Lord Neverdie

Chess is a great game. I’ve not played it in quite along time, the last time I played chess was back in high school with my friend. We used to play everyone lunch hour, and at times it actually got pretty competitive. Back in high school, we had one teacher who wanted to start a chess club, the plan didn’t actually come together, but he said if we had enough people interested that we would all be made sweater-vests with school logos and such on the sleeves. Well, as mentioned before the idea didn’t really take off, there was just not that many students into chess at the time. I had a few friends that I would play against in school, but my friend and I would be found playing pretty much every noon hour.

After graduating high school and moving into the city, and dealing with hustle and bustle that is every-day life, I have not had much time to devote to playing chess or learning how to get better at it. It was actually just last night that my friend came into visit from out of town and we had a few drinks and decided to have a game of chess just like old times. Only this time my friend actually beat me! I guess I could attribute me losing to the amount of drinks I had, but the fact that I’ve not played chess in awhile still remains.

I would like to get back into playing chess again, it is a good way to keep your mind sharp, and it is also very fun when played with the right people. I’m going to look at bettering my skills in chess with some on-line tutorials in the next few days, and invite my friend over again for a little rematch. I’m looking forward to this, it should be a great time!

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to leave comments.

In January, Apple released the iPad, and in the United States alone, they have sold millions in a very short amount of time. The Canadian release date was after the US launch (as it always seems to go that way) and I bought an iPad the very first day it came to Canada. I was lucky enough to get to Future Shop in time, and before they sold out. I’ve had my iPad for a few months now, about three months actually, and I just wanted to shed some light on what its doing for me and how I think it fits into my life.

Originally, I bought the iPad for my computer science class that I’m going to start in the next few weeks. I wanted something very compact, easy to carry around, and having an operating system with an “instant-on” capability. The iPad’s main purpose was to store school notes, whether they were scanned in copies or typed. This would hopefully be the beginning of an effective organizational system. There are many tools that exist that make it easy to create PDF’s or an ePub formatted “book” of school notes, of which the iPad would be more than capable of displaying.

I have not actually found an App that lets me store both typed notes, and take web clippings yet, and do this in a way that would work for me. I don’t think there is an App out there yet that has a tree-view navigation on the left side, and a window view on the right.

In the few months I’ve had my iPad, I have just used it to play games, and update Twitter and other social networks. As well as browse the web, the iPad has (in my opinion) the best web viewing experience on a mobile device. As I start my course, I really hope I can find the software I need to justify my purchase.

Now with all this being said, I would like to ask you a question, If you have an iPad or had one, what would you use it for? or what do you currently use it for? Is this one piece of technology that you cannot live without?

I look forward to your responses. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Good morning everyone.

Like most times, its been a while since I’ve posted a new blog. I just wanted to write about a few things that have been going on in a few areas of my life.

Family:

For the past week I’ve been in Leoville, Sk where my parents and five siblings call home. My grandfather, from England is in Canada for a visit for a few weeks. It was nice to spend some time with him, as the last time I seen him would have been three years ago, then about nine years ago prior to that. Being that I am older now, certainly more older than years ago when I was living with my him and my grandma in England, much has changed. Our conversations are alot more enjoyable and serious. We talk about all sorts of things, ranging from family history to current events, news around the world, etc. My grandfather is a very bright man, and being that he is over seventy years old, he still has a sharp mind. It was a pleasure being able to spend the time with him that I did, I’ve leaned a great deal of things. Some of those things, being our family history, which I didn’t know much about. This topic was the most interesting to me. I’ve also learned questions to answers to things that I never actually asked before. Questions like “how did you meet grandma” These kinds of questions I would not have even thought of asking when I was younger. But people change with time, like everything and everyone else. All and all, it was a great visit, and I’m very happy to see him. He is leaving back to England next week. It was also great to visit a few members of the family that I don’t get to see often, of which would be my uncle and aunt, and their children.

My cousin and one of my sister’s are staying with me right now till the end of the week for a visit. My cousin who is thirteen years old is into video games, and computers, he has a high interest in electronics, and is a very bright guy for his age. He is what I would consider my brother. It is nice to have him and my sister visit me this week.

Education:

As some may know, I’ve been taking math upgrade classes to increase my math marks. In high school they were not the best marks ever, but I needed higher marks for a Computer Systems Technology course that I have been accepted to at Siast. It starts August 24th. I upgraded my math B30 mark just recently, I finished the course with a final mark of 95% That is up from a 67% coming out of high school, so I’m very pleased with myself. Before that I upgraded a Math C30 mark, I actually got placed in the wrong class as I didn’t even need this mark to be upgraded, I only needed Math B30. However, I took it anyway because I wasn’t doing anything else at the time. My final mark in that class was a 87%, up from 51% in high school. That for me, is quite a leap.

