Right, I would like to apoligise for the lack of activity on this site recently. I have been busy with one of my other hobbies, Urban Exploration. Every night I have been sitting there researching places and looking at aerial photgraphy. And obviously I have been busy going to many of these sites. In fact, I am going to another two tonight hopefully.

I’m thinking of setting up a site for all my pictures etc. I’m also getting a wicked D-SLR in two weeks to take some quality pictures.

Secondly, I may not be writing anything for a while anyway as my computer’s motherboard had broken. It’s more cost-effective to buy a new one so I’m not going to be repairing it. Unfortunately all my work is on there (HTML files, PSDs, photos, stencils, icons, t-shirt designs etc.) and I don’t back up to disk, just to my second hard drive. This means when I get a new computer I’ll have to fanny about installing this hard drive into a brand spanking new computer, which is not something my dad is happy about.

Thirdly, I think I need to really rethink my idea for this blog as it isn’t really working like I would like it to. I think the problem is that the site is too general to target any specific audience. I think it would be best to just focus on my obscure and random exploits which happen almost on a daily basis. This would probably be pretty funny too, if I can find some way to put my photos up on here without a computer at my disposal.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for now. Nothing interesting happening other than the LEG campaign (Sssh! It’s a secret :))

Anyway, long story short. I decided to install Linux on my desktop computer. My distro of choice was Ubuntu for which I have five LiveCDs which they sent me for free. It was simple to install. I popped in the LiveCD and restarted my PC. It booted up and ran the full OS from the disk albeit with limited usability. I clicked the Install icon on the desktop and answered a few simple questions, most of which were just confirming things the OS had already detected such as my timezone, language (I guess when you pick your timezone it sets the language as the default one for that location), and then just my name, desired username and password, and desired computer name. It then asked me where I would like to install.

This bit was incredibly important, as a first time Linux user I did not want to have just Linux installed on my computer for two reasons. Firstly, if anything went wrong with Linux I still need a computer and secondly it’s a family computer and other people need to use it. I also have a lot of stuff on my computer which I didn’t want to get rid of by reformatting.

The installer had a built in partitioner. I normally have three partitions but I needed another two for my Linux installation. A small 512mb swap partition (I don’t know what that is but I would guess it is sort of like additional RAM or something) and then my main Linux partition. I decided I would need about 20gb for this partition. The minimum you can have is 2gb for the system files. Anyway, I didn’t have free space on my HDD so I had to resize the other partitions which I was reluctant to do as it may damage them but I decided to try it anyway and everything went smoothly.

After making a partition the install process took about 15-20 minutes and then I rebooted my PC. It launched a program on the boot screen asking which operating system I wished to use, the default being Ubuntu Linux. The login screen came up almost instantly, a far cry from booting up a Windows OS, even on a high end system. After putting in my user name and password I was welcomed by the Ubuntu desktop. Straight away it asked me if I wished to install system updates which I accepted. The 127 updates took about 5 minutes to install which was very impressive.

Then I played about for a bit, changing my wallpaper and the likes. Then I needed to address a serious issue. As I was the only person who would be using Linux and the rest of the people in my house would remain on Windows I thought getting asked which OS they wanted to run every time they booted the computer up may get a little annoying. I wanted some way that I could press a key to launch Ubuntu and if this key wasn’t pressed Windows would load up instead. This is where Linux’s flexibility really became useful. Opposed to Windows in which system files aren’t very friendly and they do not want you to play around with Linux provides documentation on editing system files. The file I needed to edit (’/boot/grub/menu.lst‘) opened in a text editor and was full of comments on how to change the variables. A couple of button presses later I was all sorted.

Something that really impressed me when I was changing the system files was the way that although Linux encourages you to customise your system unlike Windows, it also prompts you for a password before you make any major changes. This gives you time to think about what you are doing and consider whether or not your actions will harm the system’s stability.

Next was something I was concerned about, installing software. This is notoriously hard to do as a beginner and I didn’t really have a clue where to start. I wanted to download the only two programs I really use, Firefox 2.0 (v1.5 was included in Ubuntu anyway) and Flock. Both simply download as a tar.gz which is like the Linux equivalent of a .zip file. After extracting the folder I was confronted with loads of files. None of which said installer or anything similar. After looking around it became apparent that these programs did not need ‘installing’. They ran as soon as they were extracted. I placed them in ‘/usr/lib/’ which I guess is the equivalent of ‘C:/Program Files/’ and they run fine.

As Ubuntu came with everything you could possibly need I can’t even think of something I could download to actually try installing software properly. It has everything I can think of. The only thing I haven’t yet figured out how to do is play my MP3s which are in my ‘My Music’ folder in my ‘C Drive’ as Windows refers to the drive. The media player says something about needing a required something or other to play the file. I guess I’ll figure that out eventually.

