More iPod Mini Adventures

Well, a couple of weeks ago my iPod died. Not quite literally, as it still worked from time to time. What happened was that it would play music for about five minutes, not even that half of the time, then crash and restart. I blamed this calamanity on the battery. Earlier that week I had seen an advertisment in the Best Buy flyer for an Energizer replacement battery for 30 bucks. I bought one and decided to replace the battery. I used the tool that came with my soldering iron, (from another iPod project, read about that catastrophy here.) Anywho, I used that to remove the top and bottom of the iPod. I then used my eyeglass screwdriver to remove the screws in the top. I then just slid it out. I removed the click wheel as well. I was successful in replacing the battery. That was not the hard part. The hard part is putting it all back together. Well, not really, just re connecting the click wheel. It is a pain, or at least it is for me. I still haven’t been able to reconnect it properly. Oh well, it didn’t work anyway. I think I might get me one of those iPod Videos. Now that would be sweet.

View some pictures I took of the event here.

Bouncy Balls

This has to be one the coolest commericals I have ever seen. Its so cool, and it is in H.264. It looks so sweet!! For those of you out there, without the newest Quicktime, there is a low res version too. To view the commerical click here, then click on ‘high’ or ‘low’ on the right hand side.
From the Bouncy Balls site:

Bouncy Balls: The BRAVIA Commercial

“When you’re introducing the next generation of television, you want to make an impact – but that doesn’t mean you have to shout at the top of your voice. And it doesn’t mean you have to be predictable. To announce the arrival of the BRAVIA LCD and 3LCD range, we wanted to get across a simple message – that the colour you’ll see on these screens will be ‘like no other’.”

“Sending 250,000 multi-coloured ’superballs’ bouncing down the streets of San Francisco may seem the strangest way to do this, but that’s exactly what Danish director Nicolai Fuglsig did for the BRAVIA commercial in July this year. San Franciscans have seen some unusual things in their time, but even this gave them something to talk about. And we’ve got the feeling that this commercial is going to do exactly the same thing.”

New Site

Well, I’ve moved servers, and the moved domains as well. My new blog can be found at http://www.joelsteeves.com I will no longer be updating this site. The RSS feeds also moved, if you go to my new site, I will have links to them in the navigation soon. For now, there are links at the bottom. The reason this site looks so funny is because I am trying to import the posts into my new blog. I don’t know if it is going to work, but we’ll see. Well, that’s all. Good bye blogger. Once again, my new blog can be found at http://www.joelsteeves.com

Internet Explorer Crap

Okay, so I have been making a website for my sister, and it looks great and all, except one thing. Internet Explorer. If you haven’t noticed already, I HATE Internet Explorer, why you ask? Because I have to add in special code so my pages work properly in Internet Explorer. This is because Internet Explorer does not support and follow the web standards set out by the W3C. It makes it so annoying. So this website doesn’t work in Internet Explorer. Its not my fault. Now I have to spend a whole bunch of time getting it to work, time I don’t really have. Thanks Microsoft, you sure make a quality product.

Now, if you haven’t already, please help a developer out, go and get yourself the latest version of Mozilla Firefox. It’s free, it’s more secure, and it supports the web standards. You can get it by clicking on the link of the right, or by click here.

Well, thats about it for now. As for the website, it is coming along nicely. The web badges are going up, more will be added later. I still have to fix the design. I am thinking of doing a complete redesign, so it might stay like this for a while, well I get the new design ready. The other pages are coming along, they still need work, but they’re getting there. Other than that, all is well.

I wrote three unit exams today, one in Math 30 Pure, one in Chem 20, and one in Physics 20. I am glad thats over with. It was tough, but I got through.

HTML Editors

Well, with my new Mac I need a new HTML Editor. I am currently in search of a good free text based editor. Currently, on my Windows machine I am using HTML-Kit. I love it, but there is no version for Mac. I got Taco, but its not really what I want. I may end up having to buy one, but I would really perfer not too. So, if any of you readers out there, anyone who actually reads this, whether a regular or a just happen upon reader, have any suggestions please post. Hopefully, someone out there will have something for me to use. If not, I guess Taco will have to do.

