EEE Imposters

With all the latest buzz surrounding ultra-mobile pcs, it is no surprise that several manufacturers are trying to enter the market. The so called ultra-mobile Lenovo ThinkPad comes with a hefty price starting at around $2400. If you want all the bells and whistles, you are talking about spending $3000 dollars. They tout it as the premiere in mobile computing but who can really afford to buy this laptop?

The manufacturers truly did not explore all the options on this one. The point of developing ultra-mobile computers is to build a machine that you can take out of your bag and instantly boot on to check your email or post on your blog. What is the point of having this incredibly thin laptop when you still have to wait minutes to boot it up and shut it down. On top of that, you still have to deal with a full sized monitor and keypad. Adding this all up.... what exactly makes this ThinkPad and the recently new MacBook Air? In my opinion they should not be in the same category or even considered to be anything other then "lighter" notebooks. If you need all this power that they bring why not just get a regular, more moderately priced on?

I do not buy the excuse that people need it for typing on the plane or in the car. How much work can you seriously get done like that? It seems to me like these people need better time management skills rather than an overpriced thin laptop. None of these machines even comes close to the mobility of the EEE in terms of convenience and size. LONG LIVE THE EEE!!!

If you wanna read more about the new ThinkPad check it out HERE.

Workout Day 1

I decided I would start giving some workout tips and information for those who want to keep in shape without leaving the house. I take no responsibility for injuries resulting from the information you find in this blog. All the exercises will require no specialized equipment unless specifically stating it.

The following workout plan is based on the assumption that those who want to use it have little to no experience in the gym or other methods of fitness. Perform these exercises and then rest the following day before working out again. Eventually we will build you up for back to back days.


Day 1- Starting Out

• Pushups 3 x 10 (If you cant do all 10 in each set then do knee-pushups instead.)
• Lunges 3 x 10
  
• Squats 4 x 10
• Crunches 4 x 10

Concentrate on using good form and not cheating yourself. I want you to get in the habit of challenging yourself so we can build you up for the harder stuff.

Needing some direction

I am currently sitting at a table in our Recreation Complex on campus trying to kill time before my workout partner comes to meet me at 4. I like to just sit around sometimes and brainstorm or reflect on stuff that happens to me.

I really like the ideas I have come up with for my new community site and I have actually researched what is out there. Currently there are many sites geared towards everything geek. The problem is that most heavily concentrate on only video games, and technology. Where do people go who are geeky but like fashion or working out? How about the people who are closet geeks out there like me? If anyone met me in person they would have to make a stretch from my image and personality to label me as a geek. Where is the site out there for people like that? There isn't one and I am claiming that realm for myself. These are some problems I am facing for this project:

• I need someone who is web savvy. This person should be able to run the maintenance related to a website.
• Writers. I need people who enjoy writing and reading to provide worthwhile content for viewers.
• Name and Mission. I have yet to find a name that would suit my endeavor and I am looking for help in that department. Once a name or summary can be made about this project I can create a mission and vision and work from there.
• Viewers. I do not know how many people read my blog but I would like to reach out to an audience and interact. I am open to all cross promotion methods with people who maintain websites and/or blogs as long as their content is something I find professional (loosely determined) and updated frequently.

After I begin filling some of these missing elements I think I should be able to create some sort of Beta website. Anyone who reads my blog please reach out to me and let me know you are there, it would be much appreciated.

P.S. I am writing this post from my EEE. It is the ultimate mobile blog machine.

Workout Progress

I do a lot of reading in my spare time. Ever since I gave up playing Day of Defeat source competitively I have filled the void with reading. I read everything about PC's, working out, cooking, technology... the list is pretty eclectic. I have mentioned this before but I will reiterate; there is so much information out there that people like myself would normally miss out on because of all the technical jargon put into articles. The tech magazines are too techie, the workouts are for hardcore enthusiasts... you get the idea. My main goal in the near future is to create a site that distributes information in a way that anyone can understand. The main purpose is to allow others like myself enjoy reading and applying the things they learn without having to devote endless hours learning technical information.

This brings me to my next point. I will soon be creating a workout program that can be used and implemented by someone of any fitness level. It primarily will be geared to those geeks out there who shy away from the weight room. All of the exercises will be capable of being performed right in your own home with no capital investments. I will compile lots of knowledge I have collected and used to make the perfect home workout. The reason I am spending all this time is because I was once the type of person who shied away from the gym. I always found something better to do instead of staying in shape but that has since changed.

