UPDATE: I revisited this article in my new post over here.

I run all the big three operating systems. I’ve had experience with most of the respective instant messaging clients, AIM, Trillian, Kopete, Pidgen, iChat and Adium, etc. Adium was by far the best because it offers so much customization. Unfortunately I can’t be on OS X all the time. After a few days of searching I finally found a program that is just as highly customizable with very low overhead. Meet Miranda IM.

Upon installation it resembles classic AIM but there are hundreds of plug ins and add ons that can be installed to let Miranda IM resemble almost anything you’d want it to.

There is also a large community forums with a lot of help for new comers. I’d say if you’re looking for the best Adiumish program for Windows XP, 2000 or Vista you’ll find what you need in Miranda IM.

P.S. After writing this I’ve noticed that their server has had a hard drive failure so some of the plugins may not be available. Just check the forums for the download links.

UPDATE: I revisited this article in my new post over here.

Arggh.

Moving sucks. I just moved. I moved from my apartment to a house. The neighborhood is nice, but there hae been some B&E’s. For years I’ve had a webcam, I’ve never used it, I figure I might as well put it to use.

I hooked it up to protect the basement, where my room and all my stuff is located. I’ll post some shots once someone inadvertently triggers the motion sensor. Right now I’m running it on XP using TinCam. I’d like to see if I couldn’t get it going on Kubuntu with live streaming but I don’t have internet yet and I also need to redo my Kubuntu box.

I read this article this morning from Computerworld. The article points out that Vista is going to over take Tiger in web usage by August. That’s fine, however, the article fails to mention a rather important point.

The reason that this is happening is because current XP users are upgrading to Vista. ⇥ Continue reading

The bluetooth headset. They are becoming more and more popular as bluetooth is available almost all new phones. I own one, though I rarely use it. Here is a list of issues I have with the things. ⇥ Continue reading

For as long as I can remember I’ve had Comcast Cable. My parents have Comcast, I have Comcast, and everyone I know has Comcast. Today I saw an ad that cable competition works; I’m just kind of wondering what competition they are talking about?

Verizon has cable service. Apparently, though every time I look into it the service is always coming soon to my area. It’s been this way for about five years. I should call up Verizon and see what their definition of soon happens to be, though they’d probably have a problem with the math of it all.

I don’t think I’ve ever been happy with my services. I pay too much for internet and whatever they decide extended basic cable is this month. I understand the occasional outage; I’ll let a storm knock down the lines that’s fine. I don’t watch a lot of TV anyways.

What really bothers me is the hiccups in service. This is how it usually happens. You’re watching a program and right at the height of tension the cable hangs, the picture freezes and the sound stops. It’s annoying and happens twice an hour.

I figured this was simply an issue in Prince George’s County or even just unique to College Park. Nope. It happens at my parents’ house and my friends’ house, actually it seems to be a pretty normal hiccup.

You’d think the Comcast monopoly would have sorted providing constant service, you’d think.

Even as I write this there is a new commercial about cable competition and high speed internet. This is almost laughable. The average US broadband connection tops out at about 1.9 Mbps. This isn’t even considered high speed “FCC definition of high speed … not less than 2 megabits per second (mbps) download and not less than 1 mbps upload.” Strange huh? This is from the Communication Workers of America’s report to the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Our internet isn’t even remotely fast in comparison to the average in Japan. It’s 61 Mbps if you were wondering.

Cable competition works, why look at their profits in quarter 1 this year. They netted $837 million compared to $466 million just a year ago. Check out the Washington Post article for yourself.

At least there is competition so we’re able to choose a better service. Ha. One day Verizon may come to my area, but I’m sure they’re no better.

Cable competition doesn’t work because it doesn’t exist.

Recently my parents got a new car finally. Their old 200k+ mile ‘92 Caprice Classic died and with this death they ushered in an era of owning a car actually built this century. It’s a 2005 Impala with Onstar, CD player, cruise, a pretty standard package. Since today is Fathers Day I decided that it would be a great idea to burn my dad some CDs. Doing so in iTunes I went home with the Topgun sound track and the best ofs: James Bond and Sting and the Police.

Well to make a short story short, the CDs didn’t work. I don’t know if it was burning them in iTunes or maybe it was the CDRs I used so if anyone knows what I did wrong please comment and help me out.

Update: Thanks for all the advice, I’ll be testing out the various things, slower burn speed, music cds, not using itunes tonight and I’ll be sure to post an update.

Update again:  Burning at slower speed with a Sony disk seemed to work.  So I’m all set now.  Thanks a lot for all your help.

Well, hello there. It’s been a while. Classes are done with for the year, thank god. I did pretty well too. I’m back working at Protein Media, doing 40 hours a week.

Recently, my friends and I have been watching really bad horror movies, Redneck Zombies, Dead Alive, Slumber Party Masacres, just to name a few. There’s a pretty cool site called badmovies.org that I just have to link to because its well written and actually rather funny. I guess I’m just wasting my Netflix subscription, oh well.

Other things. Beach vollyball is awesome. I’ve taken to playing with my friends. It’s very funny how bad we were at the beginning and how okay we are now.

It has nearly been a year since my iBook was stolen. It was old and time for an upgrade anyways. G3 128 mb ram. It couldn’t really handle a DVD. I’ve had the replacement, a PowerBook G4 1.2 gb ram, and I’ve taken some steps to insure it doesn’t get stolen.

Never use your laptop in public.
I know what you’re thinking. “I got the thing so I could use it where ever I am.” Here’s a scenario, you’re in Starbucks, you’re feeling thirsty and you hop in line for something to drink. Upon returning you find your computer stolen. This is exactly what happened to me. The thief walked out right behind me and I was completely unaware. No one saw anything. In retrospect I should have never relied on other people’s simple presence as a deterrent. If you do have to use your laptop in public be smart about it. You’re in the library typing a paper and you have to use the restroom, it isn’t a chore to close it and carry it with you, it’s designed to be portable after all. So you look like you an idiot, who is going to look at porn in the bathroom, but its better then having no laptop.

Don’t by bags designed for computers.
Buy a sleeve and put your computer in a backpack, messenger bag, etc. A Targus backpack screams one thing; there is an expensive laptop in here. The only thing worse is the laptop attaché case. I know very few college kids use these but I do still see them. Never use these, ever.

Install laptop tracking software.
In the event that your laptop does get stolen, it’s not just your computer, its all your data on the hard drive too. In the event that the thief decides to turn it on then go online, boom, the software phones home and maybe there is a good chance that you can get your computer back. Plus, most of these programs offer money back if your laptop isn’t recovered. It’s a good 50 dollar investment. Plus there are some homebrew versions floating around that you can run on your own web server, if you have them.

Well, its been a while. I can only blame myself for the lack of updates, I’ve been busy with school, I haven’t been posting pictures to flickr, I haven’t really even been working on any of the little side projects I’d mentioned in earlier posts. I’m very close to switching to linux from xp on my laptop. I think I’ll work on that. I posted Feb’s little object in project 365, although I haven’t uploaded most of them, yes I know its March.

So for most Mac fans today is the pan-utlimate event, MacWorld. Steve Jobs keynote is scheduled for noon eastern time. There are so many rumors of iTV, iPhone, Leopard release, who knows what rumors he might dispel or confirm? Its really just a crap shoot, however, there are some people having fun with things. MacWorld Bingo is a pretty good time.

For actual coverage of the event MacRumors has set up a live feed, which I’m positive will get pummeled with traffic.

Well, if you’re let down by the Keynote its really our fault, there is so much hype surrounding this event its almost ridiculous. So don’t be disappointed, just enjoy.