So far my impressions of Ubuntu and Linux are extremely good. It’s a bit less user friendly than most OSs but it’s different and I like that about it.

Anyway, I’m off to go urban exploring. I’ll leave you with a screenshot of my desktop.

Click here for the screen shot

technorati tags:linux, ubuntu, geek, os, pc, windows, computers, noob

Working along side Andy from Skins for Wordpress I’ve managed to put together the design I’ve been working on for sometime now. Well, when I say working alongside I mean he did most of the work and I just added bits and peices.

The new style is packed full of features, so many that I haven’t yet had time to put them all in. I have feeds from Flickr and Last.fm with a Twitter feed on the way. There are also things like a downloadable buisness card and links to add me to your MSN Messenger contact list.

It’s still not totally finished. I still need to make a credits page and add one or two things but this is what it will look like for quite some time.

Anyway, in the next week I may officially launch the site. Not that that will mean anything will probably change. Just means it’s finished.

I got stuck with a new web project and decided to open up Illustrator and finish a few T-shirt designs. I thought this one was funny so I thought I would offer it up to anyone who wants it, although they’ll have to use other means to transfer it onto a t-shirt.

The file is a PDF so it should work out alright since the design is a vector. For those of you who didn’t know F.O.A.D is actually short for ‘Fuck Off And Die’. Click the preview image above to download the PDF.

http://www.ubersite.com/m/19906 

I hate you Melissa

Anyway off I popped, heading down to my local blood bank with Mobb Deep on the iPod and veins full of blood just begging to be drained away. I was a little nervous to go in, not really knowing what to expect. I became a little more relaxed when I saw one of my mam (mum for all you southerners)’s friends. A nurse handed me a form and I was asked to fill it out, just basic stuff on whether or not you think you may have any diseases or infections. After that I was shown back to the waiting area where I had a good chance to look around, the place was organised in a very public way and you could see the donors’ blood coming out their arms.

I got taken into this little cubicle, a blood sample taken to test the Iron levels in my blood, just a little prick on your finger, and then I was asked whether I had ever accepted money or drugs for sex and a few other random questions and then got sent back to the waiting area.

After my name was called out I took my jacket off and was asked which arm I wanted to use, decisions decisions. After an overly long consideration and then many changes of choice I opted for my left arm just because the bed for left arms was closer. I lay down and then they put a tourniquet around my arm and then asked me if I wanted a local anaesthetic (which I declined). The nurse told me it usually takes 15 minutes to get the pint of blood they collect but I was done in 4. They also took a few test tubes for testing to see my blood-group and whether I have HIV etc.

Then comes the fun part, after all that you get a free drink of juice and a couple of biscuits just to make your day that little bit nicer.

So there you have it, giving blood is not that bad! From now on I will be donating on a regular basis. Yet another goal over and done with.
As always, if you would like to find out more, click the image above

OMG! This film looks absolutely amazing. It’s based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name and judging by the trailers you can expect to see some monstrous-looking people and creatures that are so often found in graphic novels but rarely make it to cinema. For those of you who are a bit slow, Frank Miller was the creator of the graphic novel ‘Sin City’ and co-director of the movie of the same name.

This film looks sure to destroy the ‘epic battle’ genre in cinema, throwing aside films such as LOTR: The Two Towers, Troy (which was crap anyway), and Kingdom of Heaven. It comes out on Thursday the 8th of March, expect to see me in the queue at the cinema.

Click the logo to link to the official Warner Bros. site and watch the trailers.

According to their site if you eat the whole thing you get a certificate and the meal for free. On the other hand, if you die attempting to eat it the bill gets given to your next of kin!

I met the owner, pretty cool bloke. We ‘accidentally’ told him it was one of our birthdays and Katie got a birthday cake for free! I would have some photos but they didn’t allow phones and I didn’t have a digital camera with me.

Anyway, strike another thing off the list to do.

Currently there are three main contenders; Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PS3, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Nintendo Wii
Yes…a third generation console…I think not.
The Wii is a novelty. FACT. How can something the size of a portable DVD player even hope to stand in the way of the 3rd Generation Titans? With less processing power than the original Xbox what hope can have against the PS3 or Xbox 360 with over 5 times the power? Also the game graphics are frankly shite. The reason the Wii is selling, and it is selling, is just the simple novelty of swinging your arms around frantically holding a snazzy TV remote.

The Wii could have been something great had they just made something else completely. It’s like bringing out an EyeToy console, totally stupid. They could have brought a similar controller with any other console, especially with the new possibilities available with the other 3rd Generation consoles. In fact, the Wii is not even really a 3rd Generation console, nor should it be classed as one. It has nothing particularly new and embarrassingly does not support High Definition.

