Reverse Cryptomnesia?

Also, an inadvertent monograph on the Quinnspiracy and TvW at the UN because that's what happens when you get into a flow talking about programming... 

I talked years ago about the embarrassment of coming up with an idea only to find not only does it already exist, but it's so immensely commonplace and ubiquitous in your own life that it probably took more mental energy to forget it exists than for you to come up with it. This is putting a twist on that idea. 

I don't know programming. I don't know programming at all. I understand some of the ideas around it, but the leap from text in C++ to HD graphics is almost abstract for me. I've tried writing text adventures, but HTML is about the best I can do, and Depression Quest* is pretty much the kind of game I would want to create, though not nearly as pro-social or insightful... or worth playing. 

At one point, after hearing about all the various tools available, I had an idea to use one of these drag-and-drop interfaces to put together the laziest, most bare minimum "Hello, World"-shaming programs and then charge an absurd amount of money for it. Of course, I'm not saying I'm any kind of genius, much less that there's anything more than petty and opportunistic about such a venture, but I figure it's like snuff films; just because the idea is simple and plausible enough doesn't mean anyone's taken it all the way to reality. I know there's a proper name or attribution to the notion of, "if you've imagined it, someone else has likely made it" a more Zen-like perspective on the patent joke "anything that could be invented already has been". As for my "invention": 

Even the most expensive Android app, which is capped at 200USD (but is available as a six app set), is at least a set of desktop themes. I wouldn't call that essential, but at least the developer has enough skill to not look like a shameless opportunist. Meanwhile, one of the most expensive apps on Windows phones is only a mere half-step above the app that I would create. Mine would even be called "the 1000 dollar app that does nothing" (this was before I found out about the price cap) along with a myriad of disclaimers in the description that this is literally a kind of half-hearted social experiment/get-rich-quick scheme. My thinking was that, by the law of averages, I have the power someone would buy it just to burn money and have the dubious honor of having spent a ludicrous amount on a frivolity. 

*For the record, I have no problem with Zoe Quinn. I think the controversy around her has been absurdly blown out of proportion. It did turn my stomach a bit to see her alongside Anita Sarkeesian at the United Nations. As I've said about Sarkeesian, and as much as I legitimately like some of her videos such as the Lego one and even Ms. Male Character, she completely lost my respect with the Women as Background videos with their embarrassingly transparent misrepresentations of the games in question on top of the absurd premise of connecting real-world behaviors to in-game violence. Put simply, she's the worst person to champion her own cause, and while she certainly does not deserve death threats, I feel as though her issues overshadow Quinn's, who has been the victim of a massive, coordinated cyber attack and been accused of attempting to profit from the suicide of Robin Williams. To make matters worse, while I may not care about her personal life, the fact that there are so few women in the games industry does put her in an awkward position where her every inconsequential action carries absolutely onerous consequences. She shouldn't have to be an example, yet I don't think her position is discussed nearly enough. 

I guess you could say the reason I care more about Quinn than Sarkeesian is that Quinn is making legitimate efforts to enact changes in the games industry, blazing trails between the paths less-traveled while Sarkeesian is a bloody backseat driver. 

To put another way: 

If a film critic and a filmmaker were drowning and I could only save one of them... Well, I like The Island and even Age of Extinction had its moments. Sorry, Leonard. 

Final note: double-checking the definition of monograph to make sure I was using it right (you tell me), led me to this site which seems pretty damn awesome at first impression. 

Unlockable Gateway

I've been a proud Linux user for several years. I started with Ubuntu, but never quite liked how it worked, dabbled in a few others I can't recall names to, and then finally settled on Linux Mint as my favorite, namely for their Long Term Support versions. At the time of this writing, I've yet to try Peppermint, a fork of Mint, though it looks very promising. My second favorite is Jolicloud (or JoliOS, or Jolidrive... they've got a bit of an identity issue they need to work out once and for all). I'd written a review of an early version of their OS, and while I didn't exactly have the nicest things to say, they've gotten much better, and the staff I spoke to while writing my little expose were surprisingly good sports about what I said about their early efforts. Despite that bit of drama, it is actually the flavor of Linux I will always recommend to anyone curious about using Linux that's not quite ready to commit to a full install (or even a partition) of something more robust. 
The Jolicrew is a strange lot with a downright baffling mission statement. Their OS is meant to mimic a tablet's interface, specifically iOS, but is not actually meant to be run on a tablet. Instead, one of their biggest selling points was "breathing life into an old desktop" which sounds a bit silly, but when you consider the elderly or even very young children, the idea of doing away with that tired old desktop interface in favor of app tiles does sound very appealing. In addition to these fairly low system requirements, the system has, hands down, the most painless trial and/or installation process I've ever seen. I wish more Linux flavors took after these methods to make their systems more accessible to weary consumers. Normally, if you want to try out a Linux OS, you've got to go into the boot menu of your startup screen... and it's possible I've lost at least half of you already. I'm not saying you're stupid or anything like that, but you'd never have to do anything like this for a game or a browser, so why should the OS be any different. JoliOS not only can be run effectively as an application (no different than a word processor or a game) that can be un/installed with the greatest of ease, but it can even be run in a browser. 
While I've gone back to using Windows (7, in case you're wondering), and my old desktop running Mint is gathering dust, Jolicloud never left my side, so to speak. It's a kind of OS backup. Even if I'm using someone else's computer, I can log in to Jolicloud and access most of my services through there. I still check in on it every once in a while so I don't get surprised by any major changes or upheavals to the interface or the service connections. 
Today was when I checked in on it and was surprised, then baffled, by a change to the service connections, specifically Evernote. There was a "new" flag over the "add new services" bar at the side, which I clicked on. Most of the apps were ones I'd never heard of, the rest I had no real use for, and then I saw Evernote was there with a padlock icon over it. I clicked on it and got the above screenshot. In order to use the app and have it work with my Jolidrive page, I essentially had to pimp Jolicloud on one of my social networks. 

