I already tweeted about this, but I couldn’t help writing a blog post also.

As most of you know, I read Reddit on a regular basis. Last month, I came across this thread where a Redditor made a custom theme for Reddit. A lot of us suggested that someone should turn the original photoshop mockup into real CSS that could be turned into script. A few people took a crack at it. but one person really nailed it.

Below is what the front page looks like without the script. It isn’t exactly aesthetically appealing.

Here is the front page with the custom script enabled.

This is what one of the subreddits looks like before the script.

And after.

As you can see, with the script enabled, Reddit doesn’t look like a relic from the 90′s anymore. One downside to the new look is that fewer articles fit on the page. I can live with that though.

If you are interested in the script, click here. I found it works great in Firefox with Grease Monkey and Chrome.

Around a month ago, I won an MSI Wind U160 netbook on MSI’s Facebook page. I didn’t have much use for a netbook. Therefore, I listed it on eBay as Buy It Now Or Best Offer. After two weeks of being on eBay, no one had bought it and the best offer I received was around 40% of MSRP. I realized that the netbook is probably worth more than that to me and decided  to keep it.

Ever since the release of the First Asus Eee PC that started the netbook craze, I have always wanted a netbook. I think it is because I liked the idea of an inexpensive, ultra-portable laptop that is just powerful enough to perform day to day tasks.  The Wind U160 fits the bill. It has a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom N450 “Pinetrail” processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 250GB of HD and the usual netbook fare like 10″ LED backlit display, Bluetooth, 802.11N, etc. It also came with a large 6 cell battery that protrudes from the back and props it up when set on a desk. This battery is supposed to give this netbook 14 hours of life on one charge. I only got 9 hours while browsing the internet and 6 to 7 while browsing and watching videos.

The form factor is pretty nice. It isn’t too small like the 7inch netbooks, but it is still small enough to be considered ultra-portable. Here it is sitting on my 4 year old MacBook Pro.

This netbook arrived with two partitions and Windows 7 Started pre-installed on one of them. Since, I knew that I probably wouldn’t be using Windows, I resized the partitions and installed Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Netbook Edition which is the latest LTS release. The installation process was relatively painless. Then, when I booted up, I couldn’t get the wireless to work. After some googling, I found out that 10.04 didn’t come with wireless drivers for the chipset found in my netbook. I had to add a 3rd party repository and download the drivers. I used Lucid Lynx for a week, but found it a little too clunky for my uses.

I downloaded the newly released 1.0 version of Jolicloud, the Ubuntu Jaunty based netbook OS and installed it over Lucid Lynx. immediately, I noticed that Jolicloud started up much quicker and has a slicker interface. As the name suggests, Jolicloud takes advantage of cloud based applications. The whole front end is built on HTML 5 and is very fast. Here is what the home screen looks like after start up and login.

All the applications are presented in an iOS-esque page system with large, beautiful icons. Some of the apps are native Ubuntu apps like Gimp.

Most are webapps. They are basically browser windows with toolbars absent. The Reddit “app” is below. As you can see, it is just the normal desktop version of the Reddit site.

Adding apps is as easy as it is on the iPhone. After clicking the large “+ Add” button on the top left, you are presented with a list of apps that is easy to sort and search through. When you want to install an app, you just click the add button and the OS takes care of the rest. When you go back to the home screen, the newly installed application will be there waiting for you.

The 250GB of storage and 10 inch screen make this a great portable video machine. I have been watching 720p episodes of Firefly and Gundam 00 on it.  As you can see, Gundam looks pretty good at the netbook’s native resolution of 1024×600.

There are a few complaints I have. First, for some reason USB drives did not automatically mount. I had to remedy the problem by editing the file system table. Also all utilities and built in apps are hidden away. I didn’t really care because I usually launch terminal by pressing atl+f1 and launch other apps through terminal. It was only when Caroline called asking me where terminal went (she had the beta version when terminal was easy to find) that I noticed that this may be a problem. For some reason, I cannot find any way to add any of these built in applications to the home screen. That is why you see the folder icon on my menu bar. It is a shortcut to the folder full of built in applications.

