TheLAD - The Little Apple Dude: June 2005

TheLAD - The Little Apple Dude

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Whoops, a bit late...
I decided to redraw/rewrite this one, again. I've only just finished it now and I'm quite pleased with it. I've using http://www.slashdot.org as an excuse I've written in some funny news posts. I've also used a quite few visual jokes this time as well. Enjoy!

Oh, and one last thing, you can get that picture of Steve Jobs as a wonderful dashboard widget from http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/18617 Thanks to Alexander Albrecht for putting it together. A brilliant widget! Right up there with simstapler and jared!

Anyhow, I need sleep, Night!

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 12:23 AM 0 comments

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Whoops, its been a while...

So, what has happened since my last update. ALOT!

Intel inside is now the new Mac slogan. Shit happens, and loosing PPC
is and was a sad day. However, the promise of being able to get cheap
CPUs for towers and cheaper GPUs. There is also the promise of better
laptops and portable devices. Maybe even higher clock speeds than in
PC machines. Couple that with Apple not stopping you running windows,
the Mac may be the best option for many ppl in the future.

Exams are done and buried, hopefully will get results back within a
week. Just winding down now and saying goodbye to all the mates that
I've made over the past few months. Had a great bash at a mates place
and managed to rub a few Campus East residents the wrong way...
Anhoo, many of the residents here are going back overseas. College is
really quiet at the moment, except for some major counter-strike games.

My aim tomorrow is to buy an AMD Sempron 2200 for playing
Counterstrike over the holidays. I have $300, which should get the
CPU, motherboard, 512 RAM a HD and a PSU. Case? I think not, this
thing is gona sprawl on my desk. A PC doesn't deserve a case! It
should tie me over till the Mactels come out next year. For $300 who
cares?!

I have had the machine tied up now for ages. I have been mastering
DVDs for ppl which takes a lot of time on a 733 with a 8x DVD burner.
Rendering 3 full DVDs in iDVD then burning out multiple copies...ouch.

I uploaded the latest comic yesterday and I've added it to the main
page now. My next one is already underway. Unfortunately a detailed
script was required, so I've been giving it much thought over the
past few weeks since the Intel announcement. I almost thought I had
written myself into a corner, but I've gotten out of it and hopefully
I can continue to pump out the weekly comic for the next few weeks
without a problem. So, you get one today, and then one on Monday as
usual.

Regards,
Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Apple and Intel team up, for the better?

Well it's been an interesting day today.

"Yes, it is True." Intel chips in Macs, yet another architecture
change. However, this may yield some interesting opportunities. Apple
is looking at the power consumption of the Intel CPUs, very
interesting. They are also looking at the cooling factor. It will be
interesting to see where they go with it.

Marklar, the rumored x86 version of OS X Tiger was revealed today as
well. (Despite seen running on an Intel based Xserve 2 months ago
before Tiger went Gold Master.) With PPC emulation builtin to allow
apps to run without a recompile, it looks interesting. Apple's done
the smart thing and made OS X platform independent, basically if a
new type of CPU sprang up in the next 10 years, Apple could port OS X
to that and do another CPU transition. One big thing to come out of
this is that there will be comparison machines ready for when
Longhorn is released. It will be interesting to see what an Apple
built machine vs a PC running Longhorn will compare. My guess,
Apple's machine will be infront unless Longhorn is more than the
rehashed-XP beta that was shown a month back.

Today the Mac lost its Heart so that tomorrow it will be an equal.
However, the Mac still has it's Soul.

A new chapter begins...
Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 10:32 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 06, 2005

3 Exams down, 1 multi choice to go!

Monday, evening. Ahhh. Time for a drink...

The new site is up. I've gone metal in the same shade as before.
Everything has been updated, my blog is now on blogger the next comic
is up and um...yeah, going good!

Looking forward to about a week of drinking coming up. It starts
tomorrow, followed my Thursday and Friday, maybe Saturday. The
Americans are about to leave college so it's time to say goodbye. Got
a lot planed and a lot to do.

It's a rumor that wont die, but it looks like Intel chips might be
used in a Mac. At the same time, the Tablet rumors have emerged.
Should be interesting few days while WWDC is on.

Everyone is winding down, so I'm gona go join them,
Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 9:04 PM 0 comments

Sunday, June 05, 2005

A lot of drinks and now time to do the exams.

What a great week. It started at the Pub on Tuesday, 8 free beers in an hour thanks to Toss the Boss. This was then followed by free drinks for most of the weekend. What a week!

TheLAD has been down for a bit. Unfortunately, I keep exceeding my monthly bandwidth. Well, no-longer! Thanks to Atspace, I now have unlimited bandwidth with no ads. Looks the goods, lets see how well it holds up.

Continuing on, the comic I started yesterday is uploaded. I actually sat down and studied for a bit last night. I managed to procrastinate long enough to finish it this afternoon. Also, like the new brushed metal look? This will be implemented in the new site, but I thought I'd add it now on the main page.

My maths test is looming on Saturday, what makes it worse is that I have to pass this no matter what. Studying appears to be my only option...