I'm really not sure what to think about this, and not simply because I already have Evernote on my JoliOS dashboard. 

So Today...

OR: Barnes & Noble, I Am Done With You! 
Tagline: Unfairly, I admit, but done, dammit!  
So, one of my New Year's resolutions was that I wanted to get into tabletop gaming, something I've always skirted the edges of, but never fully dived into apart from some gateway drugs like Hero Quest, Magic: The Gathering, owning a lot of Palladium books (mostly Robotech), & playing a single game of Battletech. To rectify this, I bought the Red Box from Thinkgeek and looked through its materials. Also, for reasons I don't recall at the moment, I wanted to play as a Tiefling. I had an idea for a character, but I didn't have any technical data to play as one. I did a lot of sloppy research and worked out that I was going to need the Essentials Rules Compendium and the Race Handbook for Tieflings. The former is a condensed version of the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, the other is basically a magazine (that will become important later). 
I got a coupon from Barnes & Noble or, as I like to call them, Not Borders, and thought this would be the perfect chance to pick them up without waiting for them in the mail & potentially getting burned by finding out they're not what I need after all. I'm normally weary about "in-store pickups" but I've got that kind of luck where I could be after the most obscure thing in the world and get beaten to it by someone more offbeat than I pretend to be. I put in the reserve for the Tiefling race book (the magazine, a point I'll explain in a moment) and waited. This was Friday night, so I didn't get the message until morning. The message said that despite being listed as "in stock" it could not be found and put on reserve. No biggie, I thought; most of the reviews said it was only an art book of sorts. I tried to reserve the Compendium and had better luck. One 30-minute drive and a missed turn later, I got to the store with the coupon in my pocket.
It turns out there was more than one copy of the Compendium in stock, so I didn't have to do the potentially awkward thing of picking up the book at the desk and asking to look through it before purchasing it (that probably happens all the time, but it just feels awkward to reserve something and then DEMAND to inspect it--I'm the sort of guy who will go down the other aisle in a grocery store and double-back to where I need to go rather than simply excuse myself as I squeeze past someone's cart). Anyway, my research revealed the book was a bit vague on how much of a "condensing" of the two aforementioned books it was, with some of the races and player classes being relegated to a pair of companion volumes, which we'll just call Purple and Orange because I don't remember their names and don't feel like looking them up right now. It turns out Tieflings aren't in the Compendium, but in the Purple book. Fine, I thought, but I ended up deciding against getting the book anyway as it didn't really offer me any real information I hadn't already gathered (legitimately, I might add, no piracy or scans or downloads like that).
I should mention now that the Compendium, along with Purple and Orange, are thick paperbacks with very wide spines, distinctly standing out from the other books that usually crowd the gaming section of a bookstore. Meanwhile, the Tiefling race book is a pithy, staple-bound affair that can be fairly easily hidden between two larger books or campaign modules or DM screens or any such shelf-stretchers. As I was looking through the other books, including a Pathfinder book which actually had a lot of cool information about Tieflings I won't bore you with (except to say, they were really neutered between D&D 3.0/.5 and 4th Ed.), I came across the Tiefling race book. Apparently, no one had bothered to look any harder than simply glancing at the spines. I doubt they'd even actually set aside the Compendium, just leaving it there, figuring no one else would pick it up.
After pacing back and forth between there and the Moleskine stand (where they had one pocket-sized watercolor book left that I almost got instead), I resolved, "Screw this crap." and stormed out, even throwing my coupon in the trash outside.
I went next door to the Best Buy to look at laptops, and made an ass of myself as I tried to figure out how Windows 8 is supposed to work. I still can't get around the fact that the "desktop" is an application tile. That's insane, like having to call 411 to get your own number. Plus, is it just me, or are more desktop apps designed like mobile apps in that there's no real way to quit them? If it wasn't for Skype and better hardware compatibility (namely webcams) I wouldn't even be looking at Windows devices. Still, found a really cool Vaio. We'll see what happens there.
Some other crap happened, but it's more minor inconveniences amplified by all preceding events, so I won't go into it here.