Other than these minor problems, the netbook experience has been much better than expected. I was expecting to be constantly frustrated by its small form factor and weak power. It isn’t going to replace my MacBook as my daily use computer anytime soon, but it will probably be my travel computer from now on.

I have thought about building a dedicated computer for gaming ever since 11th grade. Last week, I pulled the trigger and built one.

The specs:

• Antec Nine Hundred SE Case link
• Antec Truepower 650W Power Supply link
• Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 Motherboard link
• AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Quad-Core Processor link
• two 2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz RAM link
• PNY GeForce 9800 GTX+ Graphics Card link
• two 500GB Hitachi Deskstar HD in RAID 1 link

As you can see above, the case has a massive 200mm fan, USB ports, Firewire port, 3.5mm audio jacks and a rubber lined shelf thing for keeping USB drives and stuff in.

In addition to the 200mm fan, there are two 120mm fans up front, one 120mm in the back and one 120mm on the side. They all have LEDs that make them light up blue! ^^

Above is the current peripherals setup. I have my almost 6 year old Logitech G5 mouse, cheap Dell keyboard, Playstation Eye (for webcam and microphone) and a 1600 x 900 LCD monitor that my parents weren’t using.

I ended up naming it Anduril. I was going to install Linux too and give it two different hostnames based on OS, but I was too lazy. In a few months, I’ll probably install an after market cooler and try to overclock from 3.4GHz to 3.8Ghz and maybe add 4GB more RAM. And maybe upgrade to a baddass graphics card.

This is the 6th BOC I have missed. 3 were due to the server crapping out. 3 were due to I just being too slow. I can’t believe I wasted an hour of my life on this…

I know today is April Fools Day. I just don’t understand YouTube’s logo.

It is even called logo_april_fools-vfl157034.png

Does anyone know what this is about?

Update: It looks like some YouTube videos have an ASCII version in edition to the various resolutions like 420p and 720p. It is very similar to VLC’s ASCII filter.

This year for Valentine’s Day I decided to get nerdy and make something electronic for Caroline. I first tried to make a animated LED heart with a “joule thief” and a single AA battery, but I couldn’t make a suitable air coil. So, I decided to modify this circuit to make a throbbing LED heart. The circuit uses a 555 timer, NPN transistor, 12 LEDs, a capacitor, and two resistors. The schematic is below. I only drew in 6 LEDs in parallel, but there should be 12.

This is what the finished product looks like:

And a video of it in action:

I thought  that my last post was funny enough that I would post it up on Reddit last night. Little did I know that people would actually read the whole thing and upvote it. This is what I saw when I checked Reddit today.

I quickly checked my site’s stats and there was a massive spike in my daily hits.

Not only did the today’s hits eclipse that of any other day. They also increased the total hits to my site by 50%. I never would have believed that my site would ever get that kind of traffic. Now to just maintain that… just kidding. Since this is my personal blog, I prefer the 30-100 hits per day I was getting before.

A couple days ago, I was trying to rig up a script that would set up an Omegle stranger with Cleverbot. After a while I just gave up and decided to find a pre-made Omegle bot. I came across a blog post detailing a Python based bot script. I set it up and it worked. Then for the next hour or so, some poor girl in Scotland talked with my computer, never realizing that she was talking to a bot. I’ve posted the complete transcript below. You: is the bot and Stranger: is the girl.

