October 2005 Archives

   Ughhh, is it 4 in the morning. Yep. Damn me for waking up late on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I find it hard to get to sleep those nights. I can usually get away with with sleeping late but sometimes it gets me. This is the second Wednesday that this has happened. I don't think I'll be working on my paper today. Luckily, I have around six days to get done with it. Uhhhhh, what was I going to talk about. Oh yea...

   You see, I love my little 'ole B&W G3. So, thoughts have recently been entering my head about overclocking its frontside bus; I'm already as far as I can get processor-clock-speed-wise. Sadly, reports of OCing the B&W's frontside bus speed to 133MHz are not good. Also, OCing it to 120MHz is stable but lowers the PCI clock-speed down some.

   So, what am I suppose to do. Well, I'm going to add a heatsink to the 'Grackle' chip, the PCI/Memory controller, on the motherboard. It's just asking for a heatsink by the way it looks.

   Looking online at FrozenCPU.com, I happened upon some nice little silver chipset heatsinks that would match the inside of the B&W just right. Sadly, they cost money. That was a strike against them in my book. Nevertheless, that wasn't going to stop me. Looking around my room this time, my eyes feel upon an 'ole ixMicro MacRocket that I bought on eBay some time ago. Its heatsink was just the right size; although black in color as opposed to silver. It wouldn't miss it. For one thing, it doesn't work. Secondly, I have no use for it. Despite these points, I would find some way of getting that heatsink off without any damage to the card.

   A quick search online gave me the idea I was looking for. Apparently putting the card in the freezer for about an hour would sufficiently weaken the epoxy holding the heatsink to the GPU. Thus, I was able to easily procure the needed heatsink.

   Now, I just need some thermal adhesive and a proper way to mount it to the motherboard. Yes, I'll think on that. Oh, I will...

   Today, I'm going to review a theme that is avaliable for Mac OS X called Uno.
   This theme like another, called Iridium, takes Apple's newest look and attempts to cover the entire GUI in it. It does an extremely good job of it too. I have yet to see any 'brushed metal' or the standard aqua look peeking out from anywhere. Its nice to have a unified, hence 'UNO', look to my computing experience once again.
   That really is the farthest I thought this review through to. So, if you want to take a looksy at this theme, I would say go for it. The first time you install it, it makes a backup that allows you to undo it, if necessary. Simple enough...

   Ah, Taco Belll, great place to get good tasting food quickly and affordably. Sadly, the one located here in Troy is not in the best of conditions. It seems constantly plagued by a variety of problems. For instance, their drive-through service only seems functional 1 out of 5 times I've gone by there. Hell, if their drive-through doesn't work I just don't eat there.
   Of course, you can't blame them for all of the problems. You would think that the Taco Bell corporate office would inspect these places. I can only assume that a nice functional eating establishment is a good image all fast food places strive for.
   So for though, I've only been talking about the drive-through and not actually going into the place. Actually eating in there was for worse. Ordering was alright, but it took close to five minutes for them to actually get change. They seemed rather reluctant to take my twenty; it seemed that they apparently didn't have enough change on hand. One person that came in thought the same thoughts as me. He conversed with the Taco Bell employees on why Taco Bell was in such a distressing condition. He left after it seemed apparent if would be forever until he would be able to order anything.
   After such a sad show of fast-foodery, my colleagues, or my family that I live with in Troy, discussed whether to contact the Taco Bell hotline, hahaha, and demand that they repair the Troy Taco Bell. Personally, I would like to have such a thing happen but I prefer to simple stop eating there.

   There is always Sonic.

   Well, I was surfing around and happened to stop by Fark. Looking through the various entries, I decided that this one deserved a little of my time.
   Ha, ha, and finally ha. That's worth a laugh and a half there. Hell, some of the ricers around here could just use regular spinners from their tires. Their damn exhaust tips are big enough.

Yep, you read the title right. I've added three wallpapers today. I decided to make them this time out of pictures I took on my trip to Ireland this summer. These particular three happen to be of the 'Giants Causeway' in Northern Ireland.

    

   I'm reviewing what I consider to be a rather useful product today. Lets begin with how I came upon this item.
   It all started around the time I went on my trip to Ireland. It seems that I left a CD in the CD player in my Mustang. While you wouldn't think this would cause a problem, it apparently did. The CD in there did not want to eject. I eventually gave up after several furious attempts to forcibly extract it. I decided that until I got back to this problem I would need some other source of music besides the radio.
   So, I looked upon the great wilderness that is the shopping side of the internet. I happened to venture to one of my favorite shopping sites, Other World Computing, and see the RoadTrip! for the modest price of $14.99. I was somewhat unconfortable with the prospect of going completely round-about to get some external sound source into my car's stereo system, but I decided it was worth it. Plus, I located some reviews of it that said that its sound quality was quite good. Thus, I ordered it with EXPRESS OVERNIGHT SHIPPING, ha.
   When it arrived the next day, I was already quite anxious to hook my MP3 player up. The installation was obviously easy; hook it up and tune in your radio. I thought it was broken because my radio seeked out and found the appropriate station but there was no sound. So, I booste the volume and found that all was indeed well. Even though the volume is at max on my MP3 player and pretty high on my stereo, the music doesn't sound distorted at all. In fact, it sounds quite good. I have to say that I'm quite happy with this little workaround.
   I'll soon have the volume problem solved when I get a in-line amplifier that helps boost the volume. I've seen one before that was powered by a single AAA. I suppose that I'll have to go searching for it too.