I do not know how this escaped me last week, but it did!
I saw this on TUAW and it blew my mind! The IIgs has a special place in my computer usage history, it being the machine I learned to code on in high school. Some of the specs for this laptop are:

Large 15″ color screen. Much bigger than the ones on my other 8-bit computer projects (thus far)
Uses an original Apple IIgs motherboard with RAM expansion.
Custom acrylic keyboard. It uses the original keyboard PCB, but the buttons were custom made for a cool modern look.
CompactFlash adapter inside unit functions as an original equipment hard drive.
Glowing backlit “][” logo. Blue for on, with a bit of yellow during disk access.
Built-in stereo speakers.
Side port access for floppy drive, joystick and mouse.
Can play all your classic games


Now if they can figure out how to add in WiFi, a browser and email, we’re all set to go! Move over MacBook Air!




More info here: http://benheck.com/04-14-2008/apple-iigs-original-hardware-laptop

Tags: geeky, IIgs, apple, laptop, hack, modification

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the whole social network thing (yeah, I know, Mr. Technology here should have been an early adopter, but anyway&hellip

Friendster bit the dust for me earlier this year (I think). I decided to unsubscribe because I only had a handful of friends on there, and I never used it. Hi5 I used more than Friendster and I had about 20-30 friends on there, so I decided to keep my account during the first social purge. In recent weeks I kept getting invites from people I did not know (sorry, I don’t connect with strangers), far worse was that most of these strangers were not legitimate users, they were spam bots! Since more of my friends are on Facebook anyway, I decided to kill my Hi5 account and move on.

Ciao Hi5!

Tags: social, networks, hi5, quit, fedup

Well, that was an interesting weekend!
With the end of the semester drawing nearer (and most of my deliverables done) I decided to take a small break from it all and make some progress on one of my games. I started with Daxter, but I am stuck, moved on the Prince of Persia: revelations, but again I am stuck. So I decided to continue with Metal Gear Portable Ops. I had made some progress, already, but hadn’t touched it since Christmas of 2007.

So…I spent most of the day recruiting enemy soldiers, placing spies, gathering new gear, and I even managed to kill python unfortunately in this endeavor I lost Centipede, one of my best soldiers – he had both great stamina and health levels – oh well!

I am now at the Airport, recruiting commandos so I can easily infiltrate without being spotted.

Tags: video, video games, metal gear, PSP

This is pretty retarded!
I started using my N800 with the “Open” network on campus (the one authorized users are supposed to use – more ports are open). While I can connect, and browse the web, nothing else works!

The mail client can’t connect (I guess IMAP is blocked)

Pidgin cannot connect to ANY service – I use it to tell me if there is new mail on Yahoo and Hotmail (I guess they’ve blocked all IM protocols)

The built-in GTalk client does not connect (see above)

Frustrating!
I don’t want to browse the net, I just want my mail pulled!

Interestingly enough, vagalume (last.fm client) still works.

I understand why it’s important to block certain ports, but gimme a break! Let us use our own email clients, not some PITA web interface!

Tags: technology, wifi, port block, port, firewall, IM, mail

OK, I never owned an NES, but my brother did!
When I was visiting my mom and siblings in Canada back in the early early nineties I got a lot of NES time. Duck Hunt was something that came on the same cartridge as Super Mario Brothers and it used the Zapper (a gun like thing). That game was fun – but I really hated the hound that made fun of you when you messed up…

Tags: NES, entertainment, video, games, video games, mario, duck hunt

The Parallels MUpromo is now all unlocked!
Get your parallels for $65! (at mupromo.com)

Tags: technology, promotion, mupromo, parallels

Man, the temperatures have increased rather rapidly! Summer is here! We’ve gone from chili to rather warm (t-shirt weather) in 3 days, or less!

Not that I am complaining, I like the warm weather

I only wish I was at Kourouta.

Tags: weather, temperature, hot, sunny, switch

But I cannot use it! My main machine is still my PowerBook 15” (yes the one with the brain aneurism) and it doesn’t run Leopard. My Mac Mini is more of a “family” computer so I can’t really blog and update my site from it (it’s just weird having people see what I am doing on a 37” HDTV).

I guess I will have to wait until I get myself a new MacBook (or MacBook Pro) in 2009.

Tags: software, rapidweaver, new, version, leopard, powerbook

Only one more week left before I can go and pick up my cap n’ gown!
I am still not sure I will be attending my graduation - I will need to take a day off from work to do so, but taking a day off from work, in order to go to your place of employment to attend graduation seems a little bizarre to me.

