This actually was made official on sunday the 27th of may 2007. A day I will never forget anytime soon if ever at all. The day that a computer vendor made a deal of faith, to ship ubuntu linux pre-installed on their hardware. I’m not expecting the world to start using linux over night but this definatlely will be a door opener of some sort. Things have been put into motion all that is left is the people’s Re-action Sales of systems pre-configured with linux will tell how the market received Ubuntu linux on Dells.

Another thing ran through my mind like lighting searing my brain tissue as the through echoed. What if The pirates in the world in all their arghness start purchasing ubuntu pre-installed systems only to format it and install their illegal copy of windows xp, vista 2000 or as recently brought to our attention longhorn reloaded. Lets hope nothing like this actually happens.

There are 3 systems that dell has decided are fit for usage with ubuntu. Two desktops which are amd core based systems and 1 notebook “e1505n which technically is the same as a 6400″ which is an intel based system. I’ve got the 6400 and it runs perfectly. wireless memory card reader the works.

Over the past few weeks I have been searching feverishly for replacement headphones for my Creative Labs Zen Vision M. Well to be specific I have been searching for replacement headphones since I got this MP3 player. Unfortunately for us buyers of this highly expensive equipment, the manufacturers think that the sound quality of the headphones really don’t matter at all and that we will be satisfied with headphones with very low performance with muddled bass and unclear mids and highs. Sheesh, you would assume after spending 2-300 dollars on these things we would get a little respect, but alas it is not so. So most people end up having to buy replacements for their stock headphones which can only be described as rubbish. However buying these replacement products can be quite a hassle because manufacturers continuously try to trick us by giving us figures like frequency response, total harmonic distortion etc. Well being an audiophile and a geek I already understand alot of these figures, but there are alot of people who don’t and geek or not, we all like extra knowledge. So here once again I present another guide (I seem to be the guide master around here) about how to shop for headphones.

The first factor about headphones (which it helps to be informed about) is the form factor. Now headphones come in various styles and form factors. First we are gonna look at earbuds. Now earbuds are the kind of headphones which normally come with mp3 players. These generally give no bass at all (or very poor bass), and drop out of your ears as soon as you turn your head left then right too fast, and are what you normally are trying to get the upgrade from. They look like the following picture

Next we have In-Canal Headphones (or just In-Ear) for short. These are called in ear because… well… they go in your ear. When in your ear they also form a seal which sometimes helps in making noise isolating headphones (only sometimes). These headphones because they are in your ear can also help for a better clearer sound, with deeper bass and all the things that audiophiles love to hear.

Next are over the ear headphones. These come in two styles, namely Circumaural and Supra-aural. Circumaural headphones cover the entire ear and are the headphones that you typically see djs using when they are mixing.

Supra-Aural headphones on the other hand sit on your ears but do not form the seal around them. Therefore these sometimes let in outside noise but still are able to provide excellent sound however.

All headphones created fall under one of these form factors or another. Now to get at some of the terminologies these crafty manufacturers use to swindle your hard earned money out of your pocket. Firstly we deal with Noise Isolating headphones. These headphones remove outside sound by creating a seal which prevent any other noise from coming into your ears except those emitted by the speaker. Noise Cancelling headphones on the other hand and I quote from wikipedia.org reduces unwanted ambient (outside) sounds by “means of active noise control. Essentially, this involves using a microphone, placed near the ear, and electronic circuitry which generates an “antinoise” sound wave with the opposite polarity of the sound wave arriving at the microphone. This results in destructive interference, which cancels out the noise within the enclosed volume of the headphone.”

Looking at these differences if you want to completely removing outside noise it may make more sense to go with noise cancelling headphones because noise isolating headphones may not completely remove outside sounds if a seal gets worn down and also if a person’s ear canal is smaller or larger than regular it may prove to be very uncomfortable, but due to the fact that chances of this are rare then you may just be satisfied with noise isolating headphones. Noise cancelling headphones aren’t without fault either, as due to the fact that they are larger, they are also heavier and the large amount of foam within the headphones may cause your ear to sweat and it may be tiring to wear them over long periods of time. Also because these headphones generate sound that means that they require electricity and you may find yourself having to buy batteries weekly or monthly (or just buy rechargeable batteries) and they may not have that staying power that you want because batteries die and on that 12 hour flight from Jamaica to Germany I doubt you would want to suddenly start hearing annoying engine noise. Another disadvantage to these headphones is also that because they use a microphone you may also hear an annoying hissing noise in the background which can be just as frustrating if not more frustrating than the noises you are trying to get rid of. I have used a Bose QuietComfort II noise cancelling headphone already and I must say I was deaf to the world when they were on, but I also felt like my ears were about to pop. SO that was a disadvantage for me. Therefore none of these technologies are perfect but they do their jobs as best as possible though.

