Tag: geek

About Lockerz and invites

February 23, 2010
valeblog
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Not so long ago a friend sent me an invitation to Lockerz. At first i couldn’t really get what’s the point of it all, but then they opened the preview of Redemption and launched Play, and it all starts to make a bit of (still not much) sense. I was wondering the purpose of the site: it obviously costs a lot of money to maintain, even if those numbers they’re saying are totally off (and i think they are not), so there must be some reason it will worth it. And now that Play’s on, it’s getting brighter: you get PTZ (pointz) for watching video, some of which are songs from popular artists or such. Advertising, i guess. And people will be happy to watch them, because they get PTZ, and PTZ are good. By default you can get around four PTZ a day: two for logging in, and two for answering an often totally random question. With Play, especially if more videos will be up, that number will go to infinity. I kind of doubled my PTZ in a day with videos (though still quite low). Let me quote their about section. “Our mission is to be your daily habit, not a site for your parents or grandparents looking for their long-lost friends from kindergarten.” “Too good to be true? Why are we doing this? To thank you for joining early. To build a Lockerz community of leaders and trendsetters.” I really wonder what Lockerz will turn into once out of beta and ready. Will it stay invitational? Anyway, it’s fun and free, and legit: they really send you what you order from your PTZ during a Redemption. Still, most of the people consider it mistaken spam when i ask them about it. My blog ain’t spam. If you want to get invited, leave a comment.

Recommendations

February 20, 2010
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Yesterday i listened to a collaboration album featuring many bands, and i wanted to see if they were added to my last.fm library (they were). On the home page though, i saw some changes, some i am very happy about. Beside the event and artist recommendations, now there’s a new part showing new releases, by default from my most listened artists. I’m really grateful for this feature, because i always had trouble following who has a new album when. As can be seen, my library is quite diverse with loads of artists, so following and remembering each of them is kind of impossible. For example, wasn’t it for this new feature, i wouldn’t have realised that Pain of Salvation, Gamma Ray and Rage have new albums, even though i really love their music. And of course there is a page where there are the new releases from artists recommended “based on my musical taste”. Good choice to get to know new artists. The only problem is that artists or labels need to fill out those fields, apparently, and that’s no good. Many artists are not present on last.fm (meaning they don’t manage their profiles), also many albums are messed up. For example, in my case, what is Spock’s Beard‘s Octane doing there? That album was five years ago! (It’s okay when it’s shown that it’s a re-release or something, but just like that…)

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The nerd writes

February 18, 2010
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It’s so difficult. It’s so tempting. What am i talking about? The big three: smartphone, tablet pc, and laptop. The only problem is, i don’t need a smartphone, i don’t need a tablet pc, and i already have a good candidate for laptop. But still, when i see all the fuss going on about the new iPhone, the new Android-based whatever, most impressing still being the Nexus One, or the new Windows Phone 7, the iPad or the Microsoft Courier, i am way too tempted. It makes me want to buy one, even though i know i don’t need one, and that’s like a mantra i’m reciting in my head whenever i’m reading those articles. But still, if i were to choose, i wouldn’t choose the Apple stuff. First, it’s way too trendy. Everyone is or will be carrying around one of those (second) glossy, child-safe looking rounded stuff. I don’t like that. And also, when i watched a video of the iPad, it didn’t impress me nowhere as much as any promo material of Courier. Same goes for the iPhone vs (Nexus One OR Windows Phone 7). As of Nexus One vs Windows Phone 7, now that would be more difficult. Nexus One with Android is open, and thus closer. Also, the Win7 phone had Internet Explorer icons, which although the latest versions are quite sleek, i still can’t get myself to use it: the memories of the IE6 nightmares still linger around here. On the other hand, the Win7 phone looks simply great, and i’ve seen much more of it than of Nexus One. (Probably my fault.) As for the laptop, the only competitor possible for the above linked ASUS power machine is a high-end MacBook, but as i said, i don’t like Apple products by default…

Wendy

February 7, 2010
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Wendy is my new external hard drive. She just arrived this evening, and it was love at first sight. She’s small (roughly the size of my aircon remote) and beautiful and black, with a bright white led showing when she’s paying attention. She’s fast like hell, i think moving my stuff from the internal to her was quicker than moving between internal partitions. Our relationship is just blooming, so i shouldn’t go into intimate details, but i don’t think i’ll ever get enough of her. She might be small on the outside, but she’s 320 gigs inside, and that’s four times the space i lived with the past many years! (Ever since i’ve got my first laptop, because when that broke, i got the old drive in the “new” one.) She’s very quiet, and although looks hot, she doesn’t get a temperature.

