Tag Archives: tech

Oneiric Ocelot!

Oneiric Ocelot!

Inspired by a recent Google+ post by someone in my Chromebook circle, I used Wubi to install Ubuntu 11.10 (AKA Oneiric Ocelot).  As much as I enjoy the look and feel of Ubuntu, and the fact that its generally pretty light weight on modern computers, I ran into the usual Linux tomfoolery one seems to run into with any new install.  Flash still isn’t working and connecting to my Ubuntu server’s shared drives is foolishly slow for no reason that I can discern.  Accessing those drives from Windows 7 is speedy and responsive, but for some reason with Ubuntu its not.  The ATi (or is it AMD now?) propriety graphics drivers are also screwy.  The main package installs, but the post release updates always fail, and when I restart, it appears as if the main package isn’t installed or active any more.  There is a high degree of shenanigans going on here.  I’m still trying to find equivalents to all my Windows programs so that the only reason I need to boot back into Windows is to play one of my PC games.

Speaking of which, I preordered the Diablo III collector’s edition.  I wouldn’t ordinarily take stock in the recent announcement of a release date of Diablo III, but Blizzard themselves are pre-selling the game.  Honestly, given their track record, I wouldn’t really be surprised if it didn’t come out on May 15th, as is currently claimed.  Blizzard is known for their fluid release dates.  Of course, the trade off is incredibly polished games, so I guess I can’t really complain.  In any event, I’m ready.  I should also let you all know that once that game is in my hands, its extremely unlikely that anyone will see or hear from me for a good long time.  Of all the games I’ve played and owned, I’m fairly certain I’ve clocked the most time with Diablo II, by a pretty decent margin.  Torchlight and Titan Quest had my attention for a good long time as well, so as you can see, I’m pretty weak to these types of games.  Diablo III will likely surpass them all.  This is fair warning.  I will be unavailable for several weeks, possibly months, after the release of this game.  It will consume me in its entirety.

Just so you know.

Productivity!

Productivity!

Wow, I haven’t been this prolific (if such a word can be used to describe such a small quantity) since November of 2006. That was the last time I had this many posts in one month. I’m going to have to pick up the pace for next month if I want this site to be something more than a place where I check in approximately once a year to register the fact that yes, I am in fact alive. I’m about to set to work on my 2 remaining absurdly overdue reviews for Ask the Fatty. After that, I think I’m going to (finally!) complete my picture galleries here on My Twisted Mind and also see what I can do in terms of either mirroring them on Picassa’s web albums or integrating that on the site somehow. The reason I’m looking at Picassa is because of the Android integration. I found out, quite by accident, that pictures in Picassa’s web galleries show up as if they were pictures native to my phone when I access it’s picture gallery option. They’re separated out into their own category, but show up automatically without me having to do any configuration or tweaking. It’s pretty sweet.

Can I tell you how much I love my Droid? I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I just can’t get over how awesome this thing is. I’ve most recently been playing with apps that alter the home screen of the Droid. After seeing how the Nexus One has 2 more home screen to fill with app icons than the Droid, I knew I had to find some way to replicate this functionality on the Droid. A quick Google search found me a couple of alternative home screens that let you take your home screens up to 9. (How awesome would it be if it went up to 11 though?) They have varying features and some work better than others. Most of the forum threads I found about these programs talked about people using them for 2 weeks before making a decision, though to be honest, I can’t imagine how. About half of the suggested programs either gave me grief when trying to set them up and then acted sluggish every time I tried to use them. Worse yet, they crashed (or “force closed” in Android terms) seemingly at random. All but one of them had an extra row of pre-set icons on either side of the app drawer that you couldn’t customize. There was one that didn’t suffer from these limitations. It’s called TagHome and it’s awesome. It’s not foolishly sluggish, it didn’t present any setup problems, it’s bottom icon row is totally customizable, and it has an indicator to tell you which screen you’re on. And it goes up to nine. That’s right, NINE! Not that I’ll need that many, but it’s nice to have. It’s interface is also the closest to the stock Android interface, which I happen to quite like.

Right now, it’s time for dinner, ice cream, then to work on website fun times. A sea monster had better not have eaten my ice cream.