Just my thoughts

2007-08-24T07:39:00.000-05:00

Alright, gotta stop right now. No more, I'll do this ish some other time lol. Peep this!

Which Programming Language are You?

Which OS are you / is best for you?

2007-08-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

I'm really proud of this! I called it, before I even started, when I saw what the possible outcomes were. It's an oldie but an apparent goodie! I originally thought it was supposed to calculate which OS is best for you.. but after reading the outcome, it's more like it describes you as an OS. Either way, it came out how I wanted lol. I guess I am the OS that I enjoy using... I've always like people similar to me hehehe

Which OS are You?

For those that don't know, debian is the core of ubuntu, the OS I've been using primarily for the past two years :D

Making the Apple Switch....

2007-05-15T06:10:00.000-05:00

With all the wonderful Macs coming out… just about all of the time, along with a large population of the technology world screaming “Apple”, who can ignore the urge to jump on the Apple boat in 2007? Apple’s now can run Windows & OS X at the same time, at separate times on different partitions, have been able to run Linux forever, have supposedly screaming fast Intel Core Duo II Processors, come with video cams built into them, are as skinny and lightweight as ever, offer beautiful glossy screens now… and yet, why am I still feeling ripped off?!?!?!

They’re beautiful, and the OS has been wonderful for some years now. The urge to use an OS built on top of a variant of FreeBSD is awesome… I just can’t ignore the stats. I venture over to Apple.com to look at the MacBooks available, to spec & price one out, there’s a whole four options. I guess Apple likes to keep it simple. They’re customizable to a degree anyway, so I’m trying to ignore that. I’m looking at the pics… the website is set up awesome as always… and one can’t ignore all the catchy phrasing and advertising that Apple has put into it, but I’m not seeing anything to that speaks to the tech in me. Where’s the power? How much RAM? How much space am I getting? Etc., etc., etc. I continue to click around, act if as I’m ready to buy one, and finally get to what I’m looking for; the breakdown of what actually is in this thing.

There’s MacBook & then there’s MacBook Pro. At first, there’s no clear discretion between the two. At closer glance, one determining factor is what screen size do you want? MacBook is available in 13” white and black, whereas MacBook Pro is available in 15” && 17”. If you already know which size screen you want, that basically makes up your mind right there. I on the other hand, happened to see the black (now I guess it was a MacBook) in person, and was basically drooling over how gorgeous it looked. At this point, I’m irritated. I would never want a screen any smaller than 15”. Why am I limited to 13” if I want a black MacBook??? Why can’t I get the 15” or 17” in black if I want to? Why in the world would this restriction ever be placed on me? It seems soo meaningless to make that type of restriction on the customer and the only reason I can think of would have to be Apple’s advantage in marketing down the road and maximizing their sales over time. Imagine, in some small amount of months from now, now Apple wants to sale MacBook Pro’s in black. Now for all the filthy rich people out there, who bought black MacBooks because they cared more about their color & uniqueness than performance, they go out and RE-buy MacBook Pro’s in black. Now Apple has gotten you coming and going, sold more laptops, and is basically a very very evil company. Trust me, they are.

Going on, I want 15”! Bump that, black isn’t worth getting a tiny tiny little screen. Now I’ve got two choices, it appears. The way the site is designed you don’t see any customization options until the end. When looking at the 15” model, there’s two options, one for $1,999 and the next one for $2,499. First impression… these comps had better have some awesome stats! For $2,500, this laptop had better fly away and come back with the printed morning paper every morning! I’m reading the stats, and sorry to say they’re ordinary. For Apple’s prearranged higher model 15” model MacBook Pro, for $500 more than the lower one, I’m getting a gig more RAM, and the same d@mn video card but with a different amount of built on RAM, and a different processor – which in my opinion is the same d@mn one as well (clocks at 2.33 instead of 2.16 WOMP WOMP)! That’s it! That’s the only differences written here. I can’t believe it.

