< femmegeek > :

Retired Robots

2011-08-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

From Boadacia the 6 legged pneumatic walker, to Pebbles, an original part of the Mars rover development project, I've found this (mostly) pictorial history of American mobile robotics featuring the retired robots of MIT's Mobot Labs quite an amusing stumble:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/retired-robots/retired-robots.html

Security Spotlight: Ghostery plugin saves users from privacy thieves, gives back choice

2011-08-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

"Ghostery allows zero-tolerance blocking of anything ad related, complete (visible) open communication with ad companies, or countless measures in between - determined by you, the informed web user."

Imagine someone following you around all day spying on everything you do and recording all of your habits. Bad news is, it's happening already and it's called Targeted Behavioral Advertising (or "Online Behavioral Advertising", aka "OBA"). Even worse is, by the time most malware/adware security apps scan and (if they) detect the presence of such files, it's already too late. What can you do about it? Stop it at the source with this browser plugin.

Commercial privacy thieves and their cohorts beware; I've been using Ghostery now for over a month, and the amount of advertiser data pilfering it blocks is simply amazing.

Ghostery at work in your browser. An invaluable plugin.

So, how is it possible to tell if your privacy has already been compromised?
Ever wonder how websites are able to track and tailor ads to your "interests"? That's only the half of it. What's even more creepy is that most files of this nature that wind up stored on your system when you surf are unlike normal browser cookies, in that they have no lease or expiration--- endlessly tracking your surfing habits.

While some of these web sites, companies and their third-party affiliates use collective data to track what is called "non-personally identifiable information"for web traffic analysis and research methods that are used to enrich the overall browsing experience, it is totally up to the company to define what's personal and not personal, and this arbitrary decision is not left up to the end user. There are other viable ways of tracking user habits on the server side by using transactional analysis to observe user input that is inherently non-personally identifiable for statistical purposes (i.e. - tracking popular keywords in searches, links and pages visited). Instead these sites take this "non-personally identifiable data" from your user profile information on membership websites, keywords from within the depths of someone's e-mail, and even worse---arbitrarily installing browser-based files on the client's computer to snoop through their browsing history and other saved information without their total informed consent and a way to "opt out" without having to opt completely out of just browsing a site and or total use of their member services (i.e. - social networks).

For a BBB "Trusted Site" this service AboutAds.Info advocates user choice over privacy of shared information; However if you look to the right, the purple box shows a list of Ad services so long, it wasn't fully displayable on the page. The final number showed 52 ad companies by Ghostery--- most of which are not included on their opt-out list of the other 78 they offer to "help you block". As such, this service is both misleading and unethical.

While a growing list of 78 companies have a way through AboutAds.info to opt-out of their services by storing even more information in your browser via one of these non-expiring internet files, it's only as effective as asking a company or national roll to place you on their "do not call" list that you personally have to carry around "in your back pocket" so to speak on your own computer and does not block them from less ethical methods of tracking data anyway. Not to mention, AboutAds seem not to include most of these "blockable" companies in their very own list of 52 other ones which they unethically subscribe to for tracking your life online. Furthermore, a service such as this does not provide visibility to the end user on even what supposed "blocked companies" are actively attempting to track their data, and it doesn't display exactly what else is being placed in another non-expiring browser file.

In short, it's only a matter of taking back a bit of your privacy with personal choice over what and how you share. Actions on part of end-users the world over are limiting ways sites are allowed to use our data---and that is already making a difference.

Check out Ghostery and find out how web sites are watching you,

Or go directly to the download link for your brower:
http://www.ghostery.com/download

Just a footnote - Like most all free services, I don't have total control over the content on this page. This blog site is powered by Google and likely uses a feature called 'Google Analytics" and "Google Ad Words". Additionally, I subscribe to Amazon and allow products to be displayed on the side of my block through their affiliate program. I do personally not use any of the information collected and used by Google, Amazon and their internal or third-party affiliates. See any other ad services reported by Ghostery or a similar tool on this blog site? Leave me a note in the comments section!

