BSD & Gaming

FLOSS Weekly had a very good episode taking an in depth look at PC-BSD with a Q&A session involving one of the developers and FreeBSD Girl, Randi Harper.

If you want to hear what PC-BSD is all about and what changes are coming in the new version then go take a look – [LINK] Definitely worth watching!!

Just watched the new episode “Heart of Archness” and it was pure awesome! I was in kind of a crappy mood but this was the light moment I needed, go watch and have a laugh.

Christmas came early this year for me thanks to the generosity of my family. They know I haven’t had the cash to splurge on any new tech stuff in ages and I’ve been daydreaming about a new PDA or Tablet PC for a while. I just had to decide what I wanted.

I knew I didn’t want to spend the insane dollars required just to get an iPad with very limited features. In my mind things like USB ports, built in WiFi, and flash card readers should always be included as standard fare. Neither should getting any of those items be an excuse for sellers to donkey punch your wallet and suck higher fees out of you….  No thanks Apple you lost my interest with that business model!

Being old school some facts didn’t really sink in till I started researching my choices, I found that the days of stand alone PDA designs are long over, they’ve all been incorporated into cell phones.  Bleh! No more cell phones, they oughta’ be outlawed! Get off my lawn ya dam punks!

While netbooks are appealing, actually using the super tiny keyboards and looking at the small screens for any length of time lost my interest. Ah well, crosses netbooks off the selection list. Given my idiosyncratic preferences the choices are down to some sort of a tablet and picking what operating system I wanted.

Apple’s OS is definitely out since as I already stated I have zero interest in the whole iPad boondoggle. I also tend to stay as far away from Windows as I can. That left the final contender being an ANDROID based device.

Once I decided on a DROID based tablet I spent a many hours, days actually, looking at options, system specs, etc.  I kept getting drawn to the Zenithink tablets despite a few complaints I found, which included a particularly snarky magazine article deriding them. The article was dismissive of the ZT-180 because it wasn’t the omnipotent Apple-Killer they wanted it to be. While I can see their disappointment over not having a rival to flaunt at Apple, I couldn’t agree with their conclusions at all since they based them on silly expectations.  In my view if you take the ZT-180 for what it is and what it offers in it’s price range, then it makes a very nice choice with a broad range of abilities compared to some competitors.

Pricing from stateside dealers ran anywhere from fifty to eighty dollars more than dealers outside the U.S. so I ordered one from over-seas instead. Delivery took less than ten days to arrive from time of order. I’ve had it for almost two weeks now and it’s been a heck of a lot of fun to mess around with. Once I’ve had more time to kick it around and mod it to my preferences I’ll write up the details.

In conclusion Santa was very good to me this year and I’m really pleased!!  ANDROID ROCKS!

ZT-180 Wiki page from SlateDroid

It seems like all the shows I have any interest in have been taken off the air till next season or in some cases permanently. I hope there are some good movies due out this year because lately my viewing choices are really slim. Oh well time for more Trek Online when I have free time.

Wow – talk about intense. Chuck has definitely changed to a more serious tone with it’s story line. The show always leaves me wanting more. I hope it continues to stay around for a while.

Great info and news about the show here – [LINK]

I’m really happy that the show CHUCK returned for a 3rd season. There are very few shows worth watching today and this has been one of the few greats out there. The first two seasons were “awesome” to say the least <snigger>.

The latest season has had some good points to it so far, but there is definitely a lack of clarity in the stories that makes me think some executive up the food chain is interfering with the script writers and are trying to drive up ratings with tired old plot formulas.

The focus on Chuck’s work at the Buy More and the relationships there has been minimal and that’s missing out on a huge part of the character.  Another area they are messing with is the love interest part of the show, “will they or won’t they?”.  That only works for a season or two at best before it starts to drive an audience away, I wish decision makers would learn that lesson already. Dragging their feet on the Chuck & Sarah plot is not helping.

There are only 15 shows ordered for season three and we’re just about half way through. While I plan to see them all, I do feel the writers need to get their groove back and finish the show with a big bang not a whimper. Speaking of the season’s final episode…  my gut feeling is the 15th show will be the last episode ever for the series….I do hope I’m wrong about that.