I watched the second episode of Skins season four just now (love the way the dad of the twins talks), and there wasn’t a glitch. I also backed out my whole music collection, and it took no longer than reading a page of World Embryo manga (roughly twenty minutes, which might be surprising for a manga page, but it really took that long because the network connection simply stopped functioning after eight pm, all the nice folks running their porn pr0n torrents full speed in peak hours).

But now’s the time to say Wendy good night and go to sleep.

Chronflow

February 1, 2010
valeblog
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Chronflow is probably the best cover flow plugin for foobar2000. The only problem is that it throws “Can’t set pixel format” and “Img texture leak error 2” on certain video cards, mine included. I used foo_bubble_coverflow because of that for quite a while, but then i decided to give Chronflow another try, and to my greatest surprise it worked without problem. At least until i had to restart foobar. (For those who have the “Previous submission still in progress” problem with the foo_audioscrobbler plugin, stopping playback and restarting foobar solves the problem every time, the cache then can be submitted manually (as i usually do), but i guess it’ll be submitted anyway with the next track.) But now that i knew it can work, i didn’t give up. And i figured out the solution. It’s not a real solution, just a quick workaround, annoying but works, for me at least.

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Miért olyan jó az Apple?

January 29, 2010
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Nem tudom, és nem értem, de biztos nagyon. A nagyon erős marketing és hogy milyen fertőző azért mutat valamit. Természetesen a hardver erős benne és jó minőségű. Pöpecül néz ki. Én mondjuk még nem sokat tapasztaltam, de a szoftver is gyors és egyszerűen kezelhető.

Most bejelentették az iPadet (iTampon?), és kapásból mindenki azon pörög, pedig a piacon már most is vannak jobb gépek. De Apple.

És amióta kijött az iPod, azóta ha valami Apple, akkor az népszerű és sikeres lesz. Régebben a Maceknek volt valami egyediség-hangulatuk, valahogy úgy, mint a Linuxnak. Most már ezt se lehet rámondani, mert teljesen mainstream lett, és minden második internet-léleknek leghőbb vágya egy csúcskategóriás Mac. (Ezek szerint én páratlan sorszámot húztam.)

Ugyanaz az érzés ez, mint amikor a last.fm legnépszerűbb előadók listáját nézegetem. Az az érzés, hogy hirtelen olyan nevek vannak a top 10-ben, akikről még soha nem is hallottam, azt se tudom, eszik-e vagy isszák, de belehallgatva nagyjából mind ugyanaz az indie-alter-hatású pop. Kifejezetten megnyugtató, hogy az első helyen azért még Beatles, és van Metallica meg Nirvana is ott.

De ha valami Amerikában befut, akkor az sikeres, láthatóan. És ugyanez van az Apple gépeivel is. Nem tudom, honnan jön ez a hype. Vagy csak hangosabbak az Apple rajongók, azért tűnnek olyan soknak? (Nem akarok párhuzamot húzni bizonyos magyarországi népcsoport hírhedtsége és száma és az Apple nagyon hasonló arányai között.)

Minden esetre az fix, hogy ha tablet gépet akarnék venni, inkább várnám meg a Microsoft Couriert, minthogy iPadet vegyek. (Sajnos a számítógép nem az a kategória, ahol egyszer megkóstolom, aztán ha nem ízlik, váltok másra…)

Ha valaki tudja, magyarázza meg nekem, miért “olyan jó” minden Apple termék.

On the internet connection

January 20, 2010
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Again. In the past one hour it was especially interesting. I mean, i was listening to streaming music from Grooveshark whole day, in preparation of the friday In flames gig, and for most of the time, it didn’t lag even if i was browsing. Then something switched on or off, just when i went to buy milk and Halls, and from then on (around eight) till now it was… well, let’s just say it calmly, either it was working, or not. For like fifteen minutes just now, when i was writing the previous post, the router wasn’t responding to pings. (I tried when the connection couldn’t get an ip.) I’m not a network warlock, i can’t (or just don’t) hack through firewalls or anything like that, but i know that we have a really nice bandwidth for the router. What the heck, then?