G is for Galaga

2011-03-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

I formulated this yesterday when I was bored.
It was supposed to be a super awesome bonus round question to a bunch of technicians at work for 80's day...
So go grab a rom or a service manual and amuse me.

In the original 1981 release of Galaga, with single player selected, and rapid fire board installed, users can experience what with these dipswitch settings:

SWITCH 6J
SW#1:ON
SW#2:ON
SW#3:OFF
SW#4:ON
SW#5:OFF
SW#6:ON
*SW#7:OFF
SW#8:ON

SWITCH 6K
SW#1: OFF
SW#2: ON
SW#3: OFF
SW#4: OFF
SW5: OFF
SW#6: OFF
SW#7: OFF
SW#8: OFF

(*not used)

AVG makes me sad

2010-04-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

I just attempted download of the Eclipse IDE for the Android SDK within Firefox. (*This in itself is somewhat exciting, since now I'll be able to finally work on some Android app development.)

Since I'm tethered through my phone and knew it would be awhile, I decided to try to open a zip file containing something AVG decided to invalidly recognize as trojan/malware. (Telling it to ignore still wouldn't allow me to open the file, and turning off .zip file parsing in advanced properties still didn't do the trick.)

After some research, I determined this was an issue with the MS Office AVG plugin. Simple enough, I just find it and disable it somehow, right?

I guess AVG Free v. 9 has a paradigm inability to disable MS Office Plugins.

I tried through command prompt, but I guess this syntax string is a bit out of date. Oh well.

So, I decide to try the Control Panel --- > Programs and Features route. Unfortunately the only option is a complete uninstall, which I really want to avoid since uninstalling ANY antivirus suite can be quite a chore.

I go exploring.

Eventually I come across the setup.exe file in its native folder. I open it, and immediately AVG hijacks my browser and decides to shut everything down without authorization or advanced notice. NOOOOO! Don't cancel my Eclipse download!!!!! It's only been a couple of hours now... :*(

Just like that, it's gone... Firefox's attempt to recover via the download manager just starts the whole thing over again. Great!!! Not much I can do right now, I'm in the middle of trying to fix this new issue with AVG. So I'll just fix this AVG thing real quick, then restart my download in a minute... or 45.

Back to the matter at hand. Continuing with the process, I'm now looking at an add/remove feature dialogue within the installer which gives me a few more options of disabling specific plugins, and bingo: there it is ---> uncheck MS Office AVG plugin. Good. Hopefully it's just "next/yes/OK" from here on out.

Not so fast.

I get a prompt that says "choose a package/installer" with no particular other instructions than a pop-up requesting a .dat file extension. So I browse to said AVG9 folder, find it, and get an error dialogue, "file package file open failed, HResult 0x80004005." I suppose this is because when I actually browse for the file in the pop-up, and TRY to select ANY file whatsoever, it still leaves the text box path blank upon returning to the installer once the browse window is closed. So I just type the path in the box, right?

Wrong again. Still, I get an error, somewhat different : "File package file open failed. Invalid header id."

In the AVG forums it was suggested that this may be a registry issue with the AVG install itself and should be resolved through a full repair via the setup. Attempting to repair results in the same thing, request for the package/installer .dat file and another dead end. This resulted in me finally having to temporarily uninstall AVG (overkill, much?) just to open this one little zip file I've been trying to open for the past hour.

While this is uninstalling, back to Eclipse. Instead of trying the alternate download link for the Amazon cloud, this time I think Bittorrent might be slightly faster. Luckily since my download folder for Firefox is directed to the same download folder as uTorrent, it detects the partial file so I don't have to wait for it to re-download again. WOOHOO!!! I guess this process never occurred to me for some reason. It's the simple things in life that can completely make your day... (either that or being so blond underneath that I'm just now realizing that's what Bittorrent is really all about.)

