Archive for the 'Blood, Sweat and Technology' Category

god damn it’s slow…

Published on January 13, 2006 in Blood, Sweat and Technology and Whatever. 1 Comment

…at GPC right now. This really sucks, i mean yeah I’m still sitting here getting paid, and I suppose I could complain about worse but it just makes me concerned about this whole industry. For a while, we all kind of blamed it on the fact that Grand Rapid’s economy sucked and everyone around here is a cheep-ass. Don’t get me wrong, that is still a huge factor, but nothing compared to the abundance of TV and radio advertisements that constantly either poke fun at computers, making them seem nerdy and unattractive let alone the Dell ad’s that make people think computers really cost $299. I realize that most people will never actually care about computers, let alone bother to gauge their usage of them to justify the price of a PC that will actually do what they want it to, but it’s just really weird how the appeal of personalization, which has helped numerous industries, has only alienated this field. Because people don’t understand, or don’t give themselves enough credit in their understanding, everyone’s looking for “the name brand” or one size fits all. I have to admit that Apple is doing a pretty good job of this with their “I” everything marketing and technology that actually backs the ad’s, which in my opinion are not too bad either. At least they’ve got some decent endorsement…right?

So where’s this all going? I’ve come to the conclusion that, even if I wanted to, I won’t be building computers much in a couple years unless of course it’s a specialty system or a server. I can somewhat see an end to the desktop PC, going instead in favor of notebooks and home media centers. It just seems more feasible, and ultimately I see the “open architecture” marvel that we’ve been enjoying for years going down the shitter as companies realize that creating new innovative designs that stay within the “open architecture” is both technologically impossible and stupid business wise as they may hand over their designs and concepts to competitors which we’ve all seen so much of. I think Apple’s designs like the Mac Mini are going to get far more popular. They’re like a damn game console with internet access and an OS for dumbasses, yet are still powerful enough and the OS actually is just as, if not more, intelligent than Windows to be appealing to enthusiasts…well just short of gamers. Gamers, although I’m not really one myself, I have to give a lot of credit to, as we all should, due to their motivation of the industry to continue producing faster, hotter, more expensive, yet always exciting hardware. Problem is getting the damn software industry off their ass to be able to use the new hardware! Oh well…I guess when you’re this bored on the clock…you just have to wonder how much longer this position will even exist….

(My) Things That Shouldn’t Exist

Published on October 30, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology. 0 Comments

I want to add to the list of things that shouldn’t exist anymore. And to be fair, I’ll keep it in the forum of technology.

3. Beepers. I saw one the other day. What the fuck? Get a cellphone for christ’s sake. If you really want to emulate that beeper feel, set the cell to vibrate and make people fucking text message you. Beepers are one of those things that should’ve died in the 90s, like Green Day.

4. Geocities. Do I really need to speak on this? Angelfire, Tripod, Homestead — they all eventually stopped trying to proliferate. But geocities? They’re alive and kicking. They’re begging to survive. And they’ll forever be a sandbox for newbie HTML lameasses to play with their shitty javascripts they found on hotscripts.com.

5. Hi5.com. Just give up. Seriously. You lost.

To be fair, I’ll list one thing that technology gave us that I will forever appreciate:

Google image searching. How else would I be able to pull up a random picture of a fat burly man in a sailor moon outfit?

Things that should not exist

Published on October 19, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology. 1 Comment

ok…well i’m going to start this off very Maddox style here by composing a list of things that i believe technology could get rid of entirely because either A, we wouldn’t notice them if they were gone, or B, they’d simply make our lives much easier if they had never been in our lives in the first place. This will be on on going list as the industry produces more shit everyday for our overpaid, American pocket books, or in retro spect, all the crap that places like Best Buy will convince you to buy with that “bargin” computer you just bought because you can’t afford anything decent since you’re job got shipped over seas because our leadership and economy in the country sucks ass.

anyway…finally…here’s just a short list i’m going to rant off the top of my head that should just fuckin’ go away in general:

1. The PCI Bus – the little bus we all have on our boards what was touted with pride in the late 90’s as your gateway to expanding your PC has developed into such a crock of absolute shit i’m ashamed i’m in an industry where we didn’t think of PCI-e sooner. Can anyone explain to me why it is that on a standard ATX motherboard there is generally 5 PCI slots and you can only feasibly use 3? I mean, c’mon, people in this industry are often looking for ways to cut the extras and exspeciallly the price. If it weren’t for PCI-e i’d be screaming at the industry, c’mon you sons of bitches, you have a money saving, process reduced, beautiful idea right in front of your fuckin’ face. Think about how many PC’s in the “budget,” or as marketing departments would prefer to call it “economical,” areas typically come with no AGP slots to “cut costs,” um…i’m not real sure what the costs are to the actual manufacturing of motherboards are, but wouldn’t it be a BETTER idea to get rid of the first PCI slot that you simply CAN NOT fuckin’ use? I mean, unless you want to use PCI slot 1 and receive a nice fat IRQ error because this ‘bus’ architecture that PCI is based on natively shares traces between many slots, including the AGP bus. FYI for everyone, PCI slot 1 and AGP ALWAYS share the same traces, hence why when you use a AGP card it is a terrible idea to use PCI slot 1. Forunately i can’t bitch for too much longer as PCI-e will replace both the problematic PCI/AGP bus. I really hope someone at Dell will read this and realize how many god damn Dell PC’s i fix everyday with IRQ errors due to thier incompetance of these commonly known facts. Hey Dell, i know this doesn’t matter now with PCI-e, but you stupid fuckers installed a hell of a lot of Sound Blasters in PCI slot 1 which not only causes IRQ conflicts out of the fuckin’ box, but also does little for your poor ass excuses for cooling which practically sufficates any referbished peice of shit video card you put in the AGP slot. Which brings me to my next point, which at this point i’m wish i put at number one on the list…

2. Dell – Dell = Hell. Hands down the worse fuckin’ company in America, and i’m speaking about ALL industries, or at least the ones i care to pay attention to. Dell can just die as far as i’m concerned. “Dude, you got a Dell.” D00D, did you enjoy that free headache you got with your $299 peice of shit? Okay, i suppose i should explain myself, well honestly this blog only has enough room to barily scratch the surface as to how many reasons and ways i hate Dell Computer. Yes, i hate dell because they can produce a product at a much lower cost than i ever could, and Yes I hate Dell because they have better marketing than i could ever afford, and Yes, i hate Dell because when it’s all said and done, they suck.

3…this list will continue

Blogging or modern day stalking?

Published on October 19, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology and Whatever. 0 Comments

Ok…so this is a bit of an oxymoron here but is blogging the modern day way to stalk people on the internet? I, like many others, have been sucked into this habbit with Xanga, Myspace, and this site and originally it’s intent was to just broadcast things about myself to my friends and others. Well…ever wonder what happens when you burn a bridge with someone? you know, ex-gf, fight with a friend…etc? Well i’ve also been a victim to this (of course it was in part my fault as well) and now that i sit back in hindsight i realize how scary this really is. Take for instance me and my ex-gf…whom i haven’t talked to in almost a year. I have a tracking module on one my blogs (not this one!) and little does she know that i’m aware that she keeps up on me. i don’t really mind, but it still irks me enough to *occasionally* check her site too…and that is something that is very unhealthy for me…as i’m sure it might be for her too. I dunno…it’s just weird…being able to practically read someone’s inner thoughts (which is made publicly availible by choise) and somewhat keep up on people who wouldn’t normally appreciate it. It’s a painful habbit to break too…but oh well…i suppose that’s my own problem. But just imagine if that bridge was burned due to a rape or something. That would be terrible to think you couldn’t even block that person since it just blocks thier user name…not thier IP (which dynamically changes anyway), local host name, or even thier subnet. And for those on the other sides of the equation, although you’re obviously in need of help or something anyway, maybe it’s time you wake up and realize there’s measures that the person you’re keeping up on can take to track you down and if irked enough, can even find your relative physical location. I dunno…i’m addicted to blogging, but as a lot of addicted smokers might add, i’m not particularly proud of it and i think it may very well escalate into a much larger issue

Symantec = A Cry baby sack of shit

Published on October 8, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology, Internet and Software. 11 Comments

Preface: My friend Steve posted this back in… well, whenever this was posted. It’s actually quite out of date at this point, because Symantec actually did one hell of a job improving their Norton AntiVirus product with the latest 2009 release.I still believe they’re a cry baby sack of shit however. Since you’re here, you may wish to read the rest of the awful site, although most of it is me rambling on about how I hate people. Or Jews. Or blacks.

