The iBwee Factor

8/7/07

2007-08-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

Exhibit A: "Apple to Host Event on 8/7/07"

Exhibit B: "Command & Conquer 3 to be revolutionized on 8/7/07"

I'll take a guess here and say that these events are connected. It has already been announced by EA that C&C 3 will be coming to the Mac, so how about some newly ported games to run on the new iMacs that are announced that day. Even cooler would be if they announce cross-platform multi-player games, between the Windows and Mac versions.

A Million Cries Rang Out

2007-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

Do you here that? Not that, that!

The sounds of a million Apple nerd crying at the news that Leopard has been delayed until October.

I don't like hearing that, but if it means a better Leopard, I guess we'll have to wait

Leopard, Sooner or Later

2007-03-31T17:36:00.000-07:00

With the recent release of Mac OS 10.4.9, I hoping this means that Leopard (10.5) will be released sooner rather than later, such as April or May instead of June. Though, if it takes until June for them to get a stable release, that would be better than having an earlier, unstable launch.

New Blogger

2007-01-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

I finally switched to the new blogger ~~beta~~. It took me a while to figure out how to switch. Either I missed the upgrade account on the front page or blogger automatically logged me in. Anyways, I have it now.

Something was Different Today

2006-12-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

Something felt different today. I was on a walk with my dog, but that is not what was different. On this walk I brought my iPod and was listening to Origin of Symmetry. Now don't get me wrong, Origin is a good album, but something was felt wrong.

Then I realized it. The music I was listening to was occupying my mind. I was still getting physical exercise, but I wasn't experiencing the outdoors. My walks not only get me outside and exercising, they also give me an escape from media. They give me a break from computers, music, the internet, TV, etc. Now, I don't think that those things are bad, just sometimes I need a break from them all.

Only 30 Seconds More

2006-10-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

30 Seconds, only 30 more seconds. Then I would have been on the bus, and on my way home. Taking the bus usually works good, but it was five minutes early. With only a few more seconds, I would have made it. But five minutes? The schedule is there so that the riders know when to be there. Oh, well. I get another half-hour in the computer lab.

Steve Jobs isn't worried about Zune

2006-10-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

Here is why Steve Jobs isn't worried about Zune.

Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried?
In a word, no. I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.

Math Rant

2006-10-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

//rant

Let me tell you about something I don't like when it happens.

I have a math problem that I get wrong on a quiz. I get the quiz back to see what I did wrong. I forget to find out how to do the problem correctly. Then, at the next test, the math problems returns and I never found out how to do it the right way. So, I have to make a good guess and hope for partial credit.

//End rant

Blogring fixed

2006-10-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

I fixed my "People that I know" links. Though, anyone who reads my blog probalby has all those link anyways.

Fire Alarm?

2006-09-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

There is an alarm going off at the computer lab at school. I wonder if that means that I should get out of the building?...

It's stopped now and someone said something about a door alarm. I think that I will live another day.

Abanded Missile Base VR Tour

2006-09-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

Abanded Missile Base VR Tour Read about an abandoned missle silo in the Midwest as two guys explore through it.

FreeStuff: Quinn

2006-09-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

"Quinn is an implementation of a popular falling-blocks game..."

As quoted, Quinn is a really fun game that involves falling-blocks. Its a good way to lose a few hours. Download it for free from the Quinn website.

FreeStuff - Posts about free software that I use. Games, text editors, anything, if I use it and its free it will end of here.

Windows XP

2006-08-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

I was looking at a book about Microsoft XP and Office and part of it read something like this.

"Your office just upgraded its computers to Window XP. As the IT person you should read this book to know what has changed so you can help users if they have questions. Questions, such as:

'Why is my computer slower running Windows XP?'

'Help bubbles keep popping up and telling me that I have a USB 2 device on a USB 1 port, I &*$*&$ know that!'

'I hear that XP is the first version of Windows to ship with viruses preinstalled, is this true?'

'The paper clip keeps autocorrecting my files when he shouldn't, is killing a paper clip murder?'

* Please note that parts of this work were fictionalized.