Good night, and good luck.

Twitpic Is An Apt Name

My phone has been having fits lately, mostly over the number of apps that I have installed to the memory card as opposed to the internal memory. Here's the problem, the internal memory of my phone doubles as the RAM. Most smartphones, going all the way back to the SDA I had, which was an old-school Windows Mobile phone, had a task manager where you could turn off anything that was running if it didn't already have an exit button programmed into it.
Anyway, the problem lately has been that the phone will claim it can't find the memory card, meaning even my photos can't be seen. As you might imagine, this really irked me in the worst way. Eventually, it would just sort of "fix itself" if I gave it time, at worst just restarting the phone. To be fair, I am a bit rough with my phone, but in my defense, its entire design scheme is built around never turning it off. The HTC Rhyme has a number of quirky little features and accessories that really endeared me to it when I started up my new cell service. One of these items of interest is a charging dock that turns the phone into a kind of desk clock. In fact, it's my primary alarm clock that I wake up to for workdays. The issue with this is that I have to set aside time in the day to allow the phone to die, to run completely out of juice and essentially "let it rest" for a while.
The trouble lately is that it doesn't seem to be enough, and it continues to give me grief over not being able to see the memory card as well as not being able to run certain applications if they're installed to the memory card. I would be browsing sites or checking messages when suddenly I'd get an error message that some app I'm not even really using has "encountered an error" presenting me with the choices of "report" or "force close." It got to the point where I stopped getting eBay notifications because it couldn't really run the app anymore.
As a result, I tried to do a little bit of housekeeping today, going through all my apps, clearing caches and moving them onto the memory card or erasing them altogether if I could, while leaving some apps on the internal memory (apart from the ones that are "locked" and can't be deleted for various reasons), namely Evernote, as it's sort of been my best (non-human) friend on my current writing project. One casualty of this venture has been Twitpic, which is only in a non-working state because it doesn't seem to recognize my account information. I mean, I know I'm entering the right password, but it's not recognizing it. Granted, I'm probably putting in the wrong password regardless of my confidence to the contrary, but I've really just given up on it. Twitpic used to be a place where I posted sketches and work-in-progress photos of art projects I would later post to DeviantART. It was kind of a "behind-the-scenes/coming attractions" sort of exercise, showing a glimpse into my admittedly unremarkable process. I haven't used it much of late as I've been writing, but even when I have made a few drawings or notes, I don't really miss posting the images.
Who knows, maybe I'll join the rest of civilization and just start using Instagram?

Doubtful, but I do have a short essay in mind about Instagram, and the often ludicrous level of popularity surrounding it. In a way, it's kind of like how I felt about Twitter: in theory, it's genius, a kind of "bad by design" camera in line with Lomography or other classic experimental photo techniques. In reality, it's earned a rather unfavorable nickname, something like "Hipster's Polaroid." There's a tweet I found once that's a reply to Nikon regarding their Android camera that came out some months back. If I can find it, I'll write the essay then.

In the meantime, short summation of events:
Phone is wonky.
Writing project is going very well, for better or for worse.
Twitpic has packed up.
Evernote is my best friend.
I'm considering getting an eBook reader, but I'm debating about a color scheme, and the only place I can post a poll about it is on DeviantART, which would mean bumping down a poll that's relevant to my current project.
Current random object of fascination: Book straps.

Not Every Jolicloud Has A Silver Lining

Platform Agnostic is what's written on the "Operating System of Choice" line of my DeviantART profile as well as any other profile or bio that asks. It means that, officially, I couldn't care less what OS something has installed on it because, apart from a few and fairly reasonable strength/weakness debates, they're all alike. The only factor that truly differentiates Microsoft from Apple from Linux is market share; Windows is the 500-pound "Any color, as long as it's black" Gorilla, Mac is the Cocky "Well, you win some, you lose some" Upstart, and Linux is the Grassroots "None of the above" Rebel. I grew up in a Mac household up until OSX, became a Windows convert of sorts with XP after college, and dabbled in Linux (specifically, Ubuntu and Mint) the last two years. I've seen the best each has to offer, and I've witnessed their stumbles. Most recently, I gave a little OS called Jolicloud a try, after hearing it briefly mentioned on a podcast called Dumpstertech. I thanked them for letting me know about it via Twitter:

Matsugawa: I'm about to try out that #Jolicloud OS that I heard about on @dumpstertech some time back. We'll see how it stacks up in Linux terms...

