editing.

Does anyone here have any recommendations on brands or where to start looking? Is there a model or manufacturer you’ve been happy with? Any ideas would be appreciated!

On Friday afternoon, I finally upgraded my home system to Windows 7. Windows XP was feeling dated, and my old system had slowed to a crawl for unexplained reasons. I also figured it was time to upgrade to a 64-bit OS, so that’s the version of 7 that I installed. Here are a few brief thoughts I’ve had on this new operating system:

New Task Bar

Interestingly enough, the steepest learning curve I’ve had with Windows 7 has been with the new task bar. I’m quite used to XP’s task bar, complete with the quick launch toolbar. The new task bar in Windows 7 rolls these two toolbars into one; essentially combining currently running applications with ‘pinned’ applications. Also, by default, only program icons are displayed; none of the window titles are shown as a part of each process’ button. This new scheme is a little confusing at first, but I’m becoming accustomed to it.

Updated Start Menu

Microsoft finally got smart with the new start menu. No longer does it stretch to the top of the screen when you have a million applications installed. Instead, the “All Programs” menu simply transforms into a scrollable pane, showing the items available. This is a terrific UI change that should have been done at least 10 years ago.

Improved Speed

In the midst of going to Windows 7, I also made several hardware improvements. I upped my memory from 2 GB to 4 GB (I may go to 8 GB if 4 doesn’t suffice), I am using a new brand of hard drive (Western Digital, instead of Seagate), and I added a new CPU heat sink. Since I updated a few hardware components, I’m not sure what really made the difference, but most of my applications now start noticeably faster than before. For example, iTunes starts nearly instantly, which blows the previous 15 to 20 second startup time out of the water. Games also start way faster, which is a plus. I love getting performance boosts like this; hopefully they will hold up over time.

Miscellaneous

There are other minor things that I find interesting about the Windows 7 experience:

• Installation was amazingly fast, and I was only asked one or two questions.
• Drivers thankfully haven’t been an issue (so far).
• The built-in zip file support has apparently been vastly improved; it’s orders of magnitude faster than XP. I’m not sure I’m going to install WinZip seeing as the built-in support is so good.
• The new virtualized volume control is epic; why wasn’t it like this all along?

So far, I’m pleasantly surprised with Windows 7. Some of the new UI takes getting used to, but this looks like a positive step forward; both for Microsoft and for my home setup.

This year’s E3 has come and gone, and I thought I’d post a few thoughts on various things introduced at the event. To make things easy, I’ll organize things by platform.

PC Gaming

Portal 2

This may be the game I’m most excited about. Whereas the first Portal was an “experiment” of sorts, this second title looks to be a full-fledged game. The puzzles sound much more insidious (physics paint!), and the new milieu of the game looks incredible. Portions of the trailer I watched are very funny, as can be expected. And hey, it’s Valve we’re talking about here. This will definitely be a winner.

Rage

id Software’s new intellectual property looks incredible. Part racer, part first-person shooter, this game looks like a boat load of fun. It’s pretty, too, as expected with titles from id (humans still look a little too fake, however; they need to drop the ‘bloated’ look). I’ll probably pick this one up when it’s released.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

If this game is as fun (and as deep) as the first one was, I’ll definitely buy in. If it’s as lame as the second one was reported to be, I’ll skip it. Nevertheless, the trailer looks great.

Nintendo Wii

Lost in Shadow

This upcoming adventure game looks really impressive. You play as the shadow of a young boy, separated from him at the beginning of the game. The ultimate goal is to reach the top of a tower, where the boy is being held. But the twist here is that, as a shadow, you can only use other object’s shadows as platforms. Manipulating light in the environment looks like a large part of the puzzle mechanic. This is another very inventive title that looks promising.

Zelda: Skyward Sword

What’s not to like about a new Zelda title?

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Kirby’s Epic Yarn has an incredibly unique art design. This time around, Kirby is an outline of yarn, and moves through a similarly designed environment. I’ve seen plenty of comments around the web poking fun at the seemingly “gay” presentation of the trailer; but this looks like an inventive, fun game to me.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

I was a big fan of the Donkey Kong Country games back on the SNES, so I’m really looking forward to this one. Some of the older games were ridiculously difficult; hopefully some of that difficulty will be ported over. The graphics in this one look fantastic.

Epic Mickey

Mickey Mouse goes on an epic adventure, using various paints and paint thinners to modify and navigate the world. The fact that this game includes a Steamboat Willie level, complete with the old artwork style, is epic in itself.

Nintendo DS

Nintendo 3DS

The next iteration of Nintendo’s hand-held looks interesting. I’d have to see the 3D effect in person to get a good feel for it, but all the press I’ve read has sounded promising. There are some neat sounding titles coming for this new platform and, if they’re fun enough, I may just have to upgrade.

XBox 360

Kinect (AKA Project Natal)

I’m not exactly sure what to think about this. I’ve read in several places that Microsoft really butchered the unveiling of this tech, opting for ‘family-friendly’ titles similar to what’s already on the Wii. That being said, Child of Eden looks like a phenomenal title that makes terrific use of the new technology. Only time will tell how this stuff works out. I think it’s funny, however, that Sony and Microsoft are just now trying to catch up to Nintendo in motion control. Nintendo gets a lot of hate from the hard-core gaming community (a small portion of which is justified), but they’re obviously doing something right; otherwise these companies wouldn’t be entering this space.

I’m sure there are a few items I’ve missed in this rundown, but these are the ones that really caught my eye. For those of you who followed this year’s event, what are you looking forward to?

I have posted the ninth (!) and final photo album from my recent vacation to the Outer Banks: a random beach collection. Some of my favorite photos from the entire trip are in this album, so be sure to check it out.

Yesterday, I finally finished reading the Lord of the Rings series for the first time. I can finally scratch them off my list of shame! As I did for the previous two books, I thought I would provide some brief thoughts on each.

The Two Towers

I found it interesting how this volume told two stories in separate chunks (books 3 and 4), rather than interleaving them. The first book follows the adventures of Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Merry, Pippin, and Gandalf, from beginning to end. The second follows Sam, Frodo, and Gollum. In the movie adaptation of this book, the stories are intertwined, helping to remind the viewer that various events are happening in parallel. Telling each story in its entirety in the novel was much more rewarding from a reading perspective. I never lost track of what was going on during each story, and I found them that much more engaging. It’s interesting that Peter Jackson decided to move the scene with Shelob into the third movie, since it really happens at the end of the second novel. Again, this was a top notch novel, which I enjoyed cover to cover.

The Return of the King

To me, this book differs more from its movie adaptation than the previous two. In the book, the army of the dead is used to gain ships for Aragorn and company: nothing more. They are released from service after helping the company obtain these ships. In the movie, the dead travel with them and fight Sauron’s army with the company. I think I prefer the novel’s version here. Likewise, I prefer the ending of the novel over the movie. How could the film’s writers have left out the scouring of the Shire? When Frodo and company return to the Shire, they find it in ruin. This was a key scene omitted from the movie, much to the movie’s detriment, in my opinion. Novel for the win!

Now for a few final thoughts on the series as a whole:

• It boggles my mind that Arwen is a bit character in the novels. Having seen the movies before reading the books, I guess my vision of her importance was tarnished. She barely has any speaking lines in the books, and is left out of the second story altogether.
• While I enjoy Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations of these books, the novels (as usual) far exceed them. Key elements were left out of the films: interacting with Tom Bombadil, several scenes with the Ents, and the scouring of the Shire (along with the deaths of both Saruman and Wormtongue). I guess it’s hard to beat a book.