Hello Zune; bye Zune

I preorderd the ZuneHD from amazon.com it came on the 15th. I tried to use it, but the interface is just bad. the size is perfect, but there was no didicated volume button, so you can’t adjust it if the player is in your pocket.  Also, when I put the volume at level 1 it was kinda loud. maybe I just haven’t played my music loud enough and wrecked my hearing so I need it loud, but this was frustraiting to me. I was also hoping to develop some software for the Zune. I had done a little programing for my brothers Zune 120gb.. I did a little, but it was a pain to work with the XNA studio. See what I did here. Don’t get me wrong the player was very nice, and it seemed to have a solid build, but for $300.. it just wasn’t worth it to me, so my ZuneHD is on its way back to amazon for a refund.

In other news, I have been working on cleaning up my website. A lot of the pages were made years ago before I knew any programming, so they are very messy. I haven’t uploaded anything yet, but in time I replace the pages that are up with better looking pages.

Buying a new mp3 player.

a couple weeks ago my archos gmini 402 died. I have been using the player for almost 4 years. the player was starting to fall apart. I kept fixing it, and soldering new parts, but it finally died beyond what I can fix.

I would have bought a player right away, but the ZuneHD looked really tempting to me. also there is now this Zii EGG.  Both look really sweet, and both look really expensive. :\

which should I get? or should I just go for something cheaper. suggestions?

I might wait to see how much that new archos player costs.

home again.. home again.

Wheee! I am finally back home in Michigan. lots of stuff has happened since te last post. I bought a new phone; the Motorola Q. so ou might see some posts about that. also, Intel gave me an Acer aspire one, so you might also see some posts about that. I

I threw windows 7 on the acer. it runs really well. my main complaint is the touchpad. I am  a pointer-nub guy.. I generally don’t care for touchpads, but this one is the worst I have ever used. the buttons have horrible positions, and I am forced to wonder if the person who designed the case actually used it..

I bought the Moto Q on ebay for $35, and it came with all the extras. it was a good deal. The phone had the verizon rom. I was planning on using alltel, even though alltel is switching completely over to verizon come October. so I flashed it to the Alltel rom. Now I just need to get service for it…

The Unavoidable Battle Of Feeling On The Outside

The title is the name of a song by FM Static. of their latest cd Dear Diary. If you haven’t, you should check it out. it is pretty good. recently the cd means a lot to me, but the cd I like most right now is Expect the Impossible, by Stellar Kart. It is amazing

The other day my car died. The engine fell right out. (the rear subframe bolts rusted out.) the only place that can work on it out here says that it will cost $1000 for just the parts. The car isn’t really even worth that much, so I have to scrap it. now I am looking for another car. if I don’t find one by the 7th, I am going to be flying back or staying longer. My last day of work is next Friday. I am excited to be going home.  Also today when I called home my mom told me that they are going to Minneapolis, MN today. I don’t know how long they are planning to stay, but I am going to be driving through Minneapolis on my way back home. I just feel so left out all the way out here. and I fee like I am wasting time, because I don’t feel I have done anything really productive. and all that money I made over the summer? well… see my car died and I have to buy a new one, so that money will all be gone soon enough. I guess it is good to be able to put ‘interned at Intel’ on my resume.. but really? </rant>

been a while..

Hello all..

sorry for not updating that much. it isn’t like I don’t have the time. it is just I haven’t really been doing all that many things that I think are worth talking about, or rather, that I think the reader would be interested in reading. well not for a tech-based site. You’d think working at Intel there would be cool stuff I can talk about. heh actually there are plenty of cool things I would love to write about, but I don’t know how much I am actually allowed to tell you. recently I have been working on the MID platform.  That is fun, and is an area that I like working on.  but I can’t really talk about work much. :\ other than work – I have been going places on the weekends still. I am not sure how much of this I want to put on here.. because idk it seems kinda weird to pore my life into some web-page that anyone can read.:P I have under a month left before I head back home.

Exciting stuff.

I talked to my cousin the other day. He is coming out to Washington, and then here to hang out. He said he will be in Washington from the 29th to the 4th. then after that he could come to visit me. I don’t have anything planned for the weekend of the 4th, so I was thinking about driving up there. He will be staying with his brother, and hanging out with him. I don’t know where they are planning to see the fireworks, but I think it would be awesome to go with them.
Then on the 11th, I am going to the Live Faith Fest in Kent Washington, to see Switchfoot, Tayla, and a couple others. I don’t know exactly what the timing will be like; with my cousin wanting to vist and such. maybe he will want to go along.
Exciting stuff. God is good.

is upgrading worth it yet?