I can not believe Apple is still ripping people off with these things. I thought it was finally time to jump on the boat… I want one, I do, but I can’t waste my money like that. The fact remains, only way I’d buy one of these new was if I had money laying around which I absolutely didn’t need (fact is I don’t!). $2,500 is more than any other laptop manufacturer you can find without absolutely looking for it, and those stats are just barely higher than normal. It’s ridiculous, and that’s not even the 17” model! Can you believe it costs $2,799?!?!? Same damn stats again, but with 40 more gigs on the hard drive, … and 2x more speed on the DVD-burner. Unbelievable… I’m done. Apple, you lose, you get no recommendations from me.

Hiatus

2007-02-19T17:04:00.000-05:00

Obviously it's been a while. I pose a question.. what's the true benefit to blogging. I shy away from it, and then after a while, somehow feel left out of something that I should be participating in. At the same time, when I'm doing it, while swamped in work and opportunties, I feel as though I might be wasting my time and energy. For anyone that's reading this, please help a brother out!

Awesome media player

2006-12-18T09:10:00.000-05:00

I will be trying this out! It's name is Songbird. The player, like Firefox, is cross platform, meaning it plays on all operating systems :D . It features RSS feeds for media files, web playing, playlists, iTunes like interface, Skins called Feathers, built in search for various combinations of desktop & web search, and loads of other goodness! It looks quite nice! Take a look!

Preview Songbird!

Right here for LOW quality. The above link for HIGH quality.

Catch-Phrase:

"In a world gone mad, there is a media player that stands alone.... It's name.... is SONGBIRD ....."

Chin Check

2006-11-29T14:50:00.000-05:00

Yet another song where Howard U is mentioned. It's a bit old; I had never heard this before. On the "Next Friday" soundtrack, N.W.A. - "Chin Check". I just had to take note, cause supposedly during the 90%, everyone, not just that one damn Biggie song (and that recent Luda one), was rapping about Howard.

[Ice Cube]
I'm a Nigga Wit an Attitude thanks to y'all
And I don't give a fuck I keep it gangsta y'all
I'ma ride for my side in the C.P.T.
God bless the memory of Eazy-E
If it wadn't for me where the fuck you'd be?
Rappin like the Treacherous Three, fuckin cowards
I'd have seen Dre rockin parties for hours
And I'd have seen Ren fuckin bitches from Howard
And I'd have seen Snoop give away Eddie Bauer's
So fuck Jerry Heller and the white superpowers

BERYL !!!!!!

2006-11-29T05:05:00.000-05:00

I am SOOO pleased with this. It's just WORKED! Like "out-the-box" worked! Literally a few commands like what's described @ the quite awesome BioDesign howTo and it was up! I love these guys. There's been much raving about how the guys at beryl (try http://wiki.beryl-project.org/ for now) may be inexperienced, but are quite hard-headed and have some awesome ideas. From reading blog reviews, it appears that Beryl is literally kicking some Compiz butt around these days. The results with AIGLX & Beryl as compared to XGL & Compiz are typically a lot faster and less demanding on resources.

Well you know I gotta throw my screen shots around all over the net, everywhere that I possibly can. It just so happens that I was very pleased with my new edgy eft layout, and had done some "before" snapshots already (sunday). Here are three. I had changed the icons and border to get a better look.

Unfortunately, I'm not running with mass amounts of RAM and processing power, so creating the live demonstration video like the original one that Novell did isn't all that possible for me. All I can really do is provide a still shot of what the new theme looks like. Just trust that I got all my wigley windows and screen flips and all that too!

Just to recap from the last post real quick, their site did go down Sunday as currently described at http://beryl-project.org/

Server hard drive disk failed on Sunday, and we're currently trying to rescue it even though it does not look good at all. Apologies.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one to notice. The wiki has reappeared as of yesterday, but the repositories are still not up, as well as whatever was on the default www page before. Luckily there are several people that made mirrors of the repositories. I didn't have any success with http://beryl-mirror.lupine.me.uk/ , but the second one suggested by the wiki, http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb , came through. Add the line
"deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb edgy beryl-svn" to your sources file for Edgy EFt, get the key using
"wget http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/DD800CD9.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - ", and then 'sudo apt-get update' in order to be able to install the proper packages.

one step closer

2006-11-27T02:53:00.000-05:00

/me just got the Second Life Alpha to install and play on my desktop (Ubuntu !!!). Alpha Software! I soo didn't think that was going to work. I successfully got hardware 3D acceleration working by downloading the i386 kernel for Ubuntu source (instead of the generic that I mistakenly installed last week), compiling it, and then compiling the NVidia kernel interface with the new kernel. I had tried this a couple of days ago, with linux-kernel-2.6.17-10-generic, and that ish just wasn't working out....

