I received my copy of Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV today! All the way from the US of A, it came in a padded package, in excellent condition.

The accompanying booklet, to my surprise, has different artwork than the provided online PDF download, and some may notice a spiffy iMac keyboard in one of the shots.

Unfortunately I couldn’t justify the cost of the $300USD super deluxe limited edition signed package, though I don’t envy Trent for having made the decision to make it available.

The video is titled: “Spend a day with us: play this 2500 times”

Not quite, I’d say. Though, Twitter sometimes comes scarily close to being the initiator of a voluntary 1984-esqe thought monitoring experiment.

Case in point, tiwstori, which promises you endless hours of fun reading other peoples’ thoughts; worldwide, in real-time. Generated on-the-fly through summize, the site displays a stream of consciousness with thoughts grouped together by a few select keywords, such as “I love”, “I hate”, “I believe”, etc. It’s quite interesting to see what other people are thinking, but also disturbingly addictive.

Twitter is cool for keeping in touch with your friends, but using it to keep in touch with the entire world is something else entirely. I think it would be very interesting to do some analysis on the content of twitter to try and see if you really can get a worldwide(ish) snapshot of peoples thoughts. This kind of data would be a boon to market researchers and advertisers, which is, I think, part of the reason that many blogs hosting services, and other services like Twitter, are able to offer so many services for free: they’re working with advertisers both publicly (through ads on their sites) and perhaps not so publicly, providing either the methods, the data, or both, to fully analyze the current state of mind of consumers and netizens alike.

Maybe that’s a conspiracy theory, but I believe there must be some truth to it. I can’t be the only person to postulate on the worth of this kind of data.

Yeah, well, it had to happen, right? Microsoft have pulled the plug on their PlaysForSure music service.

Basically this means that anyone who bought music from the Microsoft PlaysForSure store will no longer be able to play this music. For sure.

Microsoft are turning off the servers that control the DRM — Digital Rights Management (more like Digital Restrictions Management) — associated with this music. Therefore, any players capable of playing the music content will no longer be able to verify that you have in fact purchased the music, and thus will refuse to play it.

Pretty neat, huh? Not.

Do you think my computer usage is srange?

I set my desktop system up to make 100% use of its CPU (Folding@Home, rainbow tables). I set my headless server up with Arch Linux and run Windows in a virtual machine. I walk around the city with my laptop in my backpack, turned on, with kismet running, capturing networks.

Of course anyone with the knowledge to be able to understand what I’m talking about would probably answer the initial question with a resounding ‘no’; but I wonder if the general computer-using populace would, if they were given knowledge, be able to understand?

I’m not talking about understanding who, what, when, or where, I’m talking about understanding why… why do people walk around with their laptops in their backpacks, turned on, capturing other peoples network traffic?

The simple ansewr is: because it’s fun.

You may wish to force the nVidia Powermizer performance level of your Linux laptop for whatever reason. I do it personally because the nVidia 8400GS in my system can run Compiz-Fusion “OK” at the lowest performance level; thus I get a great animated desktop and retain my battery life!

This is rather simple to achieve, as fortunately the Linux nVidia driver retains a mechanism to read Windows registry values. How do you pass Windows registry values to the nVidia Linux driver? I’m glad you asked! Just like this:

That’s the relevant excerpt from my xorg.conf; it’s simply a matter of defining the “RegistryDword” option under the Device section, and passing in the appropriate arguments. In this case, we want to tell PowerMizerLevel to be a certain value.

You can copy and paste the above code, but you must be mindful of one thing: change the ‘x’ character above to an actual “x” - Wordpress is doing some funky auto-formatting to change the character from a regular letter ‘x’ to a multiplication symbol as it lies between two numerals. After you’ve changed it, restart X, start up Compiz-Fusion or another 3D app, and keep a watch on the performance level in the nVidia utility. It doesn’t change!

So, as you may’ve recently read, I decided to order myself a Dell XPS M1330 laptop. For a few reasons, I’m keeping track of the whole process. It’s the first laptop I’ve ever purchased; it’s the first computer system I’ve purchased from a big brand-name; and it’s the first time I’ve bought something that cost more than a few dollars over the internet.

Accordingly, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the entire process.

• April 13th (Sunday), midday

  I placed my order using Dells configurator website around lunchtime. It went without a hitch, and shortly thereafter I received a few e-mails. One detailed the system I had purchased and provided an invoice, and another explained the Dell order processing and delivery system, and promised that Dell would keep me up to date on what was happening.

