evesfw: You finally came online lol I was waiting for u ;-) how are u babe?
Darkain Multimedia: who is this?
evesfw: hey
Darkain Multimedia: ?
evesfw: think we chatted before right?
Darkain Multimedia: who is you?
evesfw: im sorry i get to be forgetful at times!! How're you?
Darkain Multimedia: BOT
evesfw: sooo u busy? wanna have some fun ???
Darkain Multimedia: YOU'RE A BOT
evesfw: ok great well I'm turning my hd cam on and we can chat on there if u want to??
Darkain Multimedia: mmmmm cyberbotsex, my fav
evesfw: Hey how are u? ;)
Darkain Multimedia: worst... bot... ever....
Darkain Multimedia: c'mon, you can code better then that
evesfw: Ok, now you really lost me?? bot???
evesfw: ok then here hunny http:// --- www.live --- caminvi --- tes. --- com/joinfree click the orange Join Free button on top
Darkain Multimedia: either that was copy-pasted, or you're a bot... no way you typed that entire message in 2 seconds
evesfw: no im not, if you dont wanna talk to us then i can leave
Darkain Multimedia: "us"? there are multiple bots now? since when?
evesfw: not the last time i checked
Darkain Multimedia: but... you... just.... said....
evesfw: don't worry baby its free to join the site all u have to do is register...
Darkain Multimedia: sorry, i do not want to register for your political party, i do not believe in the decepticon's ideals for running this country.
evesfw: 24/f/Houston
Darkain Multimedia: YOU'RE 24 FEET TALL !?!? dayum...
evesfw: fill out your cc info for AGE verification only baby your card will Not be charged
Darkain Multimedia: i sure hope what ever fag wrote this bot gets as big of a laugh as i am out of this "conversation" right now.

Old Laptop: Dell Vostro 1400

* Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz dual-core
* 4GB DDR2 RAM
* 250GB SATA HDD
* 4x USB 2.0 ports
* 14" LCD @ 1440x900
* ExpressCard/54
* 10/100 LAN (plus gigabit ExpressCard/34 adapter)
* SD Card reader (plus CompactFlash ExpressCard/54 adapter)
* 802.11 a/b/g/n
* 56k modem (aka: worthless waste of space)
* Windows Vista Business (upgraded to Windows 7 Pro, still have the license that I'll transfer)
* 9-cell 85Wh battery (lasted roughly 5-6 hours at purchase, about 2-4 hours now)
* VGA video output
* S-Video + Component video output (newer nVidia drivers broke this, actually, so never really used it)
* nVidia GeForce 8400M 128MB dedicated video card
* 1x 1394 FireWire port (mostly useless?)
* BlueTooth connectivity
* DVD R/W
* 5.1 analog audio output (using 3 cables)
* NO web cam
* $750 three years ago!


New Laptop: Dell Inspiron M501R

* AMD Phenom II X3 N850 2.2GHz triple-core
* 4GB DDR3 RAM
* 500GB HDD (not sure if SATA 1.5 or 3.0gbps)
* 3x USB 2.0 ports
* 1x eSATA/USB 2.0 port (not sure if this counts as one of the 3 main USB ports or not?)
* 15.6" LCD @ 1366x768 (seriously, cannot get a higher resolution display unless its 17" or over $1000 now)
* NO ExpressCard slot (seriously, cannot find a single system being sold today that has them anymore)
* 10/100 LAN (again, seriously... hard to find gigabit nowadays, but it seemed really common three years ago...)
* SD Card reader (seems all portable devices have these, not that I care or use it ever)
* 802.11 g/n (which means "b" and possibly "a" backwards compatibility, though they don't list it)
* Windows 7 Home Premium (will upgrade to Windows 7 Pro as soon as I get it, need the better networking support)
* 6-cell 48Wh battery (another "seriously"? its damn hard to find a 8/9-cell battery in anything less than 17" laptops now)
* VGA output
* HDMI output (screw the old s-video and component crap, I love this!)
* ATI Radeon HD 4250 (unknown how much dedicated RAM it has. My desktop mobo has this card with 128MB dedicated)
* NO 1394/FireWire (don't really care!)
* NO BlueTooth connectivity (I used this tons... two cell phones ago, don't really ever use it now)
* DVD R/W (I saw a couple with blu-ray, but I just don't give a damn about HD movies)
* Stereo audio output via headphone jack
* 1.3MP web cam
* $???