Moral of the story:

I could imagine this being a multiple phonecall issue spanning several hours (and transfers) through numerous parties within the tech support realm. I don't know what I would do if I were just another end-user. Fingers would be pointed, people would be blamed, and still, nothing would have been accomplished... but at least I can sleep tonight knowing I've tried everything within the power of most any other support analysts barring a phone call and an open case to AVG's software engineers/product developers. Doesn't seem like they're jumping on it though since so many others are reporting this problem... then again, who am I to complain about freeware? I guess it's the fact that I've been an avid user/supporter of AVG since 2003 and I've noticed (until recently) it's been completely stellar and virtually free of requiring user input beyond initial installation and what used to be the frequent update notifications (almost daily) which have now turned to "only if I look for them" or I've somehow prompted it by playing around inside the application once in awhile. Not saying I won't reinstall it, I'm just pretty disappointed since I've endorsed this product by suggesting it to other users over the years who I know are autonomously incapable of providing basic support for their own systems.

Apple versus the 'Free World'

2010-04-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Let's play I Spy. How many things do we love and enjoy (that aren't Apple) but are built on a proprietary architecture? Pretty much everything that doesn't fall under GNU/GPL, right?

Okay. Of those things, how many include a back-end that's totally built on the most familiar open-source architecture to date? FreeBSD anyone? ;-)

I don't have time to cover every electronics platform (video game consoles, toasters). Instead I'd like to focus on one of the biggest current topics crossing the worlds of mobile, micro, and desktop computing: "Apple versus the 'Free World'".

Let's start with those claims that "Apple is a proprietary ~blah blah blah~, long live the free world and all that is open source," by analyzing some foundations of what "open source" truly IS.

First, what does "open source" mean to you? Most people associate open source with freedoms to do things with hardware/software that normally wouldn't be achieveable within a proprietary hardware/software architechture. Take for instance, one of the first major public releases of proprietary hardware (the HTC Dream) with a open source mobile software platform (Android).
About half of my friends who use Android, when asked why they prefer it over an iPhone, reply with "because it's open source." Then I say, "Well... what have you done and what do you plan on doing with its opensourcedness? Tethering? Rooting? Application development? (Okay so you plan on quitting your job and building $2 apps only to live in your mom's basement...riiiight!)

Once we've cleared up most of these misconceptions, the usual retort is, "but it multitasks."
Bingo!
That's a valid reason to use it over the iPhone, which is why I love my G1 so much. Android 2.1 (with or without Sense) sickens me, because it's trying (and failing) to be pretty and multitask as a functional phone. This is where I draw the line... where smartphones become "dumbphones", and I have to say... "No thanks." This is also why, after owning 4 separate Windows Mobile devices that missed calls due to the core phone app failure because of too many running processes, that I gave up on Windows Mobile.

Apple does a good job at effectively using its hardware within the limitations of the general consumer's disposable income price expectancy, and being pretty, without multitasking capabilities. It can do all of those things most people claim they use an "open source" handset for, and open source in itself simply ≠ the ability to effectively multitask.
Android 1.6 can effectively multitask being not as pretty, but pleasantly acceptable for the busy hardware spec limit-pushers.
On the other hand, Android 2.1 bugs are almost as prevalent as bugs seen in Android 1.5 , with forced archival of SMS messages due to poor OS app management, the sluggish UI with multitasking... just to name a couple. Nexus, no thank you... hardware is fast, but software is too much for it to handle. Maybe when we re-write 2.1 and push a major release ala 1.5 to 1.6, you'll have my interest. Probably by then, iPhone/iPad OS will have multitasking, which could make me question where my brand loyalties lie.