Quarters for Muse and Ho Ting

2006-07-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

Quarters for Muse
I bought the new Muse album, Black Holes and Revelations from the new Eagan Best Buy. We were going to Eagan anyways, but it was also nice to see Admiral Johnson. The best part was that I paid for the CD with $10.64 in quarters, nickels, and dimes. Hey, I needed to use them sometime.

Ho Ting
Jake, Anna, and I went out for lunch at the Ho Ting. Best. Chinese food. Ever. My favorite food there was the Steak'ems, pieces of meat and veggies in a gravy. Even the veggies (e.g. green peppers) in the Steak'ems tasted great. And we got to see Ben and Aaron.

That was my day,
~db

Active Desktop

2006-07-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

Often when my parent's computer crashes (It's running Windows ME which accounts for most of them.) it replaces the desktop picture, of my brother Matthew standing by a canon, with a warning that says: "Your computer crashed, Active desktop (Which shows the desktop picture.) has been turned off, incase it was the cause of the problem."

I have two thoughts on that:

1) Why is a picture being displayed by Active desktop? Active Desktop is used to display web pages as a background, so why is it used to display a JPG file?

2) If Active Desktop is unstable enough that it is often automatically disabled when Windows crashes, was it ready to be part of a shipping OS?

New BirdBrain Media Website

2006-06-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

I see that I haven't posted in almost a month. I'm either lazy or busy.

I have a new version of the BirdBrain Media website and I posted it online. Let me know if you have any thoughts on it or if it doesn't display properly. I would like to have it hosted somewere without ads, but since I not making money off of it, I don't see that hapening.

Avatar

2006-05-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

I have something special for you. A updated user avatar.

It's basically my old avatar, but with some added black. To make it look like my *cough* iPod *cough*. Apple legal you didn't here that.

I took a computer art class at Normandale and I like it when school has a practical use in my life. Let me know any thought that you have on my new avatar.

Appendix No More

2006-05-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

On Monday I had my appendix removed. I had been hurting and after some tests at the hospital and many, many hours of waiting, the doctor came and said "Your appendix is inflamed and it needs to come out". I didn't really have much of a choice and I wasn't that attatched to my appendix, so I had surgery and they removed my appendix. Now I am sitting at home, feeling a lot better, watching the first session of Lost, and wishing that next week wasn't finals week at school.

/dopi update/

2006-04-09T20:13:00.001-07:00

04/09/2006 - 2015
/operation dopi/

I make contact with my supplier. In exchange for of a fair amount of cash, I received a small black box. Inside of the box's shrink wrapped outside, was an iPod. The uber portable music player. I will elaborate in more detail later. For now I will leave you with the tech specs of this iPod.

/more information will be posted... including surveillance photos/

/Operation dopi/

2006-04-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

4/5/06 - 0850

/Operation dopi/

Recently my supplier received several iPods from the black market of the internet. He got these "iPods" for a very good price and wanted to pass the savings to his clients. As one of his clients, I was very interested. After the funds were secured and the needed approval was granted I contacted my supplier and reserved one of these "iPods" for myself. I will keep you, my readers, informed of the progression of this operation.

/More information will be posted as it is received.../

/FOR I-BWEE FACTOR READERS ONLY!/

2006-04-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

/FOR I-BWEE FACTOR READERS ONLY!/

Funds have been secured.

Approval has been granted.

Supplier has the goods.

Operation dopi is a go!

/More information to follow.../

iLinks

2006-03-20T16:03:00.000-08:00

Tonight I have some links for you.

An interest acticle about if Apple should sell OS X for PCs.
Should Apple Sell Mac OS X for Beige Boxes?

And I haven't read it yet, but a PDF book about how to use Xcode.
Become an Xcoder Book

That's all for now.

Podcasts

2006-02-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

Today I had to go back to school to work on homework, so I brought my headphones to listen to music. I thought I'd find something on the interent to listen to and I did, but its not music. Its Podcasts. Using iTunes, I browsed around for Podcasts and listened to some. Its like a blog, but with audio instead of words. I think that it is cool that nearly anyone can make their own 'radio' show and I say, "send the power to create and listen to Podcasts to the people".