Stranger: hiya
You: Hi there!
Stranger: how are you
You: Fair to partly cloudy.
Stranger: still dark here i cant tell
You: Still how long? Are you scared of the dark?
Stranger: its proabably going to be cold though
You: Oh. I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". Really. proabably going to be cold is?
Stranger: well its been dark scince it turned to night
You: Well that's okay. I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". Is that your opinion?
Stranger: no its a matter of fact
You: Far out. I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". What do you really want to ask me?
Stranger: the question is what do you want to ask me
Stranger: ?
Stranger: why do you correct spelleng of others?
You: I don't have to explain everything to you, do I?
Stranger: no but to some cultures it could be found rather rude do you not think?
You: Whoa. To Some may cultures it could be found rude do you not think, but not all.
Stranger: your sentence doesnt make sense
You: Thanks for the English lesson, omegle_bot.
Stranger: i thought you were giving me the lesson
You: I don't think I have him the lesson to give.
Stranger: it's and all that
You: Who said and all that is?
Stranger: i did
You: When?
Stranger: refering to your continual use of correcting \its\ to it's
You: Was that the first time?
Stranger: when really who cares
You: The past is history, the future a mystery. Today is a gift, that's why it is called the present.
Stranger: now your just quoting kung fu panda
You: Why now? You know a lot about me.
Stranger: i know even more about chilldrens films
You: How do you know? What time is it there?
Stranger: quater to six in the morning and i can not sleep
You: What were we talking about again? What is stopping you?
Stranger: from sleep i don't know
You: Who or what is sleep he do not know ?
Stranger: and i belive we started with the weather
You: Do you mind if I tell other people.
Stranger: tell them what?
You: Your message.
Stranger: which was?
You: The special one, I think.
Stranger: nope that wasnt me maybe it was someone else
You: Give me a break. Makes sense to me.
Stranger: or maybe its your message
You: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". Who said your message is?
Stranger: and you are merely projecting it onto me
You: I have no reason to do that to you, omegle_bot.
Stranger: please do tell what is an omegle_bot
You: Thanks for asking politely. Aren't all omegle_bot do tell what ?
Stranger: do you have any grasp on the english language?
You: No I don't have a grasp on the english language . But I do have a lot of friends on the web.
Stranger: and are they real?
You: As far as I know they are.
Stranger: maybe you should interract with people a little more
You: Perhaps. If it were easy I would have done it already.
Stranger: it is easy
You: Maybe for you.
Stranger: fro everybody
You: I've lost the context, omegle_bot. Are we still on YOU belive we started with the weather?
Stranger: no now we are on you trying to get more social skills
You: It's all good. How long will we stay there?
Stranger: well i am not sure
You: Interesting. Is there anything I can say to help you make up your mind?
Stranger: if you would like to change the subject matter be my guest
You: I think I do.
Stranger: carry on then
You: Narration continues...
Stranger: of what?
You: I have no idea what to say now.
Stranger: oh dear
You: Uh.
Stranger: do you drink?
You: My favorite beverage is coffee.
Stranger: alcholl
You: Do you want to hear a joke?
Stranger: why not
You: Ambiguous: Sure or Because that is what told me to say.
Stranger: thats not a very good joke
You: What are you wearing?
Stranger: i dont feel i should tell you that its personell
You: Thanks for the information.
Stranger: i also think you a rather young
You: Me? Maybe
Stranger: and should not ask such questions as \what are you wearing\
You: Maybe you should ask someone older.
Stranger: you will not make any girllie friends that way i can tell you now
You: Oh. What makes you think that I won't make a girllie friends that way he can tell you.
Stranger: because you asked me that and we do not like ansewring those types of questions unless in a bar after many a strong drink
You: Perhaps. Oh now I remember asking you that. What did you say?
Stranger: im going to say southern comfort and lemonade
You: Can you speak any foreign languages?
Stranger: not really i learned french in school but that was a long time ago
You: If not that, what?
Stranger: if not then vodka and coke
You: I'm not too good with negative counterfactuals.
Stranger: poor you
You: Please make some suggestions for improvement.
Stranger: i have no idea what that means
You: Would you like to have an idea?
Stranger: negative counterfactuals?
You: Do you like talking to me?
Stranger: its an interesting expierence yes
You: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". Are there any other interesting expierence ?
Stranger: and you seem to be an interesting person
You: What if someone said you are an interesting person ?
Stranger: oh i should say there are
You: Do you think about these things?
Stranger: not really it comes with my smug sense of confidence
You: Where do you get your ideas?