Let's change gears and talk about netbooks. There's my Dell Mini 10. It shipped with 1.6 GHz Atom proc running 1 GB of ram at 533 and Windows 7 Starter edition (Aero/Dell branded Stardock enabled). With my MSDN I immediately upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate, which seems to run fine until I begin my normal multitasking regimen. (Opening 7-20 tabs within Firefox from a seed blog to research referenced terms, studying pro audio development, photoshop techniques, wordpress plugins/CMS feature testing for my future websites, etc.) Last night I decided to try a micro version of audio editing with Audacity as my sandbox to test some supercool VST plugins for my recent fetish in 8-bit / chip music synthesis. In failing to recognize a valid audio output device in Audacity, I turned to the community to find that *gasp* everybody uses Hackintosh for any type of multimedia development, because it's the only thing that works on that hardware. Then, it hit me... the answer to the question, "Why does the multimedia community prefer Apple products over anything else," was realized: OS-X is a minimalist OS and it's really optimized for the hardware it's running on. It's basically running a rebranded base XWindows UI Gnome, and some system icons in an animated dock for its "pretty factor", but that's it. So if Dell can develop hardware that just so happens to work seamlessly with such a great OS, why would I ever invest in a proprietary hardware/software combo to do the same thing?

The best way to approach this question:
Are you a mobile user or a desktop user?

- Mobile user: Your hardware is totally proprietary to the manufacturer, with no ability to modify it without serious chances of bricking the device. Memory upgrades are limited, and in a lot of cases the FSB is modified so that 3rd party upgrades are prevented by the system BIOS firmware. Yuck!
Additionally, to my knowledge, nobody has developed a full sized notebook with hardware that seamlessly runs a variant of Mac OS-X like the Mini 10 does, which would give cause to take a look at a Macbook Pro.

- Desktop User: With PC, you have free choice over hardware/OS solely dependent upon what it can take. Sky is the limit, all major components are upgradable within form factor/bus architecture, however no particular OS is build specifically to your components without some major day-to-day usability sacrifices, and bugs are prevalent in even the most end-user "stable" OS choices. If you're a gamer of the anti-console type and are obsessed with bleeding edge graphics, this is the most supported option.

Before going further into the Desktop analysis, let's do a quick run down and comparison of the three most popular OS types for end users (also available for notebooks):

Windows: OS with most mainstream support for software and gaming. Lots of bloatware even at OS level, requires heavy tweaking for hardware optimization. Moderately easy to use for the general public, however users at all levels of expertise have major/constant complaints. End user support experience very poor. Employees/Developer income moderately decreasing, yet employer productivity expectations increase exponentially compared to the rest of the IT industry*.
(*I found this out listening to NPR one Sunday. If anybody can find the NPR article or show referencing this, I give you mucho props... otherwise, go research Bureau of Labor and Statistics data at bls.gov, or go pay for a GAP analysis report of Labor productivity vs Compensation with at least a date range of 2000-present...) Windows users aren't considered very uber.

Linux: Incredible control over the OS comes at a price --- constantly fixing minute details of application code, but the kernel can be built specifically optimized for your hardware. Requires heavy tweaking for software functionality. Intermediate/advanced learning curve for the general public. Modified Unix-based back-end operating environment. World community-driven support with most of the focus on just a few its hundreds of concurrent flavor versions (aka distributions), but virtually no centralized end user support.
Most software under GPL/GNU and is free and developed at the expense of the software engineer's own time, which may quickly become abandonware over a short period of time. If you're among the 1337, this is for you.

Mac OS: Virtually no tweaking necessary. Top tier multimedia development software support. Even has support for MS Office. Labelled proprietary, though optimized OS specifically designed for the hardware. Modified Unix-based back-end operating environment. Awesome support ratings. Happy users all around. Employees/Developers happy and paid well. All major complaints come from non-users, with subject centered around it being "proprietary" (most arguments unfounded). Uberness is limited to a single button mouse, left to personal interpretation.

Final Thoughts
In all, we like choices... but I guess the ultimate defining question as to how our loyalties lie simply boils down to this: Freedom is never free, there's always a price. I'll continue to be a Desktop PC user, but heavily considering moving mobile platforms to Apple products. If pro audio development experiments work out with a modified OS-X install on the mini, chances are, I may consider the future investment if it means a paradigm difference between functionality and constant bugs within both XP and Windows 7 in ProTools even on my desktop. Not that I need a lot of end-user support, but happy employees=more willing to provide better product support, so there's that too. One last thing... did you know about the Apple OpenSource Library? http://www.opensource.apple.com/ Yeah... I just found that out. VERY interesting stuff...

Short disclaimer:
~The opinions expressed in this blog do not reflect that of the opinions of any of my friends, family, co-workers, employer, or Facebook.~

*** Update: Prompted response by Apple?
Since this was posted, Apple responded literally a day later with their announcement for multitouch coming to iPhone 3GS and iPad this summer. Read more here, courtesy of Readwriteweb.com

Original Post: Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 @ 12:04 PM CST (Wordpress / Facebook)

Trying to root your Android phone? Bootloader stuck at serial0 ? Did you download DREAIMG.sph in Windows 7?

2010-04-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Trying to root your Android phone?
Bootloader stuck at serial0 ?
Did you download DREAIMG.sph in Windows 7?

Chances are, the file extension is just assigned as a ".txt" file.

Properly renaming file extensions in Windows 7

- For some reason when I downloaded DREAIMG.sph from my web browser, Windows 7 thought it

was a text file. Renaming from Explorer will NOT work, as it just appends the file name and

leaves the .txt extension. I believe this occurs when simply clicking the link for the .sph

file to download in most any web browser (instead of "save target as" or "save link as"),

causing it to force an attempt to load as a text-only file, which Windows 7 thinks is a

text file when you download it.

Fix:

- Click on the Window pearl and type " cmd.exe " (without quotes) in the search box.
- cd to the folder you downloaded DREAIMG.sph in. You'll most likely find that it's named DREAIMG.sph.txt .
- RENAME DREAIMG.sph.txt DREAIMG.sph
- Recopy to freshly formatted (FAT32) SD card in phone.
- Reboot to boot loader (*camera button+power button) *camera button+thumb scroll on older phones
- Follow instructions for the flash.
*** If you're still stuck on the bootloader at serial0, just press Call+Menu+Power buttons on your phone to reboot. Battery disconnect is unnecessary.

I support CyanogenMod.
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/

Remoting in to my Windows 7 x64 box at home from my G1 using UltraVNC Server and AndroidVNC Client

2010-02-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

***********************************************
I finally figured out how to remote in to my 64-bit Windows 7 Desktop using my Android-based (v1.6) phone last night. It was surprisingly easy, and the best part about it: it's FREE. What's even cooler? This is my first "instructable" for the blog. :-D

Step 1:

Downloads

UltraVNC (uVNC) Client/Server package and select your box's OS. We will configure the server portion. *If you're running 64 bit Win7, be sure to download that.

AndroidVNC from your phone or other Android client device at the Market

Step 2:

Install UltraVNC

1.) Ignore that it doesn't say Windows 7, and hit next.

(Click image to enlarge)

2.) On this, select "Register UltraVNC Server as a system service" and "Start or restart UltraVNC service".

(Click image to enlarge)

3.) Pretty much the only thing you need to worry about is clearing out the password and setting your own. This is what you'll use to connect to your session, and I suggest using something at least 8 characters, alphanumeric with at least 1 symbol. If you only have one Windows logon you can skip the "Require MS Logon" authentication step. If you're only configuring VNC Server for one client on your network, you can skip the port config.
Hit Apply and you're done with configuring the server portion.

(Click image to enlarge)

Step 3:

Gather host IP, configure your router.

1.) Gather your host IP, if you don't already know it. (If you don't know how to do this, you shouldn't be attempting this activity.)

2.) Login to your router to configure port forwarding. (Again, if you can't get into your router to do this, you shouldn't be here.)

Depending on your router type, you'll want to configure port forwarding to allow port connectivity to 5800 and 5900. I have a Linksys router, so I'll use that as my example. Insert the last octet of the server's IP address by each. Now I'll flip over to the "status" tab to grab my public IP, which I'll need for the AndroidVNC client config. (Not shown for personal security...duh!)