Mandrake Linux 10.1

Well, I finally got a Linux distro to work. Mandrake 10.1. I talked about it a little bit in the last one, but whatever. Anyways, I got to it to work, and I am running it with GNOME 2.6, so it still has a GUI (Graphical User Interface). I mean I could run it totally in terminal, but fir now, I think I am just going to stick with a GUI. I am trying to make into a webserver, wait not trying, I am. I just need some more permission. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyways, if I do finally get it to what I want, I will have my own webserver. I will be installing WordPress, which is blog software, and I will be moving off of the Blogger network. I will, however, be importing my archives, and I will be keeping the same style and theme. Well, okay the latter of the two is a maybe. There are also some other things that would be happening, but we will have to wait and see if I really do get to make it into a webserver. I’ll keep you posted, you three readers out there. Actually, my statistics are showing some interesting things. A lot of people are ending up here by searching things like “Jann Arden” and “When there’s Nothing Left To Burn, You Have to Set Yourself on Fire.” It’s crazy! I’ve had hits from Malaysia, and Australia.

I’m Looking For Something In Red

Yes, its that time again. It is time for another random post. If you don’t like the spontanuity, then please discontinue your reading NOW!!!! If you like the randomness, please continue.

Well, as you have probably have guessed, this post has absolutely nothing to do with the title. It does in a way, as that was the song that iTunes decided it wanted to play when I decided to write the aforementioned blog post, which you are now reading.

I recently decided to just to go ahead and put Linux on the HP. I had asked like last year, and all I ever got was “I don’t care, but what about Jamie?” So it was kind of annoying. Anywho, I decided to got with Gentoo 2005.1. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well. First, I got the second harddrive installed, then I went to press forward with the install, and I couldn’t find the CD’s. So the next day I made a new one. I started to install, got the old partitions deleted, got the new ones the way I wanted. I was installing the filesystems when something failed, and the computer seized up. It did this numerous times. I finally decided to go with a new file system, got that working, and got to actually extracting the OS, when something failed, and once again it seized up.

I then decided to switch around the drives, and try Fedora Core 4. Yeah, that didn’t work either. Something must have been wrong with the iso file or something, or maybe it was the DVD. Either way, it didn’t work.

Now I am installing Mandrake 10.1. It seems to be going alright so far. It is a graphic install however, so its a little easier, but it is not as fun. Oh well, what ever works right?

Anywho, on to other things. So far school is alright. I got my first math test back today, from Math 30 Pure, and I didn;t do as well as I would have liked. I got a 91%. The two questions I got wrong were worded really weird. I got the right answer, but because of the multiple choice, and the variables and etc, I got them wrong. Oh well, there is always next time. There goes my perfect average though.

I know you will all say something like “I wish I could get that in Math 30, I got this and that” Yeah well, I have become accustom to high nineties marks, and so a low nineties mark is bad for me okay? Is that so hard to understand? So I have high standards, so what? Some one has to do it right? Am I right?

Anywho, I could go on, but I will save you from the atrocity that is my school life. No, I am kidding, it’s not an atrocity, but it was a fun word to use, so I went ahead and used it. That’s right, I wanted to do and I did, isn’t life grand?

Well, that is my rant for tonight, I will keep you updated on the Linux situation.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Use IE

Well I found this picture actually quite awhile ago, I just got around to posting it and sharing it with you today. Anyways, this picture illustrates why a person should not use IE. Picture Link. If you would like to download Firefox, please click the link on the side menu.

On another note, I leave for a nice, well deserved vacation on Monday. I am super stoked (it had to be used.) We are taking a laptop, so I can watch movies and we are taking our truck. I think we are also taking our bikes, so hopefully, I can do some biking, an activity that has been lacking in my life lately.

In other news, police surrounded a convenience store today, where a Sasquatch was attempting to buy Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Good ole Dilbert. Dilbert has got to be one of the funniest comics out there. If you haven’t signed up to receive your Daily Dilbert, go to http://www.dilbert.com and sign up today!

I have finished the Springbank Curling Club website. Unfortunately for you, the guy I am working with at the curling club got married on Saturday, and thus the site is not publicly viewable yet. Soon. I also finished the Merrill Family Reunion site. For all of you descendants of Magrath and Ina Merrill, go and put the registration and RSVP forms to work. Unfortunately, (here’s where the misfortunes of the sites title come into play) the forms did not quite work out the way I wanted them too, but they will do for now. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the link to the site. It can be found here or for you non-clickers, it can be found at http://www.merrillreunion.ca.