Okay the last few lines were jokes, don’t get your panties in a twist.

This was recently posted on Slashdot and, I’m sorry, am I the only one noticing how much Symantec has been whining lately? This article in addition to their latest annual Security report does nothing but make me laugh as Symantec is simply furthering, in my belief, that their products just simply suck and I do not see them in the future. Their annual report claims to have found Mozilla’s Firefox browser to be more vulnerable than Microsoft’s Internet Exploder…I mean Explorer web browser. Perhaps these findings are true, I’m in no position to disprove them, but I do find it somewhat interesting to note that as Symantec’s security software, including their popular Norton Anti-Virus, continues to decrease in popularity, the adoption of open source software is increasing, but most notably Firefox. Symantec, although never publicly admitting it, had to have been pissed when they realized that the open source community was coming up with innovative products which were not only appealing due to aesthetics and being offered completely free but most importantly because they have addressed a large number of “issues” which were otherwise dominated by Symantec’s security products with little competition with rivaling software company McAfee. McAfee…thanks for keeping your mouth shut and realizing you suck a long time ago. This is a lesson I think Symantec should learn. Although I’m huge on security, hell it’s one of my major’s in college, does Symantec really live in this fairy tale dream that operating systems, much less the internet is going to be this terrible dilapidated mess forever? C’mon, there’s innovation in technology daily, yes, it might be a very long time before improvement, but face it, at this rate if we don’t address these issues at a higher level than using a memory hogging, ineffective, “middle man” product to protect us, computers will become virtually unbearable in a network environment. So boo-friggin’-hoo Symantec. You know, I’m not the biggest MS fan either by any means, but maybe they’re just finally taking responsibility for the flaws you’ve based nearly your entire product line on. Sorry for your stupidity. Maybe if your product worked as your legacy touts you wouldn’t be sitting in this hot water, but you are. And on somewhat of a tangent, I also find it strangely “timely” for them to claim that Apple’s OS X operating system, a market of users it never had a strong stance with, is particularly flawed and that “Mac users are under a false umbrella” of security. Whatever, yeah, OS X isn’t perfect, neither is XP, or Linux for that matter…what makes Symantec’s opinion on software mean anything when their software can hardly even function, let alone protect.

So in conclusion…fuck Symantec

(*note* I still like Ghost 2003…it’s the ONLY exception)

hello

Published on October 1, 2005 in Blood, Sweat and Technology and News. 1 Comment

hey, this is a test message to make sure i know how to do this.

for those of you who have no clue what this is, (as i would assume is just about everyone since it is brand new), this is my place to rant on about technology. By “rant” i’m speaking of my true outlook and opinion on the state of technology, particularly focusing on computers, (and i’m not just talking about the Windows XP running, spyware inhabitted thing you call a PC you’re reading this from).

Yeah, you see that…that’s what i’m talking about

My assumptions about this “blog,” (for a lack of a better term at this point) is that it will fail just like everything else that i usually do that involves this damn thing we call the internet. Yes, i’ll be the first to admit that this is a completely self-centered, egotistical web site/blog/whatever, but the bottom line is, i’ve tried normal blogging and the people who read that shit are NOT technically inclined…hence why no one understood half the crap i posted on there.

…not to mention i have a certain visiter that won’t fucking leave me alone…HEY i haven’t posted in a few months! i’m not planning on posting again, STOP visiting my site three times a day! you’re wasting your time…oh wait i forgot we’re all good at that…i mean after all, you’ve read all this and at this point i’m hoping you realize you’ve learned nothing…

well that’s about the change as i will be reveiling a lot of news about technology as well as rumors and market outlooks and predictions as i see fit. I will also bash a lot of technologies…but never without reason. The main reason i’m doing this is to get a bit of feed back and assure the fact that i’m not just some crazy right-wing fuckin’ twit who thinks he actually has a valid opinion in an industry which is solely defined by opinions, performance and as you may soon find…marketing…a sick amount of marketing.

so have fun…

please feel free to comment, and eventually i’ll have e-mail as well. Oh, i do realize that most people are going to disagree with me on a lot of things, that’s ok, constructive critizism is welcomed…but i will tell you one thing before you continue…

I do most of the bitching on here, so if you want to bitch, you’re welcome to do so, just know that you have to be able to take it before you can dish it out…

-Steve