April 25, 2007

Paper wallet for your paper & plastic

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Emily thinks it's silly. She might be right, but a paper wallet is a fun conversation piece, and a perfect compliment to a duct tape wallet.

It's a little flimsy and my attempt needed tape on the edges (thus removing the hidden pockets), but it's thin and I'll always have something to write on!

April 24, 2007

Beta Mario Screenshots

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Coin Heaven (never heard of them either) collected a few screen shots from old Mario beta tests originally found on Unseen 64. It's a great collection of pics that shows just how much changed before the games were released.

It would've been nifty if Magikoopa was a playable character in MarioKart 64.

September 14, 2006

AIGA Design Archives

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Another link I discovered while at Digikitten.

If you're not familliar with it, AIGA is a professional association for design. Designers can exchange/share ideas, critique work, and discuss the direction of design and its education and practice.

The AIGA Design Archives (site requires Flash) offers a backlog of some of the best design in the past 10 years. For inspiration or interest, it's a fun site to browse.

August 10, 2006

The Time Fountain

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The original headline was going to be "If I Could Turn Back Time," but I hate Cher.

Nate True has created a very interesting DIY project called The Time Fountain. The premise is simple: fluorescent dyed water through a pump with UV strobe lights. The result is a fountain that appears to have drops of water suspended in air. The really great part is that you can "interact" with the drops. You have to see the video to really understand what I'm talking about.

August 8, 2006

Precision 690 vs. Mac Pro

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On Monday, August 7th, Steve Jobs announced the release of the Mac Pro, one of the latest Macs to be transitioned to the Intel chips. During this announcement, he also stated that the standard configuration of the Mac Pro (2x 2.66GHz Intel Xeon "Woodcrest") is $1,000 cheaper than a similarly specced out Dell. I've heard a few ramblings about that figure not being correct, so I decided to find out for myself.

Before I start, there's a little disclaimer: I've been an official "Mac Fanboy" for a long, long time. I grew up on an Apple IIe and I think our first Mac at home was the LCII with System 6. However, I've always been one to admit that Macs were a bit more expensive than a similarly equipped "PC." But now that Apple has made the transition to Intel chips, it's been much easier to compare.

First of all, I had to find a Dell that was comparable. To do that, I hit Dell's website. Once there, though, it was a bit tricky to figure out which workstation I should use for the comparison. This was made especially difficult because of the generic "Xeon" chip name. According to Wikipedia, the first Xeon chip was a Pentium II Xeon. They've been using that meme ever since. Eventually I settled down on the Precision 690. It also helped to look at this picture:

DSC_0435

However, I wasn't satisfied with those specs. Afterall, the graphics cards are different. So here's what I finally settled on for the specs:

Mac Pro Dell Precision 690
Processors: 2x Dual Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" Processors, 2.66GHz, 4MB L2/chip, 1.33GHz, 64-bit dual bus 2x Dual Core Intel Xeon 5150 Processors, 2.66GHz, 4MB L2/chip, 1.33GHz, 64-bit dual bus
OS: Mac OSX Tiger (10.4) Windows XP Pro
RAM: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 667MHz 1GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 667MHz
Storage: 250GB SATA, 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 8MB cache 250GB SATA, 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM, 8MB cache
Optical Drive: 16x Dual Layer Superdrive 48xCDRW and 16xDVD+/-RW
Graphics: 512MB nVidia Quatro FX 4500 512MB nVidia Quatro FX 4500
Total Cost: $4,149 $5,213

There you are. $1,054 cheaper. I didn't do any trickery. Here's what I did:

On Dell's site, I went to Desktops:Medium/large business, Precision, Precision 690, 750W w/ Windows XP Pro. Here, I had to do a little customizing. I had to choose both processors (the 5150 is presumably the same processor as the Mac Pro, since according to Apple, they use the 5100 series processor). I changed the RAM to 1GB @ 667MHz instead of 533MHz. The graphics card was the most difficult one. The only card the Dell and Mac Pro have in common is the Quatro FX 5500. Then I had to bump up the boot HD to a 250GB SATA from the 80GB SATA. Up the optical drive. And finally remove the monitor they try to include.

On the Mac Pro end, I just upped the graphics card to the Quatro FX 5500.

So everything's pretty much the same. What could be different? Mainly the motherboard. I have no idea what Dell and Apple put in their systems. Also, the optical drive could be different. I'm sure they are from different vendors, but I'm not so sure the Dell has the dual layer burner. Someone more familiar with Dell's might know better.

So there it is. A nearly direct price comparison between a Mac and a "PC." Are there other comparison's out there? Sure. But this is my comparison. There may be many like it, but this is mine.

For those interested, here are the PDFs of the Precision 690 and the Mac Pro (both after customizing in their respective stores).

Edit: Macworld recently did their own comparison However, when configuring the Dell, the kept the monitor and failed to give the computers the same graphics card.

June 13, 2006

LibraryThing

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So while looking for a decent description of The Horse and His Boy, I came across an interesting site called LibraryThing. I haven't delved too far into it, but it looks like Del.icio.us for books. You can arrange a "shelf" of books (as the call it), tag them with descriptors, see similar books, and find what others who read that book have also read.

It looks like the site launched in August 2005 and has since become the 100th largest library. Might be worth checking out.

March 6, 2006

Number 3

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So, it's official. As of February 21, I am the uncle of a third beautiful baby girl. Grace Annette was born just after 3:00pm on that Tuesday at 6lbs. 11oz. and 20.5 inches. Taking after my brother, she is very, very blonde. (And cute, though I think that comes from her mother more than the father 😉

And my brother and his wife also asked Emily and I to be the Godparents of Grace! Now we have two little Goddaughters to spoil! (Along with Sydney, of course.)

February 6, 2006

Superbowl Commercials

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It seems Google has created a page specifically for the Superbowl XL commercials. I didn't watch the game at all, so it's nice to have them all in one place.

AOL has them, too. With voting, even. But I'm not a big fan of AOL.

January 11, 2006

Uncle x2!

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I've been a little busy lately, what with my new niece and all!

Zoe Kate was born this last Thursday evening. Weighing in at 7lbs, 5oz and 19.75" long. She's cute.... and tiny! I forgot how little babies are.

So Zoe officially puts me at uncle x2 now. (Pretty soon I'll be uncle x3 when my brother and his wife have their baby in February.) But Zoe also puts me in another important position. I'm also her Godfather. How great is that?

December 2, 2005

If you ever wanted to fly…

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Okay, this is very cool. In this particular Shockwave app, you fly through a sky full of clouds. While it doesn't sound very interesting, it definately sucked a bit of time out of my afternoon. You can change your speed by clicking and dragging up and down, and direction by moving your mouse around.

You might also be interested in <a href="http://www.ertdfgcvb.ch/]the rest of his site[/url">. Apparently his name is Andreas Gysin. He makes some pretty cool stuff.

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