I won't say the final purchase price... but know this, its cheaper than the previous one.

Faster CPU, faster RAM, larger HDD. Other then this, its an over-all downgrade. Less battery, no ExpressCard slot (meaning no CF or gigabit adapter), lower resolution, larger screen (therefor less portable), possibly less USB ports (yes, I often use all 4)

I really wish I had more time to wait to see if any good deals popped up around the web somewhere, but this is a critical system needed for both Fanime and the other major shoot that I have coming up.

LAPTOP DIED TODAY

Long story short... well, that was it. Basically I absolutely require a laptop during conventions to move images from CompactFlash cards (what all of my cameras use) over to either the laptop's HDD itself or my external HDD.

I don't really want to spend much on a replacement system. I've been looking at various less-than-par options because what I want apparently doesn't exist anymore?

THIS IS CRITICAL, THE SYSTEM IS NEEDED BEFORE FANIME



Spec wishlist #1 - NETBOOK:
* Either CF reader or ExpressCard/54 slot (for my existing card reader)

Yeah, thats pretty much it for this one... Cannot find a decent one anywhere



Spec wishlist #2 - LAPTOP:
* 14" LCD at least WXGA+ resolution (1440x900)
* Business Class / Metal Housing (Dell Vostro, Lenovo, etc)
* Doesn't cost a first through third born child

Seriously, thats the screen spec of my current laptop that I purchased back 3 years ago. Current dell offereings of same spec start at $1250, mine was $750 back then... :(



Spec wishlist #3 - REALISTIC NETBOOK:
* Dual-core processor
* 2-4GB RAM ideal, but will settle for 1GB and upgrade myself if needed
* HDD doesn't matter (I have my 640GB USB 2.0 self-powered drive for large storage)
* 10-12" LCD (the higher the resolution, the better)
* 802.11n preferred, but 802.11g will be accepted
* 1000mbps LAN preferred, but 100mbps accepted
* Dedicated video processor required (nVidia ION, or ATI Radeon HD only, no Intel GMA bullshit)
* Ideally has Bluetooth support for connecting to PAN devices
* Ideally has HDMI output for HDTV viewing (trust me, this is loved to death at cons for showing off the day's images)
* SD card reader optional, since honestly I never really use them
* Operating system doesn't matter, I have my own licences
* Web cam is kinda cool to have, but I can easily get my own
* Minimum 3 USB ports. USB 3.0 optional
* TRUSTED brands only (no gateway, hp iffy, dell okay, asus=awesome, acer okay)

I will switch back to an external CF card reader if absolutely needed. I still have one laying around the house, but it sure has been nice having an internal CF and SD reader in almost every system in this household.


Candidate 1:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220851

Candidate 2:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230005

Candidate 3:
Asus EEE PC 1015B AMD C50(if anyone can actually find this for sale, please let me know, its specifically the 1015B, dual-core model, not the AMD C30)

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Please note:
I normally take about two weeks to make a purchasing decision like this... This time around? I honestly have about 48 hours at max from the time of this posting. Yes, due to the fact I'll most likely need to order the system and have it shipped express before Fanime, I need it on that god damn UPS/FedUp truck ASAP!

I would like suggestions and feedback on ANY experience in the netbook department, good or bad.

THIS IS A QUICK RANT FOR THE SAKE OF A RANT

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN, PLEASE REMEMBER THIS

I REMEMBER EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU... eventually...

I HAVE NOT BEEN INITIATING CONVERSATIONS FOR THE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS

I AM TOO GOD DAMN BUSY TO EVEN REALIZE WHAT DAY OF THE WEEK/MONTH/YEAR IT IS

THINGS ARE SUPER RETARDED AWESOME RIGHT NOW, WHICH IS WHY I'M SUPER BUSY

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAME AND NUMBER AFTER THE BEEP, AND WE'LL GET TO YOU IF THE DELETE KEY DOESN'T GET TO YOUR MESSAGE FIRST

...
...
...
...