Other terms manufacturers may give you are the maximum SPL (Sound Pressure Level) which is simply how loud the headphones can get, this is measured in decibels and also please remember that permanent hearing damage starts at 90 dB and that 120 dB is the threshold of pain. So if you see headphones that can do that, you might not want to test their maximum noise (at least if u enjoy hearing that is)

Frequency response is one of those figures that very rarely matter as well. Almost all speakers no matter how cheap they are can give low and high frequencies from about 30Hz up to about 16Khz, which is more than satisfactory for speakers.

Total Harmonic Distortion is also a figure that really doesn’t matter. While the lower THD the better is true, almost every headphone you look at will in fact say that it gives less than 1% THD, distortion may present itself as those annoying little outside sounds which add to the unclarity (i coined another word) of the music you are listening to. The best way to really compare this is to listen to the headphones before hand, but most of the times you can just ignore this (unless it says more than 1% then run away… very very far away)

Impedance measures the ability of the headphone to get louder (volumewise). The lower the impedance the higher the volume SHOULD be able to get. But there are also many other factors which can lead to how loud the headphones can get, such as the power output of the mp3 player (or cd player or whatever you are plugging into), if the mp3 player doesnt generally give alot of power then no matter how loud the volume is, the headphones wont get as loud as you would like. The only way to change this is to get an amplifier but thats next to impossible unless you are buying headphones for home usage in which then you can feel free to get an amplifier and burst your eardrums.

Now I am not going to suggest any particular headphone because everybody’s listening tastes differ and the headphones I like may not be the ones you like due to the size of my head compared to the size of your head (comfort), how good your hearing is compared to how good mine is, the music you are listening to etc. However this should help to clear some of the questions you may have when you are buying headphones.

I have spoken enough now and have given you something long enough to read so I shall end this entry here. Of course feel free to ask me any additional questions and I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability

1. enough futuristic features to make a geek’s head spin.
2. Using flash memory in place of the standard hard-disk drive, Ziba and Intel have managed to make this laptop just 0.7 inches thick. The use of flash resulted in a side benefit: the laptop consumes less power and offers up to 14 hours of battery life. At 2.25 pounds, it’s also among the lightest notebooks around.
3. this laptop can also access the Web via Wi-Fi and WiMax wireless-broadband connections.

Ziba decided to use real metal-champagne-colored magnesium, to be exact-for the laptop case, rather than the standard plastic. The trim is gold-colored.

4. Unlike most notebooks, this laptop’s screen isn’t encased, photo-frame-like, in a plastic rim. Instead, the glass extends to the very edges, mimicking a look found in high-end flat-panel TVs. The screen contains light sensors, which adjust brightness automatically. It also features a built-in video camera.
5. The typical notebook’s surface has little dips and valleys for the keys and various buttons. This laptop is completely smooth except for a slight groove between the keys. The keys themselves are marked in a futuristic orange font, and they glow in the dark.
6. Ziba hopes to see the computer sold with a special protective folio that, at first glance, looks like a fashionable cover for a personal diary. The folio, which clings to the laptop with embedded magnets, is equipped with contacts that connect the laptop to an external digital screen. That display can be used to read e-mail or display a screensaver or photo (the sort of personalization popular with cell phones). The folio, which plugs into an electric outlet, can also double as a wireless charger for the laptop and other devices.

I’ll admit it, There is innovation in this notebook’s design. But its too highly fashionable and seem as if it was created for the fem geek. There’s even a strap for the cover which makes it seem like its a purse O.o.

The use of solid state to increase battery performance is genuis But Ive had many thumb drives that just up and died one day. Don’t know if i trust that for my notebook But i’ld give it a whirl before comming to any decision on the technology being used in that manner

Glow in the dark keys - Finally i dont need to say.. i wish there was a pc that had keys that lit up at night. Eat your heart out naive steve *Steve Jobs*

click here for the entire slide show

I recently bought a u3 SanDisk micro cruzer thumb drive. Payed way too much for it but it was in the name of testing a technology I have wanted to compare to portableapps. The end result is if you ever get a u3 thumb drive remove the u3 section and install portable apps.  My reasons are as follows:

1.  Portable apps is free and so are all applications that are developed for the thumbdrive platform.
2. SanDisk them self have realized the flaw for the u3 drives and have actually joint with microsoft to developed a new platform.
3. U3 applications just up and die on you sometimes. Trillian was the first to go and i cannot uninstall the application. I would like to try a force delete however I’m pondering the fact that the space maybe lost into the voide of nothing-ness and i would not be able to recover that 12mb unless i perform a full fdisk on the drive.
4. U3 does not work with any other operating system other than windows xp (not all of them i think there are problems with some service pack patched machines)
5. Portable apps application library is expanding at a very tolerable rate.