I would be extremely surprised if the Wii lasts the full year, once the novelty wears off people will get sick of its stone age graphics and limited gameplay. The only good thing about the Wii is the unlimited amount of Urine-related jokes that can be made about it.

Sony PlayStation 3
Well before the 3rd Generation consoles were actually released I decided I was going to get a PS3, not even vaguely looking at an Xbox 360 as I battle with some desperate mother to get the last one in the store at Christmas.

Oh how wrong I was. The PS3 is possibly the worst design ever, probably scaring even this guy. The controller looks like it would be more suited to the Australian Outback than your sitting room. As a once self-proclaimed PlayStation fanboy I am greatly disappointed in Sony. The PS3 had my name all over it and then they went and spoilt it all. Looking at the past the PS2 was HUGELY popular and had a massive amount of market dominance over the monstrosity that was the Xbox. The controller was, until recently, the best controller ever made, the range of games available was unparalleled by anything other than the PC, and it came out earlier than the Xbox (which had a shit controller, a shit list of games, and was…well…shit).

This time round Microsoft and Sony have totally swapped over, this time the PlayStation taking the Xbox’s role and vice-versa. I’m not the only one who thinks the PlayStation 3 is crap, the whole world seems to think this as well.

Microsoft Xbox 360
Where to start? This console is the mother of consoles. I can seriously not find anything which I would want in a console which the 360 does not have. It has all these snazzy features which you find yourself thinking “Dear God! Why has this never been done before?”. Just the little things like pressing the logo on the controller switches the console on and you can switch it off from the dashboard rather than have to actually get up!

Xbox live has even more brilliant features, the ability to download game trailers and demos is genius. Fair enough the demos are massive files but if you’re going to buy a game why not try it out first? Then there are the themes and additional content you can download, fair enough a lot of this costs money but they’re not stupidly priced and someone does have to make them.

So far I’ve have also been well impressed with Xbox live on the whole with it’s GamerScore and Reputation encouraging you to play games both online and offline and act muturely when playing online. The marketing for Xbox live is also well-thought up, most games offering 48 hour free Gold membership when you purchase the game.

And the controller, jesus. I hated the Xbox controller and as an ex-PlayStation fanboy couldn’t see things getting any better than that of the PS2 controller. How wrong that theory was. The 360’s controller is so perfectly modelled and fits so snugly in your hand the PS2 is uncomfortable to go back to. They scraped that white and black button fiasco and opted for a similar system to the PS2 with 4 ’shoulder’ buttons, using triggers rather than ‘R2′ and ‘L2′ really makes games feel better. It just feels more natural to pull the triggers than press a button when shooting or w/e

Just a brief update of what’s happening.

Anyway, for the most part this site is just a placeholder for what will go here. I plan to put a very active blog on here with lots of good content. Not just your average ‘Emo style’ weblog, but a concise and descriptive blog which is very opinionated and informative discussing all sorts of different topics in a level of detail which would be interesting for anyone interested in that field themselves and even to your average joe.

Although I’m a big fan of Phu’s wordpress themes I will not being keeping this theme for very long, I have almost completed the design of a new, more personal, theme. It’s probably the 6th incarnation of the original design I planned for this site a long time ago. I’ve got to then get it coded because I could not cope with the stress and frustration of coding my first wordpress skin. Instead I’ll probably hire Andy from Skins For Wordpress to do it, he’s pretty good.

This was a pretty fun goal to do, especially since I got some friends together to join me.

After meeting up and laughing at how ridiculous we all looked we drove off to our first stop, the ‘Falcon’s Nest‘ restaurant where we bumped into Matty (second from the right)’s older sister and her friends. They found the whole thing hilarious but couldn’t understand that we were in suits for no reason whatsoever.

Next we headed over to Burger King where we once all worked but have all since left. The manager didn’t seem to like us being there, jealous maybe?

After that we fancied somewhere a little more ‘up market’ so along we trundled to the Holiday Inn for a pint or two. There was a wedding service going on there as well so we actually felt under-dressed compared to everyone else. There was obviously the opportunity to gatecrash the wedding but we didn’t think this would be a very nice thing to do so opted out of that one.

Anyway, a lot of fun. This one is definitely recommended.
As usual the above links link to the actual locations of the mentioned places and not to the company website.

Not really such a ‘clever’ goal. More about will power, calling this goal ‘Throw up just for the fun of it’ was a little inaccurate as I did not do it for entertainment, more for the sheer curiosity as to whether or not I had the will to do it.

Doing this goal made me understand what someone suffering from Bulimia goes through on a regular basis due to their condition. In no way do I mean by this that I know how it feels to be bulimic as I have no experience of the psychological problems which are associated with this terrible condition. I merely now understand the terrible things this condition makes bulimic people go through physically.

If you would like to read further about this terrible condition the following link may be helpful. Help for Bulimia.