I have been using wimax for a bit now, and I must say that I like it. I have wanted to stick a wimax card into my x60t, but I was told it wouldn’t work. I believe it would, I would just need to solder a pic-e mini socket onto the motherboard. I dug deeper and I found that it would work, but at this point I don’t really want to do that. I started looking at getting an x61t. thie would allow me to get a max of 8gb of ram. also if I got the model that has the WWAN stuff I wouldn’t need ot solder anything. The XGA model is looking good to me; XGA is too small for me after using mine with SXGA+, but I have a plan. the bios on the x61t supports the SXGA+ screen, so I’d just swap them. At this time this is the only upgrade idea that would actually be an idea for me. I should be able to pick one up for $700-800, and my x60t should sell for about $500 (with the lovwer res screen)

Saturday..

hmm Staturday, that day that I wait for becaues I don’t have to work, but once it comes I sometimes don’t know what to do with the free time. My goal is to not let that happen while I am here in OR. see it doesn’t really happen when I am back home, but when I am back home there is always stuff to do. here.. not so much. This Saturday I decided to drive down to the Sealion caves. it was kinda cool, but I was a little disapointed because most of the cave was closes off so you couldn’t walk around like when I went to Carlsbad Caverns. still it was a nice drive, and I also got to see a lighthouse. here are a couple pictures:

oh hello agian. :)

hi, I uh… forgot about this.. yes. -1 for me haha. I actually had stuff I could write about too.

The past couple weeks have been a bit busy for me. I am now writing this from Oregon. As a follow up to the last post; I ended up just getting minutes for my Net10 phone.  As much as I would like to get the Jasjar to have service it just costs too much. (even with my new job)

The new job… yep, I am working for Intel now. I don’t really know how much I can say about the stuff I am working on, so I am not going to say anymore than this: I got to play around with some cool stuff that isn’t out yet.  (I know that isn’t saying much..) The people there are nice.

Part of the reason I haven’t been writing much on here is because I didn’t have fast internet. The apartment complex thing where I am renting has verizon internet coupled with the apartments. they claim it is ‘high-speed’ but it isn’t even close.  Actually I was getting about half the speed dial-up is capable of handling. if you have the option to go with verizonavenue; Just Say No.

Also, I am now using WiMax as my internet connection. The speedtest image is my result. The Wimax seems to work extremely nice.That is why I am able to post again. sure I could have before on the slow connection, but it would have been more work.(that and I forgot about this) I made it to the coast also on the 23rd. :

That was fun. I went with one of the other Interns from NMU as he didn’t have a car.

The next weekend(the 30th) I drove up to Washington to see Tayla in concert. That was amazing. She was better in concert than on CD. It is very rare that I think that. (Skillet comes to mind) The concert was really good, and I got to talk to her for about a half hour after the concert. That was awsome; she is extremely nice.

You should check out her site and buy her cd

Here is a picture I took while driving to the concert in Ellensburg. Oh and I went ot sonic for the first time. They were handing out free rootbeer floats. I saw the flier online, but I didn’t think anything of it at first because where I am from in michigan we don’t have any.  I checked and found one about 2 miles away so I went. it was really busy, but well worth it.

I can’t think of anything else really important or worth mentioning that happened since the last entry.

Long week

This week was really long.. It was finals week which makes it long, but I also Finally heard back about the Internship with Intel. I was accepted and offered the position.  I accepted. there were a few things that had to be done for that. I had a few exams, and I had to finish the rest of my homework. my 320gb hdd crashed about a week ago, so I had to start from scratch with assignments I had been working on for days. I was able to finish those up, but it wasn’t easy.  today I am working on reinstalling the OS on the 320gb hdd, but it has been giving me some trouble. also today I got some kinda cold. and before you ask,(if it just so happens that while in the current time and state of the world) I don’t have that thing (that I refuse to mention the name of) that is going all over.  At the moment my computer has almost finished the installation. I have ~13 days before I leave for Oregon. That is where the internship is located. I am trying to decide if I should buy more minutes for my prepaid Net10 phone of if I should buy a samsung u740 and try to get that working with alltel, or try to get my jasjar working with at&t. idk…