PP - To Microsoft or anyone trying to change the name of Podcasts, you lost and iPod won the name. The word 'blog' isn't going anywhere and I don't think 'Podcast' will be going either.

Golden Rule of Algebra

2006-02-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

The following was seen on a sign, laying on a table, in a class room at Normandale Community College:

The Golden Rule of Algebra:
Do onto one side of an equation as you do onto the other.

I don't know what was worse, that someone thought of that in the first place or that I laughed because it was a math joke.

~db

iPod Nano

2006-02-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

Apple added a 1GB iPod Nano to their lineup today. With it costing only $149 ($129 educational) I am really tempting to buy one. They also dropped the price of the shuffle, but I don't think that a shuffle is what I need. Check it out at apple.com/ipod/.

~db

Speed Croquet

2006-01-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Speed Croquet
Speed Croquet is a cool, different way to play croquet. But that's all I will say about it, because I made a web page about Speed Croquet and I want you to see the Speed Croquet web page.

After you look at it and maybe even read it, I would like any comments you have on it. Let me know how it looks, because every browser is a little different. If you have any problems, let me know and I'll try to fix it.

I'm not the best with words, so let me know if you could play Speed Croquet with how I explained it. If my writing looks like an engineer wrote it, I want to fix that. I want your mom and my mom to be able to read it, understand it, and then decide that they would rather play normal croquet.

~db

Update: I have updated the Speed Croquet web page to version 1.1. I changed the look of the page a little and I refined the source code.

Holding My Own

2005-12-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

As I titled the post, I have been holding my own. I didn't die, use Windows Vista, or get a Xanga (which I already have, but don't post on), I just have been really, really lazy. Lazy in the sense that, every time I got a though of something to post I left it hanging. Well, now I finally posted and hopefully I'll post again.

Mum, money

2005-10-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?

Almost enough for a new iMac. So how do I sell it?

Friday

2005-10-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Today is a Wednesday that feels like a Friday with a 72 hour Saturday. I had the shorted class that I have ever had. In Freshman Comp I took a true/false, 45 question test. It was almost easy and it only took 20 minutes. So, yeah, no school until Monday.

Hello

2005-10-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

(I answer the phone.)

Me: “Hello.”
Joe: “This is Joe.”
My thoughts: Joe? Joe? Joe Whitson? No. Joe from church? Joe who? I draw a blank.
Joe: “Joe from school.”
My thoughts: Oh. Yeah. Duh, Joe Aust from my comp class.
Me: “Hi...”

(Hey, it was the highlight of this night of homework. And besides, I need to post something.)

Updates

2005-09-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

I have made updates to some of my websites. You can see them here: Bird Brain Media, Daniel's Link Page, and 4Ever Green 4-H Club. If you have any comments about them or see any errors, please leave me a comment or email me.

Fig Newton

2005-09-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

Sung to the tune of "I Shot the Sheriff":

I bought a Newton, but I did not buy an iPod.
(He didn't do it. He didn't do it.)

I don't know what I'll do with it, but I bought it anyways.
(Why'd he buy it? Why'd he buy it?)

I bought a Newton, but I did not buy an iPod. Yet.
(He didn't do it. Why didn't he do it.)

So as my parody suggests I bought a Newton Original Message Pad. It seems to be in near mint condition. I bought it with a case and AC power adaptor for the price of $15 (or $20.04 Canadian). The hand writing isn't perfect but it still is neat a device. And I now have joined a new level of geeks, the Apple Newton owners.

Update: Grammer and spelling

Reading List

2005-08-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

A week of vaction means 410 blog posts to read and 756 emails to maybe read and because our wood floor was redone I can't sit in a chair well reading them all. So if I surive (Which I might.) I'll see you later.

Firefox

2005-07-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Firefox takeover is now complete in my life.