(Click image to enlarge)

Step 4:

Configure AndroidVNC Client login/Viewer Color Format

1.) Enter your Winlogon in "nickname"

2.) Enter the password you setup for your VNC server

3.) For address, remove localhost and type in the public IP for your router.

4.) Use port 5900

5.) Before you connect, check your Color Format. I made this mistake only once. If you don't uncheck "Force full-screen bitmap" , Android will spaz out after Win 7 starts to change color schemas. Don't ask me why, I didn't write the drivers.

6.) Connect! Now you should be able to see your remote desktop.

Jerome, the new thorn in my side.

2010-02-11T14:35:00.000-08:00

First day back on-line since the big news (mostly the clinically drug-induced coma after the ER trip)...

So Wednesday night I decided to go in and have my abdomen checked after going weeks with this slightly annoying stabby pain on my left side. After a CT scan, ultrasound and weird looks from multiple radiologists/doctors/nursing staff... it was determined that I have a tennis-ball sized cyst attached to my left ovary.

The doctor stated, "it's not the simple kind, it's full of blood and hard tissue and stuff and I don't see how you're even functioning right now!!"
Wow... that's a lot of faith and technical jargon right there...

Anyway, so I decided to name it Jerome.
I get it checked out tomorrow by a slightly more technically oriented doctor. Wish me luck...

Until then, I guess Jerome and I have some bonding to do.

...Like me punching him in the face on occasion. <3

The great unboxing...

2010-02-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm a little late on the bus bound for hell... I've contemplated buying one for the past couple years simply because of hardware epic flailz and virtually no time for on-line gaming. Now, it's set... I'm doomed.
I think it started with an RvB 'snow day' marathon last week. I had only watched the series once through , though sort of backwards... (season 1 and half of 2 like, several years ago when they first released on-line... and then season 5 at a friend's like a month ago...and well, you get the picture).
Without further adieu, here it is. My first Xbox product... ever.

~Drool~

~My computer says it's inferior. I just think it's jealous.~

~The patient is upside down~

~Ooooh shiny! It must be from the future...~

~Okay, now my computer is jealous.~

~It's aliiiiiive!!! Rawwwwr!~

And yeah, I blame Rooster Teeth.

Furniture Disappointment...

2010-02-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

So last week I purchased what I THOUGHT to be this super red leather chaise lounge, full of AWESOME and WIN, from a local furniture dealer. I've been very, very anxious about this and I finally get to pick it up today. HOWEVER...Upon glancing at the description again on the invoice and doing a little research, turns out I bought the wrong chair. Instead, it's this thing:

I'm not sure what to think at this point. I think the second one looks ugly as sin, but could be more comfy.

Why does life have to be filled with so much indecision?

Unfortunately the local company can't order the original one. So if I want the first one above, I have to take a trip to South Dallas from OKC, which in itself adds bonus points since I'm constantly looking for random reasons to drive down there on a small road trip.

Anyway, that's all of the excitement going on today (other than work).

Looks like plans to move the 'cast to Friday are in order, and I still need to make a run to pickup some equipment. Had fun this morning researching why I've always chosen LLC's over C-Corps (less paperwork), and still wondering when they will do the ICANN drop on that expired domain I'm looking at. If it's when I think it is, we'll be looking at a weekend early morning database refresh in about two weeks. So excited. Maybe all of that coursework will finally pay off. :-D

On the topic of tattoos...

2010-01-30T20:34:00.000-08:00

Just some random photos I've collected over the years of my adventures with ink. My last run-in happened around November of 2008 (the peachy hip stick, a tribute to all things peachy as well as my home state), but you won't find that here. ;-)

...I am still a bit modest.

My devirginization. (No, it' s not really off center. )

My stained glass stylized wings. 8 hours, total.

I was still rather out of sorts after that, and the saran wrap wasn't helping.

Workin' the camera... heh. Not really worried, and took less than 3 minutes.