Now I'm a hoop, skip, and a jump away from getting a XGL config finally running.... and tell me why... the damn http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ site was down ALLL night, and now it comes up as I'm writing this post...

Installing the propietary 3D drivers is the hardest point (now conquered). NVidia & ATI half-ass the hell out of them, to simply say they have linux support, but its like they put no effort into them. I know I've had problems with NVidia drivers for Windows before as well, but their linux drivers are just ridiculous.

... I was soo about to finally jump in the bed. I've got to try this new beryl howTo real quick now to see if it pops off!

btw, for anyone looking to do the same thing, from what I understand, and read to be confirmed more often than not online, there are two alternative technologies for this, XGL & AIGLX. Even though I say "XGL" (becuase it's more commonly known as that), what I'll actually try is AIGLX with Beryl as the Compositor Manager. This combination seems to be what runs the fastest for most people experimenting around with this right now. Even though this link is to a message board thread, it cleared up what I wanted to know about the conflicting options.

Daily Boondocks in your inbox

2006-11-15T00:03:00.000-05:00

I have to say I really love this comic. It's really the first comic that has received any direct attention from me. This one particularly made me laugh in the morning.

Click photo to enlarge

Every morning, you can get the new Boondocks in your inbox at GoComics.com

Any Given Sunday | Anybody can get it!

2006-11-13T09:26:00.000-05:00

Wanksta

2006-11-11T16:58:00.000-05:00

Urban dictionary is nothing new. Over a year ago it started coming as a default bookmark with firefox. Still, there's probably a lot of people that don't know about it.

Listening to a Nas mixtape, I happened to hear the word "Wanksta" and wondered what the actual word means. Hence, Urban Dictionary comes in perfect use.

1. Wanksta
A "wanksta" is a very basic word meaning a person who acts/looks like a gangster or thug, but has never done anything gangster or thug-like besides acting or looking like one. It can be towards any race or ethnicity. The word does NOT imply a WHITE guy acting black.

Al Capone is a GANGSTA - white guy
Ja Rule is a WANKSTA - black guy

Being the #1 definition, it's the user accepted definition of "Wanksta"... simply for anyone that may have been wondering what the word meant.

Great Month for Linux !!! | Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft REVIEW

2006-11-10T13:56:00.000-05:00

From (word for word) Linux.com (with added links :D )

If you're a Linux enthusiast you probably noticed what a great month we've had. Slackware 11.0 was released on the 3rd. Mandriva 2007 was released the same day and showed us how integrated XGL, Compiz and AIGLX could be. Fedora Core 6 was released on the 24th and brought us an amazing Gnome 2.16 desktop with fabulous artwork. Ubuntu 6.10 came on the 26th and we couldn't wait to review it!

Del.icio.us Feed

2006-11-10T12:12:00.000-05:00

It's an oldie but a goodie. It's the Del.icio.us Feed! lol. Yeah, finally added it to the sidebar of this blog; you can see my bookmarks as I add them; you can even subscribe if you want. Have fun!

SLAM for Windows Mobile

2006-10-14T16:31:00.000-05:00

Now Playing:

Ludacris - Release Therapy (2006)

Very interesting! More of a review to come once I can get to my laptop to install this on my phone...

http://msmobiles.com/news.php/5659.html

" When you send a message in Slam, it is automatically sent to everyone in the group to which you sent it. For smartphone users that have the Slam client installed, their phone will buzz and they will have an indication on their phone's home screen that there is a new message. "

" Scenarios for Slam

Real-time Coordination: Out on a Friday night? No need to decide on a place and time to meet in advance, just send a message to your friends when you're ready to go and see where everybody is. Some people may be at a restaurant, others on the move, but everybody can send messages and coordinate immediately. Imagine coordinating a ski trip this way, too.
Instant Group Photo Sharing: You are always seeing beautiful and interesting things, but it's too hard to send pictures to people with your cameraphone. Use Slam to take a picture and send it to a group of friends with only a few clicks. Try forming a "celebrity sightings" cameraphone group or share pictures with your family throughout your day.
Broadcast communication: Need a babysitter? Send a message to your "babysitters" group saying "Can someone come over for a few hours right now?" All your potential sitters get the message right when you send it, wherever they are.