I recently applied for a Saskatchewan student loan, so now I just have to play the waiting game and wait for that to go through. I’m really excited and looking forward to start computer science. This is a two year diploma program then after that I have the option to transfer to the university for another two years for a Bachelor’s degree. I’m thinking I might go that route. Its going to be a long road ahead, but it should be challenging and exciting, both to which I look forward to.

Thanks for reading my post, please feel free to share it.

iOS 4 is not set to be released until the 21st of June this year, but if you would like to get it a few weeks early this is how you do it. First of all, this is not the BETA version of the software, its a Gold Master’s edition, whatever that means. It was given to Apple developers a little bit early.

Before we get started yo will need the following things.

1) An iPhone 3G/S – Duh!

2) The iOS 4 Apple Device Software Update File   (.IPSW) – Get this here

3) iTunes 9.2 Beta – Get this here (*NOTE: – This is for Mac only. There is no beta released for Windows.)

On to the fun part.

Now that you have downloaded the files above, make sure your iPhone is connected to your Mac by way of the USB sync cable. Next, you will want to back-up your iPhone should anything bad happen. Once you are done that, click the iPhone in the device list on the left column in iTunes, then holding down the Option Key on your computer click Restore at the same time. This will open up a browser window, from here select the .IPSW file. Your iPhone will be totally wiped. As an added pre-caution, you can copy the backup folder for your device over to a safer location on your hard drive so iTunes does not over-write it.  This backup is found in  ‘YourName” > Library > Application Support > MobileSync. Copy that backup folder to your desktop for now.

Once you iPhone is updated with the iOS 4 firmware, you can restore your settings using the restore button in iTunes.

Enjoy iOS 4!  – If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment.

Recently Google has decided to let user’s customize their homepage by way of changing backgrounds. This does not apply if you use iGoogle where you can have personal widgets. If you are just using the regular Google homepage, you can now browse pictures to have as your background image, or upload an image from your computer to use as a background.

What are your thoughts on this? Some people, if not a large amount of people on the Internet are suggesting that Google is copying Microsoft’s Bing search engine. I’m not so sure this is true, Microsoft’s Bing does not allow user’s to upload their own images. So, in a way its not really the same. What do you think?

As a conventional standard, it is believed that one must change their passwords at least once every six months. I follow this rule, but sometimes I can’t always remember all the places on the Internet that I have signed up for that require me to change my password. I used to be at the point where it was only an e-mail address or other log-in credentials that I had to remember, however, as time goes on and I start to associate myself with other networks or sites, I end up with alot more passwords to remember. This is assuming that your using the same password for every site and service.

What ‘rule of thumb’ do you follow for password protection? Do you change your passwords every six months as per the conventional standard?

Everyone likes action figures! Well at least at one time everyone did. Now there is a new reason to like action figures, and that is that you can personalize them! What better way to stroke your ego right? Have a look at some of these, and consider buying one (or more) for yourself, or your friends.

Custom Action Figures

12″ Action figure head

Cup head

Full head

All Images property of ThatsMyFace.com

According to sources, The Digital Economy Act is a newly passed piece of British legislation that aims at protecting copyright online, and increase regulation and control of the way people use the Internet.

Why should you be worried? This may only affect the UK right now, or very soon anyway. However if other countries catch on to this, it could spell trouble for people that use the Internet.

Disconnection of “technical measures” like bandwidth throttling will kick in if file sharing does not drop below what the governments think is a “reasonable” level.

Think about it, you pay for Internet, you should be able to view any information or download any information you want!

Here is a short clip I found. It has some good points and its a rap song.

I stumbled across this video while browsing around on-line. It is worth watching, this dude is a professional in the “art” of business card throwing!

Earlier this week my father picked up a new PC. Its an eMachines desktop computer built for everyday computing. It is quite a nice and small system, perfect for word processing, Internet web apps and lite duty tasks.

This model came pre-loaded with Windows 7. There is also not a whole lot of bloatware on the system which is nice. I thank Acer Group for that.

Specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 215 Dual Core processor
RAM: 3GB DDR2 memory.
*Motherboard has two ram slots that are both filled from factory. Bank0 = 2GB module, Bank1 = 1GB module.
HDD: 640GB SATA
Optical Drive: DVD Super-Multi drive.
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
*Integrated GPU, with 256MB shared memory.
PSU: 220Watt Power supply.

Additional Notes:
- There is an open PCI-e slot on the motherboard for an optional GPU upgrade. However, the case is really small and the stock power supply is only 220W. With today’s cards it may not be possible to upgrade. Due to case and power limitations. Also, the power supply is a smaller form factor and not a standard power supply. Therefore if a power supply upgrade is what you had in mind, a new case would be needed.

Pictures:

*Click for full size images.

Video:

If you have any questions please check the forum, by clicking here.

UPDATE: Screen shots from CPU-Z (As per request.)

CPU:

CACHES:

Mainboard:

Memory:

SPD:

Graphics: