Zomgee has sat unused for the most part for the past few years.. The casual internet usage faction has mostly died out. Personal blogs have long sat dormant and AOL Instant Message accounts haven’t been logged into for years.

What happened?

Facebook happened- further trivializing ‘friendship’ and any levels of communication we already had.

Unless you’ve had one yourself, you’ll never know the delight of getting an email notifying you that someone has commented on your blog post- especially if its someone you haven’t heard from in a while and you doubt that they even subscribed. Getting a comment on a facebook post? Not so awesome, and that’s assuming you got the notification email to begin with. Whoopdeedoo, someone you don’t even know “liked” the picture of your dog.

So what exactly happened?

With the explosion of social websites and the ability for your average Joe to have a messaging service, personal blog, myspace account, twitter account, xanga account, etc, the time was right for an integrated solution.. something that combined EVERYTHING- messaging, instant messaging, photo galleries, video posting, ‘blogging’, status updates.. It’s more efficient, for one thing, and being fully integrated means you don’t have to cross post to your blog, flickr, or twitter. You have 500M+ active users and probably up to (and above) 400 people seeing everything you do. One of the greatest things on the Internet is delivered content- RSS feeds, notification emails, and the like- mechanisms where you don’t have to go out and look for content from friends, but it comes delivered to you. Facebook does just that, and in great supply. I won’t delve into privacy issues with Facebook (more than likely, I’ll be posting a glowing review of Diaspora in the months to come).

I had a mental picture today of what blogging was like in comparison to Facebook…

Facebook is like being at a convention with everyone you know and everyone you don’t. There’s a lot of shouting and concurrent conversations going on. There might be a lot of interesting stuff, but almost too much. Blogging, on the other hand, is like inviting some friends over to your house for dinner and after-dinner games and only 1/4 showing up. It can be disappointing, but the time spent together feels more significant..

I guess one could step back even further and just invite people over to their house IRL… I mean.. most of us have our own houses now anyways. On the flip side, most of us are separated by 100+ miles and the glue that was Lamoka that held us together has lost most of its drawing-together power. :\

So don’t just casually read this. If you’ve stopped by to read this, take a second to say hi. You don’t have to register- just put in your name, email, and comment. Sit down.. take a load of.. and enjoy a board game (and maybe a LOTR marathon)

I have a particular class which requires me to use an operating system with perl (a programming language) capabilities. You can install these capabilities into Windows, but why not use what it is meant for: Linux.

Now you might ask, why would you install Linux on your laptop, when you have a legit copy of the awesome Vista Home Premium SP1. Well… I didn’t. The beauty of it all is that a program called VMWare Player allows you to run an operating system within an operating system.

So by now, I’m thinking that most of you think that Linux looks like this:

BOOORRRRINNNNGG

And by all means, you can make it look like that, but compare these two screenshots below. One is the Linux distribution that I use, and the other is my Vista Home Premium desktop.. Arguably, both are gorgeous, except the dock on one needs to be re-icon-ed.

What is this? (Click for larger)

What is this? (Click for larger)

Last Monday (I didn’t even stop to think of writing about it then) Digsby, my IM client, refused to connect. This was later determined to be some server issues they were having… So faced between the choice of Meebo and nothing at all, I chose to hop into my Ubuntu 8.10 (Linux) virtual machine and check out Pidgin, another chat client. Before I knew it, I was browsing, printing, chatting, checking my email, editing images, and all-around being productive on a operating system I’ve never actually used outside of lab/server/work environments. I was actually using Linux for normal things…

Oh yeah, did I mention that its free? Did I mention that it will run very well even on old, decrepit systems? Did I mention that it recognized all my hardware and didn’t have to install any drivers?

So while Linux might not be for everyone, it does offer a very attractive alternative to paying $100+ for Vista and gives you another option besides OS X (-.-). If you have even a mediocre amount of computer skills, you can make all sorts of changes that Windows would typically freak out at. For instance, one of the changes that I made was installing the desktop theme that HP is now using for their new netbook, the HP Mini Mi.

So where does this leave me now?

Well, I’ve installed the same Linux virtual machine on my work computer, so working on all our Linux servers is a breeze; I seem to use it as well on Mondays and Wednesdays, when I’m in class; and its great to do things like install Linux-only programs or … write Zomgee posts.. such as this one.

So why not give it a try. If you want to keep your Windows install around, just use the virtual machine version. If you want to go all-out and install it from scratch, you can download CD images and install it on your computer. If you’re concerned with not being able to use certain pieces of software (MS Office for example) there are many free alternatives available for download (OpenOffice).

If you plan on doing this or have already done so, let me know in the comments.. I’m interested to see what you think.

Just wanted to say thanks to OhYo for ruining Zomgee forever. As such, we’ll be shutting down shortly. Or maybe not, but he needs to learn that causing epileptic seizures is not good.

That being said, I haven’t really had much time to think of a topic today, so because I’m cool like that, I leave you with one of the best videos I’ve ever seen on youtube. By now everyone has seen the Mac vs PC commercials, and while I tend to reside squarely between Vista and Ubuntu as my weapon of choice, these commercials can elicit any sort of response from me… rage, laughter, etc.

Without further pause or delay, I bring you the most epic (and I do mean epic) Mac vs PC commercial ever.

Guess what?

As promised, Zomgee has a new design. While imperfect due to our heavy modifications of the old one, we all like it and will be making some small adjustments in the next couple weeks. If you have any suggestions or find any bugs.. please let us know!

Post in the comments what you think of the new design!

Also, we’re going to try a new format to bring you new stuff more regularly. From this point on, I will be posting on Mondays, HT on Wednesdays, and OhYo on Fridays. Suggest some penalties for missing a post in the comments

A couple days back, HT, OhYo and I started discussing a new design. While strived for originality (something we could call our own) and a nice, dark look, the current design is starting to wear on my eyes. Any thoughts?

While I’m at it, are there any sort of features that you’d like to see implemented? (Besides OhYo and HT posting more often)

For the past couple months, I’ve been developing a project in my mind. It all started with a conversation I was having with a coworker about computer desks. I decided that I’d like one similar to this: the V1 Chair. Since they were silly enough to post practically blueprints on their website, I thought it’d be great to build. I did some research and the price for the metal would have been around $200 for steel, $300 for aluminum. I wanted the steel so that I’d have an excuse to play with the welder, but other opportunities arose.

About 2 months or so ago, I was having a look at some of the IT bathroom reading material and happened upon this article in Popular Science. I instantly knew what I wanted from then on. Instead of a Battlestar Galactica theme, I wanted a car theme.

For the sake of knowing the context of my forthcoming decision-making, I should let you know that recently my family bought a Grand Prix. Its the last body style and I absolutely love the interior.

Continuing on- I found a website that specializes in selling parts from late model, totaled vehicles. The company was called P@m’s @ut0 (no, there aren’t really symbols in the name, but I will not write out their name nor link to their site because the tremendous amount of hassle they gave me, the inaccuracy of their site, and the low level of competancy exhibited). Through that site, I gained more of an idea of how I was going to bring this project about: I needed a seat and a dashboard.

I struggled mentally with the disbelief that I’d actually follow through with this and that even if I did build this .. computing center, it would turn out horribly.

Through some of my brother’s contacts and with a mild investment, I took the leap of faith.

The Dashboard via totaled Grand Prix

As this is the first step to prove to myself that I’m serious, I hope to bring you updates as I progress. Perhaps I’ll even get a spot on Pop Sci

Next Steps? Get the seat and start rigging a frame for the dash.

So I’m taking a break from this inordinantly long lab report on every aspect you could imagine regarding DNS to bring you this message:

I’m bored with my iTunes library.

Now, normally, one might go out and grab a .torrent or pop open a peer to peer file sharing application (tsk tsk, shame on you), but seeing as I don’t want to become one of the RIAA’s latest targets, I’ve turned to a new solution.

Now, I have to tell you first that I stumbled upon this a few days ago and started listening to it at work.

The service I’m referring to is Last.fm- a free Internet radio station. Picture Launch, Yahoo’s similar offering, strip out the ads, increase the quality, and you have endless streaming music. It literally took me 30 seconds to start listening from the time I typed in the URL.

One of the things I love about Last.fm is the ability to listen to music similar to a certain artist. If I’m feeling like listening to Mae but am sick of all their songs, just type in ‘Mae’ and music similar to Mae starts to play. Say you want to wake up in the morning and have a kicking 5.1 system, punch in ‘Hammerfall’ and crank the volume.

Love the idea of Internet radio but afraid of closing out of the window or dislike having another window open? Grab the application Vista Virtual Desktop (works with XP and Vista) and shot that window over to the second desktop, along with anything else you want. Mac users will be familiar with this program since its basically a ripoff of Spaces, which is a ripoff of a feature Linux/Gnome/KDE has had forever.

Or, even better, take the code you can generate by clicking on the “Embed” link in the player window, create an html file and save it on your computer, and then stick it onto your desktop via Windows Active Desktop (XP only, Vista users take a look here). Now you don’t even have to open anything. Just click the play button sitting on your desktop!

Things have been changing a lot around Zomgee (like we’re some non-abstract entity or something). Starting the beginning of May, HT, OhYo and I will each begin our lives being the largest combined distance from each other. I suppose you could say that the three amigos have become the one amigo, one pard’ner, and one dude…

I had meant to write back in January about one of my friends that was killed in a car accident. I’ve mentioned it in a few of my digital outlets. I never could bring myself around to doing it because of the sheer … insanity of the situation. Its still so hard to believe that it actually happened.

Then along came February and my grandpa passed away from cancer- only after being told weeks before he was in the clear. It was kind of a one-two punch and I wasn’t taking it real well. Once again, I felt like writing about loss, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Things didn’t stop there though. HT moved in March. Sure, you might think a thousand miles is nothing when there is a thousand miles of fiber optic in between, but, I’ll be honest, I miss him and his wife. With The Office being back on and 24 around the corner, it stinks not having someone to watch and seriously critique the show with.

To make it worse, OhYo is taking off. He and I have hung out a lot the past month or so and we’ve become closer friends through various late night chats and laser tag sessions (which he epically fails at).

I suppose the cherry on the top is working anywhere between 30-50 hours a week in addition to full time school and labs. I’m hardly ever home before 10 at night and rarely asleep before 2am.

Now, at the risk of making you think I actually am doing so, I am not making a ploy to gain your sympathy or well wishes. That’s not my intent at all. I’m merely keeping everyone apprised of my situation and also why my posting tendency has been a bit subdued lately.

Now all of this is all well and good, but what’s my point? Well, independent of the input of my fellow contributors (ie, because I want to), I’m adding a tab for myself at the top of the screen. I’ll post some to it fairly frequently, but it will also be an aggregator for my other feeds, which include (but are not limited to) my twitter feed (also my new sole-source for facebook/status updates) and my shared Google reader items (sweet links to stories, pictures, and videos). If I hear enough feedback, I might even move one or both to the front page. Regardless, let me know what you think.

Its ironic that I had on my to-blog list- “Twitter: blogging devolved” when actually, I think its evolving. Gone are the ridiculously long posts such as this one while we welcome “mini blogging” such as status updates, snippets of our thoughts, and all-around material that is more interesting. I’m actually working on a secret project that has received some acclaim from some fairly prominent people I’ve shown it to. Stay tuned for that.. you might end up liking it.

Well I suppose I should start paying attention in class… have a great night all.

It’s time to annouce the winner of the contest a mere two posts ago. ZePuKa best defined the word “in” without using a word that contained “in” and was, in fact, the only person to do so.

In recognition of her superb rule-following and adequate defining skills, she’s won a $15 gift certificate towards anything from woot.com, shirt.woot.com, sellout.woot.com, or jinx.com.

Remember the good old days? When you got AOL 4.0 cds? When you were psyched about finally getting a 56k connection? When this exciting new technology called V.92 seemed to be cutting edge?

One of my first exposures to the Internet as we know it today was actually from a commercial- NASCAR to be exact. NASCAR and thousands of other entities, it seemed, touted entering in their respective name as an “AOL Keyword”.

AOL never had a nice browser feature. It was just a reskinned IE, but there was a bar at the top of the window where you could type in keywords and in I’m-Feeling-Lucky fashion, be transported to a whole new world, which in my case was a sad looking (yet simplistically attractive) recap of (then) last week’s race.

Don’t worry though, this isn’t a trip down memory lane using the Wayback Machine as our vehicle (there’s plenty of blog posts about that). This is merely just a look back out how epic “AOL Keyword” was hyped to be.

You see… back then, people didn’t understand what the “.com” at the end of the nascar meant. They also didn’t know that sometimes you could only get to that site by typing “www.” in front of it. Nowadays, the browsers are smarter. Want to go to GMail? Simply type “g” into Firefox’s address bar and hit enter.

Sadly (perhaps not) “AOL Keyword” is used by only the older generation… the dot commers back before the dot com era. Nobody in their right mind uses this anymore, right?

So what brought on this journey into the recent past? Well, I ended up watching both Hackers and Antitrust over the past two days. In between thoughts of “hacking the Gibson”, insecure passwords, and Synapse, old, archiac memories slowly filtered into my mind. Multiplayer paintball via dialup, spending 12 minutes at a time downloading 1mb Need for Speed 3 cars, and a myriad of other things (EZNet anyone?)

Over the past few weeks (and years), I’ve stumbled upon some software that is amazing. I’m going to try to point out a few of the ones that come to the top of my head

Web based

1. Firefox – Hands down the best browser. More secure than its counter parts, extensible, customizable, light weight. There’s really only one reason why you would need another browser- IE7 for services such as Sharepoint. Don’t miss: the extensions listed elsewhere in this article.
2. Gmail – The best email service EVER. It incorporates Google Chat and AIM, supports document conversion, integrates with Google Maps and other services, supports POP3 and SMTP relaying, the list goes on forever. The only thing missing is encryption support. Don’t miss: Better GMail 2 Firefox extension, GNotifier (if you aren’t running Google Talk), and Google Drive Shell
3. Firebug – If you dabble with CSS, are a top-notch designer/coder, or merely want to see the various AJAX calls that a certain page makes, look no further. I can’t tell you how many times this has saved me from headaches- or how many hours I otherwise would have lost. The nicest feature is the Inspect Element option that appears when you right click an object. You immediately see what styles apply to it, where in the page that code is, and the exact line number of all the styles that apply to it. Don’t miss: Right-click and click Inspect Element
4. BetterYouTube – Who wants to see the “Other videos from this user” widget when watching a YouTube video? Who cares about the comments? Want to download the video (at your own risk)? Look no further than this simple Firefox extension. It fixes the shortcomings of YouTube, but allows you to revert back to the original if you’d like. Don’t miss: That simple download link
5. WordPress – This is the best blogging platform around. It is, in fact, what you’re using right now. Its simple to use and is extensible beyond all imagination. Don’t have your own server? Don’t have your own domain name? For $40 a year, I can provide you with your own WordPress blog, a .com of your choice, server space to host the blog, and the support to get it up, running, and problem-free. Just ask ZePuKa. If you’d rather not spend money, but still want to make the jump to WordPress, they offer their own hosting for free (you can also pay for extended features and removal of ads). Don’t miss: Updating regularly