Well, that about does it for this Friday. What a fun Friday night that was. I spent it on the computer, doing image manipulation, and other fun stuff. Oh well.

When There’s Nothing Left to Burn, You Have To Set Yourself on Fire

Well, the title of this post really has nothing to do with the content of the actual post itself. I have decided to mention some of my favourite programs in hopes of converting some of you away from Microsoft. In light of recent events pertaining to certain failures and crashes caused by Microsoft products, I have been slowing switching over to various free, open source programs. For those of you that aren’t the most technologically inclined, open source means that the source code of the program is available to you, as the user, to take and modify as you please. Anyways, back to the topic at hand, a couple months back I switched over to Mozilla Firefox. Now I know what some of you are thinking, “How could a nerd, such as Joel, not already switched over?” Well, due to certain circumstances I was not able to do so.

Mozilla Firefox is a wonderful web browser! It is a lot safer that Microsoft Internet Explorer, and is way cooler. It has tabbed browsing and a built in RSS reader. There are numerous extensions and plugins that do everything from tell you the Google page rank to controlling your media player, whatever that may be. I also switched over to Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client. After many years with Microsoft Outlook, I finally made the switch after getting tired of the constant errors, and sudden crashes of the aforementioned program. So far, I am extremely happy with the switch. The built spam blocker actually works, unlike Outlook’s. It has a nice clean, sleek look. It, like Firefox, has extensions, plugins and themes.

When I first downloaded Thunderbird, it did not have a Calendar, which one of the features I liked about Outlook. I went to the Mozilla site, and got a Calendar extension. I then came across Mozilla Sunbird. It is a stand alone calendar application. It works great! One thing I really like its ability to export the calendar as an iCalendar file, or a vCalendar file. It also has other exporting options, but I don’t really care about those. Anyways, Outlook did not allow the exportation of its calendar, at least not in these file types. Now, for the significance of these files, anyone who has an iPod out there, and uses it for more than music already knows the significance of these file types. These file types are the ones required by iPods for their calendar application. So, now I can have my calendar with me all the time. I had wanted to before, but Microsoft Outlooks would not allow it.

The next program that is worthy of my mention is iTunes. I switched over to iTunes when I got my iPod, but quickly learned what I had been missing out on. Back in the day, when we still used the HP as our main computer, I used Winamp. Its a pretty cool program, but not nearly as cool as iTunes. The odd occasion I would use Matchmaker Jukebox or whatever it was called. Now, in my opinion, this has to be one the worst media players, followed by Real Player. I then switched over to Windows Media Player, at around version 7. It was obviously cooler than Winamp, otherwise I would not have switched over. Anyways, since then I have been using it, right up to version 10. I used it right up to my iPod. iTunes does all that Windows Media Player does and more. Its ripping system is far better considering its not wma files. I know that you can rip into mp3 in WMP, but the quality is lacking. The AAC format of iTunes is far superior to wma. Anyone who has an iPod already knows why iTunes is better, and maybe some of the non iPod owners do as well, but who knows. Anyways, iTunes is a great program, and cane be found here. It is however not open source, which is fine.

With these programs and applications one can really start and move away from Microsoft. I know some people who will read this will think, “Why doesn’t this babbling idiot just switch to Linux?” I would love to switch over to Linux, but since this isn’t just my computer I can’t. But for those of you that can, go for it. I would also recommend Open Office. I have no personal experience with these programs, but from what I have heard they sound like pretty sweet programs. I would also switch over to them, but once again, this is just my computer, so we run into a situation there. Anyways, you’re probably all bored by now, so I’ll be finished.

World Premiere

This is a world premiere of my new flash animation. It is nothing special, but I did make it, so you should watch it. I made the complete one, with the intro and end in a total of about 30 minutes. I got bored in CTS class, so I made it. It may seem a little weird, but it is amazing what happens when you are extremely bored. Anyways, this is a wonderful, horribly animated cartoon, that I made, not for your viewing pleasure, but to solve my own bordness. Well, without further a do, I present Fire Breathing Devil, an animated short by Joel Steeves.

Fire Breathing Devil