Thinking Outside the Box

When I started Dell twelve years ago they kept hammering one idea into our heads.

Think outside the box.

At the time Dell management was convinced that thinking beyond the accepted limits would make us better support techs. It was a noble thought which they abandoned a few years later as they tried, with limited success...very limited success...to build scripted tools that would allow less-than-fluent-in-English foreigners to answer US tech support calls.

But, my purpose today is not to dwell on Dell's dismal failures in the field of customer support. My purpose is to bring up the dismal failure of the computer industry to think beyond the box.

What box?

This one!



I am just using Dell as an example, everyone who makes computer cases is guilty of the same crime. The most significant appearance change in computers is that the cases that house them have gone from boring beige to boring black and finally to a few colors.

But it is still just a box.

We have entered the 21st Century and yet most computers are less visually exciting than a model T. Okay, there a few that have taken baby steps away from the box.

Acer



Alienware



And even Dell (kudos where kudos are due).



The problem is that these are still just boxes, admittedly fancy boxes, but just boxes. There is no reason why the computer has to be a box. The parts don't have to be arranged in any specific shape. Yes, the motherboard is a certain size, and the CD or DVD drive cannot change size. You have to have a power supply and fans are going to be important, but it does not need to be a square edged box.

I have been looking for a new computer case lately, and all I find is boxes. The computer industry has less creativity than the average bricklayer. They seem to think that slapping a few geegaws on the outside creates style. There are very few variations on the layout of an automobile, but we are bombarded with an abundance of styles of cars, trucks and vans. I wish that as much thought were put into the computer case.

At this time, there is only one computer case that I consider to be truly stylish...



It may still be a box, but at least this is a Stutz Bearcat to the rest of the Model Ts on the market. I hope that the future will see someone put some thought into computer cases and see that it takes more than add-ons and paint to make a beautiful computer case.

And if you don't know what a Stutz Bearcat is.....

Personal Websites

What is the purpose of a personal website?

Now, don't go reading any tone into that. I am not asking a question made rhetorical by the tone of my voice. I am not saying that there is no purpose, not in the least. This is a question that I have been asking myself a lot lately. If you check the links to the right, you will find four webpages that are all mine, Dragonarmour, Aude Khatru, RW.Reid and Sir Conor. These are all on Earthlink, where I get 10MB for each email address, and yes, I have four. Together, I consider them my website, even though I don't have a unique domain name or anything like that.

I did have a domain name once, and you might be able to guess it. I had a dispute with the host, and they would not release the domain name, so....rather than getting it moved to another host, someone else snapped it up, probably in the hope that I would pay them for it. Fat Chance!! I doubt anyone else really wants it, at least, over the last 8 or so years, no one has ever put up a page.

Now, funny thing, but that thought distracted me. I went and checked out that old url of mine, and funny thing, there was a site. Of course it was a site by a company that sells domain names, and they were offering that name. Well, I offered them a dollar. We'll see what happens.

But, back to the personal website.

Some will have a specific reason for putting up a personal website. For me originally, it was as part of my business. I had hoped to increase sales by having a website. It did not really help, too little, too late, and so I tried to morph it into a personal website, since I had started using part of the business name as an online handle. But, I never really got the site off the ground. The problem is that I did not really know what to do with it, which brings me back to the original question.

What is the purpose of a personal website, or more personally, what should I do with my website. I have thought of a few ideas, but then I encountered problems...well, not so much problems, as excuses why I shouldn't bother. So, let me run through a few of the ideas.

• Information about my favorite band.
  Well, I probably will put up something, but my favorite band did it's best work over 30 years ago, and I don't really care that much about following the band now. What I really want to do is listen to the music.
  
• Monty Python info
  Yes, I am a big Pythonhead, but once again, I don't so much want to follow the members, as to just watch the shows.
  
• Looney Tunes
  More of the same, see above.
  
• Armor
  Well, I suppose that I could, and probably will put something together here. I have already put up some of the pictures of the armor I have made.
  Red Dragon Armoury
  I will put up more of my own, as I find more pictures, and time allows. I suppose I could look around for armor weblinks and include them on the site.

