Drupal
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Web
Well as the initial excitement of starting yet another site has worn off, my posts have slowed down considerably.
But fret not, for I will still be around from time to time with a brief window into my world.
Currently I’m experimenting with Drupal:
Drupal (pronounced /ˈdruːpəl/) is a free and open source modular content management system (CMS) written in the programming language PHP. A CMS is a tool used by Web administrators to automatically track online visitors and prepare customized content for consumption, usually as HTML-based Web pages. Drupal, like many modern CMSs, allows the system administrator to customize the content and display of the Web site with little or no programming.
- Wikipedia
So as you can see, lots of promise.
I hope to build an online interactive identity for my local Air Cadet Squadron, but it will probably take me a month to build a complete site.
Call of Duty 4
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Media
Singleplayer was incredibly short..
I know its got a massive amount of multiplayer play, but comon!
As I’m not a huge gamer, singleplayer is usually enough to satisfy me as I go painfully slow through it and if I ever manage to finish it I am sick of the game anyway. Not in this case, I finished the campaign in just under 10 hours and am now for the first time playing various parts of the game again on hard.
So I guess its still entertaining, but still there’s a limited number of times you can do the same missions over and over.
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On a lighter note, I got my Sony XL1BR Changer yesterday!
Its definitely as big as I thought it would be (read: massive), and has a nice polished apple-esqe look. Although that unfortunately means the front is a huge fingerprint magnet.
It has a nice solid feel to it and has a slightly noisy “whir” sound to it as the carousel turns, but as you don’t need to change discs around while watching a movie, thats not really an issue.
So far the only hangups I’ve had is that the “vista” install disc didnt actually support vista, I don’t know what sony was thinking when they shipped it out. But, thanks to the wonders of the internet I managed to download the latest installer from sony.
The second issue is the disc management software, it’s bundled into Windows Media Centre. Which is totaly fine for all the dvd movies I insert, but if I insert data discs like games or an avi collection, I have to open up the MCE interface and navigate to that disc in order for it to be inserted into the optical drive.
A long process to get the disc to show up in My Computer.
But as the net time to get the proper disc displayed in My Computer is still less than having to manually go find the disc and insert it into the computer, It’s a small price to pay.
Power outage
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Events
So there I am at 5:45pm
Sitting on the computer plugging away at an online practice exam, only to be greeted with an announcement that the site would be down from 5:30pm - 4:00am.
Now I am all for online downtime, as it usually means something interesting is going on behind the scenes and there’s always the slight chance that when the site does manage to get back up there will be improvements.
But seriously, who the hell conceived the idea to wait till 15min after the site was going to be taken down to announce their intentions!
OK
Breathe, it was only a practice exam that was being a pain in the ass anyway..
[15min go by]
And then, like a flick of a switch…I’m left staring in darkness (well, more than usual) at one of my screens with a little popup saying that my network had been disconnected.
Shit
The only thing I hate worse then having the power go out, is to have it go out in the middle of the night when I’m not around.
So as calmly as I can I shutdown my computer and sit in the silence of my house and brood on how much better my life would be at that this point with an Asus Eee PC.
If anyone’s curious about UPS‘, APC has an online wizard to help you figure out your power needs.
Tags: Events, Technology
ASUS Eee PC
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Hardware, Review
This amazing little laptop houses:
- Solid-State disk of 4GB
- 512MB DDR2 of memory
- 7″ WVGA (800X480)
- Built-in webcamera
- Linux OS (Windows XP drivers included)
All bundled together for only $400 from ASUS.
Now that may seem like a pitiful display of specs in comparison to the laptops of today, but what you don’t realize is that having a 7″ screen with no internal moving parts can be a huge benefit and give a whole new look to the term “portable computing”.
I would think it to be a fair assumption that anyone serious about portable computing, is serious about computing in general. The example being, the laptop would only be used in conjunction with an existing home desktop. Thereby allowing the user to work on projects away from home and quickly and easily transfer the new data onto the main computer at home.
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Web
If you’re looking for the ultimate status updater, Twitter is the service.
You can update your status from the web, IM, or even on the go using SMS. And if you’re a Facebook user, it will update your Facebook status with the Twitter Plugin.
I had thought of adding a meta field to each post with a status key, but in the spirit of Web 2.0 having a realtime rss list of my status’ feels more appropriate.
Edit: I have no idea why, but there seems to be either a huge lag on Twitter.com’s rss feed updates..or there is an issue with their time stamps. Oh well, if you want my absolute live/realtime status, you can always check my Twitter page out.
The Nerd Handbook
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Asides
Amen.
Spent the last 21 hours in bed
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Events, Friends
And what a time it was!
I went to Leah’s engagement party last night, the food was definitely amazing but I had a couple of drinks more than I should have. We ended up going to a bar in the evening, I was surprised there was still a couple of people who were sober enough to drive us there, and I don’t know who picked the bar..but it was definitely a poor choice. It was basically a hole in the wall with annoyingly loud music. I grabbed another drink, which ended up costing me $5 compared to $3.50 at the Beer Store.
I did get ID’ed for the first time so I guess it counts for something.
After the bar my dad came to pick me and Maria, and on the ride home I started to feel sick and ended up puking into a bag. Passed out for the rest of the ride, got home and fell into bed. The quote about “falling asleep before your head hits your pillow” seems very appropriate.
Spent the last 21 hours asleep and woke up around 10, to realize I didnt know where my glasses were. So I was sitting at the computer squinting at the screen and not knowing whether I was typing English or just Mumbo Jumbo. My dad came down to give me my glasses after he realized I was awake.
All in all it was a good night, and I was left wondering why the hell do I enjoy drinking.
Tags: Events