• April 13th (Sunday), mid-evening

  Around seven or eight o’clock that evening I received a call from Dell to inform me they were having trouble processing my credit card details. Turns out I’d entered them incorrectly; so I gave them the correct information and all was well.

• April 16th (Wednesday), mid-afternoon

  I received an e-mail informing me that my payment had been accepted, the system build had been completed, and my laptop was on its way. The e-mail provided me a link to Dell’s order tracking website which illustratively showed what was going on.

• April 17th (Thursday), late evening

  Checking the dell ordering website as above, it’s been noted that my laptop has arrived in Australia and is now with the local courier. The estimated arrival date is still April 23rd; presumably it’ll be heading up from Sydney via a not-so-fast courier.

• April 18th (Friday), mid-afternoon

  I was at work and received an SMS from my sister to let me know my laptop had arrived. Awesome!

• April 19th, mid-morning

  I arrived home to find my laptop, as promised. I opened the box and was surprised to find some extras that I hadn’t anticipated. Dell has seen fit to include: an IR remote control, some Creative in-ear headphones, and an organiser of sorts which has room inside for a pen, a storage area A5-sized paper, CD-wallet pages, and a microfibre cleaning cloth with its own holder. What really surprised me though was that in the A5-paper holder came two user manuals : an XPS M1330 owners guide, and a Dell Computers and Monitors Guide. The XPS manual is fully illustrated and instructs users on how to do everything with their new laptop. Also included, surrounding the laptop, is a carrying case, though it doesn’t have a handle or shoulder strap. All of the included accesories are emblazoned with the “XPS” logo so nobody will mistake your new toy for a vanilla system.

• April 19th, early afternoon

  Turned the system on, was surprised to note that the battery came fully charged. I’ve thrown in my XP CD and wiped away all of the Dell partitions; the 10Gb recovery partition, the 20Gb Vista partition, and the 2Gb Dell media centre partition which contains software that specifically allows the laptop for use as a media playback device. Dell handily provides XP drivers for all the hardware in the laptop on its support website.

• Aprtil 19th, mid-afternoon

  With XP installed, it’s now time to install Arch Linux. Installation was interesting. First off, when installing the packages, it seemed to lock up, so I rebooted. I then spent the next hour trying to figure out why GRUB wouldn’t install; it was complaining about files missing. Reason being was because before the package manager had installed anything, I had rebooted. Then, when I restarted the install, I went from the same step, without mounting any drives. Therefore I hadn’t actually installed anything to my hard drive, and GRUB was broken.

• April 19th, late afternoon

  After I figured out that dumb problem caused by me, I got everything setup and got the wireless working second go (after disabling encryption on the access point - I was too tired at this point to bother fiddling with that). I installed X.org and GNOME.

• April 20th, morning

  Continued setting up Arch — soo many things to configure. Decided to pop into XP to install all my drivers. I’ve been using the system on battery and am quite happy at the rate with which it’s consuming power. I think I should get about 3 hours out of the 6-cell battery with normal-heavy usage; and probably just shy of four hours with minimal usage.

So, that’s that for the setup. It’s going really well so far. The screen is awesome. I got the special WLED version which uses a different, LED-based lighting mechanism for the LCD panel. It’s meant to give much better contrast and lighting properties, and I think it’s doing that job well. I also got myself the 7200RPM hard-drive instead of the 5400RPM one; I’ll never use a 5400RPM drive again in my life if I have to. They’re much too slow.

Overall I’m very happy with the entire process. Now all I have to worry about is enjoying the freedom my laptop now gives me.

TrustedReviews’ Riyad Emeran has reviewed Asus’ new version of its popular EeePC: the new 900 model sports a few new pieces of hardware sure to please those critical of the original version. Starting with what’s obvious, this version comes with an 8.9″, 1024×600 screen, the benefits of which are two-fold; it increases the usability of the system by allowing websites and other documents to be viewed fully without side-scrolling, and also removes the ugly bezel which surrounded the smaller screen of the previous version.

Other nice touches include the 1.3 megapixel webcam, replacing the 0.3 megapixel one in the older version, and the inclusion of a new touch pad, which is not only physically larger, but enables some nifty scrolling features seen in more expensive noteooks: two finger control. You can use two fingers to scroll horizontally or vertically, and you can even drag two fingers away or towards each other to zoom in and out.

