dekkon from #geekissues (a channel best known for bash and qdb) is running Legend of the Green Dragon, a HTTP based clone of the BBS game LORD. Play, tell your friends, etc. It looks like a 'day' on this clone is about 4 real world hours, so you don't have to wait too long to get new turns.
August 2005 Archives
From: Randi Harper <sektie@freebsdgirl.com>
To: Google Team <talk-feedback@google.com>
Subject: Protocol RegistrationDoes the Google Talk client currently register a protocol? I'm not sure if
I'm phrasing this properly. I'd like to be able to set up a link similar
to how AIM handles aim:goim?screenname= links in browsers.
From: Google Team <talk-feedback@google.com>
To: Randi Harper <sektie@freebsdgirl.com>
Subject: Re: Protocol RegistrationHello,
Thanks for your interest in Google Talk, and in Google. Because Google
Talk is in beta, there is some information we're unable to share. To read
more details about Google Talk, please visit:
http://www.google.com/talk/about.html.You may also be interested in receiving our free bi-monthly Google Friends
newsletter to stay updated on all the latest happenings at Google. To sign
up, please visit: http://www.google.com/contact/newsletter.html.Happy chatting!
Sincerely,
The Google Team
From: Randi Harper <sektie@freebsdgirl.com>
To: Google Team <talk-feedback@google.com>
Subject: Re: Protocol RegistrationWow. That was the most useless reply I've ever gotten from support. Thanks!
An old friend came over tonight, someone I hadn't seen in a long while. He came over to keep me company since Mike was out of town. Usually I like having the house to myself, and this time is no exception, but it just feels odd. I feel odd. I couldn't sit still, couldn't look at him. I don't know why. Everything felt awkward. Words kept coming out all wrong, although that's most likely a side effect from of lack of sleep. He'd laugh at me, and I'd feel silly and hide my face. I never took well to being laughed at. He left early, and I sat in bed watching this horrible movie we had started watching together, and a feeling of overwhelming loneliness came over me.
The past 4 months has been one big long mood swing. It's hard to know what's real when every time I feel myself reacting to something, albeit negatively or positively, I tell myself it's just another mood swing, I can't trust my feelings. How can I make any decisions like this? I don't really know what's normal anymore. I don't know my own feelings. I'm in such a state of apathy at the moment that all I can think is what an inconvenience this is.
I've spent the past two days in a cleaning frenzy, from the moment I get home from work to the moment I go to sleep - which hasn't been until about 5 AM. Sleep doesn't come easy, anymore. I keep thinking about work, or Mike, or Nathan, or any number of things. I can't shut my brain down, even though it's obviously only working at half capacity. Maybe I should go to the doctor and try to get some sleeping pills. They never seem to work on me though, but it's all I can think of.
I tried to ask for help, but it came out as "The fucking access point is broken." Any attempt to lean on someone appears to be lost in translation.
After that last Google/XMPP entry, I had nightmares about rewriting the XMPP perl module. Ugh. Perl is ruining my life.
I'm alive. In considerable pain, but alive nonetheless. :)
freebsdgirl@gmail.com is taken. Poser.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm just an idiot and someone can explain to me what I just can't quite seem to grasp.
It seems to me that google isn't following XMPP spec, at least in the initial negotiation. A usual connection negotiation session looks like this:
<stream:stream xmlns:stream='http://etherx.jabber.org/streams' xmlns='jabber:client' to='freebsdgirl.com' from='xmpp.us' version='1.0' id='1slcbstvomrcwpcjw2kyoz5kpxjj9ruajgmu9gpx'>
<stream:features xmlns:stream='http://etherx.jabber.org/streams'>
<starttls xmlns='urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-tls'/>
<mechanisms xmlns='urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-sasl'>
<mechanism>DIGEST-MD5</mechanism>
<mechanism>PLAIN</mechanism>
</mechanisms>
</stream:features>
Here's what Google does:
<stream:stream xmlns:stream="http://etherx.jabber.org/streams" xmlns="jabber:client" from="talk.google.com" id="EC5484B5" version="1.0">
<stream:features>
<starttls xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-tls"/>
</stream:features>
See anything missing? Now, Google states that the only authentication method they support is SASL PLAIN, so uh....yeah. As a result, some clients are broken. I'm curious, is SASL PLAIN thought to be the default if the authentication type isn't specified in the stream:features? I'm really not that familiar with the Jabber/XMPP protocol, so enlighten me, please.
We had it out tonight, again.
I came home from work this evening thinking about the lie I caught him in the other night. It was a stupid lie over something small, but regardless, he deliberately mislead me when he told me he never would. He told me the lie a few months ago, before we started having all these problems. I confronted him about it, and he tried to laugh it off. When that didn't work, he blamed it on me. I'm the reason he lied? I saw that one coming.
When I got home, I was in a foul mood, not just because of that lie, but because of all the things happening this weekend that he didn't plan well for. It's a big weekend for me, I guess not so much for him. He tries to think it is, but that's not how these things go. I'm not scared. I won't let myself be. I can't really be specific in what's happening. If all goes well, I'll blog again. If not, send flowers to my funeral.
Despite the pressure of the upcoming events, he has a friend visiting this weekend - a guy I've never met before. I'm not really comfortable with strangers in my house, but I figured I'd get over it. I didn't think it was going to happen this weekend of all weekends. The guy is visiting from out of town and he's already at the train station, so it's not like I can tell him no. When he's a guest in my house, I can't kick him out. Also, Mike's going to be going out of town for the first half of next week, and that's the worst possible timing. I really wished he'd be here. I don't know if I'll be able to take care of myself, much less the dogs or the other responsibilities around here. I suppose I'll have no choice. I don't feel so much abandoned as simply disappointed in him for not thinking, for being insensitive. I thought I'd gotten used to it, but it still stings.
I prefer just being on my own. I'm more comforted by the silence than I am by knowing he's near. I don't know when I let myself stop depending on him for emotional support. The only emotion I even remember feeling for the past few months is anger, and what good is that? I'm only what I think qualifies as happy when I'm at work, and that's because I'm usually off in my own world coding, disassociated from everything else.
After the fight, I simply couldn't be angry anymore. Not with the pressure of what's happening tomorrow. I wouldn't let myself break down. It infuriated Mike to see me so calm. He ended up bruising his wrist when he punched the wall. I can't say that I felt that sorry for him. After he calmed down, I told him what I'd been thinking, but was too worried to say out loud - until then.
We've been having problems for a while, and it's only getting worse. The pressure of what is happening tomorrow, along with us moving in together, my back getting worse, me being out of a job for a while - it was all too much. I don't know if we can recover. I don't think things are going to get better. I don't want to end this for the wrong reasons, but I don't want to stay in it for the wrong reasons, either. I learned my lesson with that once before. I don't lean on him anymore, and I don't feel like I need him anymore. That doesn't mean I don't want to need him. I just feel so much closer to content when I'm all by myself, and I don't know if it's because I don't want to be with him, or because I don't have the capability of dealing with anyone. All his little nuances that I used to find endearing (or at least tolerable) now drive me to irritation to the point of wanting to be violent.
Now isn't a good time to make this decision, and I don't want to throw in the towel yet. Maybe after some of these things calm down, we'll be able to work through our problems. I'm not scared, I just don't want to make the wrong decision. I'm no more lonely at this moment than I'd be if I were without him, and what does that say about us?
Does anyone know of a good SSH client for Windows besides putty? I like putty, but I'm looking for something with tabs that isn't bulky. I'm usually not in Windows, so this hasn't been an issue until now. Need...tabs....
Please, who hasn't talked about this by now? I'm sure you've all heard about Google's new chat service, and it's disgusting how overrated anything with the name Google in it quickly becomes. I won't be a hater just for the sake of hating, though. They do make quality products. Still, it's Jabber with VOIP. It's not new or inventive, it's been there for ages. Google is running it though, therefore it must rox0r!