Day 3 with the EEE

Things have been rolling smoothly with the EEE. I continue to get comments about the size and that everyone is going to rush out to get one. I really love being an innovator. Yesterday when I took the EEE to a local bookstore I booted up and got an error message about dcopserver program not running. I googled the problem and others have experienced it but I do not see any solutions. I am new to linux and do not know how to go about debugging these types of errors. If anyone has experienced with this please contact me. Overall though, I would say the EEE is exactly what I needed for my mobile computing needs. Anyone who already owns a PC whether it be a Desktop of a laptop, the EEE is extremely handy as a secondary device.

EDIT 2/17/08 : I found a fix for the dcopserver issue but unfortunately I am unable to verify the results because after formatting to factory settings again I have not received the message. Thanks goes out to the Linux Format community for finding the fix. For the lazy people out there, Here is the link for the fix.

Day 2 with my EEE

Everywhere I go people stop in amazement at the size of the EEE. It is a chick magnet at the very least on campus. My initial reactions when trying to customize the EEE as a Linux newbie were not good. I was not able to follow many of the guides because of inexperience. Recently I stumbled on a blog that has a gui file that will allow for all the customization that I want. You can find that information at Infinite Designs Here. I really like the portability so far that I am getting despite having terrible campus wireless access. The range on the wifi is amazing, I pick up virtually every hotspot in the area I am in.

The layout of the easymode is great it basically meets all my needs but I still want to put my own touch on a couple of things. Websurfing is easy on this EEE also, I have not ran into any problems concerning the screen size so far like many have claimed.

The EEE is very responsive with my 1GB ram upgrade which was simple to perform even for a newbie. The only problem I have really run into is setting up thunderbird to work with my imap google mail account. I don't have access to my desktop settings atm because I am on campus on air with my radio station but none the less my email works flawlessly at home and I am stumped on this matter. For those of you who would like to hear me on air or listen to some great indie music here is the link to our radio station where we broadcast every friday 2-4 pm. Flyer Radio Link

EEE has arrived

Today I finally got my eee. It is taking a bit of getting used to but I must say I like it so far. The keyboard is pretty small and it has to be the biggest downfall but its other features shine through.

I immediately upgraded the ram and booted up. She started without a hitch and I was able to log right on to the wireless network. I must admit that I thought all the guides online to setting the EEE up were not as helpful as I thought and I am having major problems in that area. More to come tomorrow because my girlfriend is asleep after a valentines day dinner and I dont want her to know I am up using this thing.

Defining the Geek Lifestyle

I talk about being a Geek a lot both to my peers and the readers of my blog (Which I am yet to believe I even have). To many, being a Geek means being really into computers or gaming in some sort of capacity. I am not arguing this statement but I think it needs to be modified in order to encompass everything I associate with being a Geek.

1. I think that being a Geek definitely includes some capacity of computing and/or video game playing. This definitely does not mean Geeks are anti-social, pimple-popping, awkward human beings. It just means we know what we like and stick to it.
2. I also believe being a Geek involves a large degree of curiosity. What makes a game good? What makes a computer run? Why does society do things in a certain way? Being a Geek in my opinion challenges a lot of the normal assumptions or cares made by people.
3. On top of the curiosity, there is the passion for learning. I always find myself digging deeper and deeper into any topic I come across that strikes an interest. Some people are fine being told this is a computer and it does work. Others like myself want to find out how I can do work better, what actually does the work, how I can customize the work... etc.
4. Being a Geek does not mean you cannot love sports, working out, partying, socializing, cooking, shopping, listening to music, or other activities. This is the most important point I would like to make and I will elaborate a little bit on it.

I would definitely classify myself as a Geek, Dork, or Quirky person. I have lots of interests that are far ranging and some of them have little relation. I do love computing in addition to gaming and have a very strong curiosity for everything around me. I love to learn and believe in the concept of continual improvement. What is the point in being alive if you are just going to float through life dealing with what is given to you. I like to take what is given to me and use it as a building block for what I want.

I hope this clears up any confusion that might be circulating. I would like to start building this image of the modern day Geek to incorporate all those individuals out there trying to identify themselves. Being a Geek is not a bad thing, being normal is.

Maybe there is another name for what I am trying to classify as being a Geek. I seriously doubt I am the only one out there who is like this. Please give me some comments on this topic.

The "Geek Lifestyle" and its health hazards

I was doing some surfing this morning and ran into a good article about health issues related to geek lifestyles. The article was written by a doctor who started in the IT field but later moved on to medicine. It was a pretty neat article and identified several specific factors of the geek lifestyle that may pose medical concerns.