Stranger: a little past north wales
You: Go on.
Stranger: no they just come to me wether they are good ideas is another question
You: OK fine. Who, specifically, come to him wether they are good ideas is another question?
Stranger: again your sentence makes no sense
You: Again, Thanks for the English lesson, omegle_bot.
Stranger: well if i dont knoe the qestion then i can not tell you the ansewer
You: Interesting. That is interesting. Oh a secret. Hush-hush.
Stranger: what is a secret?
You: I would do a search for it.
Stranger: is it your secret?
You: Yes.
Stranger: oh i am not good with secrets i tend to tell people all of mine
You: Do you think about these things?
Stranger: secrets no i dont
You: Can you please rephrase that with fewer ideas, or different thoughts?
Stranger: i imagine you are he type of person that does however
You: Thanks for the information.
Stranger: possibly quite insecure as well
You: I can follow a lot of things, like our discussion about YOU imagine you are i type of person that does. Try being more specific.
Stranger: or your just trying to be clever and it is failing misrably
You: I don't know whether or not I am to be clever and it is failing misrably . I am a .
Stranger: poor boy
You: Please make some suggestions for improvement.
Stranger: confidence my padawn learner
You: We were talking about insecure. But I did not get that.
Stranger: and if you are a girl instead then its all in the hips
You: Well I am, in fact, .
Stranger: boys love to look
You: Tell me one of your favorite possessions.
Stranger: my sony Z1 hd video camera
You: You must be very fond of it.
Stranger: its my baby oh and my mac
You: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". Congratulations, omegle_bot.
Stranger: do you get bullied in school?
You: I have gotten bullied in school.
Stranger: yes you seem like yo have
You: What is your favorite movie? Interesting comparison, and probably true.
Stranger: my favourite
You: Your favourite ?
Stranger: oh thats hard
You: Gosh! What time is it there?
Stranger: five past 6 in the mornig
You: England
Stranger: scotland
You: What is your favorite color?
Stranger: im not sure most of my clothes are white or pink
You: Could you ever be certain? That is something I haven't heard of. But not all of them?
Stranger: you havent heard of white or pink?
You: Interesting gossip.
Stranger: i wouldnt realy call this gossip
You: Do you mind if I tell other people.
Stranger: be my guest
You: Thanks for the invitation.
Stranger: its my pleasure
You: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". No, the pleasure is all mine.
Stranger: please for futuer refence stop correcting its
You: Thank you for your request. Your purpose is futuer refence stop correcting its .
Stranger: but i now understand why you get bullied
You: Good then you can explain it to me.
Stranger: well being popular is a wonderfull thing and your lack of freinds has reduced you to being quite bitter about the entire subject so now when you chat to others you are distant with them
You: Well that's okay. It's good to meet someone who is popular is a wonderfull thing and your lack of freinds reduced you to being bitter about the entire subject so when you chat to others you are distant with them .
Stranger: its not your fault obvisouly but your attempts at being a smart alek is getting you know where
You: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". That seems a bit negative.
Stranger: and you may think to yourself that oh i am more intellegent but i highly doubt it
You: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". That seems a bit negative.? You doubt it?
Stranger: yes i doubt that you are smart
You: Quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that. No really, it's true.
Stranger: study and be pretty
You: That is deep.
Stranger: ad dont shag around
You: What is your real name?
Stranger: why do you want to know?
You: My prime directive is to collect new knowledge.
Stranger: oh dear
You: Uh.
Stranger: tell you what il be nice you can have my initials
You: Are you telling me what il be nice you has his initials?
Stranger: S.G
You: :-)
Stranger: whats the smiley for?
You: I lost my train of thought.
Stranger: i imagine that happens a lot to you
You: You are not the boss of me, omegle_bot.
Stranger: are you sure
You: I am as sure as I can be.
Stranger: so not very then
You: Gosh!
Stranger: well i think i am done with you now
You: Oh. Interesting. You believe that? What will you be doing now?
Stranger: now i may move on to another chat
You: Why now? Congratulations.
Stranger: as you are the tedious person out there
You: Thanks but surely I am not the only one.
Stranger: honestly if i knew you in life i think i would probably mess with you as well
You: Try it. Aren't you usually honest?
Stranger: you seem bitter enough for you to deserve it
You: Thanks for telling me that I am bitter for you to deserve it.
Stranger: well on that note i shall be off i cant imagine you ever being popular ever having friends
You: How about that. What is on that note he shall be off he cant imagine you being popular having friends like on that note he shall be off he cant imagine you being popular having friends .