Chat

1. AimAdHack – Love the look and features of having the real AOL Instant Messenger client, but don’t care for the gobs of ads and “toolbars”. AimAdHack provides you with the latest version of the real AIM program, removes all the junk you don’t want, and offers some features and plugins that you would normally not get. Don’t miss: The different color themes (black/green is good)
2. Xfire – Xfire is a great way to track how much time you play games, track your stats in those games, chat with other gamers and see what games they are playing, keep track of the people in the various clans/guilds you are a part of, and chat with people in game at the same time. For games such as Counter Strike: Source, you can even jump right to the server where your friends are playing. Don’t miss: Adding acatzr800 to your friends list

Graphics and such

1. Fireworks – This is the simplest and most fully featured graphics program I’ve ever come across. Think of it as Photoshop’s baby brother and you get the idea of what it is. It’s a little less on the artsy side, but handles all ranges of image manipulation, effects, and animations. CS3 is running about $300 right now, so its still a pretty penny, but it’s a lot less then Photoshop’s $650 price tag. Don’t miss: Transparency
2. Piclens – Imagine being able to scroll through the images on google image search, facebook, flickr, or any other site with image feeds. Stop imagining. Don’t miss: The motion sickness pills the first time you hold down the arrow keys to scroll through.
3. Ript – Digital scrapbooking can serve many purposes, from just keeping track of notes, links, and pictures in a design-as-you-go way, or professional looking, print/email ready pages for a scrapbook. Ript is free, easy, and very nice. Don’t miss: Leaving the app running and dragging things over to it when you can
4. Picasa – By far the best photo gallery management software I’ve come across. It even allows you to email (via gmail if you wish) pictures, turn pictures into slideshows, or even produce movies. Don’t miss: Everything.

Games

1. Counter Strike – One of the best games to date. Although its been around for a few years now, the graphics are still pretty good and the gameplay is some of the best around. Chances are, if you know a gamer, he has a Steam account with Counter Strike installed. Don’t miss: cs_assault
2. Guild Wars – Quite probably the best MMO ever. Its simple, realistic design makes getting started fun and easy and offers content for all sorts of skill levels and age ranges. Don’t miss: Guards of the Citadel [GotC]
3. Google Earth – Google Earth? A game? It sure could be. Not only can you fly around in “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego” fashion, but press various combinations of Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and A while in Earth mode and see what happens. Then you’ll see why this is a game. Don’t miss: That key combination I just mentioned

Video

1. VLC Player – Great all around and customizable video player. Can’t play DVDs through Windows Media Player? This will, have no fear. Don’t miss: The ability to add subtitles
2. virtualdub – Simple video editing and compression software. It won’t win you any awards, but its so easy, even a … yeah, you get the point. Don’t miss: The home and end keys (see what they do)
3. Xvid – Ever have problems playing back video that has been compressed in odd formats, like DivX? Xvid will encode and decode those videos on the fly. Just download, install, and never worry about not being able to see video streams again. Don’t miss: out on DivX movies again

Computer Management

1. Hamachi – I haven’t tested this out since it was purchased by LogMeIn, but its a quick way to set up VPNs and create a faux-LAN environment. Have games that will only let you play multiplayer on a LAN? Want to print to someone else’s printer? Here ye be. Don’t miss: The chat and browse features
2. Truecrypt – Truecrypt is the absolute pinnacle of hard drive/file encryption technology. I won’t tell you any set ups I run, but it has the ability to encrypt entire partitions, 1 large file (which it then treats as another partition), and many others, including my favorite way, encrypting an entire USB drive and then prompting for a password as soon as you plug it in. Don’t miss: Preventing people from hax0ring your dataz.

Its hard surfing on this wondrous internets when you become appalled by all this rampaging laziness!

First, take a look at the ‘word of the day’.
Word of the Day 2/1/08
oh sure, seems normal enough; think again. Time warp, back like almost a decade? wow time flies
Word of the Day 11/8/99
The word mien has a strikingly similar mien to that of the word mien that has a certain mien on the other link. Even the mien of the mien (ie. the definition) is the same. This is horrid, I would look to see if they’ve done this before but I’m too lazy to do that or even come up with my own idea for a good(?) Zomgee post.