But, I keep thinking there should be more.

My New Toy

Well, it really isn't my new toy, so much as my wife's old toy. She bought this a while back, and never used it much. I always wanted one, as you can see from my last post, and so when she said she was thinking about listing it on Craig's List, I asked if I could use it long enough to figure out if I want it. I haven't finished that trial period, but considering that I was fairly sure I wanted one anyway, it seems pretty obvious to me.

Now I look like a true computer maniac at home, with my desktop, portable, umpc and pda all around me. I think I will try to take a picture of me surrounded by PCs. More computing power than a NASA moon launch. Too bad I don't really do anything with it.

It has a 600MHz processor and a 40GB hard drive. It only came with 1GB of RAM, but then I discovered something funny. I saw a video on how to upgrade the RAM, and when I went looking I found that it uses a standard SoDIMM (portable computer memory). When I checked the RAM on my Dell XPS M1530, I found that it used the same RAM (Samsung of course) only my XPS has two 4GB sticks. So, I popped one out of my Dell and into the Q, and put the Q memory into my Dell. Both still work fine, and now I just have to think if I want to actually purchase some RAM and get my portable back to 4GB.

I think that I am going to try Windows 7 on this Q. I am already running it on my XPS and on a test system at work.

Well, I think that is all for the moment, but watch for me to return here more often in the future.

Tablets, and no I don't mean Aspirin

I love the idea of a tablet PC. Now, before I go on, I want to make sure that we all understand what a tablet is. I don't mean a graphics tablet, like this...

Now, don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with this type of tablet, it just isn't what I am talking about.

Now, with the first caveat out of the way, you probably think you understand what I mean by a tablet PC. A computer where you can use the screen rather than the traditional mouse and keyboard. Well, that is almost true. But, you might think this is a tablet...

Well, it's not. This is one of the big lies in the computer world. This is not a tablet, this is a convertible PC. It is nothing more than a laptop with a swivel screen. A tablet is a one piece PC without a keyboard, like this...

Now that we have that part straight, we can move on to the important part of this discussion. The ones I am looking at. Now, I may not get to them all today, but I will hit a few.

Always Innovating Touch Book

This one is more of a PDA on steroids. It uses an ARM processor and will run a version of Linux when it ships.

Albatron Tee PC

This one is quite similar except for the size. ARM processor, but they are offering Windows CE 6.0. At least that is what they say. This is not shipping yet either.

This is just a taste. I will be coming back to this subject again with more examples from my personal wish list.

The Wednesday Rules

1. No parading naked about the house.
   
2. No poofdahs
   
3. Anyone caught not having fun will receive 50 lashes with al dente linguine.
   
4. No poofdahs
   
5. Bathing is forbidden.
   
6. No poofdahs
   
7. There is no rule number seven.
   
8. No poofdahs
   
9. All young men below the age of twenty shall greet their elders respectfully by dropping to one knee, bowing their heads and addressing the elder thusly:
   
   "Oh, most venerable and respected elder, bless me with thy wisdom and tell me how I may serve your most august awesomeness."
   
10. Ignore all odd numbered rules, but remember...No poofdahs!

I Think I'm in Love

Well, I am, but not really with this phone.



Toshiba TG01

Okay, so let me tell you where I am now. Several months ago, I purchased one of these.

HP iPAQ 210 PDA.


This is considered the Enterprise product, but I bought it because of the 4 inch LCD, the largest that I know of personally. Now, I am a big guy, and I really like the big screen. I have been very happy with it. I like Windows Mobile, and I like the fact that there are thousands of applications already available for it.

Now, back in December I got a new Cell Phone. I looked at a few different things, like the Blackberry Storm, and the HTC Touch Pro. Both are available from Verizon, but when I went in to look at them, I was struck by the same thing...tiny screens. The Storm might work, with a 3.2 inch screen, but the 2.5 inch screen on the Touch Pro is just to small to do anything important on. So, I ended up with...

LG Voyager


I like the phone too. It has a qwerty keyboard for text messaging, and it plays music, video too, if I can find something to convert video to the required format.