I definitely want my cap n’ gown though! I paid for it, I am gonna get it!
I wish it had a hood on it, but unless I get a Doctorate, I don’t think I will be getting a gown with a hood on it.

Tags: school, Graduation, cap, gown, ceremony, pondering

I got a letter in the mail yesterday from the College of Management. I thought the information contained in the letter would be pretty standard stuff, mostly information about graduation, since I am graduating this coming summer.

When I opened the letter, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I am being honored at this year’s College of Management convocation. I apparently am the recipient of this year’s MSIT Academic Excellence Award. Wow!

I must say that I feel pretty good about myself right about now

Tags: school, award, academic, excellence, pondering

I enjoyed JPod so much, that I am seriously thinking of getting Microserfs either in an audiobook format or a physical book. I already have both of them on my wish list for books (liked them so much I would like to own them) – just deciding what a good time would be for the purchase.

Tags: books, microsoft, microserfs

Back in the days of the 2600, I owned two games (it was hard to find cartridges in Greece). One was Donkey Kong, and the other was Galaxian. I think that I spent more time playing Galaxian than Donkey Kong. One thing that stands vividly out is that Galaxian came with a small comic book that described the back story of the game! You don’t see that any more


Here is some game footage, and a review:

Tags: atari, 2600, video, video games, games, entertainment

I recently discovered a show on CBC called JPod. Having watched all episodes up to now, I discovered that the series is based on a novel by Douglas Copland (yes I know, the most obvious sometimes escapes me). Since I liked the series so much, I decided to buy the book and read it (or rather listen to the unabridged version of it on my iPod). I have to say that it was quite hilarious!

This was my first audiobook from audible/iTunes, and there were no reviews of the audiobook, but a number of reviews of the physical book (which were glowing!) I decided to take the plunge and buy it. This was one of my best purchases! The series on CBC veers off the course of the book, but both are funny in their own right.

I highly recommend reading the book, and also seeing the CBC series (which is being cancelled due to low ratings – what a travesty!) You won’t be sorry you read/watched it

http://www.cbc.ca/jpod/

Tags: books, audiobooks, parody, comedy

11 days left in the MacUpdate promo (mupromo.com) featuring parallels.

Just like MacHeist, this is a bundle which contains a number of shareware and commercial applications for an instanely low price ($65). The catch? More expensive applications, such as Parallels are locked, and will only get unlocked provided that a certain number of bundles are sold.

The applications that are currently locked are:

Sound Studio

Banner Zest

Parallels

Quite honestly, I think that I will get the most use out of Parallels, so I think I will be buying a bundle (and hope that others buy in too, so we can all get the low low price of $65 for all these apps).

Parallels retains for $80, so this bundle is worth it just for parallels

Tags: macintosh, software, promotion, cheap, macupdate, parallels, virtualization

Jeez! Every day I keep getting invitation for facebook apps that are…for all intents and purposes useless for me. I’ve been blocking certain apps that I will never use, and I’ve been declining other apps that I may want to use in the future.

People’s facebook profiles are starting to remind me of MySpace. Facebook is still cleaner than MySpace (thank goodness that Facebook does not allow themes), but my friend’s pages are getting cluttered. I just want to go on and post on someone’s wall sometimes, but it’s hard to find! I don’t want to post on the FunWall or the SuperWall… just the Wall…

Facebook really needs to reign in these apps and stop people from sharing. This excessive sharing is annoying!

Tags: facebook, social, networks, annoying, applications

I saw on the (RSS) wires recently that there is a new version of ITOS2008 available (or is going to be available soon) for the Nokia N800 and N810 tablets. I am debating whether or not to upgrade now, or wait for future upgrades. I haven't seen any compeling (for me) reasons to upgrade, and the hassle of reinstalling all my applications after an upgrade is too great for "stability improvements"...considering that I already find my N800 stable for my tastes.

Now if a good PIM with iSync (SyncML) support were part of the upgrade...then I would upgrade in a jiff!

Tags: ITOS2008, Nokia, N800, updates, upgrade, debate

Ah, sweet nostalgia!
I recently saw a video of Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 (my first console).
Donkey Kong was one of my first two video games. Sure it wasn't graphics intensive...but it I owned it

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games, atari, 2600

For a while now we’ve been hearing about Nokia’s answer to the touch-screen craze, trying to compete with models such as the iPhone, the LG Prada, the HTC Touch, and the LG Voyager. Some details were leaked today, along with some spyshots, and I have to say that I am impressed.