This leads me to what is probably my favorite part of Jolicloud's design, the installation and demo design. Normally, if you want to install a Linux operating system on your PC, you have to download the .iso file to create an install disc with a CD or DVD burner. ISO files are between 650MB and 1.5GB in size, so this requires a relatively substantial internet connection, not to mention a modest degree of patience. In short, it's more of an investment than an impulse. Jolicloud, however, seems to understand the weariness many of its potential users may feel toward trying a new and substantially-simplified operating system, so they came up with a solution in the form of Express, something that could only be described as a demo of the full version of the OS. Demos are usually reserved for applications, namely games, and consist of a pared-down version of the full program intended to take up less room on one's hard drive and be relatively easy to install and, if necessary or desired, removed or upgraded to its full capabilities. While Jolicloud Express cannot be upgraded-to-full per se, it does not require an install disc to be made, and is instead simply downloaded and installed like any other application.
Jolicloud is designed for netbooks and favors touchscreens, giving it more than a passing resemblance to the iPad operating system. While it has folders for user-created documents such as text files, photos, and videos, applications are hidden except for desktop shortcuts, which are large icons arranged in a grid on the main screen. When there are more apps than there is room to display, or you want to organize your apps according to their function or something, a small row of white dots appears along the bottom of the screen, each representing a new "page" of applications.
While this setup would only prove slightly problematic as my test drive proceeded, there was something of a false start that nearly put the whole trial on indefinite hold. When an operating system is installed on a computer as a partition (that is, keeping the original OS with the new one installed alongside it), the option is presented upon boot-up which one is to be used until the next shutdown or restart. Unfortunately, after installing Express and restarting, no such option appeared. I found out Jolicloud's support department had a Twitter page:

Matsugawa: @Jolisupport I used the Express version, but it won't let me choose between it and XP on boot, only #Jolicloud. What gives?

Expecting an automated "please visit our full site" response, I was rather relieved to get a real response from a real person with whom I could have an actual (if somewhat limited) dialogue:

Zak Kaufmar: @matsugawa Did the installation complete correctly? Maybe try reinstalling. ^ZK

Looking back over JoliSupport's other messages to users, this was the catch-all solution offered at least once during the conversation, regardless of the situation. To be fair, back when I worked in customer service for a cellular provider, whenever a customer was having a technical issue with their phone, our first step was always to have them turn the phone off and back on again and, surprisingly, that solved the issue nine times out of ten, at least. At worst, the issue would recur and do so frequently to the point of no longer being simply a glitch, but this was rather rare. The point is, this solution was not by any means inappropriate, but its preceding question assumes that a first-time user would know the difference between a successful install and one that was otherwise.
Furthermore, the problem was that I couldn't actually reinstall if I wanted to, because I would have to go back into the Windows XP environment to remove Jolicloud, but I couldn't get there to do so. The only thing that kept my next message from being one of complete verbal abuse was a great sense of smug satisfaction that I'd listened to my prior instinct and backed up all my files onto an external disk before installing Jolicloud. Past experiences with computers have included some close calls in terms of data loss, but while I've made archiving a habit, it begs pondering how many otherwise-lucky people trying Jolicloud will fill Jolisupport's inbox with pure textual hatred.
On a whim, I went to Jolicloud's official page and clicked on their support link, arriving at their community forums named "Get Satisfaction" (which always makes me think of Barry Lyndon, for better or for worse). It seemed more than likely my problem wasn't unique, so I typed in a brief description of the issue, something along the lines of "Jolicloud dual boot XP issue," and got about a half-dozen forum threads whose respective headers noted that at least two or three people each had this exact same problem. It turned out, luckily, that XP had not been supplanted so much as upstaged by Jolicloud. To fix this issue, all I had to do was find a file called boot.ini and open it in a text editor. To Jolicloud's credit, a user can access all their original Windows files (like documents, photos, and the like) while in the Jolicloud environment, and this was where I found the mystical INI file. The document, a script less than 20 lines in length that effectively told the computer how long to leave the dual-boot option visible for, with the "timer" set to zero. All one had to do was change that value to something like 10 or 30, click on save, and restart. Sure enough, there was the dual-boot screen. It sounds weird to speak of how the sight of some white text on a black background can invoke such a warm feeling of relief. Still, I wondered how many other users would be as patient and, more importantly, persistent as I in finding this solution, and concluded that just because a problem has a simple solution is no reason for it to not have preventative measures taken against it. I told as much to Jolisupport:

M: @Jolisupport found a solved thread regarding XP bootup issue. Thanks, just wish boot.ini's timeout defaulted to 30 instead of 0.