1. Horrible Sleep hygiene. This is obvious, geeks love the late hours for surfing and staying hooked into the web for what ever reasons they have.
   
2. Headaches. Mostly linked to heavy computer use.
   
3. Back Pain. I think this topic addresses everyone but geeks tend to be in a chair more than most people are.
4. Poor Attention Span. This is because of heavy stress on the brain while multitasking. Geeks are great at doing many things at once but when they are forced to sit down and concentrate on just one thing they have trouble.
   

To read the complete article you can go here.

As I develop more content for my blog/site I will address these issues because they seem to be common. I would like to add that I always had the intention of including health and nutrition advice in my content geared towards geeks and average Joes. I know it is not realistic for some people to hit the gym 4 or even 3 times a week like most Men's magazines suggest. After all my experiences with different workouts and my OCD behavior with researching everything that I have an interest in I think I am qualified enough to give advice to others. At the very least I can tell you how I got to where I am.

Progress

I thought it might be a good time to just continue blogging tonight in a couple installments to get some recurring topics going. I started an idea bag for topics and I am going to run with it right now. Do not assume that because I am posting several topics I will be able to continue at this speed. Although I would love for that to be the case, there may be times when school comes in the way. School is always first right now for me as I prepare to graduate.

So I have talked about working out before and thought it might be neat to let everyone know how I train and how often. I started out after Thanksgiving weighing about 176 lbs with around 21% body fat. I am a 5'7 guy which makes me short. I have been an athletic type my whole life playing soccer but college took a 26 pound hit on me. When I entered college I was a slim 150 lbs. Over time drinking and eating poorly morphed me. It has been a great journey so far and what was initially a way to just lose weight is now a lifestyle for me. I eat 6 meals a day trying to incorporate lots of different diet strategies in what I would actually claim as my own now. I eat right 90% of the week with 1 day where I go out and do not worry about anything I eat or drink. Currently, I am at 159 lbs with 9.8% body fat. You do the math on that one. I will add to this topic some of my tips and tricks I have learned on my journey so far.

Tuesday's Workout: www.mensworkoutguide.com dubbed the Arnel Bodyweight 500 Challenge.

Complete this circuit 2 times with rest only where needed to complete 500 Bodyweight exercises

1. 20 Squat Jumps
2. 20 SpiderMan Pushups
3. 20 Split Alternating Lunge Jumps
4. 15 Pullups shoulder width stance
5. 25 Prison Squats
6. 20 Pushups
7. 20 Reverse Alternating Lunges
8. 20 horizontal Pullups
   
9. 20 Hip Thrusts
10. 20 Toe Touches
11. 50 Jumping Jacks

I completed this circuit two times with the exception of the horizontal pullups because it is the only exercise requiring equipment I do not own in my own house. My final unofficial time was 11 minutes 30 seconds. That is pretty good I think. I will fill you in on this tomorrow. Maybe there is a widget I can find that will allow me to make a small feed just about my workout routine for those curious. It really does not make for exciting reading.

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Building Up

Lately I have had a couple ideas regarding an online community/business based on the interests I have. It must be the MBA inside of me wanting to use all this knowledge I have accumulated. Since competitive gaming is out of my life (for the better I would say) I have shifted my focuses more to reading and self improvement. I tend to read blogs ALOT nowadays and am always searching for new stuff. This made me realize I would like to use my business skills for good and not evil to create an online site / community. I am taking a class this semester on decision making and creativity and this concept was a child of those exercises! Here is a list of some of the stuff I would like to include as topics or areas of interest.

• Music; mostly independent labels and artists
• Fitness; everybody should care about their health
• Technology; Duh.
• Pop Culture; open to suggestions on this one
• Style and Fashion for geeks, as well as those who like to look nice
• Movies and Books
  

I am searching out there for people who could fit into my idea. I have a couple friends who are very passionate about music.

Edit: My concept is a mish mash of offerings and concepts from sites like Men's Health.com, Pitchforkmedia.com, and G4tv.com. I love everything these sites offer but there has yet to be a successful site that offers all of this in a way that suits people like me. With the help of others I would like to make this possible because what it comes down to is that I would love a website or community like this.

Anticipation

I am still waiting to receive my EEE PC which I ordered last Thursday. I had some problems verifying my shipping and billing addresses with the bank and Newegg. I finally got it taken care of yesterday and had my oder expedited and shipped for free. I really cannot wait to get it. In the mean time I will shift the attention to some people who have gotten their EEE and have begun to take it to its limits.

The guys over at http://Scalegamer.com have begun to test gaming capabilities on the EEE. They have successfully managed to run several games which most would consider isn't possible on an EEE. Go take a look at their reviews and videos. This leads me to a side note. I do not want to steal thunder from anyone behind this movement so when appropriate I will make a link to their page so you can go see for yourself. I will however talk them up enough and give some hints to persuade you to leave my blog and visit the site.

Another topic I wanted to get into this morning was a new program I stumbled upon (literally using the firefox plugin "Stumble"). TheFilter is a neat little program used in conjunction with either Itunes or Windows media player. It looks at your library and play counts etc and makes a playlist based on a particular song. It is connected through the internet and keeps track of your plays to make your lists very personalized and virtually seamless. I just got an old classic by Massive Attack and was listening to a couple songs and hit Create Playlist in TheFilter and bam I had a 25 song comprehensive playlist with songs similar to Massive Attack. It was amazing. It even creates the playlist in itunes and allows you to load it directly to your iPod. I would rate this an 8/10 for any users who are looking for better playlist creation. For those interested it can be found here

The 300 Workout

So on Saturday Steve and I attempted the 300 workout. We have both been working out for a while now and thought it would be a fun way to track our progress. We were wrong. The 300 workout is not fun, its really really hard. We read about a man who did it in 18.5 minutes..... We did it in 40 (unofficially). I might also add that we cheated on our last set of pullups because we did horizontal pullups instead. It is a day after and I am so sore in my lower back and spine. The 50 deadlifts with 135lbs was really taxing on my body. I will spend all day today recovering before I even attempt to hit the gym. I was mocking everyone who did this and said they needed 2 days of rest.... I retract those statements. I AM SPARTA!!!!!!

Update on EEE PC: I have been back and forth with my bank and newegg about my credit card failing authentication. I am beyond pissed. I have been reading and researching like a fiend ever since I ordered my little bundle of joy. As soon as I get the laptop out of the box I will begin nerding it out. This will be my first experience with linux as I have traditionally been a windows user. Not necessarily by choice but because I was ignorant to the endless possibilities of opensource. I have honestly been using firefox for the past 4 years religiously and always try and convert others to it. I do the same with google. I think the things they are doing are awesome.


Technorati Tags: 300 Workout, EEE, E3, E PC 4g

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Hurray

Just ordered my eee pc today from newegg. I chose the 4G white non surf edition. I wanted the extra battery time and the hopes that the camera drivers would be addressed soon so I can use it as a skype machine as well. My payment from my credit card keeps getting failure on authentication. I have to take care of that in the morning. As I was buying my laptop I also picked up a 1g stick of mushkin ram for the eee pc and a 4g sdhc card. Amy's computer is getting a fresh install of vista as we speak and her ram is being increased from 512mb to 2g. This should turn her dell into a superlaptop. More news to come this weekend.

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Upgrading my tech life

Well for those who know me pretty well or those who don't I am pretty heavily interested in techie stuff. Games, movies, music, electronics, style. I like to call my preferred style to be Geek Chic. It is kind of hard to maintain that image with my limited budget in college but as soon as I have an income again I will be in full swing. Well recently I decided I should start upgrading what is available to me so I do not feel out of the scene as much as I have been.
For starters, I have been out of the gaming scene since about October which is mostly due to my girlfriend Amy. She complained all the time about my "hobby". I am glad its over because I have a much more flexible life and have filled that void with working out which yields better returns on my time.
I am using the same desktop I bought over two years ago. It is an upgraded dell 5150 with an x800 ATI card, 1 gig of ram and p4 2.9 ghz. Nothing too special but it gets the job done for me with ease especially without gaming anymore. My once ticking tangent died at the beginning of this year so I have been without a laptop for class and studying for a long time. It just dawned on me that everybody on campus except me has a laptop and that having one is a part of life now. It used to be laptop vs desktop. Now laptops pretty much dominate computing around me. I do not wanna scrap this computer because it has been really good to me so I decided to give it a makeover.
I upgraded to vista after the SP1 patch came out. I am very impressed so far. I love the look, feel and the fact that I am staying current with the times. Also, I upgraded to office 2007 and am beginning to learn that. I am beginning to like opensource programs a lot more now so I downloaded thunderbird for email and pidgin for chatting. Pidgin for those who don't know is similar to trillian or gaim where you can combine limitless messenger accounts into one. I currently use AIM, googlechat, and ICQ. It organizes everything into one sleek buddy list.
On top of my computer I upgraded my old razr phone to a smarter pda phone. I found a Motorola Q on craigslist for $150 bucks so I jumped on it. At first I thought I wouldn't the features much, but man was I wrong. It is my internal schedule. No more are the days where appointments and obligations jump up from behind me. I know exactly what im doing or supposed to be doing every single day. It also has a qwerty keypad for texting. I knew it was time to upgrade to qwerty because I rarely get calls anymore at night, they all come in the form of texting.
AHHH, this leads into my final blurb. I have a void now for a laptop as I do my consulting work and commute to campus. I dont want to pay 800 bucks for a budget laptop that has features and weight I do not need. I have my desktop for any power computing but lack anything for email, office functions, and websurfing and chatting while on campus. UD has terrible computers in the labs and logging into 2309283 screens is so annoying. I stumbled upon a G4 podcast about a laptop by Asus deemed the EEE PC. http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24 Check it out here. It is a ultra portable laptop with a 7 inch screen. There is a full (cramped) keyboard and a touchpad. It comes preloaded with tons of opensource software to fill my geeky pleasures and is the PERFECT item for my void. It will surf the web, chat it up, do office documents, take notes, and take some names. The price point is perfect and it can be upgraded easily and will have more support down the road. Techies everywhere are lining up for this product and I want to be an early adapter. More to come on this purchase.

