tubajon's blog

Crazy Optical Illusion

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:01:30 -0500

Wow! It's my first post in quite some time. Anyways, I stumbled across these great optical illusions on the intarweb, they take only about 30 seconds to do, but they're like nothing I've ever seen. Try 'em out!

First Really Cool One!
Almost As Cool Second One!

An Innovative Idea for iTunes and iPod

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:56:02 -0600

Okay, so iTunes might be the most successful music downloading service, but they probably aren't making as many sales as they could be. Right now, there's isn't any real reason, for most people, to buy music instead of just downloading it from a P2P network. What Apple needs to do is offer something that say, Limewire, cannot. For instance, they could incorporate a way for the all songs downloaded from iTunes to have the lyrical text embedded within the file. Then once it was loaded on the iPod, it could have the ability to scroll the lyrics across, along with the music, karaoke style.

Now you might just be thinking, "Well those files would just get on the P2P networks anyway, and people wouldn't buy them," but you'd be wrong. The lyrics would be digitally embedded into the file, similarly to the way DRM is. Then, if the file were to be ripped to an MP3, along with losing the DRM, the lyrics would be lost also, since it wouldn't be audible data.

If Apple were simply to implement these into iTunes and the iPod, it would give a reason for people to actually buy their music, other than the whole legal thing.

This Ol' Windoze User's Switch to Ubuntu

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:42:10 -0500

Backstory
About a month ago, I was fed up with Windows. I hated having crashes all the time, security flaws cropping up every hour on the hour, having to pay for software, and everything else the closed-source community embraces (and by community, I mean industry). Two years ago, I tried to switch totally to Mandrake 10. This only lasted a week or so. The main problem? Lack of good package management.

I was told by a friend (noogz) that Ubuntu was a good distribution of Linux, so I downloaded the 5.10 Preview Release, and got it all set up. What follows is an account of all the steps taken until now. It is totally true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (not really). Full story after the break!

Am I famous or something?

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 16:29:50 -0500

Okay, this is pretty cool. I'm sure you all remember my World of Warcraft articles awhile back? It turns out that PC Gamer UK mentioned me in a World of Warcraft article, which is pretty cool, if you ask me. You can read the text of the article here.

Yesterday a World of Warcraft player contacted me via MSN, to ask me some questions. This is how I found out I was in PCG. He also mentioned that I was pretty popular on the UK servers, and that most people knew of me. Can anyone verify this? I guess it's time to re-up my subscription, and hop on WoW.

Google Talk!!!

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 00:33:09 -0500

Okay, I'm really feeling the Google love-fest. First Google Desktop 2.0, and now Google Talk! This thing is amazing. I used to use Skype, but was fairly unimpressed with the sound quality while on dial up. It was very choppy, and sounded quite digitized. With Google Talk, it seemed like all except for just once in a while it sounded better than a normal phone call. Sweet! Get it here.

You can hit me up on gTalk whenever. Just add me! tubajon [at] gmail [dot]

Google Desktop 2.0! woot!

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 01:00:59 -0500

Well, needless to say, I just downloaded Google Desktop 2.0. It's amazing! The sidebar is really handy, intuitive, and smart. Some of the features include checking and displaying email automatically, adding your favorite RSS feeds automatically and showing the latest updates, and my favorite—the scratch pad. The scratch pad allows you to jot down notes and auto-saves them. Another cool thing is the "What's Hot" section, where the hottest things on the web are showed at the bottom. Check it out here.
I give it a 5/5!

P.S. My blogcast is coming up soon. Email me if you wanna be in it tubajon [at] gmail [dot] com

Tubajon Update!!

Sun, 21 Aug 2005 23:40:28 -0500

Okay guys, I know it's been FOREVER since I've posted. My summer's been crazy busy! I mean, I went white water rafting, saw the carlsbad caverns, met the X-Ecutioners...dang this summer rocked. You'll hear more about it in my next update, which will include the first...ever..Tubajon..BLOGCAST!!! Oh yeah, it'll rock. If you really wanna be in it and talk about video games, techonlogy, or just tell a joke, hit me up on the email. tubajon [at] gmail [dot] com . WOOT!

More World of Warcraft Exploration

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 02:17:01 -0500

Okay, now I know we all had fun checking out southern Silithus, but let's be honest: there wasn't a whole lot there. So that's why I'm about to show you 4 areas: Ironforge Airport, Wetlands Farms, Developer's Island, and Outland. What's Outland you ask? Check out that portal on your World of Warcraft box (or login screen). It goes to the Outlands, which are currently unreachable on ALL servers.

Check this out: Open your World of Warcraft box. See that tank? How about those tornado-like things floating in the air? Yup, all in Outland, and you saw it here first (probably). Definitely the coolest though is the other side of that portal. And it makes a cool background as well.

Some Cool Science Toys

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 02:24:36 -0500

This is a very cool website that has lots of neat toys you can build, using science! They've got everything from plastic hydrogen bombs to film can cannons. Check it out at Sci-Toys.com.

[via sci-toys]

Optical Confusion

Sat, 25 Jun 2005 01:55:45 -0500

Okay, this is insane. Freaks me out totally. If you look closely, tiles A & B are EXACTLY the same color!!! I know, it's insane! If you don't believe it, just open in Paint and cut and paste. CRAZY!

[via ebaumsworld]

World of Warcraft Unfinished Area

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:34:11 -0500

Okay, so I've been a really obsessed with this game called World of Warcraft. Maybe you've heard of it? So anyway, this latest patch integrated a thing called "Battlegrounds," of which the premise is either (depending on which you goto) to defeat the enemy, or capture their flag. So I was in the CTF area playing when my crappy dial up died and I was disconnected. On returning to the game, the battleground had ended, and my dial up promptly crapped out once again. With the way that WoW works, it loads the previous state on the server, and that saved one was still of me in the Battleground. Normally this would be fine, but the BG is an INSTANCE meaning that it's a seperate area that you load into. Upon logging in once again, I found myself in the air, and falling quite a bit down, except I was on a totally different part of the continent!

Fix LCD Screen Stuck Pixels! (including PSP!)

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 03:01:46 -0500

Guys, check this out. It's a video that needs to be looped and run full screen. 60% of the time, it can unstick stuck pixels on an LCD screen! If you have stuck pixels, give it a shot!
Stuck Pixel Fixer