The main good thing I see coming out of this is Jabber finally coming into its own as a IM standard that more people use. It's a good protocol, and Google is supporting server choice which most IM models really don't allow for.
So, sektie@gmail.com. On to the next meme.
Edit: While on the topic of Google, I didn't know the Google Toolbar for Firefox had been released. Cool beans, although it's mostly unnecessary due to the search engine functionality already built in.
Today is going to be a busy day, but it's lunch time and I find myself still stretching in bed, hesitant to start. It's been a while since I've gotten any good sleep. I may sleep for an hour or two, but then I wake up and try to work the stiffness out of my back and shoulders. Last night was no exception, but at least I managd to get a few extra hours of attempted sleep.
In a previous post, I mentioned that I had to do something today that I was dreading. Screw that. I'm putting that off. Today is an important day. It's Nathan's birthday party. We canceled the big party bit of it, mainly because I'm in no shape to manage such an event, and no one else wants to take it over. Chad and Nathan are coming over this afternoon, at which point we'll have a small family party - Chad, Mike, Nathan, and myself. I'll be posting pictures, as usual. Expect to see them up tonight, or tomorrow morning if I'm feeling tired.
In preparation for the party, I've got to run to the bakery to wheedle and plead for a last minute SpiderMan cake. Generally they prefer having at least 24 hours notice, so this is going to take some effort. After I get that ordered, I need to pick up some wrapping paper to wrap the last of the presents. It would probably be a good idea to pick up a hand pump for the inflatable SpiderMan chair I got him, or else Mike will complain when I tell him it's his duty to blow it up. Well, Mike is full of a lot of hot air. (hehe)
Next, I need to stop by Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It turns out they are one of the few local stores that (hopefully) stock bath robes that are not spa length. (Explanation to the guys: spa length is generally mid thigh.) I want a full length plush terry bath robe and some comfortable thick fuzzy socks. Oooh. I just had an idea. Maybe Crabtree and Evelyn in Perimeter Mall might have something. I'll have to call and find out.
In case you're wondering about the previous entry, I'll explain. Starting a few days ago, I noticed a large influx of people registering, and they were all from brazil. At first I thought someone was just trying to do a CGI exploit or something, but the registrations were too far apart, and the traffic looked legitimate. I noticed one of the links coming in from an openwebmail URL - so apparently a bunch of Brazilians are emailing each other about this site. Funky. I'm not sure why they are all registering though. Generally the only people that register are those that post comments, as I'm not sure of any other benefit. Regardless, hi .br!
Dear Brazilians,wtf?
Love,
FreeBSDGirl
Guess what? Another thing doesn't compile on OS X right out of the box. Here's the info I found on getting the perl Curses module to compile properly on OS X.
Version Information:
porn::~ sektie$ uname -a
Darwin porn.local 8.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.2.0: Fri Jun 24 17:46:54 PDT 2005; root:xnu-792.2.4.obj~3/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
orn:~ sektie$ perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.6 built for darwin-thread-multi-2level
(with 2 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)
porn:~ sektie$ grep NCURSES_VERSION /usr/include/ncurses.h
#define NCURSES_VERSION "5.4"
Installing:
porn:~ sektie$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Curses'
Password:
...
The error:
cc -c -g -pipe -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -no-cpp-precomp -fno-strict-aliasing -I/usr/local/include -Os -DVERSION=\"1.12\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.12\" "-I/System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE" Curses.c
In file included from /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE/perl.h:475,
from Curses.c:14:
/System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE/embed.h:2912:1: warning: "instr" redefined
In file included from c-config.h:9,
from Curses.c:11:
/usr/include/curses.h:917:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
In file included from /System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE/perl.h:1806,
from Curses.c:14:
/System/Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE/handy.h:85:1: warning: "bool" redefined
In file included from /usr/include/curses.h:136,
from c-config.h:9,
from Curses.c:11:
/usr/lib/gcc/powerpc-apple-darwin8/4.0.0/include/stdbool.h:36:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
In file included from Curses.c:344:
CursesFun.c: In function 'XS_Curses_newterm':
CursesFun.c:1279: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
CursesFun.c:1280: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
CursesFun.c: In function 'XS_Curses_longname':
CursesFun.c:3146: error: too many arguments to function 'longname'
In file included from Curses.c:344:
CursesFun.c:3254:58: error: macro "touchline" passed 4 arguments, but takes just 3
CursesFun.c: In function 'XS_Curses_touchline':
CursesFun.c:3254: warning: pointer/integer type mismatch in conditional expression
CursesFun.c:3254: warning: initialization makes integer from pointer without a cast
CursesFun.c: In function 'XS_Curses_putwin':
CursesFun.c:3453: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
CursesFun.c: In function 'XS_Curses_getwin':
CursesFun.c:3472: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
make: *** [Curses.o] Error 1
/usr/bin/make -- NOT OK
Running make test
Can't test without successful make
Running make install
make had returned bad status, install seems impossible
The fix:
porn:~ sektie$ sudo su -
porn:~ root# cd ~/.cpan/build/Curses-1.12/
porn:~/.cpan/build/Curses-1.12 root# cp hints/c-darwin-thread-multi-2level.h c-config.h
porn:~/.cpan/build/Curses-1.12 root# wget http://freebsdgirl.com/~sektie/osx-curses.diff
porn:~/.cpan/build/Curses-1.12 root# patch CursesFun.c < osx-curses.diff
Now, we can install without errors.
porn:~/.cpan/build/Curses-1.12 root# make
...
porn:~/.cpan/build/Curses-1.12 root# make install
...
<tHM> Girl, you know you grok me, grok me
<tHM> With your OS locked me, locked me
<tHM> And I've got BSD
<tHM> I've got Open but you use Free...
<tHM> i'll stop there
Imagine going through the most emotionally horrifying situation possible. Then, they tell you there may be yet another life threatening problem to add to all your other medical problems, so go see a doctor and repeat the process next week.
I am exhausted. I have to get an EKG sometime this week. I am tired of always being in pain, and pills just don't help anymore. They haven't for a while. I cried for half an hour. I'm going back to sleep now.
This is a in-real-life conversation (paraphrased, of course) that took place yesterday at work. Names have been changed, etc.
J: Is there a verb for fellatio?
(argument ensues between the males)
Me: I'm looking it up. (...) No, only a noun form is officially recognized
J: so i can make up my own word then?
Me: i guess so
J: B, i'm going to fellate all over your ass
(guys laugh)
Me: i don't think that's correct. that's not the proper form of the word.
J: i made it up, i can make it mean whatever i want
B: dude, you can't give me a blowjob all over my ass
(chaos ensues, people start walking past our door to see what is going on, etc)
So there's this chick that linked to me, and I've been trying to figure out if I know her off IRC or if it's completely random. Unfortunately, my bulgarian really sucks. I did manage to pick up the grammar in a few spare minutes at work today, but they have like 3000 different ways to conjugate each verb, so yeah. Even though I'm apparently obsessed with knowing what everyone on the internet has to say about me, I didn't have that much time or patience. Anyways, wondering what she said. The english version of her blog is a month or two behind. If anyone knows Bulgarian, or if Kate happens to see this, send me a translation. I'm curious to see how good I did at decyphering it on my own. Further proof that if you learn Latin, you can pick up the grammar of any other language in the time it takes to pop a bag of popcorn.
Mike had to leave for a business trip in New York this evening, so I drove him to the Marta station as soon as I got off work. This particular Marta station is located within walking distance of one of my previous employers. I'm rarely over in that area anymore, but it still felt familiar driving those streets. When a person drives to and from a place on a regular basis, it becomes reflex. That person doesn't have to think about what turn to take or even acknowledge the roads they are following. It becomes habit, second nature. I took the time to notice where I was today, and I was surprised I wasn't taking the wrong roads, driving past my previous employers building by this same habit. If you don't follow the grooves you set on a regular basis, they fill in, and the edges blur.
During evening gridlock, and in the middle of cursing out the putrid green SUV in front of me - doubtless driven by another one of Cobb County's soccer mom clones - I thought about all the habits I used to have, and how the grooves have filled in from lack of use. Most of the readers of this site are male, so while they might not identify with the example I'm about to use, they'll get the idea.
One of the largest changes in my life that I've taken note of is how I shop. Don't groan, this won't take long. I used to be one of the worst impulse shoppers you'd ever have the misfortune of handing your charge card. I used to stroll into Bloomingdales on a weekday afternoon and drop a few hundred on a single pair of heels that I'd probably only wear a few times, if ever. It didn't strike me as irresponsible - it was just the groove I had created for myself. I didn't have to think about it at all. Because of this, I was almost always running low on cash, but I couldn't figure out why. My latest Enzo boot acquisitions were much more important to me than paying the power bill on time. Living with Mike and being unemployed for a bit definitely forced me to change these habits. At least I never got into the pit of having a credit card; I dealt with cash only, so I have no outstanding debt from this period of shopping insanity.
My tastes still haven't changed. I'll never be the type to shop at Payless Shoes. Whatever woman was foolish enough to think that shoes from Payless were as good as some slingback D&G's obviously never tried on the D&G's. Despite this, I've managed to moderate myself considerably. I don't really shop at all anymore, and when I do, I feel like it's something special. It's not an everyday event, so I look forward to it more. I usually end up feeling guilty about buying anything regardless, so maybe I'll have to get Mike to ease his iron hold on my fiscal consciousness.
I've been struggling with that particular habit my entire life. I've never been good with money, and I was likely to spend my paycheck within days of getting it. I fought to change it a few times, and maybe I put some real effort into it, but I've always been unsuccessful. I find it amusing (and a bit curious) that a habit that is so much a part of me has finally disappeared, all on its own.
Maybe it's not really possible to control your habits. You can't ignore the groove exists when you've been wheeling down it every day for as long as you can remember. "New Years Resolutions" are a great example of this. A person comes up with an absurd list of all the bad habits he'd like to get rid of, but often gives up within a week, if not before the party is over. I see it like a diet. If you can deviate from your default behavior once, you should be happy with yourself, not beating yourself up because you didn't stick to some fantastic idea of what a perfect reality would be.
This is all fairly obvious, and things you've probably thought of before. I'm sick, rambling, and I'm enjoying having the house to myself. I'm now going to go take a long, lavender scented bubble bath and then play solitaire while lying in bed until my brains leak out my ears. Given the current consistency of said brains, it shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.
Because Nathan's birthday is in the middle of the week this year (August 16th), we're going to be having his party the weekend after - Saturday, August 20th. Last year we did chucky cheeses, and that place is so disgusting, so I'm thinking that maybe this year Six Flags Whitewater Atlanta might be a better idea.
Adults & kids are both invited - even those of our friends that haven't had the pleasure of meeting Nathan yet. Most of his "friends" (the christian kids at his daycare) are south of Atlanta, so I don't expect they'll be able to make it. And they are poor, but like, isn't nearly everyone south of the airport poor? Gross. Fortunately, he'll be starting school up here next year, and then he'll have friends that can afford to go to a party. Sope Creek Elementary rocks! So, yeah. Come to his party, or something. If nothing else, it'll give you an excuse to go to a fun water park. If you want to buy him a present, he likes spiderman and coloring books. He's only 4, it's not like you have to get him xbox games. Treasure the years that their presents are cheap, because pretty soon he'll be wanting an Alienware laptop.
Tickets are $26.99 if you buy them online. I expect most of us will be arriving around 10:30 AM. Notify me if you're coming, as I'll need to know how many people to plan for as far as food goes.
I'm thinking of getting him a ferret. Mike's going to love that idea, I'm sure. Another animal to add to the zoo. Still, Nathan would love a ferret, and we've already even got some of the equipment we'd need.
