As I Xi It v2.3

Thought I’d post a few pics of my new netbook.

Well, I spent most of the evening installing Windows XP. It was pretty straightforward, just set the netbook to boot from a USB CD-ROM and away I went! Every thing seems to work. Everything apart from the built-in microphone, but that’s not too important since I don’t think I’ll actually use it. If I’m to Skype, I’ll probably use a headset anyway.

Installed all my programs including this new thing called WeFi. It’s quite neat, it tells you where the closest WiFi hotspot(s) is(are) while you’re WiFi-ing about. Also, if your chums are set up for it, you could see where they are and how close or far they are. If you’re often using public hotspots, I highly recommend this little app.

On a separate note, it’s snowing outside. It’s October and its snowing in London. Brrr… I can’t say that this was anticipated.

WordPress appears to have yet another new release.

Well, I went ahead and brought the Acer Aspire One with Linux preinstalled. It was suppose to arrive before 1pm but it was delivered at 3.45pm. Connecting to my home WiFi was pretty straightforward and I’m typing this entry on it right now. It’s quite cute and neat. I definitely see myself out and about WiFi-ing it up.

Linpus (a Linux distro) is quite quick to start up, but I don’t like it very much. I dunno if its because I’m a Linux newbie or what. I’m going to install Windows XP on this thing later this evening.

Typing on this is a bit fiddly. The keyboard’s small but usable.

I found this via The Consumerist – Click here!

It’s simultaneously funny and creepy.

For automated time lapse photography and ultra long exposures out in the field, I ordered a third party timer remote for my 40D. The Canon TC80N3 was far too pricey (around £100) so I got this Yongnuo MC-C3 instead for around £30.

Having never seen or used the Canon one, I can’t compare this to it. But what I will tell you is that this remote doesn’t feel cheap at all. It seems pretty robust, give it a shake and nothing rattles. Setting it up is pretty straight forward. You can use it as an uber long self-timer (from 0 seconds to 99 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds in 1 second intervals), automate bulb exposures and interval timing (up to 99 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds in 1 second intervals in between shots). There’s also a feature where you can either take a set number of time lapse photos as defined by yourself or you can let it go on till the batteries die. In addition to all the fancy automated stuff, you can use it as a bog standard remote release complete with a running lock for bulb exposures.

The only thing I don’t like about it is the lack of an on/off switch!! What’s the deal with that!? No doubt at some point I’ll fit my own switch. I might even mod the connection so that I interchange between the 350D and 40D. Speaking of mods, I wonder if I can reduce the size of the whole thing.

They’re my new favourite thing to eat with a mug of tea. First there were 10, now there are 4. They’re of dutch origin, a layer of caramel sandwiched between two layers of thin waffles. If I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life, these would be it!

Today I’ve been rooting around in my boxes looking for my old external CD-RW (Yamaha CRW2200UX) that I got way back when they just came out (on the bottom it says it was manufactured in October 2001!!!) and it was one of the first ones with USB 2.0. Boy is it heavy, beige and ugly, it costed just over £100. Nowadays, you can pick one up from around £20 with USB 2.0 in a nice, compact and stylish package without the need for an external power block.

It’s amazing how things have moved on. I wonder what’s next for the humble CD/CD-RW/DVD-RW. Will it dissappear in the same way that floppy disks did?

The drive’s about twice the length of a bog standard CD. Next to it on the left is a 250MB Zip drive. Remember those? This one needs an external power supply. Both drives still work, I managed to burn a CD without a hitch. It’ll come in handy when I’ll be installing Windows XP on a Linux netbook which is what I’ll do once I’ve picked one out.

These are some great mouse icons! Click me!

Still on the trail of a pretty desktop, I installed Yahoo! Widgets. It’s a widget engine where you can download add-on applications to do all sorts of useful stuff like tell you the weather, latest news headlines and other such exciting things. It’s not bad, but everytime I download a new widget, Firefox crashes a few minutes afterwards which can be quite annoying if you’re installing lots of widgets.

Here’s an updated screenshot of my desktop. I’ve got Gorgy Clock, Info 101 and Yahoo! Weather up. I always like to know the weather forecast. There’s a Tube status widget too, but its kinda ugly looking. Note that I’ve managed to find how to hide all my icons (right-click somewhere on the desktop > Arrange Icons By > Hide Desktop Icons).

I’ve been looking through Lifehacker and came across their Windows Desktop Show and Tell article showing some pretty cool looking desktops. They all looked so minimalistic, cool and kinda Mac like. I thought to myself, “I want that” so off I went in search of some icon docking application things.

I tested out two – ObjectDock and RocketDock.

ObjectDock has more bells and whistles than RocketDock. It also needs a minimum of 256MB of RAM to run and 20MB hard drive space whilst RocketDock only needs 10MB and the installation file is 6.20MB. Both of them are visually aesthetic but I opted for RocketDock in the end since it was the lighter weight application.

If you thought a skinned Windows toolbar was cool, this is even cooler!! I’ve shifted my XP toolbar to the top with autohide on. The icon dock sits on the bottom and I’ve autohid that too for more screen real estate. It just pops up when required. Most of the icons on my desktop are gone, all that’s left is My Documents, My Computer, Recycle Bin, My Bluetooth Places and an application I’ve just downloaded. I’m just wondering how to hide them.