And.The.Roo
The things you own end up owning you…Jim Louderback leaves PC and is CEO of Revision 3!
As well as Veronica Belmont leaving CNET! Is this for real?
Slow Movin
Hey all. I think I’ve fallen into a pattern of posting every 4 months or so. I need to make an effort to change this, as I’ll most likely be getting rid of my Myspace account pretty soon here. I’ll be moving over to Facebook, and I’ll post info and maybe a review as soon as I get it set up. Myspace has just become more of an annoyance than a useful product for me. None of my friends use it anymore so it’s really lost it’s purpose for me. Anyways, as I’m sure most of my personal friends already know, Me and Jenn are having a baby 
It’s been a really crazy ride so far, both good and bad, but I know it will all be worth it as soon as I see his face and get to hold him. Yeah, I know it’s going to be a boy already, even though we haven’t had the ultrasound yet. It should be sometime next week though, so I’ll keep you updated on that. So, I just wanted to touch base with my few readers and I (really) will be posting much more often from now on. More to come!
-Roo
…As we know it
Oh come on Roo, how long has it been? You need to update more!
Yes yes, I know. Time for an update with this pointless blog of mine that nobody reads. Anyone want to hear how my day has been going so far? Well to start the day off, I wrecked my car. Eeek, I know! Black ice is a bitch sometimes eh? I screwed up the alignment and bent the left control arm out of whack, but fortunately it wasn’t too much to fix. Plus, who can complain with a day off of work ..
On a brighter note, I got myself a new laptop . I call her Lappy, I think it’s a pretty fitting name. It’s not the best, but it does the job. I’m typing away on it right now! I’d like to thank my sister for getting me a 60% off deal, so, thanx Sister!
Anywhooo Cambo just got here so I must go now.. We’re gonna watch The Prestige. Check out the funny video of me and my babe being retards. Yeah, we make our own fun. Byeee!
- Roo
Time For an Update!
Wow… I know it’s been a while since my last post, I’ve been so neglectful. Shame on me, shame on me. I promise I will put more effort into updating the blog on a regular basis, life has just been hectic lately. We’ve had a lot of changes with the apartment over the past couple of months. Both Cortney and Ashley have moved out, and my friend Ricky Clay moved in about a month ago. It’s been awesome so far. Money still sucks, but what can ya do eh?
I’ve also recently revived a past relationship. Her name is Jenn, and she’s amazing. We were together for a few months last winter, and have been friends since the “breakup” last year. She had to move out to California a few months ago, and I went out to visit her at the end of September. To make a long story short, shit went down, and she ended up coming back to Utah and we’ve been together since then. It’s been great, she’s amazing.
Anyways, I’m thinking we should throw a small get-together for drinks and whatever this weekend at the apartment. So if you’re down, then get down and give me a call. It’d be good to see some old faces, as I don’t get to see too much of my friends these days.
- Roo
Currently listening to: Nora Jones – Come Away With Me
My first dive into the Ubuntu world
So, I’ve finally taken the plunge into the linux world with Ubuntu, after countless hours of XP maintenance throughout the years and who knows how many restarts/spyware scans. I’ve been an avid Windows user since the start, back in the 3.1 days until now, and have never really been satisfied with the level of quality Microsoft provides its users. I’ve played around a little with Tiger as well, but haven’t yet invested in an apple computer due to the lack of software support currently available for my needs. What can I say, I love my games and I’ve got a great system to run them on, so there’s no use in me spending $1000+ on another great system, when all I really want is the security structure of the OS that Tiger provides. That’s where Linux comes in.
I’ve been hearing more and more about how Linux, specifically Ubuntu, is heading for mainstream use because if how easy it is to operate, and how secure it is as well. So I said to myself “Okay, so here is a completely secure OS with great bundled software and features, a great support community, and above all, it’s FREE! What am I waiting for?” Next step, I download both Kubuntu and Ubuntu LiveCD’s, as I’d like to check out both Gnome and KDE to see which I prefer as opposed to the Windows desktop. The Ubuntu online resources are great, and it took no time at all to find the correct build to set up on my 64-bit system. Other than the dead link on the Kubuntu LiveCD download page, it was fairly easy to get started. Hopefully they’ve fixed that, but if not there’s multiple sources for US downloads from their website, so it wasn’t a big deal.