Of course, had this been a full install, there would have been no XP, Vista, or 7 to choose, so there would have been no reason for the INI script to be set to a value higher than zero. Similarly, if this had been a partition installed, the ability to still access Windows files might well have, for most users, made the whole dual-boot option borderline redundant. The problem is, though, this was neither a full install nor a partition, this was a demo, essentially an application running in Windows. In other words, it's a completely different entity from its more "permanent" kin, so why not have the default dual-boot timer set to 30 or 15? From what I came to understand, this issue is somehow exclusive to XP users, so it might have more to do with Windows than Jolicloud, but it still just strikes me as this glaring flaw that will ultimately break more deals than make them.
With that rough start out of the way, my second session with Jolicloud resulted in what could best be described as the OS having a nervous breakdown. After installing a few apps (namely Opera, as I didn't care for the default browser, Chromium), I tried to rearrange them into something a little more intuitive and streamlined. I found it a bit frustrating that I was limited to two horizontal rows of icons, thereafter I had to go to the little white dots underlining the screen to see the rest; my monitor was tall enough, and there was a tantalizing gray space between the second row and the white dots. This ended up not being the worst of it, as suddenly I found I could no longer rearrange the icons and the white dots at the bottom of the screen did not respond to being clicked on, limiting my view to one screen and with only a fraction of my apps accessible. The most troubling part of all was that, every time I clicked on an icon or tried to drag and drop it to elsewhere on the screen, a white dot would appear on the bottom of the screen; where once were two, now came to be three and counting. Every failed attempt at moving an icon made for a dot, until they numbered at least twelve. Jolicloud had crashed, but it was completely oblivious to it. I tried the old standby countermeasure Ctrl+Alt+Del only to find that Jolicloud didn't work that way. I used my phone to bug Jolisupport on Twitter again:

M: @Jolisupport cannot rearrange apps, white dots at bottom of screen multiply if I try to move an app, and stuck on one screen. What now?

Z: @matsugawa You're dragging and dropping? Can you maybe provide a screen shot? ^ZK

M: @jolisupport yes, I drag and drop the icon only to have it stay and a dot appears at the bottom of the screen, as if it's been moved

Impatient for a reply, I used the next oldest remedy and physically restarted the PC. It regained its senses; I could rearrange the icons, but they now left lingering transparencies of themselves where they once stood, overlapping with whatever application would fall into its place.

Z: @matsugawa Have you tried reloading the launcher with F5? ^ZK

M: @jolisupport actually, I'd tried restarting altogether, which fixed the issue, but F5 has helped a new issue of icons overlapping.

So, with that second ordeal sorted, there was now a chance to do some tweaking of the system's general settings. In particular, I wanted to change the desktop background to a customized image. As this can be done with any and many a number of devices, including cellular phones and even my PSP, it didn't seem like it would be utterly out of the question to do this with a netbook OS. Sure enough, there was a way to customize the desktop's appearance, but it was rather unorthodox to the point of enigmatic. On Windows and OSX, these features are managed using the Control Panel. On Jolicloud, however, there's a button on the upper-left corner of the screen (resembling a gear) that takes one to a sort of profile page, which displays the user's profile information and a device manager. Here, there's a tab labeled "Legacy Apps" containing a set of App icons which cannot be removed, rearranged, or placed on the desktop proper, the first of which is "Local Settings." This is the control panel where the desktop's appearance is managed, including desktop wallpapers. In any other operating system, the Control Panel for customization is an integrated part of the OS, so having it as an application (not to mention, one that is held in place compared to its more mobile counterparts) made the option seem like an afterthought of the design process. To deepen the mystery, the entire application seemed ineffectual as I could not actually see any image I picked as the desktop wallpaper. It was only visible for a brief second during startup and shutdown.

M: @Jolicloud why is Local Settings a Legacy App instead of a more integrated part of the system?

Z: @matsugawa Because it's part of the legacy system of Ubuntu/Gnome, I believe. ^ZK

Fair enough, I suppose, though I don't remember any such setup in Ubuntu or Mint. A return visit to Get Satisfaction revealed that the inability for the custom desktop image to appear was, in fact, not a bug, not a feature (the oldest spin in the history of technology), but rather a solution to a bug. Affecting only dual-boot installs, switching between the two operating systems creates conflicts in the graphics cards of most netbooks, so the option to make the desktop transparent to show the customized background image was simply left out.
So, the rough start was simply a growing pain, the nervous breakdown was a temporary insanity solvable by a simple keystroke, and the lack of customization was limited to the trial version. All these things could be forgiven, but when everything else had been solved, one problem remained: there was no sound. I went back to the forums, found a few relevant threads, and followed all steps to no avail. This, for me, was the deal-breaker. The next day, I turned on the computer with the intent of starting up Jolicloud to try a few new apps, only to select Windows by reflex and take that as a sign that this was not going to work out.