Zenegép

December 21, 2009
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Kéne egy olyan zenelejátszó, ami rögzíti, hogy miket hallgatok. Ez nagyon nagy hűtlenségnek tűnik hű Muvommal szemben, ami már több, mint két éve hűségesen szolgál (de sok “hű”, már csak a “ha” hiányzik). Egy gigás a kis fehér, amire gondolom sokan húzzák már a szájukat hogy milyen pici – de nekem tökéletesen megfelel. Az egyetlen hátránya, és tényleg az egyetlen, hogy nem nézi, miket hallgatok, így hiába szól egy tizen-sok órás repülőút alatt végig valami, azt a last.fm nem látja. Pedig mostanában nagyon kattogok… Gondolkodtam már olyanon is, hogy valami firmware hackkel megoldható-e ez, de egyelőre még nem találtam ilyeneket. Tehát most itt azon tanakodok, hogy vegyek egy újat, ami valószínűleg nagyobb, fényesebb, csillogóbb, kevésbé strapabíró, érintőképernyős vacak, de cserébe rögzíti, hogy miket hallgatok, vagy próbáljam valahogy megbuherálni a Muvot, hogy tudjon ilyet (az biztos, hogy ez csak szoftveres probléma), vagy hagyjam az egészet a fenébe, és csodálkozzak továbbra is minden alkalommal, hogy az Oomph! a könyvtár utolsói között van, pedig már nagyjából fejből tudom azt az albumot…

Írok

December 14, 2009
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Manapság nem sok dolog folyik. Téli szünet van, elvileg házikat kéne írnom meg kanjikat tanulni, de nincs hozzá túl sok hangulat. Inkább egy király gráfszerkesztővel tervezgetem és (mostmár) írom a blogmotort, amit talán ezúttal sikerül befejezni, ne adj’ Isten még publikálásra is alkalmas lesz. Elég sokat gondolkoztam néhány helyen, például hogy az admin felületet hogy érdemes összerakni meg (egy cseppet alsóbb szinten) hogy érdemes megoldani a dátum/idő kezelését és tárolását – nekem a sok időzóna-eltérés miatt ez elég zűrös, már eddig is három különböző időzónából (nem számolom az óra-átállítást) vannak bejegyzések (a szerver meg egy negyedikben van), és ez a szám csak nőni fog… A legnagyobb probléma, hogy a kommentek idejét hogy határozzam meg, hiszen nem tudom megbízhatóan és egyszerűen azonosítani, melyik időzónában van a látogató. Úgy néz ki, kénytelen leszek beállítani egy alap időzónát, amibe a kommentek érkeznek. Vagy használhatok valami mást, mint például az internet beat-et, csak azt meg senki nem tudná értelmezni. Ahogy tervezgetek, ennél nagyobb problémára sehol nem számítok. Amire meg rájöttem, hogy hiába tervezem meg előre, megírni nem lesz sokkal egyszerűbb.

iAmerica

November 27, 2009
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The power of America. Where is the culture that could at least withstand the amazing pressure from the States? I mean that now the world’s too concentrated there. The official “stars” of “popular music” are the “stars” of the american scene, enough to check last.fm for the most popular bands, and in the very top, i always see those bands i’ve only heard the name of, but don’t know how or when they popped up. Maybe, i’m just not keeping up with music news (very true, i don’t really know any good global music news website that could tell me about the stuff i need—be it from Europe, Asia or America), and only know about the bands i listen to (also true). Or is it that last.fm is american as well, so they only focus on their own market, and also that users from other countries use it lot less, thus can’t really be considered “significant”?

The same way i was wondering what’s with the huge hype around Apple. The States’ got tired of the Microsoft monopoly, so switched to Apple? How clever. Instead of turning in an “open” direction, use the even more closed computers ready-made by Apple (not to mention i don’t like their user interface). Nevertheless, i considered buying an iPhone now that i became twenty, but again, no way. (For now.) I couldn’t get one (luckily) in april, when i came here. I’d have bought one then, but i don’t have a normal credit card, nor was of age then (here), not to mention it’s expensive, so it would’ve been kind of troublesome. Now i was wondering if i needed it—and concluded: no. I’m not using all the features of my current “small, dumb and cheap” phone, why would i need the almost-computer possibilities of an iPhone? I hardly talk on the phone, and when i’m texting, i like to do it quick. It’s pointless. Rather buy a new, high-end laptop next year for the sake of Starcraft 2.