As far as how easy it is to actually install, that’s exactly what it was. Easy. I was skeptical at first because I’ve heard in the past how much a mess the installation process can be, but to my surprise it was actually much more simple compared to an XP install. I put the disc in, rebooted, and within a few minutes I was looking at a nice clean desktop with an install icon in the top left. I played around with the desktop a little, and here’s a few things I noticed:
1. The desktop is simply beautiful with Gnome. I would definitely recommend it over KDE, but ultimately it’s up to the users choice. I couldn’t have asked for more (Xgl, anyone?). It’s easy to navigate and find what you need with no problems at all. I actually prefer the interface over the XP interface, with the top and bottom panels providing everything I need for easy access. Plus, it just looks better. It had a more ‘vector’ feel to it than anything I’ve seen in XP. Everything was shiny, polished and nice J
2. One problem I had from the get-go was the OS wasn’t recognizing my USB keyboard. In fact, neither Kubuntu or Ubuntu recognized all 4 USB ports on the motherboard, so I had to switch a few things around to get both the keyboard and mouse working at the same time. So, I’m stuck for now with only 2 USB ports. I’m not sure what was causing this, probably a driver issue, so I tried installing the OS at this point to see if a full install would give the necessary driver support for the USB ports. Unfortunately, it did not, so I’m only stuck with the 2 ports at the time. If anyone has any suggestions, shoot me an email. I’m running a Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI board, not sure if they have any Linux drivers but I’ll be sure and check later on.
3. After installation, the system ran smooth as silk. It’s amazing how slow you realize XP runs with all those pointless applications running in the background, compared to how Ubuntu was running on my machine. It really is like black and white.
4. I was surprised at how many applications were installed by default. Everything you need is right there, whether it’s word processing (OpenOffice) or internet browsing (Firefox). It’s all just there. And whatever isn’t there, you can usually find what you need in the repository. I would have liked to see some out of box DVD or MP3 support, but that’s not a huge setback since you can get that support elsewhere. Overall, I would recommend its built in software over Windows indefinitely. The only problem I ran into was installing software. It took a bit of work just to get the correct driver package for the display up and running on the machine. You might want to do some research on the different package handlers and how to go about installing applications within Ubuntu before actually installing the OS, just a heads up.
So, overall I would say that I’m not quite ready to give up XP, but I’m definitely on the way. Ubuntu has such a large community for support that if you run into any problems, you’re pretty much covered. Although the OS can be quite technical when you start to dig deep, it should be easy enough for the average user to stick the CD in and go. I’m looking forward to getting more familiar with Ubuntu over time, and quite possibly scraping XP altogether for daily use (except for games, of course), as it is such a robust OS with much more out-of-box features than what Redmond has to offer. I’ll be looking more into the security integration of Ubuntu in the future, as well as the desktop features that KDE has to offer, so stay tuned!
- Roo
Kevin Mitnick’s 60 Minutes Appearance
Kevin recently appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Nearly 5 years after his first appearance in January 2000, he sat down with Ed Bradley once again. From testifying in front of Congress, to writing books, and public speaking, the past 5 years have brought a lot of change.
I’m happy at this moment…
So we’ve all finished moving into the aparmtent! It’s amazing, and we were so lucky with how it all turned out. We got a really nice dining room table and chairs, some nice bar stools, and lots and lots of funny looking mirrors for free from Cortney’s friend! And our neighbors are so cool and nice, one of them hooked us up with a free black leather couch. Everything is going great, hopefully it’ll keep up! Here’s some pictures of the apartment, and feel free to come by and chill anytime… Just call me and ask for directions.
- Roo
How was My weekend?
Helloooooo everyone! It’s been a while, again. Yeah I never update this thing anymore, even though I have mucho time to spare. By the way, it’s my friend Cortney’s birthday today, so go show her some lovin! We had a rad celebration over the weekend for her birthday. Here’s the story…
So, we were supposed to have a big old party up at our friend Trish’s from work with all our work friends, but I guess she ended up bailing at the last minute cuz Cortney couldn’t ever get ahold of her. It was kinda weird, but yeah. So instead of going to the party, we decided to throw our own party in the mountains! All of Cortney’s Hooper friends from highschool came up, and we ended up having about 25 people up ogden canyon with a campfire. It was a crazy experience. Lots of drunk people walking around having sex and getting in fights. Lol. I kinda just sat by the fire the whole time and chilled with Ashley, but it was still fun. It’s great meeting new people.
As far as the apartemnt move-in situation, it’s been a little stressful. I have a spending problem, and like to spend my saved up rent money on other shit . We found the perfect apartment, except it’s in Bountiful. But we love it, so we’re going to try and get it. Brady Chadwick wants to move out with us now, so we might get the empty duplex next to the Botcave. That would be awesome, so we’ll see how it all works out. That’s all for now, here’s a few pics from the weekend… How was your weekend everyone?
- Roo
My take on the ‘Console Wars’
To start off, I’m not a fanboy for any of the available [and unavailable] consoles. I’m just here giving my opinion on what I see happening, so far, between the 3 next-gen systems. Although the only console I currently own is a ps2, I’ve been through both the xbox and the Gamecube ordeal as well, and enjoyed both.