As of today i will format my u3 drive and install portable apps and take it from there. I hope there is a version of pidgin for portable apps soon. If you need to remove your u3 setup you may use this tool provided by u3 for removal of the smart part of your thumb drive (point and laughs at u3)

After celebrating my first birthday last week. I came to the realization that, people simply don’t know how to shop for a geek.
I remember being asked months before my birthday I was being asked what I want for my birthday, because of this I’m led to wonder, are geeks really that hard to shop for? Well I am here to re-educate people on what geeks really want.

First of all, remember technology is always high up on the list of things that we want. It would be nice to get a digital camera for our birthdays. However, remember that because we are so geeky, we need specific cameras. A regular digital camera will not work for a geek as we need high resolution pictures so that we can later gawk at them with our 19-21″ monitors. While we may not say it. We like high megapixels, as a matter of fact 5 should be the least you want to get. Of course for the most of us the best thing to get would just be a digital slr camera but I’m trying to keep the gifts affordable so I wont go into that… That’s for christmas :D.

Next most geeks like music. We listen to it all the time, when we are programming we need music, when we are surfing the net we need music, when we are sleeping sometimes we like to make music rock us to sleep. So of course what I’m getting at here is that MP3 players are high up on that list. Do not I repeat do not buy CD-players. While some of us may have our trusty mp3/cd player with us at all times (thats you cyberpunk), it would be nice to upgrade so that we no longer have to walk with this huge cd pouch for storing 25 odd cd’s. As an afterthought, please don’t try to buy us music cd’s, some of us are trying to take cd’s out of our lives and even then may not want to buy an album from any artist when all we want to hear is one song. It would be better to get us a gift card so that we can either buy the album our selves or give us the money so we can pay to download them online. Please ensure that the MP3 player you buy for your geek has at least 5Gb (remember I’m keeping it cheap so no 80Gb Ipod), we dont want to replace Cd’s only to find out that every other day we have to be deleting and adding music to our players.

I am not gonna talk about cell phones because the perfect phone for us geeks would cost around $500 upwards. So thats for the christmas edition. However other cheap random gifts that you can get for your Geek are stuff like, 8Gb Thumb Drives - Yes we know we already have a 4Gb but more than likely thats filled with stuff for work, we want something where we can store our dvd’s on for crying out loud. Upgrades to our previous products for example, if we already have a camera, buy us a 2gb memory stick, if its an slr buy us that high zoom telephoto lens, if our computer has a 256Mb Graphics card, buy us a 512 (or even 2 of them), if we have 500Gb HD space, buy us 500 more (HDs are getting cheaper nowadays), if… well you get the picture. Also random techfoolery (i coined a word w00t) sometimes work. Those random gadgets you see people talking about like docs for ipod that move with the music etc, we like that kind of stuff, it can keep us entertained for a huge amount of time.

Last but not least, please remember that geeks are regular people just more inclined to technology. So we do like regular stuff too, alot of our Geekettes (i coined another word w00t!!!!1!!!one!!!) still like teddy bears and everything pink. So dont be afraid to buy her the perfume that you saw. Most of the time also we like jewelry, hey everybody likes to look good. A nice watch can work as a unisex gift, chains, bracelets, the list goes on and on.

Finally, please remember to save for christmas

Behold I bring you more Ubuntu-ness for your mental stewing. Ubuntu has announced a mobile and embedded version of the operating system. What does this mean.. This means that i will sell my qtek 9100 which is supported by Microsoft’s windows mobile operating system (version six currently codenamed crossbow). While ms mobile is very much usable. It does not serve me much as it is not friendly with my Ubuntu driven notebook.
My stance on switching does not only originate from my Linux activist cranial quadrant but. I honestly would love to see what Ubuntu Linux could bring to the mobile operating system table. Ubuntu has already taken the world by storm. focusing on simplicity and efficiency as the main goal for the operating system and with each distribution release there are vast improvements and the community grows bigger as more people begin saying. (thank god they’ve fixed x problems. now i can use Ubuntu). Hopefully this will be the same for the mobile version of Ubuntu as well as the embedded.
I honestly wonder what wacky version Ubuntu will tote for the mobile operating system.. Ubuntu mobile moped, wandering walker?. I also eagerly await to see which open source applications will be ported to the mobile operating system. Keep your eyes peeled for this in October 2007, Just a few months off.