M: I think I'm officially done with #Jolicloud ; I switched back to XP and don't miss it. Write-up to follow soon.

Z: @matsugawa Did you have any trouble with it? ^ZK

Yes, lots of trouble, more than 140 characters in a tweet can express, hence this write-up. To Jolicloud's credit, I probably wasn't the target audience, given my relative expertise with most operating systems and the fact that my computer needs tend more toward the productivity side of things than basic browsing or networking options. Also, the computer this was installed on was my Compaq Presario, bought on a tax-free day in 2005 and, except for a graphics card and additional disc drive, left virtually untouched in terms of its specifications. Needless to say, there have been many changes in the market since then, so compatibility issues are practically unavoidable and not technically anyone's fault. This was intended for newer netbooks, and I used it on an older desktop, so, from the start, Tech Support went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure I was happy with their product.

In the end, I can't truly recommend Jolicloud, but take that condemnation with a grain of salt and consider my experience an example of the worst possible scenario, which consisted of a brief scare followed by a few petty annoyances. I highly doubt you'll have a worse experience than what I just detailed.

To end on a positive note, one thing that intrigues me above all else about Jolicloud as a company is a note at the bottom of their main page. It promises that if you purchase a computer and perform a full install of Jolicloud, you can have the cost of Windows refunded to you. Between OEM versions of Windows ranging in cost from 90 to 150USD, depending on the version, and netbooks costing as little as 250USD, that sounds like a damn good price to pay for an iPad clone. This is exactly the sort of step Linux needs to take in order to be taken seriously as an alternative to Microsoft and Apple. This offer is not without conditions, of course, but they're unspecified beyond "Applies in certain countries." Still, I'm going to e-mail them through their media inquiry channels for more details and write a follow-up of it with their reply.

Return of the Tech Weblog

A recent incident involving a hacker on Deviantart (and the journal entry I wrote regarding that matter) has got me thinking about computers, so I just want to give a brief overview of computers as they pertain to me, my daily life, and my various creative activities.

*I hate computers. I really do. I'm not even being ironic. It may seem ironic given I use one near-daily, I've built at least two and performed upgrades on at least two others, not to mention also learning the three main operating systems of Mac, Windows, and Debian-based Linux. My favorite line from the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who is always, "I hate computers and refuse to be bullied by them!" hence my apparent immersion and relatively extensive know-how of them.

*I do not own a laptop, and I probably never will. The biggest reason for this is essentially two-fold: the cost and what I get for said cost. Desktops can be upgraded essentially forever; every component can be swapped out and upgraded, the only major headache being either the processor (which typically requires swapping out the whole motherboard) or the case (in which everything gets moved around). In the end, laptops sacrifice viability for portability, which is a bit detrimental to me because of the video and audio editing I like to do. I have edited a few short films on my Dad's old Vaio in the past, but it doesn't exactly suit them all the same.

*Another reason I won't get a laptop is, because of said lack of versatility and viability, the things I would do with a laptop can (and have been) approximated by the various mobile devices I've used, especially my old Blackberry. Reading e-mails, Instant Messaging, simple web-browsing, and updating weblogs can all be done with any decent smartphone capable of running a mobile version of Opera. Hell, I even used to use my PSP's wi-fi to update my old Yahoo!360 page once upon a time. I get a little sickened by people's dependency on their laptops, the way they take them virtually everywhere and ask it to do damn near everything for them. I figure, "I've already got an assortment of devices like a cell phone, a few cameras, and quite a few digital voice recorders that a laptop would be bulky and inefficient versus a few dedicated devices." It's a meditation on the whole philosophy of never doing two things at once because one will never do justice to either. Why learn Audacity or Pro Tools when Tascam makes the PortaStudio?

*The cost thing is a bit of a lie because I currently have two desktops with a third in a kind of limbo. It's a bit of a long story, the short version of which is I have a computer I bought when I graduated college in 2005 (named Pres), a computer I built last year as a project to build a small, cheap computer (named Sophia), and a computer a friend of the family gave to my roommate to use while I built her a gaming rig. The temporary computer (named Big Black) used while I selected parts for the gaming rig (named Big Blue) is presently in pieces on an entertainment center's lower shelf due to what can best be described as a "cursed case," one that ventilates poorly and holds up to being turned off and on about half as well. Still, it's light-years ahead of Pres (which has recently developed a weird habit of randomly resetting itself for no apparent reason), and all it really needs is a good case, which I'm still shopping for. I've got a thing against towers and wanted to get one of those Home Theater PC cases that lies flat and looks like something you put on an entertainment center next to your various game consoles. The one I got, unfortunately, did not allow me to use the original power supply and the graphics card at the same time, which went totally against my intention, so the case had to be sent back and the parts returned to the shelf.

