So, instead I got some (a lot of) help from Bax to set up Ruby, Haml and Sass, and now I’ve started building a site with the help of them. Ruby creates the files and links them together, Haml provides the basic HTML structure for each page and Sass is a simpler way to write CSS-files.

So far, it’s just a basic white site with a few parapgraphs of text, but I hope to be able to put it live in a while. It will be my portfolio of some sort, I will collect things I’ve done and describe things I like. What it won’t be, is another blog :)

Since Boot Camp doesn’t officially support Windows 7, the app wouldn’t install in Windows 7 on my Mac. I’m sure it could have been solved by manual installation of drivers etc, but I just couldn’t be bothered. It felt like destroying my poor Mac :P

Also, the lack of a right mouse button was reaaaaally frustrating in Windows. It works without much problems in OS X, because it’s designed for it. But Windows definitely is not.

So my Mac is back to its single partition state with just OS X, but I do have a nice backup of it :) And I also learned a lot about file systems. I guess everything has something good in it!

So, naturally, I started thinking of dual booting my Mac, to be able to play games while I’m traveling too. My Mac is my baby, I mostly bring it when I go somewhere. And then it started to get complicated :P

Firstly, I would need to partition my Mac HDD, which means I need to back it up in case something goes wrong. Backing up should be easy, huh, I have Time Machine? Well, if my external drive hadn’t been NTFS it had been easy. OS X can’t write to NTFS without 3rd party tools, and Windows can’t even read from Apple’s file system. I discussed it a lot with friends, which way would be best (thank you for all your help!), and in the end I decided to partition my external drive and use two different file systems.

I moved all the files on my external drive to my PC, then I used OS X to partition the drive and format it. I made one Apple partition on 100 GB (HFS+?) and one FAT partition on 150 GB. If I left the 150 GB unformatted, my Windows machine wouldn’t find it at all, so I had to use FAT. And then move the drive to my PC and reformat the FAT partition to NTFS. Very clever.. But it all worked out eventually, and now my Winplutt ("Wintiny") partition houses my backup for W7, and the Macplutt ("Mactiny") is synced with Time Machine on OS X. Neat!

I’ve always liked reading, but during the last 4-5 years I haven’t read as much, for different reasons. Therefore, it felt odd to get captured by a series like this again. I started reading the first book, Twilight, on my birthday. I finished the fourth book during the Christmas holidays, I think it was around 25-26 December. So in about two weeks, three at the most, I, who no longer read, finished four long books.

I don’t think I have to tell you I love this story? Yes, it has it’s flaws, and yes it is very much a teenage kind of series at times. But that does not stop it from being captivating and awesome. It’s about love, personal strength and personal development, and the way the vampire and werewolf myth is described makes it really interesting to read. Even though the story might not appeal to me at all times, I always wanted to know how the myths would evolve in the next chapter.

I hope you will give them a chance and not dismiss them because they are teenage girls’ love stories. They are more than that.

I got to try it on her laptop, and I was hooked. It is so addictive! It’s not very innovative or anything, it’s just simple and fun. You build your own “empire” starting on a small island building resources and expanding as you need new resources and more space. There are two areas, the Occident and the Orient. The Occident is like Europe or North America, and this is where you start. Later you can expand into the Orient, and this is needed to develop your empire.

It was really cheap on CDON (Swedish web music/film/game shop) so I ordered and it arrived this Friday (8/1). I’ve been playing over 10 hours since then. Simply addictive!

I plan to spend money on things I like, allow myself to be nerdy. I plan to get more confident, I am actually quite good. ;) I plan to get better at showing my friends how much they mean to me. All of them. I plan to spend more time doing things I like, and less time worrying about the things I don’t like. I plan to fall in love, get crushed and disappointed, and get back on track again. (link)

And really, I think I’ve done all of that. I spent money, first on an iPhone and then I bought a Macbook. I love them, and they are nerdy :) I am way more confident today than I’ve ever been. I’ve been spending a lot of time doing things I like, although I’m not sure I’ve been able to worry less ;) And of course I’ve fallen in and out of love.

Here’s to an awesome year! I’m sure the next one will be even better.