This next part is gratuitous: I’m too lazy to find something on-topic or even a trailer for something that isn’t already out but i heard the writers were too lazy to make a story not completely based off of star wars. Even this trailer its like… first a choppy soap opera, then they degrade into voice-over examples, then “ok lets just show the game already.” I can’t wait to get Windows Vista 64 SP1 (DX10.1 update) and my nVidia G92 dx10.1 card. then its FFXII emulation time!

We’ve been in the midst of Presidential election campaigning for nigh unto a year now, and frankly, I’m getting sick of it all. I’m tired of the double speak from journalists and writers saying that we shouldn’t vote for a president who holds religious beliefs because religion shouldn’t play into this election (isn’t that letting religion play into the election?) or who advocate electing a woman/black man almost solely for those qualities (and speak out against sexism/racism with the next breath).

For your benefit, I’ve thrown together a list of things I’m putting into practice until November 08.

• Ignore the media. It’s a good thing. I’m going to do myself a favor this year and research the candidates on my own- from unbiased and biased sources alike.
• Avoid brainwashing. I will not accept the mindless, zombie-like groups’ opinion as fact *cough college campuses cough*
• Beware of those zombie mobs. I will remember that they can be violent if opposition to Colbert or Ron Paul is heard.
• Resist the temptation to follow the crowd. I know that everyone at school seems to support one person, but not only are my beliefs and opinions my own (hence my candidate), limiting my view to only my peers limits my “big-picture view” to one demographic and doesn’t accurately show the real big picture.
• Weigh your choice against their real-world success. I will not support a candidate with no chance at all of winning. This will potentially make a viable and desirable 2nd choice candidate lose their chance as well.
• Identify with a candidate. When the field narrows and I have a clear winner in my mind, I’ll support them proudly and try to convince others as well.
• Get to know the candidates. Looking like an ignorant fool (while common in my case) is not an option when it comes to supporting a candidate.
• Don’t be a poor loser. You don’t have to make a million websites if your candidate loses- Deal with it. And for crying out loud, scrape the loser’s sticker off of your bumper

That being said, there are a few good resources out there to help you decide what candidate you really like.

• http://www.2decide.com/table.htm – A quick-reference chart of sorts matching cadidates to their stances on issues.
• http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html – A simple questionnaire that matches you to a candidate (don’t rely too much on this, as it only showed me a 55% match with “my” candidate even though we are identical on issues, although it portrayed my 2nd and 3rd choices accurately)
• http://apps.facebook.com/elections/ – A Facebook app to tell the world who you support
• http://apps.facebook.com/fakeelection/ – Show who you really support

A few weeks ago, I found myself yet again at Tom’s apartment tinkering with games and wondering how we could get our birds to .. well.. poop. Now before you start to question our sanity- or the healthy atmosphere of Tom’s apartment, let me explain.

We’ve tried to get a sub-game of Garry’s Mod to work countless times now. Quite simply, its a game where a bird tries to land “one” on a human character. At the same time, that human character is using a shotgun to blow that bird out of the sky. Its such a profound concept that we just had to give it a try. Unfortunately, nothing we did could coax our little bird friends to let loose.

Towards the end of the stage where we began giving up, I remembered a web site that offered a pretty cool sounding service. Answers. To anything. Via text message. You know what is even better? It’s free! (minus the cost of the text messages if you don’t have a text plan)

Here’s how it works. You sign up with Mosio, fill out a form with some of your information (including your cell number) and they send a confirmation text to your phone. You reply to that and you’re in business.

Using your cell you can text ask@mosio.com and within a short while, not only will the question be posted online, but you should receive an answer from up to 4 people.

Now I don’t know about you, but asking the question, “How do you fire bird poo in garrys mod 9 bird poo game” seems like something maybe 1 or 2 people in the entire world would know how to answer.

It seems like that 1 person is on mosio.com, because here is what I got back, both in my profile on Mosio and on my cell phone.

So the next time you find yourself away from a computer and are in dire need of some information (and have registered with Mosio), just remember that the answer is only a text away.