I got a response from an email I sent to Kate Clinton shortly after my previous rant about her, and I totally forgot to mention it. Lots of love for Kate actually taking the time to email back one of her fans. :)
Thank you for your kind words.I will be in Atlanta next year for my 25th Anniversary tour. Keep checking calender for dates.
Best,
Kate
Well, it's short and to the point, but it's better than the cease and desist letter I received from Sarah Jessica Parker's lawyers. Just kidding!
If I had known that AOL's gay and lesbian channel was going to be linking to my previous blog entry about her, I would have put a bit more thought into what I wrote. Oh well.
I finally managed to get some real sleep last night instead of the usual 2-3 hours of psuedo sleep I've been feeding my body with for the past few weeks. I went upstairs to my bedroom around 10:00 PM, a bit grumpy because of hunger/tiredness. I took a bath, laid down in bed with another crappy Nora Roberts book, and Mike got into bed and started watching TV. About 10 minutes later, I went to go turn the page and realized I couldn't. The book fell on the floor, and somehow I managed to lean over and turn off the light before passing out. I think I woke up a few hours later because I was cold, but instead of doing the obvious of turning on the heating pad and pulling the blanket around me, I just rolled over into Mike's arms. It was kind of sweet, I guess. It's been a long time since we've been able to sleep like that. Usually I have to be left alone when I sleep, and I sleep best if I'm in the bed by myself. I woke up at 8:30 AM in a good mood, despite being tired. I think it's going to take a few nights of sleep like that to bring myself out of walking-zombie state.
[Edit: Removed a nice chunk of text from the end of this entry due to a request from Mike.]
"As a result, to protect our registered Cisco.com users, we're taking the proactive step of resetting Cisco.com passwords. Needless to say we're investigating the incident which does not appear to be due to a weakness in our security products and technologies or with our network infrastructure."
<whine> But it really isn't my fault, we aren't insecure! WE ARE TEH SEKURITY LEADARS! </whine>
Have you ever seen Cisco release information about a security fix without someone else bringing it to the media's attention, first? Maybe if the talking heads close their eyes and think happy thoughts, the problems just won't exist!
I'm beyond infuriated, entering incredulous.
Once again, I got to sleep late last night. Boyfriend had over his stupid stoner friends late, after breaking his promise for the third time. Every time I get pissed off at his lack of consideration, and every time he promises he won't do it again. This is just so typical. He makes promises like it's no big thing, and he forgets about them the second it's even the least little bit inconvenient. I keep hoping he'll change, but I'm starting to see that he never will. If I call him on it, he even tries to turn the situation around on me, even though I'm not the one that did anything wrong. It's useless even attempting to talk to him about it. This whole living together thing is so not what it's cracked up to be.
So tell me, boys, if you lived with your girlfriend after being with her for over 1.5 years, and you were having some pretty tough times adjusting, would you keep bringing over your friends at all hours of the night without even warning her about it first? Mike claims his friends always do it, but I think that as usual, he's full of shit.
The hype of Xcode has finally piped down, and good riddance. When it first came out, I was so excited. I was bouncing up and down waiting for it to finish installing. It was supposed to be the holy grail of IDE's, the *BEST IDE EVAR*.
20 minutes later, my dreams shattered, I installed BBEdit. Thank you, Apple. Drive through. Although BBEdit is mainly targeted at web development, I've been able to happily use it for a number of other functions. The built-in CVS support was excellent, and I happily put-putted along in my HTML editor, writing C/C++/perl - anything but HTML. Go figure.
Watching BBEdit's CVS logs scroll by as I commited my days efforts, I commented on it in #bsdcode, and Ollivier (Keltia) may have very well changed my world. I'd not heard of TextMate before today, but curious as I am, I tried it out - even though I was fairly happy with the way BBEdit was handling things, I can never resist something new.