My main gadget right now has to be my Macbook, which I bought sometime in August or September. It’s a 13” white MacBook, and the old non-unibody version too. It’s shiny and reliable, and follows me everywhere now, more or less. I has made my love keyboard shortcuts for some reason, maybe they’re just more convenient and consistent in OS X. I’m also using Snow Leopard now, upgraded just a few days ago.

It’s my main chat computer, since it has Tweetie and Adium, wonderful applications, but I also write a lot on it, mainly essays for uni. It has a nice keyboard and the screen is ok, almost too small but it works fine. I use it since I prefer to write away from home, it makes it a lot easier to focus :)

My second favourite, although I’m not sure I dare to say second because it’s so close to being a favourite, is my iPhone. (I have a feeling I sound more and more like a Mac nerd..) It contains my life, more or less. Calendar, contacts, notes, to-do-list etc, it has all the things I need in my everyday life. Plus, it’s a dream to use, most of the time. Before I got my Macbook, I used it a lot more for Twitter and email, but now I carry my Macbook almost everywhere so I don’t need it. I have to admit it’s a lot more convenient to use a real keyboard, even though the iPhone keyboard is ok :P

Although I don’t give this baby as much love as it deserves (no screen protector and I forget to polish it all the time..), it is a key to keep my life going. Going to uni and working in a uni environment doesn’t really mean you’re away from computers that often, so my iPhone isn’t used for mobile browsing a lot. And I don’t know why, but iPhone games never caught me. I know some of my friends play vampire games and other multiplayer games, but I just can’t be bothered. My iPhone is my quick information channel, not a relaxation toy :)

Thirdly, of course I have to include my PC. It’s not hip, it’s not cool, it’s not awesome, but it lets me play games, which I love. I recently reformatted it and upgraded to Windows 7, and it’s working better. It’s still very noticeable it’s not a very new computer, especially compared to the Macbook (it’s making me spoiled already), but it gets the job done and that’s the main thing.

Of course I have a lot of other gadgets and stuff, but these are the ones I use every day. I used to play with an Asus Eee 900, but since I got my Mac I don’t have any need for another laptop, and the Eee is so slow in comparison I dread doing anything on it at all. I think it’s mainly because the OS is a resource hog, but I can’t be bothered to experiment with it. Poor thing. :)

This post got really long, maybe you can tell I love my computers and gadgets :D

Aion is grindy, there’s no point in denying it, but I’m trying to find my place in the grind and enjoying it in my own way. I enjoy the social parts way too much to drop the game, the community and chat is 50% of my gaming. Hopefully I’ll find good friends in this guild, and find a wiki-like community to join in with.

I’ve also tried Dragon Age recently, and it has a play style I’m not really used to from any other game (I know I’m a bad geek for not having played Baldur’s Gate or NWN). The first tutorial is including a lot of information and I got confused and tired quite fast. It will get another chance though, once I can convince myself to take time off studying and Aion.

One of my friends just bought the New Super Mario for Wii, and it sounds great! Every now and then I really wish I had a Wii. But on the other hand, I am a social gamer and I would never play it without friends.. I’m frustrated, there are so many games I want to play and so little time!

Maybe this legion isn’t for me. I really enjoy going around looking at the scenery or collecting flowers and ignoring the mobs, and I don’t look forward to reaching lvl 50 that much. Sounds too much like the end to me, I like leveling and finding new areas.

I realised maybe Aion won’t be that game that sticks, like Guild Wars did, but I need to give it a chance at least. The questing is enjoyable, even more I’ve found if you really take the time to read the quest logs (they are insanely long sometimes though, I hardly ever bother..), and the scenery is nice. You can find the odd nice group for the group quests even, so maybe joining a legion isn’t that important yet :)

I’m still running around Eltnen, the level 20-40 area, which is mostly a desert. It has it’s beautiful spots though, and I tried to capture some of them:

I’ve just found the PvPvE area, so now I’m slowly getting to know the Abyss and how frustrating it can be to be low lvl in PvP areas ;) I hope to have the chance to play there some more on off-peak times to get to know the area better.