*I am platform agnostic, though I predominantly use Windows. I grew up in a Mac household, however, and used an iMac all through college. I learned to use Windows machines through school and my Dad's office. I got used to how both systems work and learned Linux about a year ago by dual-booting Ubuntu on Pres and equipping Sophia with Linux Mint exclusively. Despite these various exposures, I have ultimately found myself leaning towards the Windows side of things for a small handful of reasons:
1) Windows XP fixed every complaint I ever had about 95/98.
2) Mac OS is a good operating system with a lot of really good applications. The problem is it's wedded to the hardware and the hardware is overpriced, over-engineered, and borderline inaccessible to even the most skilled modder.
3) Linux is good, but fundamentally flawed in that, because everything is produced gratis by volunteers outside the big businesses, there's no quality assurance of any kind and, despite Linux being around for over 20 years, it has yet to offer a video editing application that can rise to the level of iMovie or MovieMaker.
Of course, there have been a few changes, but nothing particularly optimistic:
A) Vista and 7 are a joke and unnecessary, respectively, and I'm almost convinced Microsoft is sabotaging XP through updates as part of some planned obsolescence paradigm.
B) I've been reading more and more about Hackintoshes and companies like Psystar, but everything is a gamble and Apple is defending its "hardware/software" marriage with a rabid fervor that betrays their otherwise friendly image.
C) I did learn recently that Blender, a 3D animation program, actually has a rather good video editing component that's gone strangely unheralded by Linux users who otherwise insist on programs like KinoDV or KDEnLive.

I've probably re-tread more old ground than new, but hopefully it's shed some light on some of my computer habits, especially regarding laptops, which quite a few people like to ask me about as they think it's rather strange I've never owned one and don't care all that much for them.

Okay, now it's time for bed. I'm not going to bother reading over this again, so it's probably full of typos and run-on sentences and maybe even a few fragments.

Just glasses and utensils now

This has not been a good day, and it's only been morning for about four hours.

I'll leave out the goings-on with my roommate's irritability due to a mishap at her doctor's office resulting in a lapse in receiving her medication. That's been going on a few days and it's mostly tolerable.

This morning I received some equipment I ordered to help with recording my videos, including a Behringer USB mic. I've officially had it installed for about 40 minutes and I'm already thinking about sending it back.

Here's the problem: when I use my webcam to record one of my v-logs or newer reviews, I use Windows Media Encoder as capture software. The main reason for this is that it lets me configure audio and video separately; I can use one device for video, and one for audio (That way, I'm not at the mercy of the webcam's awful built-in mic). Everything seems fine, I set the audio settings to the USB mic, and the video settings to the Ipevo, and set the recording format. Once I hit start, however, I get an error message:

no specified device driver is present 0xC00D0072

This is just impossible as I've installed all necessary drivers and, prior to starting the recording session, the program acknowledged the device's presence and allowed it to be configured. I went to Behringer's site to verify that I did indeed have the most recent driver. I found little to no support articles about the C-1U and ended up having to send an e-mail detailing the issue with WME. I've gotten the obligatory auto-response that it's been received, but a full reply is going to take about one business day. So, that's up in the air.

Then there's the mic itself. It may not work with WME, but it does work with Sound Recorder and Photo Story 3 (though the latter gives me error messages to the contrary despite recordings). I figured that while I'm waiting on a response from Behringer, I'll see how the mic sounds and get a feel for its sensitivity. Ideally, I'd like to have it sitting on my desk next to my webcam so it's not visible in the frame. As a sort of control for the experiment, I just put held it like a Karaoke mic and recorded that way. It sounded brilliant; one of the best microphones I've had. However, when I tried recording again with it on the desk and next to the webcam, it's a whole new story. I should have guessed this might be the case given that putting it on the desk makes a distance of about 2 or 3 feet between me and the mic. That said, it's still really disheartening that I basically have to lean into the mic in order to get the best sound. I'd have to hold it almost directly in front of my mouth while I'm recording, which also means I won't have a free hand if I have to do a review. Me holding a microphone while recording with a webcam would just look horrendous, and it's just not what I got this mic for at all.

So, after days of waiting, and on top of everything else, I finally get my equipment to find that, even if I can get it to interface with my software and recording system, it's completely useless and impractical.

At least I got some of the dishes done before the UPS guy showed up, so the day hasn't started off to a fully-rotten start.

So I've Started Using Ubuntu

And I lost my job. 