I have Firefox on my family's computer for home browsing.
The library has Firefox their computers.
And now I have Firefox on my iMac. (It's running OS X.1 now)

If you use Internet Explorer use should give Firefox a try. It is securer, has tabbed browsing, and isn't made by Microsoft. You can download it from the Firefox website.

title de post

2005-06-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't blog for long time. It's because I've been busy. Busy working at Byerly's and working on my websites. My websites you can see here. You might see me working if you stop in at the Bloomington Byerly's. Though, unless you know I'm there don't stop to see me, I'm not working that much.

I-bwee (Intel Macs)

2005-06-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

When I first heard that Apple is switching to Intel I felt betrayed, but now I have different spin.
Look at the current top Ghz speed of the G4, G5, and Pentium 4 as I know.

G4 = 1.67 Ghz
G5 = 2.7 Ghz
P4 = 3.8 Ghz

The P4 has over twice the top clock speed of the G4. Yes, Ghz isn't everything and Apple speeds their machines with Velocity Engines, but that's not good enough for a company that wants to be an industry leader. So by switching to Intel Apple should be able to make faster, better Macs.
Also, I wonder if they can make Velocity Engines for the new Intel Macs. If Apple could get Intel Macs with Velocity Engines, high Ghz processors, and optimized programs the Intel Mac will rock the PC world.

(For an interesting take read this.)

1=one

2005-05-31T16:54:00.000-07:00

So I had this big, long post written about it being one year since I started bloging, but then Firefox crashed... Well actually I didn't, but I think it sounds good.

It doesn't seem like it has been year, but it has. Hear are some things I've discovered in this last year:
Macintosh Computers
Blogger
Bloglines
TI graphing calculaters

I would think of more, but it is time to go.
Thank you for reading Daniel Bird and the I-bwee Factor.

Xbox "360"

2005-05-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Microsoft,
Seeing a picture of the Xbox 2 (or Xbox "360") has left me wondering.

Why is "360" the silver color of a Emachines, piece of junk, computer? I will need to see one in person but the pictures make it look less attractive then Xbox 1. I know you don't want it to look like you are coping the PS2 but isn't there a better color and maybe a better shape?

Xbox 360? 360 degrees of what? The living room, the house, the world, of what?

Lastly, I hear "360" uses three IBM 3.2 GHz processors. Which is good, but I hope this won't take away from Apple's 3.0 GHz Powermac. The Apple fanboys would not like that.

Like I said, "I will need to see one in person." These are just my first thoughts on it. The Xbox is one Microsoft product I have liked. It will be interesting to see where the Xbox "360" will go.

~Daniel

2005-05-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

1 rabbit
+1 dog
+5 tadpoles
+1 cat
= All the animals in my house. Yeah, life's crazy.

Anywho, I have been playing Command & Conquer Red Alert. Here is a quick summary.
Albert Einstein builds a time machine to go back in time and kill Hitler to stop WWII from happening. With Hitler dead, Germany never rises to power, but the power hungry USSR, let by Stalin, attacks Europe to conquer it. You can play as the Allies, defending Europe from the Soviet invation, or as the Soviets, crushing Allied resistent. Ether way its a fun and frustrating RTS game.

iMac

2005-04-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

My number of real (a.k.a. Macintosh) computers has grown to three. About a week ago I bought an iMac SL. The iMac is a really cool computer, actually it doesn't have any fans so it gets a little hot. Inspite of it being 40 lb. it's portible, you only have to grab iMac, powercord, keyboard, and mouse and your ready to go. I'll post more later.

Fdisk

2005-04-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

I used Fdisk again today and unlike most Microsoft products it worked, it worked good, and I got done what I needed to do fast. Its used to create and destroy partitions on hard drives. I say it destroys because it erases partitions in a blink, so know what your doing. The only down side is that it is a DOS window which can be hard to navigate. So if you have Windows 3.1, 95, 98, or ME use Fdisk for all your partitioning needs.

Got Kaps

2005-04-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

Got Kaps?

Well, no... but I do have caps.

Jealousy

2005-03-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

It seems Micro$oft is jealous of someone's little white music player. See if you can find the points against the iPod in this.

World Wide Waste? A new way to melt your brain.

