Touching is good

Published on Dec. 26, 2007 in Tech. 2 Comments

So, I got a shiny new 16GB iPod touch for myself, after I found myself iPod-less a few weeks ago. It’s wonderful - it’s such a great portable media device. For some reason, cover flow makes it more fun to explore my music library. It’s helped me rediscover old songs that I haven’t heard in a while and listen to new stuff I forgot I put on there.

It’s nice being able to watch videos on the bus too. It’s annoying to have to convert videos before they’re iPod-ready, but HandBrake makes it easy. I really wish it didn’t take so long to convert videos. If the touch could play DivX and XviD, I would be so happy.

I jailbroke my touch so that I could install applications on it, but haven’t really done much with that yet. Aside from a couple games, I don’t think there’s anything really compelling to install. Why would I want to install Apache on this thing?

I love being able to surf the Internet with it. I can check my email (and, ahem, Facebook) on the go and even watch YouTube videos. It’s amazing how far the iPod has come since I bought my monochrome fourth-generation iPod three years ago.

My only beef with the iPod touch is that there is no tactile feedback. Because all the controls (except the power and home buttons) are virtual, the screen can change to contain the controls you need for whatever you are currently doing, but the downside to this is that you never really know where things will be. Also, you can’t control your iPod without looking directly at all.

I usually keep my iPod in my pocket and when I get to a song I don’t like, I can usually find the forward button to skip ahead, without even looking. With the touch, I have to take it out, unlock it, look for the button and press it. It probably doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but it feels like it has gone backwards a bit in this use case, which is a bit annoying.

I’ll live with it though. Overall, the iPod touch is freaking awesome. I’m excited to see the iPhone come to Canada … I am seriously considering getting one.

Grrr

Published on Dec. 13, 2007 in General. 3 Comments

So somebody broke into our house today. They stole my iPod, iPod dock, iPod shuffle charger, digital camera, my Visa and the cash out of my wallet. They took my mom’s purse and a bunch of her jewelry too. I was really lucky because I brought both my laptops to work today. If I had left one at home, like I usually do, it would have been stolen too.

Now I need to replace my camera (which was really special because it had a crazy 8x optical zoom).I lost my trusty 20GB iPod which I liked since it could hold all my songs. I brought my iPod shuffle to work, but since they stole the charger, I can no longer charge my shuffle. They don’t sell standalone second-generation iPod shuffle chargers, since they are bundled. So basically, I went from having two iPods to having none.

I guess on the bright side, I am going shopping in the States tomorrow, so I can try to start replacing a few of them.

I need to gain weight

Published on Aug. 20, 2007 in General. 2 Comments

I’m not sure how, but in the past month or two, I’ve managed to lose weight. Again. I really don’t get this because I’ve been slacking off and only going to the gym about once a week. And when I do, I tend to take it easy and not push myself very hard. I’ve been eating at food courts a lot since I have to grab something fairly quick between work and rehearsal. I don’t even make the healthiest choices either - sometimes I’ll go for burger and fries or a teriyaki plate drenched in sauce. And last week, I ate a lot of cake, cookies and pie because there happened to be a ton of birthdays.

And yet, I’ve lost eight pounds.

This morning, I put on a pair of lululemon pants that used to be a bit tight at the waist, but today they were slipping off me. I kept having to pull them up to stop myself from walking all over it. I really should have worn a belt. It sucks because I already have enough trouble finding clothes small enough to fit me. Gah!

505

Published on Jul. 9, 2007 in Tech. 6 Comments

In the past few weeks, I’ve gained 505GB of storage. Yay!

  1. 4GB: Kingston DataTraveler USB key ($49)
  2. 1GB: Orange iPod shuffle ($84)
  3. 500GB: I/OMagic GigaBank external hard drive ($149)

At first, I thought the external drive wasn’t compatible with OS X because I just couldn’t mount the drive. It worked after I formatted it to HFS+ rather than the default FAT32, so I did a little digging to see what the problem was. It turns out that OS X can’t read FAT32 filesystems larger than 137GB, so the 500GB drive was obviously not going to work. I wouldn’t mind simply leaving the entire drive in HFS+, except it means that it wouldn’t work on Windows or Linux without extra software.

So, I decided to partition it up:

  • 100GB FAT32: for Windows/Linux compatibility
  • 80GB HFS+: for backups of my PowerBook
  • 320GB HFS+: for general storage

I figure this is the best solution, as it still gives me lots of room for storage while maintaining full OS compatibility. I’ve got tons of room to store all my videos now! It kinda makes me wish I didn’t delete so much stuff though.

Purpose

Published on May. 28, 2007 in General. 3 Comments

I am very surprised, but I won an award for teaching excellence in the Computer Science department. Yaay! I am so happy that my students liked me so much.

I was very happy to see that my teaching evaluations all came back so positive. The students all strongly agreed or agreed with everything in the forms and I got really encouraging comments all around.

I kinda want to teach a first year programming class in September so that I can teach the more basic concepts. I think it would be interesting to teach students who are learning their first language.