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP

eBay/PayPal

So, I purchased an item on eBay. I've been so busy, I had forgotten how long its been. This item is not for myself, it is for one of my tech support clients.

Today, I get a notice from them... "Payment not received. If we don't get it by the 9th, we cancel the eBay purchase"

So, I go and check... sure enough, eBay lists the item as unpaid. This, however, is total bullshit.

SO then, I check PayPal. Sure enough, PayPal lists the auction as paid for, transaction completed successfully. The payment cleared instantly. This was back on April 13th, mind you. PayPal also directly associated the payment with the specific eBay purchase, so they are indeed directly linked in their system...

This is kind of amusing and stupid bullshit at the same time... get this...

PayPal (an eBay company) directly acknowledges payment was successfully made and processed. eBay (an eBay company), however, says payment was never made.

DO YOU SEE A CONNECTION THERE??? THEY ARE THE SAME GOD DAMN COMPANY... HOW DID PAYMENT NOTIFICATION NOT PROPERLY GO FROM PAYPAL TO EBAY !?!? THIS IS A COMPLETELY AUTOMATED SERVER-TO-SERVER PROCESS, NO USER INTERACTION REQUIRED AT ALL!!!

Whats worse? The way the "missing payment" notification is sent, there is NO FUCKING REPLY BUTTON !?!? WTF EBAY? more like #FAILBAY... Its sort of like Michael Bay, but without guns, explosions, hot chicks, robots, or action anywhere. Okay, I take that back, its absolutely NOTHING like Michael Bay at all!

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Sponge

This band? HOLY SHIT MAN!!! They made one of my all-time favorite songs: "Plowed" which I discovered years ago in one of the very first AMVs ever produced (to End of Evangelion, for those curious)

Now, for years, I've tried to hunt down some of their music from time to time... Anything more than just this one song, right? ALWAYS failed... always... until... this week...

So now I've sampled countless songs by them from tons of their albums...

WHAT IN THE FUCKING SHIT !?!?! YOU'RE KIDDING ME RIGHT !?!?!?!? All of their music (besides the initial song) that I've heard so far sounds like absolute piles of talentless shit. It all just sounds like crap. Its all absolutely HORRIBLE.

Okay, putting things into perspective here... "Plowed" is and always will be one of my all time favorite songs. I heard it the first time back in high school, I think? The album is dated 1995, so yeah, its been a while. From then until now, I've always assumed they were some super awesome magically great band....

HOLY FUCK ALL MY DREAMS DESTROYED FOREVER!!!

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In other news...

I HATE SONY.

No, I do not own a PS3. It is not the console that I hate.

I've always stated that I hate Sony as a company because of their business practices. They treat their customers like shit. They always have, and probably always will. They produce products that fail more quickly than their competitors (there was a class action lawsuit in Europe over the failure rates of the PS3). They knowingly developed a computer virus and hide it on their music CDs that they produced to spy on consumers to ensure they were not pirating music. And now, how long has PSN been down?

Friends, please remember that you VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS!!! Companies only continue shady business practices when you enable them by buying their products.

I always have and will continue to give any sort of financial support to Sony, because I simply do not agree with their business practices.

On a similar note, I have similar feelings for Apple Computers as well. Their business practices as of late have been less then stellar. They beat Microsoft in round one of "worst company in america for 2010" to give you an idea. Just imagine how they'll end up for the 2011 results after more and more problems with the iPhone and their software on it? Or how about how they are now suing one of their primary chip makers for also making a smart phone?

Once again folks, you vote with your dollars. Just remember the next time you bitch and complain about corporate douchebaggery, that anytime you buy a product from any of these companies that you encourage them and enable them to continue these bad practices.

What started out as a small simple change to the RMX SDK has turned into a nearly complete rewrite of the whole configuration data structure and messaging system.

cbBase has been completely ripped apart and rewritten from scratch. About 20 functions removed, added 4 new ones. The new ones do the job of all of the old ones, plus handle any future expansions that may happen to cfgBase.

cfgBase now inherits from cbBase. Instead of having its own virtual functions for handling hierarchal notifications, cfgBase simply inherits from cbBase, and then adds itself to its own notification stack. This eliminates the duplication of notification messages between cfgBase and cbBase.