2005-03-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

Its amazing how you can send hours and hours online and yet get nothing done. I would say more but staring at the computer screen has fried the few remaining brain cells I had. They grow back don't they...

iPod

2005-02-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

The iPod mini and iPod photo got updates and price drops. Check them out at the Apple store.

Blog Link Page

2005-02-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that it has been quiet here at the Bwee Facter and that is because I have been working on the Blog Link Page beta. Its a web page with links to the blogs of people I know and care for. It is still a beta version; I will add Xangas links later. If you have suggestions, comments, or want your blog added or removed email me at rascallybunny@yahoo.com.

O, yeah. This gets a Bwee^3
Making a web page of links to other web pages, Bwee!

Which ECC pastor are you?

2005-02-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

You scored as Mark Darling. You are Mark Darling, pastor of "The Rock" and "The Urban Refuge."

Mark Darling

50%

Bill Barnd

45%

Jeff Groen

10%

Mark Bowen

Which Evergreen pastor are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Would you like some Toast?

2005-01-30T18:24:00.000-08:00

The other day I used Toast to burn some CDs. It took 15 minutes to burn each disk, but I was using a SCSI burner and my external Jaz drive case, so it was reasonable. I used version 4 and I assume that Toast 6 would also work well. If you need Mac CD burning software, I had a good experience with it and recommend it.

Return

2005-01-24T16:41:00.000-08:00

Winter has returned now. With Friday's snow I can now say that winter returned. Also, I have returned. From where I don't know, but now I'm back, back in a blogging mood.

Three Things

2005-01-07T20:40:00.000-08:00

1) I upgraded Elixer to OS 9.2.1. I was hoping for speed increases, but so far I have not noticed any. I also haven't noticed slow downs, which makes it a win-win.

2) Jake got me a Apple TV/Video System. It has a TV tuner, s-video, and composite (RCA) inputs. So I can watch TV on my computer, record TV to watch later, and it came with video editer. It's really cool and so far have work with out problems.

3) Four days 'til Steve Job's keynote. O, the insanity!

Put Another Log on the Fire

2005-01-02T15:24:00.000-08:00

The rumor fires are blazing hot with the Macworld expo a little over a week away. The biggest is a cheat, "headless" iMac, also rumored is iWork. This is what make Apple interesting, the rumor sites and their loyal users. So I will let the nerds have there fun with their rumors, and wait to see what Apple brings.

Macintosh 128k vs. TI-89 Titanium

2004-12-22T11:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a graph I made comparing the original Macintosh to my graphing calculator.

CARS

2004-12-18T19:43:00.000-08:00

"Crazy Apple Rumor Site" It's a site of crazy Apple rumors, I enjoy it, but it can get dirty. Anywho, I liked the first one on this list.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

2004-12-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

I just watched A Christmas Story. I think it is supposed to be a classic, but I didn't get why it is. The plot seemed so-so, and I nearly fell asleep. Leave Your comments for or against it.

re:

2004-12-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

My reply to Chris.

Because everyone knows rabbits are evil, especially my rabbit, and that kids shouldn't be looking at them.

2004-12-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to camp out overnight at the PCshop what to come with me?"
"Sure, why?"
"Because they are going to release a new version of Norton Antivirus."
(from Malcolm in the Middle)

I'm not that much of a nerd am I? I do find myself saying bwee, but I'm not that bad. On another note my gmail account is getting spammed. I created it thinking that I might switch from my yahoo mail to it, but now they both get spam. I now recall my old AOL email; all that ever got was spam. Stupid spammers!

P.S. now my spell checker works, turns out Firefox was blocking it.

AppleTalk

2004-12-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

I got a old LaserWriter printer and network cables from my dad's office. Setting up the network took three steps.

1) Connect the LocalTalk cables through the printer ports.
2)Turn on Apple Talk.
3)Turn on file sharing.

That is all there is to it. I had a little trouble setting it up because I was over compelating it. So thank you Apple for your wonderful, easy to use products.
Networking computers, I give that a bwee^2.