Unfortunately for some, the majority of the number-crunching components are still the same, with the 900 model making use of an Intel Celeron 900Mhz and 915GM chipset. The hard drive options have improved however, with 12Gb for the Windows version and 20Gb for the Linux version available. Also, the standard memory installed has been doubled to 1Gb.

The full review, with many more pictures, can be read here.

My copy of The Presets - Apocalypso has just arrived, and it’s awesome. Despite the fact that I’ve already listened to the album a fair bit, this is special because it’s a signed copy. Check it out.

Woo! If you haven’t already, buy it. It’s awesome.

Who: The Presets
What: Apocalypso

It’s here. It’s arrived, finally. After The Presets smashed the clubbing scene with their massive hit My People and released a single in its namesake with some interesting remixes, the album to which this song owes its creation has finally been released. My, is it a gem.

Immediately as you pop the CD into your favourite playback device — I recommend something connected to a massive subwoofer — you will be blasted away by the opening track, Kicking and Screaming. Its heavy bassline will have you bumping and jumping; punctuated with a zippy beat and echoed with airy screams and the vocals of our boys Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes, this track is a testament to the quality of things to come.

Second up is the absolutely smashing track My People, which I’m sure you’ve heard of previously. There’s so much emotion and energy here, this I would have to say is my current favourite dance track. Perhaps the best I’ve ever heard. I absolutely love this song for its grungy, deep and powerful sounds. The lyrics are obvious and easy to sing along to, and the backing vocals support and blend seamlessly with the grittyness of the track. I recently heard this song played in a club by the support act for Muscles, and it made me forget about the main act altogether.

A New Sky introduces us with a melodic chanting; a relaxed and refined track which retains the leg-jiggling catchyness of the opener; this track is a great way to pass the time to the next track, and arguably one of the best on the album, This Boy’s In Love. It’s so poppy and wonderful, you could easily be forgiven for embarassingly bopping your head to this in public places. The lyrics are so powerful and emotional; you can’t help but sing along.

Yippiyo-ay follows with some thoroughly oldschool sounds, reminding me of mid-eighties disco music; it’s catchy, smooth and suave. The perfect song to dance to with that pretty girl across the other side of the multi-coloured checkerboard dancefloor.

The rest of the album follows as the first few tracks start it off; strongly. Talk Like That and Together introduce us to some further hard-pumping beats that make you want to jump off your feet and run around the room, while Eucalyptus and Anywhere provide us more catchy tunes to hook our brains around.

If I Know You stands out as an awesomely powerful and emotional track; slow, sad, and moving. It’s kind of an anomaly to a first-time Presets fan; having not known much of their previous work. It’s different and thoroughly enjoyable.

For only $20 from JB HiFi, this album’s a steal. I thoroughly recommend you go and buy yourself a copy right now.

Well… if you know me, you knew it was coming. Having visited Carly over the weekend, an hours’ drive from here, I was able to relax; reconsidering some recent ponderings, and I realised a few things. While I know I will be tempted, when I have my new toy, to whip it out and use it whenever possible (including when I shouldn’t be); I realised that having it enabled me to at least have the choice of when I wanted to use it.

I decided in the end that I wanted, and maybe even needed, to buy a laptop, to give myself a choice of where and when I was going to do my computing. My desktop system will not be less useful, as it’s still a gaming powerhouse compared to the midrange laptop I’ve bought. It’s just that from now on, my desktop system will probably see a little less use. Though, when I’m at home, it’ll be put to use mostly as a completely overpowered mp3 player, as I can’t go too long without my speakers.

Anyway, what I ended up purchasing was the Dell system mentioned previously, with a few upgrades. It’s a Core 2 Duo 2Ghz with 2Gb RAM, the upgraded 160Gb 7200RPM drive, and the 1280×800 upgraded WLED-lit screen. It includes a fingerprint reader, Vista Home Premium (with Aero OMFG! and a bunch of bloatware), slot-load DVD(+-*%/?)RW, cool touch-sensitive media buttons, and other things I’m sure I’ll find useful (or not). All up it’s costing $1523.06 exactly, which I think its a pretty damn good price.

Having Windows and bloatware is no problem. I’m going to format the drive and kill anything on there before I do use it; maybe I’ll sell the Vista licence key to recoup some costs. Anyone interested? What’s Vista Home Premium (with Aero OMFG!) going for, retail, these days? You can buy it from me at 75% of the sticker price.

Anyway, now that I’ve taken the plunge, I eagerly await the arrival of my new toy.