The xbox360 has been out almost a year now, and is definitely building a good name for itself without feeling too much heat from Sony and Nintendo. This would make alot of sense, since both Nintendo and Sony’s offerings won’t be available until later this year.
So who is going to come out on top after all three parties throw down? Well, we’ll have to wait to know for sure, but I’m guessing the 360 is going to enjoy overpowering market share over Sony and Nintendo, at least for a little bit. This is odd coming from me, since I never really got into the xbox or Gamecube when they first came out. I was to busy playing my ps2. Don’t get me wrong, the 360 is hands down an amazing system. Very feature rich and intuitively designed, with some pretty good looking games to back it up. Getting out of the gate a full year ahead of the competition, and at a decent price and with great performance, sounds like a recipe for success as far as console wars go. And so far, that’s what it’s looking like. Success.
What Nintendo and Sony don’t understand, is that the 360 is garnering a lot more praise than anyone thought it ever would in the US. In my opinion, Nintendo is doing just fine so far with how they’re handling marketing the Wii. I don’t agree with the whole name fiasco, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. Revolution seemed a lot more mainstream, but I guess they went for something “different”. Nintendo has always had a loyal backing among the masses of gamers, and I don’t think they’ll lose that with Wii. If anything, it’s going to get more fanboys on their wagon. Sony, on the other hand, seems to be running into some problems with their ps3. Whether it’s the HIGH launch price, or the fact that most developers aren’t giving it a lot of breathing room in their reviews and interviews, Sony is definitely doing something wrong here. For years they’ve been riding the wave of the ps2, and they think this wave will flow over with the ps3 as soon as it’s released. They don’t understand that most people aren’t going to be able to drop $600 on a gaming system. I know I’m not, anyways. I will wait on the sidelines and just watch until the final out come of the ‘war’ is over. By then, the prices will be lowered, and the winner declared. Until then, there’s always wishful thinking…
- Roo
Ken Lay Dies… How Convenient!
How convenient is it that he dies at the ripe old age of 64 after being sentenced? I’ll tell you one thing, i’d either kill myself, or fake my own death if I was in his situation. All those lives he’s ruined, think about it. But seriously, I bet he’s living out in sweeden or someplace where we can’t get him. What are the chances of him actually having a heart attack only a month after he was convicted for fraud and conspiracy. Either way, I’d bet he’s not dead, yet.
In other news, we put our deposit down on the apartment and are moving in on the 15th! I’m so excited, it’s gonna be sweeeeeeet. K bye.
- Roo
Awesomeness
W00t w00t! We’re getting an apartment! Finally I will be back out on my own and not under my moms roof! Oh how lovely this will be… Cortney is a good roommate. She was great at the house. We’re looking out in SLC right now, and we found a great [kinda ghetto, but we can make it nice] apartment out on 3rd south and 7th east that we’re really considering. It’s way cheap, so that will rock the shit out of my socks. Oh and if you know of any apartments in the slc area that are cheap, but not so ghetto, let me know! That’s all the news, for now.
- Roo
Currently listening to: Emanuel – Soundtrack to a Headrush
I want my Net Neutrality
The internet golden age is about to end. “Net Neutrality” will be over soon, because congress is pushing a bill that will enable telco providers like AT&T, Comcast, and other internet providers to ad tiers to their service, ultimately closing off much of the internet you see today. If this bill passes, you will no longer be able to view some sites that require a “premium” subscribtions from your internet provider. This cannot happen. Not alot of people know about this, and that’s why i’m putting this post up. Please, go here to sign the petition set up and vote against this new internet law, unless you would like to start paying extra fee’s just to see the sites you visit on a daily basis. This petition will be sent directly to your local congress so that they know people will not stand for this. Thanx!
- Roo
Getting back to my old self again…
Well, to start things off, I just want to say I love my friends. After about 2 months of not seeing any of my friends after we all moved out of the house, i’ve started hanging out again. Last night was great! We all met up at the Olive Garden out in SLC and just had a good night of eating and talking. I took a bunch of photos, and i’ll post a few of them below for your viewing pleasure … Alot more people showed up than I thought would, so that was good. It was Shelley’s get together for the marathon she’s running tomorrow. I guess she had to eat a ton of carbs to keep her energy up, and pasta is the best way to do it.
Anyways, moving on. So, what have I been up to for the past 2 months? Well, alot to say the least. I’ve been hanging out at Cambo’s place [aka the famous orange house, R.I.P] pretty much 24/7. It’s been my second home. Him, Scottie, Chad, and Nick have been partying mostly every night. It’s been a crazy trip. There was a girl that lived next door, Ashley, that I kinda fell for over the 2 months I stayed there. I liked her alot. I slept there with her most nights, cuz it was alot more convenient with work just 5 minutes away from her house, but unfortunately, we had our differences and it just didn’t work out. She’s still a great friend though, and hopefully we’ll remain friends. It’s kinda sad, cuz Cambo and them got evicted a couple weeks ago. I miss that place alot, but Me, Brady, Cambo, Kenny, and Chad might be getting a place out in SLC together soon. If my mom starts getting better and finds work, i’ll be able to move out again before summer ends, and i’m really excited about that. If I won’t be able to move out in time with them, Cortney and I will probably get a place together. I love her, she was a great roommate in the house. She’s probably the only girl i’d even consider living with. It’s great.
Another cool thing that’s happened lately, I finally put together a new computer. Haha, I put it all on a Newegg card, but it’s all good. I don’t have to make payments till December, and by then i’ll have enough saved to just pay it off in full. It’s a pretty nice setup, to. Pentium D 805 @ 3.6ghz, 2gb DDR2 ram @ 720mhz, Radeon X1800XT overlcocked to 660/775, and 840gb of HDD space in RAID0. Love it. I guess I gave up on the new Digital Rebel camera, and just went with this instead. Oh well.
Well as much as i’d like to write more, I have to be going. I’m at work and they don’t like it much when I mess around on the internet. We’ll all be going to a drive-in movie tonight, so if anyone wants to come, just give me a call or write me. It’ll be great fun. Here’s s few pics from last night, click to enlarge.
- Roo
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
Wow, so it’s been a while since my last post. I pretty much forgot about my wordpress account cuz I haven’t been home alot lately. I’ve been staying over at the infamous orange house for the past month or so, coming and going as I please, so I haven’t been home alot or had access to a computer. Well to catch everyone up, I’m loving my new job. I basically get paid to sit on a computer and listen to whatever music I feel that day, or play around on Myspace for about 7 hours a day (I’m on the phone for about 1 hour total throughout the workday, isn’t it great?). The only stressful thing about my job at this point would be that I already have 7 full accurances on my attendance. So, if I am even 1 minute late on any given day (until September), I will get 1 full accurance. Once again, I already have 7. You are only allowed 9, then that’s it… You’re fired. I seriously don’t want to hear those words anytime soon. Can’t screw this one up, ya know? But yeah, that’s the story on that. I’m rambling already. I’d like to say, for anyone who might be interested, that i’ve been uploading a bunch of great pictures on Flickr, so check it out. What I want to do is get one of those tiny Exilim EX-Z1000’s. How they are able to cram 10 mega-pixels in that small of a package is beyond me. But I want it either way. That brings me to my next point in this post… My current Canon S2 IS needs a new home. I’m going to use these funds for my next camera purchase . Here’s some specs:
Canon S2 IS (purchased for $500 new half a year ago)
1gb SD card ($120 when purchased with camera), holds about 400 pictures and/or 45 minutes of video.
Stereo sound and zoom available in video
Like-new condition with origional box and all that good stuff
I’m asking alot less that the thing is actually worth. $350 seems pretty fair. Any takers, let me know? 801-864-2572. It’s gonna take alot of money for this thing. It’s either that, or $1,000 for the Canon Digtal Rebel XT kit I wanna get. The main thing I want the Canon for is that I want to actually become semi-serious at this whole photography thing. Maybe take some classes at slcc this fall or something? Well, I think it’s time for me to leave. I feel dirty and in need of a shower. Bye kids.
- Roo
Currently listening to: The Postal Service – Sleeping In
Can’t Sleep…
So it’s 11:36pm, and I’m supposed to start my first day of work at Unisys tommorow morning at 7. But, I can’t sleep. I took a few sleeping pills, but I’m up talking to Adali right now and I think the pills are having a reverse effect. W00t! Not good. I’m reading a great article I found over at Digg about how cheap the ipod has been getting lately. Great read, check it out.
But yeah, i’m kinda nervous about the first day at the job tommorow. I haven’t worked in almost 2 months now. It was a great vacation. So, maybe I should try and sleep now. That’s all
- Roo
Currently listening to: Zero 7 – In the Waiting line
My first blog!
Hey all… For you who don’t know me, my name is Andrew. I live out in Utah with all the mormons. Anyway, the purpose of this blog is to let people who want to read about my daily/weekly life do just that. I’ll be posting a bunch of useless crap ranging from my love of technology, to what I’ve been up to. It’ll be boring at times and fun at times. We’ll see what happens! Also, you can visit me on Myspace (I know… Drama), add me, it’ll be fun!
- Roo
