Beryl in all its glory...

3D cube workspace

Look at that pretty, pretty cube! To go from one workspace to another (All you Windows infidel: Workspace is a wonderful idea where you have put different windows in different workspace, and have them "separated" so you don't have about a million windows opened at the same time. Think about one space for your email, one for your spreadsheet and whatnot, and one where your IM is running. You just click to that workspace when you want to.), you do get this pretty cube effect.... so pretty.... anyway, that's not even half of it...

Windows Animations

I wasn't too happy with the animation until I played around and foudn them all... heh. I've decided that whenever I close a window I want to see it burn. The screen shot doesn't do it justice. It's really really REALLY pretty. Everytime I close a window I still sigh in contentment when I see the buggers burn.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Ah... raindrops. So soothing. It's not like I switch it on 24/7. It's not THAT annoying. Animated raindrops!

In conclusions...

Admit defeat, Vista! You can have a pretty and secured OS without costing am arm and a leg.

Although I do admit that there are bugs that really need ironing out. Especially when the graphic card isn't actually all that nice and fast. (Pete tried that on his family's computer... took a while to go around all the bugs.)

But seriously, if you have a new machine, there's no reason why you would want to slow it down again by loading Vista. Ubuntu's new release doesn't eat up half as much resources (i.e. doesn't slow your machine to a crawl), doesn't require high end graphics (well, unless you install Beryl to make it look pretty.. even Beryl doesn't need top of the line graphics though, unlike Vista), you don't have to worry about virus or spyware, you don't have to buy software (there's a big list of free software where you can just search and click "install".), and it's free! It's meant to be free!

Ask your local geek for more information. :)

Quick! I need "approx. US$1564.37"

Sweet Mother of God! Optimus Maxiums - the Ultimate keyboard (Even cooler than Das Keyboard, which I didn't have the guts to try) is finally accepting pre-order! For those who hasn't heard about it: Optimus Maximus is a keyboard where every freaking key is a tiny LCD display! Here, straight from their website:

Ok Probably doesn't do it justice since I have to make the picture smaller to fit my blog, but click the link to view all its glory! All the buttons are programmable. No longer do you have to memorise all those shortcut is all those different games, or any program you happen to use. Programmable lauch buttons on the left, one button to whatever program that takes your fancy!

And the actual keyboard's design: it's so pretty! It's so.. slim and slick and everything I want in a pretty package! (excuse me while I wipe that drool off.)

Down side to that is that I need about US$1600 to buy it. *sigh*. Look if I won't even spend that much money on a computer, I don't think I'll ever bring myself to buy that. Unless of cause if I win Lotto. And My chace of winning Lotto is pretty darn slim considering I never buy a ticket... *sigh*. Why must cool thing cost so much?

\in other news: I really shouldn't blog about geek news THIS often...

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2! :D

Yay!!! More bunnies coming our way!

For the uninitiated, there's a video for the launch of the first game:



Aww... bunnies!!

Very excited about the sequeal. Apparently it's going to be released on the DS too. Hopefully it's not going to be a platform like the first DS game is.

Speaking of Wii games, Cooking Mama Cook Off is coming out soon too :D



Can't wait til I saved up enough money again to buy new games...

New computer, and Beryl in all its glory!

Yup, I got my new computer finally! AMD64, PCI-e graphics card, and 320Gb of HDD goodness. :) Only problem is I didn't quite realise how annoying it is to get stuff working on 64bit Ubuntu. It's not too bad though: the boys were here last night to watch a DVD and Toby decided to help me get flash running... by running Firefox on 32 bit again. *sigh* Next up I'll probably need FS drive installed to try to read the EXT3 partition on my HDD.

Installed Riven on my computer, like, finally. Had to jump through hoops of course because the game was SO old that it has problem running on XP. I kid you not. But it's all going now, and now I can remember why I thought Myst was a brilliant idea and cool game but I'll never do well on it: I'm so bloody lost in the game that even a map doesn't help much. At least the worlds on Myst weren't quite that big... The first world in Riven is bloody huge... I'm so lost. :( (or is it the only world? I'm not too sure...)

Alright, need some sleep now... gonna meet with my supervisor tomorrow and for once I'm not really worried about him thinking I'm slacking off: I actually have a good plan that I would like to try... just have to worry about how long it'll take to try it all. I just need to found a friggin printer tomorrow to print my report out, and I'll be one happy camper. :)

P.S.: Next time I'll try to do some screen shot of my pretty new Beryl working on my Ubuntu. :)

P.P.S.: For those who really wants to know: I named my new computer Normad, after this little dude. :)

Pink Room No More! And the return of the PhD Blues...

Pink Room No More!

We no longer have a pink study! It's now nice and white, and ready for the top coat anytime now. I'm thinking maybe a nice latte... just so it's a bit less clinical. There are still hints of pink where and there which we'll hopefully get rid of with the second coat of ceiling paint... fingers crossed.

The return of the PhD Blues...

Yup. Deepest pit of Hell again. I'm having fun.

iGoogle, micro-blogging and a new comptuer!

I should be working, I know. But it's been a particularly bad week: nasty bugs and silly mistake cost A LOT of time. :(

Anyway, to distract myself...

Did anyone else noticed the Google personalised homepage is now called iGoogle? and now you can make your own gadget? Including this one called Daily Me, which allows you to put in what you're listening and eating and what not... it's like micro blogging really.

And do I really want my friends to know what I'm doing every friggin minute? It's probably the whole celebrity wannabe syndrome.

My micro-blog would probably consist on "Current status: pissed off at myself" most of the time..

Anyway, apart from the weird microblogging though, iGoogle is still looking good... I just don't understand WHY it has to be "iGoogle"... sounds too maccish.

In other news: I've ordered my new computer!! :D I'll update more when I get the machine :D

Dell not so evil?

Score one for Ubuntu! After Dell decided to go back to XP after Vista proved to be less than perfect (or at least offer that option), they now offer desktop and laptop with Ubuntu pre-loaded. Hooray! Seriously given the choice of going to Vista vs moving to Feisty Fawn, I think majority of people would probably prefer Ubuntu... what's not to like. It's free, you have a whole community of people online to help out, you get more free software option than you can shake a stick at, right in the program menu too. If I can convince my mum to use Ubuntu, it can't be that hard. I think the time needed to get used to Ubuntu is probably about the same you'll need to get used to Vista.

In other news, I'm still battling with my PhD project. Found one ugly massive bug and I have to re-run my program again. *sigh*. I'm thinking I'll use this time to start writing. At least have something done. Actually, might actually use today to fix my Miktex... yeah. I need to do that at some stage anyway.

That's it from me for now. Being stressed and depressed makes me either lose my appetite or hungry. They sorta alternate... yesterday I keep wanting to eat stuff and today, I don't feel like eating. Great. Ah well. Hopefully the rest of the week will give me more comfort. Worse comes to worst I just have to work nights again.