End product. I wanted the tri-force logo at first. Glad I went with this instead.
Re-thought this looks more like the phoenix symbol in God of War II - Auditorium of Lahkesis, where you force the translator to read the book before you smash his head against the podium...and his blood rushes through these channels on the floor in the shape of this kick ass looking phoenix. Anyway...yeah. Good times!)

Prepping for the unthinkable. At this point I was singing in my head "Let's go all the way," only to find myself thinking of Howard the Duck instead (was that even in the movie?!?!)...which makes me laugh...........which is not the best thing to do when someone has a buzzy needly thing and it's poking you.......

and they don't have an eraser.

And no, the elbow hurt worse than under the arm.

Aww... I'z got dirty.
Looks way cooler now with a tan, I assure.

My original concept for the sleeve idea entailed a mirroring henna design along both arms, also containing a super-clean damask vector pattern (like on the shirt below), only in contrasting tones along the background.

After the first arm I thought: nahhh. I sort of like the elegance of asymmetrical simplicity going-on. I'll leave it alone.

Not pictured:

- Peachy (hip)

-My vamp scar marks (uhh...)

- My tribal eclipse symbol w/ Starbucks logo embedded in the middle (lower right back)

Tattoo ideas:

Prior to MGS4's release, I was thinking of doing a Solid Snake tribute.
Thoughts on the Galaga tribute. May add Ms. Pac-Man chasing down some ghosts and an old Apple II logo. Still can't think of *where* though...
A silhouette of a wiener dog someplace inconspicuous.
Rock out the 'Fett bantha skull on my right shoulder, but that space is reserved for something far more creative and I'm running out of backspace.
A scarab someplace, but nothing too ~Journey~.

Places I Can't See Myself Getting Tatt'ed, Evaaaaaaaaar:

- Tramp Stamp (yish... nothing center aligned in the lower back/ass region)

- Calves. That's just way not-so-cute-at-all.

- My right arm, anywhere (it's completely blank.)

- Definitely not the face/anywhere else on the neck.(ewwwwww...)

- Much elsewhere other than my sides, hip or something else that doesn't look unattractive or yucky when I'm still wearing a bikini in 20 years.

(damn, I hope I still look okay by then)

So, yeah. In conclusion, I like the ink. Just not everywhere. :-D

My Zombie Plan for Thursday/Friday:

2010-01-27T07:37:00.000-08:00

Amass the entire metro.
http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=239710003516

On Tablet PC's, the "slate", Apple and Why I Couldn't Care Less

2010-01-26T16:14:00.001-08:00

It seemed as though the hallmark heraldry of the term "slate" took it's place before the
taboo elder iteration of the same device known as a "tablet pc" at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Thousands gathered to ~oogle~ and ~ah~ at the various concept designs, with lots of emphasis on Imaging-turned-PC manufacturer HP, flaunting what appeared to be probably the only stable device Ballmer could dig up to run Windows 7 without a potential embarassing moment. Dell taunted back with their 5 inch slate "concept", a much smaller competitor in the slate race, though considerably beefier than the anticipated smartphone of disappointment. Then, there's Jobs, out teasing the world with trademark and patent registration, branding "iSlate" under a faux company name with holdings belonging to the parent Apple.

The Tablet PC as a concept which now mockingly fits into the same category for me as
the "wearable computer" made it's first widely accepted debut in the late 90's
and earlier part of the last decade. Hoping for consumer adoption, we ended up selling a majority of these devices to a niche market of offices and small-to-medium businesses (with a few government entities) specializing in field services. The device acts as no more than an interface to OneNote or as a bulkier, less useful customer signature implement, only without a tactical barcode reader of the equally outdated but still somewhat useful PDA. Tablet screens weren't as touch responsive as we had hoped for, the poorly designed matte LCD's easily damaged and much like their laptop cousins of that era, notorious for heat-related motherboard failure. In simpler terms, with warranty repair wait times and out of warranty costs associated a little later down the road, these things were worthless. So other than technological advances with OLED shiny screens, figuring how to fit everything onboard less the heat issues and some slick rebranding to sound like a magnetic child's toy of the 80's, what's the real difference?