With cfgBase no longer containing event notifications and cbBase containing far less notifications, the whole system is greatly reduced in overall code size and complexity.

These changes also mean that notification messages from cfgBase can also be much more easily serialized for when it comes times to write the HTTP/XML communication system.

After this change is finalized in the RMX SDK, I can go ahead and propagate the adding/removing of all of these cbBase and cfgBase function references in the RMX Core.

With the simplicity of the notification and the ease of serialization of data, the next step will be to incorporate cfgBase notifications into the SQLite wrapper. This will allow for seamless persistent data storage, much like how the current XML wrapper handles seamless data storage.

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RANDOM NOTE:

Kind of surprising at this point. RMX v2.0 is looking like it'll be faster, use less storage, and less RAM compared to v1.4/1.5 while containing more features.

In software, this is virtually unheard of. Whats even more crazy is the fact that RMX v1.4 is already tested to run on Windows 95 machines, and earlier versions ran on the Gameboy Advance (16MHz ARM7TDMI, 256KiB RAM)

Damn, I wish I knew where the screen caps were of my GBA projects. That was a bad-ass little thing. The idea was to tear apeart the GBA and use it as a front panel LCD for a tower computer to display system stats such as HDD space, temp, CPU usage, RAM usage, etc all via RMX Automation.

I've been trying to at least post to Twitter so people don't freak out and think I died like they did a month ago... I'M NOT DEAD, PEOPLE, I PROMISE!!!

Things are super busy for me right now... I'm literally working from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. I've hardly been talking to anyone lately, unless its directly related to something I'm working on because I just don't have the time to socialize at the moment.

Whats going on? Obviously Sakura-Con just happened, so I'm swamped the image processing from that.

Beyond that, there is some major shit happening down at the shop as we implement this new hardware/software system for the company. (And by "we", I obviously mean "ME" since I'm the only computer guy)

After that comes coding... RMX has some seriously nice shit going on for it right now.... Lets just put it this way, the KITT system that I was working on years ago in conceptual design now has some minor implementation.

Oh yeah, speaking of coding... Google Code Jam... ONE WEEK AWAY!!! Say "goodbye" to my free time this coming week as I dedicate ALL of my free time to prep my brain and development environment for it.

To give a good example of how busy I've been... Yesterday I went and sat down on the couch. I instantly passed out for two hours. Yep, was good to actually get some sleep, even if short.

And also, I adapted BMEM/VMEM to handle an odd case where Windows Performance Counters are named differently than normal. I managed to find some (I think) undocumented names for the individual CPU core % usage counters. All is good once again!

Theme for Katsucon 2011: "And not a single fuck was given that day!"

Theme for Sakura-Con 2011: "AND EVERY SINGLE FUCK WAS GIVEN THAT DAY!!!"

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History repeats itself, eh? Right before Katsucon this year, this exact same scenario happened...

I told everyone that I was doing fine, been working out, able to actually jog again, jump, and more!

And then *BAM*

Weekend before con, and my knee totally goes out. SHIT SHIT SHIT.

The last time this happened was also right before Katsucon. I've been doing great ever since then.

If history truly repeats itself... I should be fine next weekend for Sakura-Con. My knee was better than ever during actual Katsucon weekend, it was just the days prior that it was in pain. I should be just fine by the time Thursday rolls around.

!!! HOWEVER !!!

I still want to throw out this warning: Even if I promised a photo shoot to you during Sakura-Con, I may simply say "no" and back out at any point. This has absolutely nothing to do with you or anyone I may have scheduled a shoot with. In 2010, I pushed myself and my knee beyond their limits, and suffered the consequences during and after the conventions because of it. If I think I'm nearing my limit, I will simply stop for a while (or the whole day).

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IN OTHER RELATED NEWS!

I still have some time available to shoot at Sakura-Con on Friday afternoon! I want to shoot something cute and fun. Pitch me some ideas people!

Just mostly some mental notes for myself regarding RMX Automation 2.0 and Beyond (explained under the cut)

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