Install. Poke. No CVS support? Poke around on website...shitty documentation. It did, however, have subversion support as one of it's 'Bundles'. It would be fairly easy to hack in my own CVS support because of their bundle system, but once again, curiosity about software I've never used prevailed. I set up svn on my powerbook with the help of an article on MacDevCenter.com: documentation. I haven't yet tried out the Launchd Editor on codepoetry, but it looks useful.
The end result? New code editor, new version control system, new reasons to maybe buy that PowerBook instead of the Toshiba. Hm. I'm not changing this site to macgirl.com. Not a chance. FreeBSD's still my only true love. Everything else is just a temporary crush.
It looks like my current employer isn't going to be getting me a laptop anytime soon (or, if they do, it won't be one I will be able to do much with). Because my 12" Powerbook G4 has been about to give out for ages, I'm pre-emptively looking at laptops. It's not like I'll be able to really afford one until later this year, and I'm sure by then prices and specs will have changed, but that'll just give me an excuse to drool over shiny blinky things again.
I find myself a little perturbed that I'm seriously considering getting another Powerbook. I'm not a big fan of Apple. One of it's biggest drawbacks is that I can't run FreeBSD on it - at least not with any level of functionality. I've bitched about the defaults of the version of ld included with Apple's Developer Tools, and I still think Xcode is overhyped and not so great for anyone that isn't going to be writing software based on Cocoa/Carbon. The resolution of the 12" display is utter crap - 1024x768. I'm a 1600x1200 kind of girl. On the other hand, they are so pretty (and god, do I want to kick myself for saying that). Apple's AppleCare Protection Plan is awesome for people that are unwittingly abusive to their hardware, such as myself. Here's the specs for the 12" Powerbook that I priced out:
Display: 12.1-inch TFT Display (1024x768)
Processor: 1.5GHz PowerPC G4
Memory: 768MB DDR333 (256MB built-in + 512MB SO-DIMM)
HD: 100GB Ultra ATA drive @5400rpm
CD: 8x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Network: AirPort Extreme Card, Ethernet, 56kModem
Video: NVIDIA GeForce FX GO 5200 with 64MB DDR Video Memory
Bluetooth: Yes
Ports: Firewire 400, Mini-DVI, Analog In/Out, USB
Warrenty: AppleCare Protection Plan for PowerBook
Price: $2,223.00
I've always had a soft spot for Toshiba. I think it has to do with all of the blue lights I saw on an early model Sattelite. I don't know how good their warrenty is, or the level of their customer service, so I hesitate to buy from them, even though they have such nice looking products. I had to ban myself from the Toshiba website, as I start coming up with way too many justifications way too fast for why I need a new laptop now. When I brought it up in Camino, the Qosmio G25 made me whimper. Specs:
Display: 17" Diagonal Wide-Screen XGA Display (1440 x 900) w/Ultimate TruBrite Technology
Processor: Intel Pentium® M processor 760 [2.00GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB]
Memory: 1024MB (2x512MB) DDR2 SDRAM
HD: 120GB: 60GB HDD (5400rpm) + 60GB HDD (5400rpm)
CD: DVD SuperMulti drive (Double Layer)
Network: Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG (802.11a/b/g), Ethernet, 56k Modem
Video: NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go6600 GPU w/128MB DDR SDRAM
Bluetooth: Yes
Ports: Firewire, 4-USB(2.0) ports, Bridge Media Adapter, 2 AV-Out ports, 2 AV-In ports
Warrenty: Toshiba 2 Year SystemGuard plus 2nd Year Warranty Extension Including At-Home Repair for Qosmio AVPC
Price: $3,223.10
I like Dell, and I've usually stuck with Inspirons, but they are not sexy beasts anymore. Portable desktops are nice, but what I want is a functional laptop. Also, all the laptop bags I'm looking at can't fit a Dell Inspiron in them. Maybe if I'm going to be looking at dropping 3 grand on a laptop, I should look at Alienware? They seem obscenely ugly to me, and the battery life is horrible, but they are certainly well-spec'ed machines. Thoughts?