Back to consumer adoption.
Just before the turn of the century there existed an ominous fear on the horizon in the hearts of man, with the unknown web 1.0, and the "dot com crash" symbolance seeming to echo everyone's utter disappointment with the way that we all actually survived the purported doomsday Y2K bug.
(---Which is okay, some of us are still sticking to our plans in case of a zombie
apocalypse in 2012.)
Enter tablets stage left. While pagers were losing popularity, cell phones still hadn't hit mainstream enough to scare the home phone industry. The closest thing we had to a smartphone was a PDA with dial-up internet capabilities. Flat screen plasmas were still in the $10,000 range. Most consumers were scared to buy anything related to technology and most businesses only ended up with it because they didn't know any better. In theory it was efficient and people could share handwritten notes electronically without the mess of carrying around a 10 lb scanner or a 40 lb all-in-one scan/copy/fax station. As efficient as handwriting everything as opposted to typing can get, right?
Nevermind the thought of hardware failure rate or accidentally puncturing a screen. Most still contained physical keyboards which when folded up like a laptop would protect itself, but the flip-and-turn design would eventually show easy wear on the hinges and fragile wires. Businesses would later look at them as just "a bad deal" all around.

Fastforward 10 years to the present.
Technology has reached the point of functionality with wireless. Today we have a market rich with ~pocket executives~ and scores of consumers who can't unplug 5 minutes to quit posting status updates. We are ruled with the touch-driven human interface, dying to get our hands on the vanguard of whatever new mobile device that's out this month, with emphasis on the most overpriced couture of Apple-branded flauntery. It's time to reintroduce the same product with slightly improved technology and almost the same level of limited real-world functionality.

Let's face it. Apple's iteration of slate was designed as a crossover between an embarassingly expensive e-book reader with an iPhone screen on 'roids. There's no graceful way of holding it. As a chick I hate carrying a purse and often times jettisen the bag for a thin leather jacket with pockets. If I can't fit what I need in two small pockets without looking like a marsupial (ID, cards, cash a phone and some very basic makeup implements), I don't want it.
For awhile I tried carrying around my netbook in my purse, and it just didn't fly. If not for weight, for sheer bulk.
The way I see it is this: Apple succeeds with a small niche market in media design and "fashion computing", with a larger market in the cell phone and music distribution industries. The slate isn't designed for playback, nor the convenience of pocket
tweeting, such as this embarassing device. It's not made for full scale media production, and I'm almost certain it's not going to have as many pressure points per inch as the Cintiq for professional visual design. As an e-book reader, it's not going to match the price and portability of other products, even if they have exclusive deals with publishers that rock the foundations of Amazon and a product base rivaling the size of their own iTunes library. It's too physically big for the Nintendo and Sony dominated niche market of pocket gamers and the screen size will be overkill for the disappointing resolution and video processing limitations that would only drive prices high enough to make mobile games unenjoyable.

Not to mention, it's an ergonomic nightmare.

...And it's definitely not 'me'-sized.

Things that are 'me'-sized:

Honda cars (easy to work on)
Laptop keyboards
My G1
My Hello Kitty pajamas
Mini bottle of Viva la Juicy
My Wacom Bamboo tablet, which cost me under $100, that I use occasionally with my ~not-so-hardcore anymore~ lust for graphic design.

Am I ruling out the possibility of slates failing in general? No. I'm not even ruling
out the possibility that the Apple-branded "slate" will be an even bigger success than
the iPhone in the viral useless app-driven market. I just know that if I used a slate-like
multitouch apparatus, it would be for something practical... like, sole purpose
would be dedicated to emulating a smaller and less satisfying cocktail table version of Galaga.

I think I'll pay a quarter and play the one down at Burger King on lunch.
... I hear they're soon to be serving beer as well.