I was thinking that my next phone was probably going to be an iPhone (I will not go back to windows mobile, at least not for another five to ten years, it just sucks), but the spyshots have me impressed.

Imagine an N96 type phone (16GB flash, GPS, 5MP camera, DVB-H, WiFi, Quadband GSM, Bluetooth) with a touchscreen interface! (and hopefully triband HSDPA!). This sounds better than an iPhone to me

Tags: Nokia, touch, technology, Phones

I was reading one of my RSS feeds this afternoon and I saw that Samsung has come up with a Dual SIM phone that can receive calls/data/messages from both SIMs simultaneously. Pretty cool, huh? I could use one of these phones as my main phone, pop in my AT&T SIM and my Cosmote SIM and have access to both my Greek and US number at the same time! Of course there is only one problem, the phone is triband GSM (900/1800/1900).

Come on! It’s 2008 already! The 850Mhz frequency has been in use for at least 4 years now, and Quadband GSM chips are everywhere, even in Nokia phones! I don’t get why companies bring out phones that are not Quadband. Quadband GSM should be the minimum requirement for all GSM phones.

Of course the best solution would be to have all phones be Quandband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and Quintband HSPA (850/900/1900/1700/2100) so you can access high speed 3G speeds around the globe.

I am not the globe trotter I used to be, so in theory I should not care as much for the non-US frequencies, but it makes me feel nice to know that if I wanted to go to France tomorrow I could access their 3G networks, and when I came back and wanted to switch from AT&T to T-Mobile I could have access to that 3G network as well!

Tags: GSM, Phones, triband, WTF, samsung

Recently I have started watching shows on hulu.com, and all I can say is “I wish there were more shows!” Hulu has really gotten it right when it comes to presenting streaming content with commercials.

1. I can pause the show, even overnight, and come back the next day and pick up without any hiccups. Fox and ABC’s players are almost the same in terms of the pause-quality of their streaming content, but CBS is by far the worst.

2. The commercials are timed just right, and shows just continue! Show-commercial-show, no need to click on anything. On CBS and the CW you are thrown out of full screen view to see the commercial and then you need to click again to get back to full screen. On ABC the commercials are not timed right, so the commercial might be over, but you are still waiting so that you can hit the “back to show” button – really annoying.

3. The audio levels of the commercials are on par with the audio levels of the show. This means that when you cut to commercial you are not BLASTED with audio. CBS and the CW are the worst offenders in this category, ABC, FOX and NBC are a mixed bag.

4. The video quality and audio quality of the shows is at least broadcast quality, if not better.

The only advantage of ABC.com has is that they offer shows in HD.

Tags: television, entertainment, online, hulu, video, streaming

For a while now I have been exporting my contact information from LinkedIn (in vCard format) and I have been importing this information into my MacOS X addressbook, which for all intents and purposes is my main repository of contact information. LinkedIn makes it easy. One vCard download, import into addresbook, and voila! There is your information, which can be easily synched with Google contacts, Yahoo contacts, my phone, my PDA, DotMac, heck even Plaxo with Plaxo’s plug-in.

Recently I have been discovering a lot of old friends on facebook, people who are now on my Friend’s list. I spent some time looking around facebook to see if there is a way to download vCard files of my friends (for easier access), but there is none.

Thus the only way to get all this info is go to through my 200 friends, family and acquaintances and manually get all their info (phones, AIM, email, and so on)… I wish there were a plug-in that created a group in your addressbook called ‘facebook’, and the contact information in that group were automatically updated with all the current information of your facebook contacts. For that matter, I wish that LinkedIn offered that functionality too

Tags: social, networks, facebook, myspace, frustration

I watched the series finale of Jericho a number of days ago. The second season was really accelerated, but it was still pleasant to watch. I really wish that the series would have at least one more full season, but I guess it wasn’t in the cards. The premise of Jericho was that there were a number of nuclear bombs throughout the USA, and we, the audience, did not know who did it, and where the government was.

We found out in season two that it was a corrupt corporation, and a coup d’etat type of plot. The series could have extended into further seasons but it did not (rebuilding, civil disobedience and civil war come to mind as possible plots.)

Oh well, this is a series to get on DVD – too bad CBS was short sighted.

Tags: television, jericho, finale

My RSS feed reader has been going nuts today.
I don’t know if I am subscribing to too many feeds, or if sites are just going nuts with all of this BeOS related news. I have to say – very funny! You almost got me – but let’s move on, please!

Tags: technology, BeOS, parody