Audacity

2004-12-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

If you need to record audio, than you need audacity. I used it to record a live show, and it worked extremely well. The input wasn't great so it don't sound good, but that is not Audacity's fault. Its Windows and Macintosh compatible, and its free! Thanks to Jake for showing it to me.

Holiday shopping

2004-11-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

Need to buy someone a Christmas present, got 82 dollars, are nerd at heart (or not).
Then you need the SwissMemory USB it has everything; it even has a USB flash drive. Bwee
This has a bwee factor^2

Trouble in Windozeland

2004-11-24T19:14:00.000-08:00

I have a problem with my Dull laptop. It is owned by my church; I have it to make PowerPoint sides on. The problem is that it has a DVD drive, but it will not read DVDs. You would think no problem, just download a "decoder", not so.

1st try: Toshiba
Toshiba says its DVD drives don't need special drivers; That they are included in Windoze. XP plays CDs fine, but don't have a DVD decoder.

2nd try: Dull (a.k.a. Dell)
Dull has firmware updates to download, but they only work in Win98 and 2000. My laptop has XP pro, so that probably will not work.

3rd try: Micro$oft
Windoze Media Player's page has link to three decoder, but they cost $15-$20 each. The laptop was donated to my church, and the person who bought it paid for a DVD drive, so why should I have to pay 15 dollars to use a feature that should be usable with the drive.

Sorry for the rant. If you have any leave your comment or ideas to fix this.

The Bwee Factor's bwee factor

2004-11-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

I haven't fully figured it out but now I'm going to have bwee factors on some things. The range probably wil be ...^0 -...^5. It will maybe go something like this...
Installing and running Linux, is bwee to the fourth "bwee^4."
Learning to turn on a computer would only be to the 0 "bwee^0."
Writing a post against IE would be a "bwee^2."

I'll try it and see how it works. Leave any comments you have.

Bweeeeee!

2004-11-18T17:11:00.000-08:00

I got a TI-89 Titanium. It got it for advanced math, and it is sweat. Looking through the manual almost makes my head hurt, and that someone understands most of that math... crazy... I'll update while I us it more.

If your bored...

2004-11-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

Then you should spend some time at Applefritter. They have pictures of Mac prototypes, custom Mac cases, and other cool stuff.

The sound of Jaz

2004-11-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

The sound of smooth Jaz- click, whrr, cluck, grrrrrrrrrrr, bloup- wait that's my Jaz Drive. I got it from a garage sale about a month ago, but the disk utility never formatted the disks right. Today I installed a new disk tools utility, and it formats them the right way. I got 6 disks, and they each hold 1GB of data.

Now I'm usb compatible

2004-10-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Elixer has taken another technological leap. It now has usb card. Which means I can use my usb iMac keyboard, and I'm not limited to transfer files via floppy or burning a cd, yeah. Installing the card took some work, but after it was installed and I got the driver the card worked great.

I know what I said

2004-10-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

I like it when things work, It's a nice feeling. I was at church, and I needed a Power Point file from one laptop to use on another laptop. I had forgot to bring a dongle (usb flash drive) and even if I had a floppy disk the foppy drive on one laptop was bad. I've been wanting to try to network them with infrared, so I thought I'd give it a try. After a little configuring of control panels they "saw" each other, and a few minutes later they where transfering files. They where both wintel machines, but it still worked great. So I like it when things go well, even though I didn't need the file in the end.

Are you talking to your computer?

2004-10-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Elixer now have voice recognition software. (Ha ha ha, Take that pc users.) It isn't perfect, it can take a times for it to get what your saying, but it's fun to talk to your computer and have it do stuff. With it I can lauch, switch, and close programs, shut down or sleep the computer, and it even tells jokes. Ok the jokes aren't that great, but it still is funny, hearing a joke from your computer.

Upgrading

2004-10-07T17:01:00.001-07:00

In the last few months I've done a lot of OS upgrading. Something I like about older Macintoshes is that it is easy to get different operating systems because many of the older Mac OS's are free.