To learn more about Slam, or to download it, click here."

Sometimes It Be's Like That

2006-10-12T15:39:00.001-05:00

Sometimes It Be's Like That

"Once upon a time at Howard, a young man mustered up all the courage he could to ask a special young lady on a date.

Without second thought, the young lady rejected him, because of course he’d always be there."

I stopped right there. Don't even know what this article is about yet... even this second. I'm floored by that. Is that really how it is? It's "No" simply because he actually cares and means what he says?! If he was bullshitting... then he would get a yes?! I'm floored. I've actually been reading about this type of thing... and everything I read actually says just that. Me being me, I'm still in denial... things CAN'T be that way! That can't be how life is... if so... who wants such a life? How can people live that way? It ain't worth it if that's really "how it be".

Alright... so I read the article. Amber English goes on to criticize the situation. Basically, rushed situations can turn sour, being too patient can leave you "in the shoes of the special young lady in the opening of this piece", and so on.. in conclusion; it's a game of balance.

On the other hand, away from people doing the rejecting, there are the people that are afraid of being rejected. I personally think this aspect is far underestimated. For all those people that play games such as the one displayed above, they are taking for granted what many a desirable man is not yet capable of. I believe it takes far more to spill one's guts than women give it credit for. Often you hear women complain of the wrong type of people approaching them, but out of the few righteous men actually about something, they shun away with thoughts like "they'll always be around". That type of activity is not cohesive to being asked out by more respectable men.

The article closes with stating that missed opportunities aren't the end of the world. Simply straighten up and be prepared for the next chance at finding Mr./Mrs. Right. I was at first disturbed, but I think it’s evident that some people indeed do think that way. May god keep those people away from me.

Sometimes It Be's Like That

2006-10-12T15:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes It Be's Like That

On the other hand, away from people doing the rejecting, there are the people that are afraid of being rejected. I personally think this aspect is far underestimated. For all those people that play games such as the one displayed above, they are taking for granted what many a desireable man is not yet capable of. I believe it takes far more to spill one's guts than women give it credit for. Often you hear women complain of the wrong type of people approaching them, but out of the few righteous men actually about something, they shun away with thoughts like "they'll always be around". That type of activity is not cohesive to being asked out by more respectable men.

The article closes with stating that missed opportunities aren't the end of the world. Simply straighten up and be prepared for the next chance at finding Mr./Mrs. Right. I was at first disturbed, but I think its evident that some people indeed do think that way. May god keep those people away from me.

HU !!!

2006-10-11T06:01:00.000-05:00

Only at Howard. Only at Howard can we pull these kind of acts. Only here can we get these ppl DIRT CHEAP, cause you know Howard ain't paying 'em anything. Amazing.

Only here can we pull big names for Damian Marley to perform at our selfish little homecoming and charge a lonely $35 dollars for it... AND guest performer Fay Ann Lyons. Only here do we get acts like Xzibit, Eminem, Young Guns, Trick Daddy, & etc. to perform absolutely free at yardfest, just so that they can be part of OUR homecoming. It's quite wild when you think about it. I dont know any other university getting that type of attention for their homecoming. If HU is good at nothing else, I guess you can say they do at least one thing to its full potential... and that's party!

Comedy Show '06: Steve Harvey

... didn't know that Steve Harvey had a morning show in WHUR... perhaps I should start paying attention to that station.

Cocoa Brown:
“When I realized you guys had a network, I sent out a blog asking you guys to tell me about what goes on”
What exactly does "sent out a blog" mean? I'm sorry.. is blog synonymous with e-mail now? ... somebody let me know.