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Super Bowl Weekend

This was a great weekend. I stayed in friday night and was able to get up saturday with an early start. I worked out really hard followed by some swimming. I was drained and got myself down to my weekly weight loss goal. I am down to 159.6 with 16% body fat. Today was my day off from my diet. I indulged needless to say. Dobes, Amy, and I cooked up a feast for our party. Amy made sausage balls and mini wieners. Dobes and I made wings. I am trying to come up with my own secret recipe. My first attempt was a success but there is ample room for improvement. The base of my sauce was franks combined with cumin and some other spices. I added cumin for the after kick which is sharp and distinct. To be honest, Ive never had wings with a trailing bite like cumin adds. I am going to continue doing the skinless variety because they are lower in calories and the meat cooks much differently. I need to work on the thickness of my sauce in addition to my cooking method. I browned mine in a pan then simmered with beer, chicken stock, and hot sauce.

Amy also suggested i try a honey sauce so i combined some soy and honey with a few other ingredients. Amy commented that my wings tasted like they were from a restaurant. She doesn't even like wings that much so that was a big complement.

The SuperBowl was amazing this year. Exciting game towards the end made up for the low score for the rest of the game. Dobes and I also agreed that the E*Trade commercials were the best.

Are days shortening?

Today I have a better appreciation for the amount of time in one day. Although my day was not nearly as difficult or packed as some people's, I know what it is like to be really busy. The only free time I had today was between meetings which I spent multitasking. I was working out, listening to music, surfing the web, and watching the food network all at the same time. Oh yeah and I was drinking and eating. In between sets of my home workout I was drinking coffee and eating lunch while looking at menshealth, woot, etc... It was pretty productive.

At class tonight our teacher gave us another team assignment. SURPRISE SURPRISE. I'm beginning to get very disappointed in the MBA curriculum. I once thought it was well thought out and was 100% worthwhile but I know now that many teachers just push off busy work and try and spin it off as constructive learning. That is a story all on its own.

My work is piling up right now and my free time at night is so precious yet I am stuck in my room just trying to make ends meet. I can not wait until I get a breather. Who knows when that will be?

Back from a long break

I was browsing through AIM last night and saw that my friend Colleen had started a blog because she moved out to DC which inspired me to continue posting in my blog.

Here is a wrap-up of what has happened since the summer: nothing much to speak of.

I have however changed my lifestyle from binge drinking and pigging out to working out religiously along with cooking healthy and eating very healthy. I started my lifestyle change right before Christmas break and I am down from 175 lbs to 160 lbs and still going strong. I have drastically changed the composition of my body and I feel generally better in everything I do. It has given me extreme confidence in everything and I have a much better outlook on life.

I am a Dj on a college radio show with my buddy Steve and we listen and talk about new music we like in addition to random BS.

I have a couple months left in school before I get my MBA from the University of Dayton with a concentration in Operations Management. Its a long title for a small piece of paper that will get me a higher starting salary. I do truly enjoy school now compared to undergraduate. I can't wait to begin working in the spring with Grant Thornton in Chicago as a Tax Associate. I hope I move into something more operations oriented as I gain some experience inside the company.

Thats it for now I just wanted to get started on posting to make this a habit instead of a once in a while thing.