On Aurora I've upgraded (and downgraded) to these operating systems.
7.0._ > 7.5.3
7.5.3 > 7.5.5 (It corrupted the OS or something so I tried out OS 6)
_._._ > 6.0.5
6.0.5 > 6.0.8
6.0.8 > 7.0.1
7.0.1 > 7.5.3
7.5.3 > 7.5.5

And on Elixer:
9.0.4 > 9.1._

Bwee to the Max!

2004-10-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

Last night some guys got together to watch the Star Wars Trilogy. We watched it via projector, on a hugh screen, with Dolby suround sound, and with lots of snacks. It was a long, but very fun night and now I can say I seen episodes IV, V, and VI in the same night.

A Death, then a Downgrade

2004-09-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I installed OS 7.5.3 on Aurora II, Apple has a free update to OS 7.5.5 so I tried installing it. When I finally got it on floppies it was a easy install, until afterwards, when I restarted the computer. The happy Mac came first, but then I got the black screen of death and the sad Mac. (Along with a few-keyed death hymn.) I was able to boot from floppies, but any system I copied to Aurora wouldn't boot it up. Without anything else to do I downloaded Mac OS 6.0.5 and installed it. To my amazement it worked, and so far is running great. So far the best part is that to shut down and restart take 12 seconds. Right now I'm downloading OS 6.0.8 and hopefully I came get it to dual boot 6.0.8 and 7.0.1 or 7.5.3.

Wow, another great produce (of Apple's)

2004-09-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

Apple did it again with the Mac OS control strip. It's very convenent to be able to switch screen size, colors, and tons of other things. The best part is the seemless intergration of a cd player into the control strip. Windows Media Player and even CDrun don't get anywhere close to this. That continus to confirm my liking of a company making the hardware and software (mainly the OS) together.

Another Mac

2004-09-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

I bought another computer the other day, a Macintosh Performa 6360. Its running OS 9, has 32 RAM, 160mhz prosessor, and a 4gb hard drive. So far everything is working, and this one even shuts-down the right way.

The joy of upgrading

2004-09-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

Well the other day I upgraded my Mac's OS. I had been running Mac OS 7.0, and I thought I'd try upgrading through Apple's website. So I formatted 19 floppies to Macintosh, downloaded the 19 parts, put the 19 parts on the 19 floppies, and copied it all to my Mac. (In only about two or three inderect hours.) When I had it all on my hard drive the installer said it needed OS 7.0.1 (A 4.9 MB download) or a "Network Access Disk". So I downloaded the files for a "Network Access Disk." Then I was set to go, I got the installer running and installed 7.5.3 in about a hour, and I really like OS 7.5.3 it looks better and is improved over plain OS 7.0. Overall it took a long time, but nothing was overly difficult. So a plus to Apple for a easy OS upgrade.

cAn yUO ReAd tHis?

2004-08-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

Why do people write in random uncaps and caps? "sUcH aS tHiS"? It bugs me and it looks a lot like spam. That's my only thought for now, stay tuned.

Bye IE

2004-08-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

Well I'm done with Internet Explorer and IE based browsers. I fould this page the other day, and after reading it and trying it, it acually works. All it takes to crash IE is >style<@;/*, that's all! So I swiched to Firefox and I'm not going back to IE. I might use IE for making webpages, because it's a little easier, but for browsing I not not going to use a browser that can be crashed by 11 charctures, that's easily hacked into, and that's made by Microcrap. Er, um, Microsoft.

light goes on, light goes off, etc.

2004-07-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

Something I think all computers should have is a on/off toggle switch.
Why? I‘ll tell you, my emachines computer is very crash prone, and sometimes when it freezes it won’t respond to anything even pressing power button thing, and I have to pull the power cord out. It would be nice if all I had to do was flip a switch to kill the power, instead of pulling out the power cord. For an example when the robots in I, Robot go nuts if they had toggle switches, the movie could have gone like this.

(Robots start to go evil, and yell.)
"KILL ALL HUMANS, KILL ALL HUMANS"

(Then they attack the humans, but Will Smith jumps out and reaches behind each robot and flips the power switch to the off position, stopping the robots.)

