This image of some people hanging out on their deck of a bunch of steel shipping containers attached together is damn well freaking cool. I would so live in a place like this. Easy to build! Pretty much water tight if you make sure vents are sealed correctly. Hanging pictures... get a drill and some bolts and nuts or even a magnet!! Moving? Put them on trucks or a boat. Bolt back up together when your done (and run the pipes and stuff). Ugh, if I was in there, I would feel like I am dreaming.
If anyone has some extra shipping containers, please let me know!
I would like to have this in my server room. It would be, fantastic! I could imagine myself having my usual yawn in the afternoon expressed by stretch of the arms and look upwards to see the time in the ceiling.
Controlling your computer by dividing the background and the foreground. Way cool! I'm so tired of moving my hand away from the keyboard and over to the mouse. This guy is using a $30 camera pointing down at his keyboard and software to recognize circles made with his thumb and forefinger. Fantastic!! I hope this takes off and we can start setting up this our selves. Perhaps one gesture could enable different modes and the possibilities could be endless.
I love GMail. I use it all the time. The layout is very simple and easy to use. For a while I liked using the different themes, but then I found out that Globex Designs Inc. made Google's Gmail Redesigned.
I found that its best to update the themes after you update it to make sure you have the latest version of the theme. The colors and lines make gmail very easy to understand by doing a quick scan of the screen. Colors are used in key places to make the information be presented in a summary and at the same time be able to move your attention to a particular box for more study.
For example, I look at my chat box:
I can scan very quickly to see how many green dots (friends) are online without really focusing on the names. If I am curious about who is signed on, I focus first on my name that is in yellow (that gives me a starting point) then I slowly move down the list to see who is online.
Other things I enjoy about the theme is the icons for each of the mail boxs. They help me out by putting more emphasis on the action with the text.
I suggest you try this theme out when you get a chance and have fun!!
A friend of mine asked me if there I had any suggestions for some laptops to look at for buying. So I decided to figure out some options.
Criteria
We started out with what they were looking at and also keeping in mind of the following criteria:
Price
Playing Games
Storing photos
Speed
Choice
This list is not in any specific order as they are all equal in making a choice for the laptop. You might notice that weight was not really a factor.
The two computers they started off with was of the following:
HP Pavilion dv7z
HP Pavilion dv7t
I did some searching and found another computer that HP offers, called the G60, but is configured for the quick-ship method and does not allow for configuration. According to HP technical support, it is not possible to change the video card on the laptop. Both the nvidia and intel and ati video cards are integrated into the motherboard.
They both have a decent base price and the features are pretty good. After trying to browse HP's website to compare the two models I found out that the store does not handle moving back and forth between the various options. So I ended up calling HP and trying to figure out the differences between the two.
For the most part, the only difference between the two models is the processor type of either AMD or Intel and the graphics card being either ATI Radeon or NVIDIA.
After browsing around the net for a little bit. I came across another model that might stand up better to the list we have above. The HP G60 has some good hardware and options that are similar to the dv7t with the keyboard, video card, and memory. The only drawback from the G60 is the memory upgrading option. The G60 is only limited by how much memory is available.
Performance
I read a couple of days ago that the AMD chip is better than the Intel in various amounts of ways. But I know that Intel has been around longer and I like to trust what works and do not have to worry about incompatibilities. However, I think my friend will not have to worry about that since they mostly use the computer for school and gaming.
Conclusion
So I think it comes down to a question of the graphics card and which model you can afford. I read up on the NVIDIA vs the ATI and found there have been some problems with world of warcraft and ATI. So I am going to say that the NVIDIA card is going to be the better performer. Having said that, the dv7z would be out of the picture.
Option 1
My first choice would be the dv7t and pour all my money into the graphics card. Then later in the future you can upgrade the memory of the system to 8gb and be rocking hardcore!! w000T! but that will be expensive! (guessing around $500 for the memory alone)
Option 2
If you cant afford that, then I would suggest the G60 with the NVIDIA chip. In the future you will be able to reach a max of 4GB which is still pretty good. You save money, still have the options you like, and it will serve you for a while. Also, it should arrive faster since its a "quick-ship" hp product.