Don't worry, there's a fallback, so we'll be fine. 

Anyway, to cure my newfound boredom, I took up installing Ubuntu on my PC to see what all the fuss was about. I've used Linux and Unix based systems before; my N810 uses a Linux-based OS called Maemo and pretty much any OS on a device that isn't a personal computer (phones, DVRs, game consoles besides the Dreamcast, PDAs) has the Linux kernel somewhere in its silicon-based bloodstream. 

So far, I really kind of like it. As long as not too much is asked of it, it basically performs well. My only real gripe about Linux (apart from what I'll get to in a minute) is the absence of a good digital video editing program. Seriously, between iMovie and Windows MovieMaker (along with at least five other similar programs I could name), there's absolutely no reason for their to not be a Linux answer to the challenge. Granted, there are web-based video editors, but the only one that was really worth its salt was JumpCut, which has closed its door possibly to allow its servers and resources to be used to help Flickr store its video uploads (both are Yahoo! companies). Sure, there's Adobe's Remix for Photobucket, but 1) I hate photobucket, and 2) it doesn't allow you uploads of your own audio files, limiting you to preselected soundtracks. I can understand the legal reasons behind this, but it still feels like a slap in the face. 

Back to Ubuntu. For those unfamiliar with Linux-based operating systems, here's a little background information. Linxu operating systems are freely distributable and can be installed on any PC or even Macintosh, either alongside the existing OS, or supplanting it altogether. Applications are available through a kind of open market with apps being developed by small independent (many to the point of homebrew) developers with the technical skill to bring  Linux Operating Systems like RedHat and Suse have come and (mostly) gone due to various issues revolving around technical support and the justifiable overhead required for such support, but Ubuntu is different because its benefactor, Canonical, has hit upon the brilliant business model wherein the OS itself is free but the technical support is a paid service. 

Of course, I don't think I'd ever need their technical support, since most any problems with a PC can be solved by simply turning it off and back on again or, at worst, having to reinstall the whole shebang (which shouldn't even be that big of an issue, because you should be backing up your files anyway). Here's the ultimate boon of Ubuntu: reinstalling the OS (if necessary) is completely and utterly painless, not just because it's free, but because you don't have to worry about serial numbers or registration keys or requesting a boot-up disk from the company or any of those little annoying things that other companies (we'll just use Microsoft as an example) use to stamp out (read: encourage) piracy of an over-priced operating system plagued by more gremlins than every faulty mechanical device in the history of the entire planet put together. Canonical could care less about how many copies of your original boot-up CD you've made; they encourage you to put the OS on anything you can find, be it a CD or even a thumb-drive. 

There are, however, some cons to beat down the pros. As I've said, the operating system is free and produced by independent developers with little or no actual overhead to run a proper support or (more importantly) Quality Assurance department. What this means is that, when you get an application for Linux, you're kind of taking a gamble because chances are, the program was written entirely by as little as one person with as little as absolutely no beta testing. Yes, Microsoft charges an arm and a leg for Microsoft Office, but that's because that price tag is keeping a lot of employees employed and families of employees fed and clothed. Put simply, you get what you pay for. Notable exceptions would include the Open Office suite, which was developed in part by Sun Microsystems, the guardians and protectors of the Java programming language that helps to hold the internet together. In other words, they're good people and you can trust them totally. 

Expanding on the 'justifiable overhead' paradigm, the other inherent problem with Linux is that, without the benefit of a huge market share (Microsoft) or a fervent and dedicated yet eclectic fanbase (Apple), elaborate and complex applications like Digital Video Editors (Final Cut, After Effects, Avid), graphics programs (Maya, Vue3D, or even Terragen), and games (Call of Duty, Oblivion, Command and Conquer) are going to be either very few and far between on Linux, or non-extant altogether. In other words, Linux is going to basically find its core audience in casual users, people who would only want a PC for very basic tasks, like web-browsing, writing papers, making simple presentations for work, storing and managing digital photos, or anything else that wouldn't otherwise require a state-of-the-art graphics card or a lightning-fast processor or more RAM than the Swiss Alps. 

And that leads us to the Catch-22 of becoming a Linux user. The only way to bring Linux to a casual user is to either: 

1) buy a PC with no pre-installed OS, which is practically impossible (because the price tag of every PC includes the operating system, meaning that buying any PC regardless of which OS you intend to use puts money in Bill Gates' or Steve Jobs' respective pockets.) 

Or 2) build a PC from individual components, which casual PC users wouldn't have the mindset to do in the first place (because then they wouldn't be casual; they'd then be a savvy, savvy?). 

Netbooks (small, affordable PCs intended predominately for web-browsing) like the Pepper Pad or the Asus EeePC are a step in the right direction, but it's just not quite enough yet. So, here's hoping....