Dodgeball

2006-10-10T03:26:00.000-05:00

Interesting little site. A good way to skyrocket your text messaging bill... and your friends' too while you're at it.

Dodgeball.com

Toldja So!

2006-10-08T01:53:00.000-05:00

It's my time to say I told you so. This was about 9 months ago that I blogged about this. Now LifeHacker is just now getting on top of it.

This is why I don't watch television. This is why I'm completely uncompatiable with commercials at this point. This is why comcast can kiss my ass.

Democracy Player

BLAH! II

2006-10-04T11:46:00.000-05:00

Now Playing:

The Roots - Things Fall Apart (1999)

It's been some time since the ground-breaking "BLAH!!!" post.. (may it never happen again).

I feel like I owe some type of explanation. I'd prefer to act like it didn't happen. At least I can say all that frustration is gone, and has been for a while. It was a bad state to be in.

Of course there's more to it, but I feel that's all I owe the www. I'm no longer in that "sharing everything" mood. For those of you that know me, you know how to ask.

Ubuntu...

2006-09-27T05:40:00.000-05:00

Now Playing:

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (2006)

...is my current infatuation. I have quite the server in the making. http://brandontrussell.com is making a return (:8800 for http), in addition I'll be running several other services.

As I run into barriers and problems, all the cool apps, advice, and generally good links are being recorded. The link is http://del.icio.us/brandont for those of you that don't know, but I'll be working on getting that posted up here automatically soon enough. More to come!

Cup of Ubuntu

2006-09-27T05:34:00.000-05:00

Now Playing:

Lupe Fiasco - Food and Liquor

Thanks to Ubuntu Blog, I woke up at Six AM today, and I'm sooo geeked about it. Long time since I been able to do this. In addition to not having a loud enough alarm clock since my XP crashed on the 18th, my phone all of a sudden seems to have no effect on me in the morning. Ubuntu to the rescue!!

Yessir. If I can start a day this early, everyday, I think some get stuff can happen from it. Next up; not sitting on the computer for god-knows-how-long every morning when I wake up

Fucking "A"

2006-09-06T11:06:00.000-05:00

Gotta run to class... can't even talk right now... but here's what's up!

It may fit as a niche device... but its still looking nice. Check out the SONY - MYLO™ !@!@!@!@!

BLAH!

2006-09-04T20:08:00.000-05:00

MANNN... I got so much on my mind... Shockingly!... as much as this one issue is bothering me, as much brainpower that I'm putting into it... there's still stacks of other ish that I'm thinking about.

I've got so much I want to say without saying it... to a certain person that I can't say it to...

This really has never been a personal blog before, and as close to starting as I am right now... I don't think it's going to happen. If I could just squeeze out a few key notes... OK.. #1! ...

Fukkit. Women don't know what they want and neither do men. There! I said it (in a way). Sad to say, I feel like I'm being dragged around like a dog on a leash. Literally being played with, by someone I never thought would do that to me. Is that what makes it so hard to walk away? Never thought it'd happen like that. Always thought that it could go so far. In reality, it's gone absolutely nowhere. It's literally been months... months of being dragged around. Expectation here... promise there... delay... pause... delay... standstill... and silence. The type of ish that if you say it outloud, its fucking embarassing.

From what hollywood usually portrays, this type of ish usually happens to women. I'd say I feel like a bitch right now... but common sense tells me I'm not the only dude. Something tells me women everywhere are doing this type of ish.

There. I vented a little bit. More later on a resolution... perhaps. I'm trying to be as fair as possible. This new period of waiting really is still early in its phase, but shit just ain't looking good is all. There appears to little to no attempt at all on a resolution (from the opposition lol). I mean... everything about it just says "I don't give a fuck". Still... still I wait.. trying to be as fair as possible. And by the way, if you think I'm waiting around to get laid... you're far mistaken... you wouldn't believe the lame shit that I'm still waiting on an answer (not just words either.. by show of actions) to!

Morning Orange Juice

2006-09-04T06:22:00.000-05:00

Again... Here's something that simply caught my eye early in the morning... nothing more.