Eric's Blog

I've been holding a media player war on my laptop for the past several months. After being a somewhat satisfied iTunes user for several years, I found that the constant updates to the player were exceeding my system's ability to cope. iTunes is a major resource hog, something I can't afford to have clogging my system constantly. I have music playing around 100% of the time my computer is active (don't believe me? Give my last.fm profile a look), so I need something light and fast, that is easy on the CPU whilst in the background.

Continue reading "Beautifying Foobar20K" »

Posted by Rico at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've disabled bookmarks, status bar, search box, back, forward, home buttons.

Rationale:

Trying to shift everything to keyboard based navigation. Bookmarks are mouse based and aren't that much faster then typing thanks to the Firefox 3 "Smart Location Bar." The thing is awesome. It seems to know when you want a google search and when you just want the website, and it gets smarter the more you use it. It pulls up results from history (which I am trying to preserve rather than delete to save space) and bookmarks. The shortcut is ctrl (cmd) + L to jump to it, which is very natural to use since you have two hands on the keyboard to type anyway.

Backspace sends you back a page, so I don't need the button. My normal home page is just google, which I don't need anymore thanks to that location bar. The extra search box is made obsolete by the location bar as well.

I've also downloaded a little app called Launchy, which is quite similar (though not as comprehensive or feature rich) as Leopard's spotlight. I can, however, simply launch Firefox with a Alt + Space + F + Enter, because it is the first result. More on Launchy later.

The lack of any of those bars leaves me with only the standard menu (File, Edit, etc), the Location bar, and the Tab bar, which fit nicely on two lines (see screen).

I've also given the status bar the boot, considering it really doesn't do much anyway. Just that simple "Done" and a lot of empty space.

Also of note is the shortcut to switch tabs, which is quite useful to a keyboardist. A quick Ctrl + Tab moves along the line. Other tab shortcuts of note: Ctrl + W will quit that tab (or close the window if you are going tabless) and Ctrl + T creates a new one.

End result: much more space for browsing.

Posted by Rico at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Unbeknownst to the common man, over the vast spaces of the World Wide Web, a Battle is raging. A Battle of epic proportions. The Battle of some of the two most idolized, criticised, and unknown factions of all time. The Ninja and Pirates.

The origins of this contest are unclear, but it has been a hot debate for years. It seems that everyone has a clear side, and everyone feels like they are right. I know this from personal experience. Simply the mention of a Pirate or Ninja being cool can start a heated argument. Whether it be on the bus, over the web, or in the cafeteria, Ninjas and Pirates are constantly at war. Perhaps the strangest part of the argument is that the likelihood of a Pirate and a Ninja ever even seeing each other is almost non-existent. Even so, there must be a clear winner, right?

I am going to attempt to compare these legendary factions and determine the victor.

Continue reading "Constructive Essay: Ninjas vs. Pirates" »

Posted by Rico at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The other day David downloaded Google's latest marvel: Google Earth. An advanced version of Google Local, Earth is just awesome. It must be downloaded to work, unlike Local. Local is a two-dimensional map of the Earth that can be viewed as a display of streets and states, a terrain map, or a hybrid of the two. Earth is similar, but way cooler. You start zoomed out like you were standing on the moon, with the Earth in the distance and stars twinkling around you. From there you can zoom in if you want, or type in an address. If you type in an address, the camera zooms in in a 3D way, and brings you to a view of that spot from about 10000-1000 feet. Most places look fairly normal from that distance, not too fuzzy or pixilated. If you type in our address for instance, you can almost make out the divided highway next to our house. But when we tried my Dad's old house in Cincinnati, you could make out the tree in his yard, and see the driveway perfectly. The clearness of the picture usually depends on your distance from a major city. We could also see my Dad's old house near St. Louis perfectly. If you go to New York, Earth really starts getting cool. If you type in Empire State building, the camera will zoom out, then go to New York, then zoom in to the building. You can see it perfectly, along with most of the greater metropolitan area of New York. Then you can begin to play with some of Google Earth's more exciting features. When you check the "Buildings" option, everything turns gray, and then becomes three-dimensional. You can tilt and circle the Empire State Building or Trump Tower, and see every outline of the building's shape in a three-dimensional view. This works for all of New York. Now, this option won't do anything for Lakeland, but you can turn on the "Dining" feature almost anywhere. This will show nearly every restaurant in the country (or if you need, the world, though there aren't as many in other countries). This all makes for one cool experience. Unfortunately, there isn't yet a version for Mac (they say they're working on it), but you can still view Local online. Google offers three different versions of Earth, the free version, Plus, and Pro. Plus is $20, and allows you to synchronize with your GPS. Pro is $400, and depicts the entire Earth is high-def and 3D. You can get directions that display in 3D, and even scan blueprints into buildings. It ends up looking like an advance version of Sim City 4. I don't know how Google can afford to offer so many great features for free, but I hope they keep doing it.

Now Playing: Dogs by Pink Floyd

Posted by Rico at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday, we played host to a Christmas "social" at our house. Although the party was really for us "chillens" Mom and Dad certainly enjoyed chatting with the neighbors. I invited about 10 people (7 came) from school and the neighborhood. Mom prepared some great appetizers and decorated the house. We played some games, drank sparkling grape juice and root beer, went caroling, and sang karaoke. It was a big success and I think we may have one every year.

Now Playing: Fire On High by Electric Light Orchestra

Posted by Rico at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For the 2nd time in a row, the Lakeland High Dreadnaughts destroyed St. Thomas Aquinas for the State Championship.

Continue reading "'Naughts Win Championship" »

Posted by Rico at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've added a new wallpaper. I created the normal 1024x768 and a widescreen 1440X900 version. I used photoshop to create it. The entire wallpaper was created from scratch except for the apple logo. I used a varitey of filters to create the "brushed steel" look.

(get the widescreen from the wallpapers page)

Posted by Rico at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David bought X&Y by Coldplay a while back, and I found that I really enjoy it. The entire album is pretty good, something I find unusual for contemporary music. Most modern music albums have a couple of good songs and a bunch of "filler" songs, none of which stand out. X&Y is comprised of mostly slow songs that have a couple of rockin' moments. Anyway, I wrote a little review-->

Continue reading "Music Review: X&Y" »

Posted by Rico at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently, an idea struck me. What to do when would-be theives and ne'er-do-wells attempt to steal my beloved iPod? How to protect it? Answer=indisguisePod. I purchased a low end cassette walkman and ripped the guts out of it. It took quite some time to chop through the plastic, but eventually I managed to completely empty the plastic shell of the cassette player. The front face of the indisguisePod is held on by ductape. This may be a bonus, though, because all those ne'er-do-wells wouldn't consider a beat up, ductape'd cassette player worthy of thievery. Check out the "sweet" pics.

An ordinary cassette player, right?

WRONG!

The inside

The regular side

Posted by Rico at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I stumbled upon this list while "surfing the web." It is quite funny. I really liked this one:

I will build machines which simply fail when overloaded, rather than wipe out all nearby henchmen in an explosion or worse yet set off a chain reaction. I will do this by using devices known as "surge protectors."

There are three pages, make sure you read them all. You can see the original site by clicking the copyright notice at the bottom of page one. There's also a rather stylin' widget for all you mac users out there.

Posted by Rico at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)