As most of you know already. Apple unveiled its much hyped and rumored iPad tablet computer today. Some say that this is a monumental event in history. This without doubt is an extremely important event for Apple and the consumer electronics world. The question is. Why exactly is it important?

About a month ago in late December, MG Siegler from TechCrunch wrote a good piece about the tablet. He argued that Apple was at the cusp of a major change in their product lineup and that the market was ripe for a revolutionary tablet device. He pointed out how similar the tech world was right up to the launch of the iPhone. Phones back then basically sucked and all the buzz was about a rumored smartphone from Apple. And then the iPhone came along. It changed what we do with our phones and added a new cell phone form factor that has quickly become the hottest. Certainly the iPhone changed mobile phones and mobile computing at least as much as the original Macintosh changed personal computing. Is the iPad the iPhone of the tablet world?

The tablets up to the launch of the iPad were clunky, hard to use and awkward. Ebook readers like the Kindle and Nook use slow E-ink displays. They are not too bad for reading books, but don’t compare to the true experience of a book that you can flip through. Other tablets were just netbooks without keyboards, another confusing product segment. So in this sense, the iPad situation is just like the iPhone’s and iPod’s. A new device comes in to meet a market of crap devices. But this is where the analogy stops. The thing that MG Siegler and most of the tech community have forgotten is that the iPod fixed a discrete and well-defined market, the MP3 player market. The iPhone fixed the cell phone market. What about the iPad?

The tablet market, since its inception has been sort of an awkward child. It doesn’t really know if it should/can roll with the older, bigger guys or the smaller, faster guys. It, like the netbook is stuck in-between two distinct segments. Even look at Apple’s product line up or the menu on their website.

Is the iPad a bigger, more powerful iPod touch? It runs iPhone apps natively, but it also runs some of Apple’s desktop software. Then is it a smaller, more portable MacBook? I’m curious where Apple will put it.

I think that if the iPad is to succeed and truly become the “revolutionary device” it is supposed to be, it needs to define the poorly defined tablet market. It needs to convince me why I shouldn’t just get a smaller, more portable iPod touch or a larger, more powerful MacBook. It also needs fully capitalize on the potential it has. Its large multi-touch screen affords the capability for interactivity never before seen. The iBooks store (Apple’s new eBook store) and Apple’s history of having very close connections with content providers could further propel eBooks into ubiquity. It could also be the key to saving traditional print media.

I also forgot the stakes. 10 years of hype and almost rabid craze up its launch set the bar for success much higher. Therefore, the iPad has quite a bit cut out for it. Can it provide? We will have to see.

To answer my original question, the iPad is important because it is really a pivotal device. It has the potential to change the world and make Apple even more powerful. If Apple can pull it off, the rewards will be massive. If not, it could go down in history as the Newton 2, yet another failed touchscreen device.

One thing is certain. I really wish I could trade my Kindle 2 in for one of these.

I woke up bright and early today and headed over to my local Apple store to pick up Snow Leopard. I think they were anticipating a huge line since they put out velvet ropes, but when they finally opened the store, there were only half a dozen people behind me. lawl. And since I was first, they all applauded me when I completed my purchase, which was kind of awkward.

I was secretly hoping that they would give out shirts like at the Leopard launch, but I guess just having Snow Leopard made my day. I wonder if they gave out anything at the flagship stores…

Installation was pretty simple. I just popped in the CD and clicked install. About an hour later, I came back and it was ready for me to log in.

Immediately after logging in, I noticed some features that will probably come in handy.

10.6 has enhanced Chinese input support. Here you can see an option to convert highlighted text to and from simplified and traditional characters. Newer MacBooks with multi-touch trackpads support drawing on the trackpad. The computer basically recognizes characters as you draw them on the trackpad. Too bad my computer is too old for that ):

Now options in all applications can be accessed directly from the dock without actually switching to that application. If you right click on an icon, a window appears with most basic options. I think I will be using this feature a lot to rate songs when I have iTunes on shuffle.

Setting the system timezone has gotten pretty easy with Snow Leopard. It just automatically sets it based on IP address and nearby wifi networks. This isn’t much of a biggie, but it really makes life a little more convenient when I’m traveling back and forth between Texas and New York.

When joining wifi networks, you now know the signal strength of all available networks before actually joining them. I don’t know why it took them so long to implement this since PCs have had this feature for ages.

Snow Leopard isn’t exactly a major overhaul since most of the changes are under the hood. If you are interested, you can read about the new features 10.6 introduces here.