In addition to the problem of size on the available smartphones (from Verizon at least) is the problem that getting one of them will require an extra $30 a month for a data plan. Between the two, it was a deal breaker, but in a couple of years when I can get a new phone from Verizon, I want to combine the two, my phone and my PDA.

So, I set off on my quest to find a smartphone that offers the features of my PDA, as well as phone functions that my iPAQ lacks. I know others may disagree, but I am sold on Windows Mobile. I am familiar with it, having used it extensively for many years, dating back to my first PDA, a Dell Axim X5 (I don't think I need a picture of that old thing). Well, there are already a few contenders.

The Samsung Omnia has the advantage of being offered by Verizon, my present provider. It runs Windows Mobile, but has only a 3.2 inch display. It also have additional internal memory, but as far as I can tell, Verizon only offers the 8MB version. Very short sighted of them. If I had decided I was willing to pay for a data plan, this is probably the one I would have chosen.

The HTC Touch HD and Max 4G up the ante to 3.8 inches on the display. They both run Windows Mobile. The problem with them is that they are not available in the US yet. Now, remember that I am looking two years down the road, so these are definitely on the short list for the future.

But now, they are all running second fiddle to the just announced TG01, Windows Mobile, 4.1 inch LCD, sounds just like what I am looking for.

Some people want smaller, but not I. I am a big guy. I have big hands, and I do not mind a big phone, especially if it allows me to get rid of one device from my pocket. Please, Verizon, get the Toshiba TG01 when it comes to the US later this year. They can work out all the bugs and have it ready for me in 2010.

I'm Back!

I had not really expected to take such a long hiatus, but such things happen. I have been going through another extended period of depression, and while I cannot say that it is ended, I have decided to actually do something about it, rather than simply waiting for it to end.

And, what I have decided to do it write.

It is my intention to finally try to act like a writer and see if anything comes of that.

Around the age of 22 or 23 I decided that it would be fun to write science fiction stories. I was still in college (for the second time) then and I never did really devote the necessary time to my goal. Yes, I did write a couple of stories, and I did send them off to Asimov's SF Magazine. I am rather proud of my short stack of rejection notices. I consider it proof that I did more than dream about it.

After three years (well almost) at Utah State, I moved to Texas. It was supposed to be a temporary move, but after nearly 28 years, I am still here. I continued to write, a bit haphazardly at best, but I did write, and I collected more rejection notices.

For long periods I did not write very much, but I did keep a journal, and I began writing essays in notebooks. I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and this gave me another outlet for my writing. I wrote articles and book reviews for our local newsletter. Once again, my natural lack of drive hindered me. I had several articles planned that were never written.

I went to work for Dell, and after a year answering the phones, I got a job answering technical support by email. This played very much into my abilities, as I have always been very good with being able to express myself clearing in the written word. While working at Dell, I learned the importance of voice. I learned how to aim what I wrote at my projected audience. Many tech support documents at Dell were written for technicians, and I found I had a knack for turning those into documents written for the general public. I went on from email to working on the Dell Forum. Here I learned how to word bad news so that it did not cause an explosion on the forum.

The final stage of my development as a writer (so far at least) came when I began to play Neverwinter Nights (NWN) on a Persistent World (PW). I began writing stories about my characters, and then moved on to actually writing the lore, the background myths and legends of the world. I wrote prayers and stories for the first PW that I played on, and then after moving on to a second PW, I was given the position of lead writer. I wrote lore, and more stories, and I edited what others wrote. I finally moved on to a third PW, where I was given the job of lead writer almost from the start. I continued to write stories for the PW and lore, but by now I had almost given up writing anything that was not related to the PW.

I still have that job, and I intend to keep writing lore and possibly even a story or two, but now I want to move forward with my own writing again, and this is the start of that. I have not said anything to anyone. I have not made promises to myself, or declarations about things changing now. I have done that far too often in the past and I had to repeat my mistakes. I do not know if my determination will hold, but I intend to try.

I think that my history has made me a pretty good writer, and now I want to see if I can push it even further.

And it starts here.