Yes, it would make a boring movie, but in real life it's nice that when your computer crashes you can just flip it off, and then flip it on again. That’s just my opinion on power buttons.

Why?

2004-07-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

Why? Why? Why does Microsoft design crap?

I was listening to a CD, while online, through Windows Media Player when up popped a window to download a WMP upgrade. I thought sure why not, so I said yes. Then it said you must close WMP and any other programs, I hit next. The next page said the download was 11 MBs, I'm on a dial-up 56k modem, so I clicked close and WPM froze up. WMP then brought Crazy Browser and Windows with it, then gave me the blue screen of death. My system was gone, now to restart it. But hold on, I'm suppose to be able to restart from the blue screen of death using the three fingered solute, but it doesn't work. My only option was pulling the power cord.

1) Why did the WMP updater bring down the whole system?
2) Why do I have to close WMP to update it?
3) Why can't I restart from the blue screen of death, like I should be able to?

As I see it, my only error (besided using windows) was ignoring the close WMP message, but look at the second question again.

Wintel Vs. Macintosh (pt. 1)

2004-07-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

I know it's a big debate, Mac Vs. PC, but I thought I'd give my two (or three) cents.

Cords

Starting with power cords. On my Mac there is a pass-through power cord from the CPU to the monitor. By using this I free up an outlet, which to me is a very intelligent thing to do. When I have two computers, a lamp, stereo, and clock on my desk it's convenient to have an open outlet. As I recall, I've seen only one pc with a monitor power cord pass-through, compared to all the Macs I've seen, which are ether one piece or have a monitor power cord pass-through.

Your mouse and keyboard sit inches apart, why not run one cord to the CPU, instead of two? Macs run the mouse to the keyboard and then one cord to the CPU, reducing clutter. With a USB keyboard any USB device can be connected to the keyboard, and with the right monitor the keyboard can then be connected to the monitor.

So for the most part, Apple seems to have a more efficient use of cables, like the new cinema displays that have the video signal, power, USB, and FireWire in one cable.
Wintel machines work, but if I had a newer Mac I'd only have one cable from my desk to my CPU, instead of the five or more I have now.

I have become what I hate

2004-07-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

Something that bugs me is when website aren't updated in years or people don't post on there blogs. Now I haven't posted in a month! And I have become what I hate. But hey, I was on vacation, then I went to camp, and then I became a lazy kid, out of school.

My Mac IIci, named "Aurora II", is awesome.
When it's powered up, the fan sounds like a spaceship revving its engine.
Of the three computers in my house, I think it has the shortest boot time. (Take that Windows ME, 95, and XP!)
It's running OS 7.0, which seems about par with Win 95, though I'd like to get 7.6 or something.
It has the coolest floppy drive ever!
And except for not shutting down it runs great for being 15 years old. (I'd like to see a PC do that!)

I was mistaken

2004-06-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well I made a mistake, I thought the nerd word bwee was blee, but now that is fixed. Now my blog's title is Daniel Bird and The I-Bwee Factor.

On another topic, I got my Macintosh IIci working. I got the cpu, mouse, monitor cable, and power cord for 50 cents from a garage sale, a free keyboard from Chris Dugan, and the Monitor for $10 dollars from another garage sale. I'll be posting more about it later.

Why I blee

2004-06-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

Blee, that word heard from nerds when they realize that they are truly a nerd. Such as when they find themselves comparing their TI-30X IIS and TI-25X Solar calculators. We could ban nerd from society, but where would the world be without people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the guy who invented the drinking bird.( drinking bird)

So next time you see a nerd you should be nice, because maybe they will invent something useful, like a computer that won't crash, a car that can fly, or even a cell phone the size of a peanut.

I am Dan Bird and I approve of this message.

2004-05-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well it's Memoral Day again, so I would like to thank all the people in the military for what they are doin

I'm just a nerd that wanted to express his feelings to the world, so I created this blog. I hope to talk about nerdish things like: computers, wakie-talkies, and hamburger earmuffs. Hence the name the I-Blee Factor. Keep an eye out, I will be posting again soon, and until then fairwell.