dmtg.me.uk

Awesome Party

patrick — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:44:24 +0000

Lots of fun was had by all.

Nice Picture :)

patrick — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:58:06 +0000

Hah, finally got around hanging one of my Christmas presents (ok, my mum was pissed that I didn’t get around to it until now and decided to do it herself. Failing to do so – nails are complicated apparently – she made me do it after all).

My favorite Quotes – Part 2

patrick — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:59:03 +0000

“When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic!” - Steve Jobs

“Anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time” – Bender Bending Rodriguez (Futurama)

Doctor Who Box-set

patrick — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:22:39 +0000

Finally it has arrived: The Doctor Who Box Set for the first four seasons of the 2005 series. I’ve actually ordered it last Saturday via Amazon UK (where it was about 30 Euros cheaper than DE), so that’s pretty cool. Wasn’t expecting it so soon.

I’ve actually already had copies of all those from “other sources”, but I wanted to have them in better quality, which is why I’m currently in the process of ripping them to some really nice h264 + AAC copies right now. Also now I will be able to see them with Director’s Commentary. Not to mention the “Audio Description” (basically turning each episode into a radio play), I might actually have to extract those to listen to them as audio books on my daily commute to university.

RSS Feeds are awesome

patrick — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:12:45 +0000

The other day, my dad was showing me some “cool new iPhone App”, which basically just accumulates news from various news sites and shows them in one app, so you don’t have to use a different app for each website. I was actually quite dumbstruck by this. Do people seriously not know how to use RSS Feeds? I mean I personally couldn’t live without them. Even though I only subscribe to two dozens of sites, I hate to have to remember to check them for new content manually. In fact in the past I’ve actually ditched looking at sites because they had no RSS feed or a horribly shortened feed (especially if you combine that with ads).

Pretty much every browser nowadays can use RSS Feeds natively, and if you use a dedicated feed reader (Google Reader is nice), you will never go back. Personally I love using Reeder both on the iPhone and on my Mac. It syncs via Google Reader (so you can actually read your stuff from another computer if necessary) and is visually very nice as well.

My favorite Quotes

patrick — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:21:02 +0000

“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’” - Sydney J. Harris

My Mac Setup

patrick — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:09:53 +0000

Here’s how I have my MacBook set up when I’m at home:

The laptop is connected to my Samsung display (21″ at 1680×1050) via a Mini-Displayport to DVI cable. The speakers are actually connected to the amplifier under my TV (which is directly behind the monitor) just like the other pair of speakers next to my TV. The MacBook and my WD TV Live are then connected as input sources to the amp. This is cool because those speakers sound really good and it also allows me to use my AKG K 240 Headphones for both TV viewing and on my MacBook for music listening (since they are an older pair of headphones with like 600 something Ohm, they really need an amp to get a decent volume out of them).

Apple Keyboard + Trackpad Combo

The Wireless Apple Keyboard and Magic Trackpad combo is amazing. The keyboard is very similar to the MacBook’s, but the keys are a bit “easier” to press down. Apple’s Magic Trackpad is pretty much amazing if you want to describe it in one word (more so since Lion, which introduced a shit-ton of new gestures for it). It works flawlessly and you get used to it very easily. Since I’m not gaming on my Mac and only very rarely edit photos I don’t have a mouse connected nowadays at all. Plus it looks pretty cool next to each other, doesn’t take up much space (and is therefore easily movable if I need the space on my desk). The only downside is that the trackpad EATS batteries like crazy. A pair of double A batteries lasts me about 6 weeks on average. The Keyboard on the other hand has very little power consumption. I’m still on my first set of batteries (at 49% now) since I bought it about 3-4 months back.

Under my Macbook (which is conveniently resting on top of my OSRIC copy at the moment) are my hard drives and my external Blu-Ray drive, which are – together with my iPhone resting in the Universal Dock on top of the right speaker – connected via a powered USB Hub to my MacBook. The small 2.5″ one is my TimeMachine Backup, the other two are my Data Drive and the backup of that drive. One of these days I’ll probably get a dual enclosure for the both of them, especially since I HATE the power plugs on these cases which block two slots on the power strip each.

So yeah, after having had my MacBook for a couple of months now, I can safely say that it was indeed worth every penny I spend on it. It’s lightweight, easy to use, but comes with all the features I had under Linux as well. In fact other than the fact that it’s missing USB3 support (which for me isn’t too bad since I have no devices that require it) it’s the perfect laptop in my opinion.