I'm doomed...

I've been quite busy over the last few weeks, mainly working on my G4 tower (again), the Pismo, my room and sometimes on Uni work. After a major problem with plagiarism in my courses, I've come out with great marks and one of the few ppl to do so. Looks like I'm going to pass considering the exam is multiple choice.

Back to studying...well to start anyway,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:47 PM 0 comments

Ah, a few drinks, the PowerMac 360 and the main part of my assignments done!

So to start off...

Tiger is the best OS ever! Speed, cleanliness and style!

10.4.1 fixed a lot of the major bugs, SMB now works and Mail no-longer keeps jamming. My new GPU is getting a good workout, I'm not gettin better framerates, but I can now play some of my favorite games in top quality.

The reason for this early post is that I have practically finished my assignments! The 400 line programming assignment is done. (Well it works, so I dub it thus!) My algorithms is sorted and submitted and my Japanese book-work is so close!

Now, onto the news which I broke in this comic ages back. The xBox 360 is essentially a Mac. Furthermore, the demos at E3 are actually run by dual G5s! The xBox 360 in the front window is there for show. Don't believe me? Check it out here!

It's good to see PPC starting to get some development backing. Should be a few interesting years of Apple and OS X!

So, what else is new? Not much. College life is still going great, our nudie calendar is due out anytime soon, some great drinking sessions, a lot of good ppl and of course a lot of fun! We head off to the Yallah Woolshed Saturday next week! This means a 24 hours piss-up! Should be great!

Exams are 2 weeks away this Saturday (Math on a Saturday!), but my first is this coming Thursday.

So, I leave you with an early comic!

Till next week,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:46 PM 0 comments

Exam time! Drop and give me assignments! (~fun ^ ~cool)

I've been messing around with Tiger over the past few days. I got my 9800 Pro, so I have put Tiger through the paces. My 500mhz Pismo is running better. The 733 G4 CPU just can't keep up with the effects of Tiger so I'm waiting for 10.4.1 that will fix this problem.

The comic that was due on the 25th last month had to be scrapped. Basically it was camping outside of the Applestore days before Tiger's release, but Hawk over at AppleGeeks beat me off the mark. I figured it was too close, so didn't post it. As for the following one, it never got done as I was coding all weekend and was dead on the Monday. As for this weeks, I noticed that my G4 is running way too hot and had to come up with a solution for that. We also had a big college footy win, so I was kinda intoxicated on Monday.

I've created a basic widget for TheLAD. I'm going to refine it a bit and hopefully offer it after the exams.

Speaking of exams, my exam weeks are coming up from about the 27th through till the 6th next Month. All is going good. I know my Japanese is in the bag, now just to get Maths, Procedural Programing and Algorithms sorted.

Depending on how fried I am next week, a comic will turn up. I have to get all my Japanese written work done and two assignments. It's going to be a push till the end!

EDIT:

New comic is up and my net is back on. (Been disconnected for a few days) Tonight I'm off to watch our college films. My films, "Day in the life of a chair" and "5 reasons not to be well endowed" should go down well. We also have films like "Revenge of the Cups!" and "Untitled" to look forward to. Still, sub 30 second stop-motion antics followed by powerpoint animation should get a few laughs.

In other news, I'm going to finally get the website looking right and hopefully ranked again on google. I've had so much trouble with it that I gave up once it started working. It shall get a complete revamp following during the 5 week mid-session break.

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:46 PM 0 comments

Argh, Wednesday midterms!

This has to be a joke!

All 3 of my midterms are on Wednesday. To make matters worse, the first one is at 10:30am and the last at 6:30pm. I'm also on class from 10:30am till 7:30pm! I'm going to be exhausted. Oh well, Wednesday is going to be a huge night down the pub!

Apart from that, I managed to loose my key last Friday. It's just one of those swipe cards, but they want $120 to replace the thing and 'change' the locks! They have a dead key in the office and I think it's mine, but I'll have to wait and see. (If it's dead, I don't have to pay for a new one)

Apple, is really stringing this out. Tiger has indeed been displayed at an industry trade-show, but is yet to be announced to the general public. Maybe this Friday. (Announce Friday, ship Monday...)

Anyhow, it's that time of night again where I'm going to go wander the corridors and see who's still up.

Night,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:45 PM 0 comments

Uni resumes after a week break. Still no Tiger...

It has been a good few days. I went down to the local Railway Society to play trains and help out a bit. Stayed up on Friday night to see if Tiger would appear, but it didn't to my disappointment. BTW, Happy Birthday Apple! What else. Um, had a good night out on Wednesday, cheep beer and free pizza, yum! Found another Mac dude on campus. Cleaned my floor's common-room again due to the mess that had accumulated. I know who it is, I just can't pin it on them. Imagine if dishes weren't cleaned for a month and left to evolve...or not. Got my programming assignment done and topped my algorithms assignment. Yeah!

So a new Monday and a new comic. I fussed over this one for a few hours, not what I originally hoped for but I'm happy with it. The next one will close I think.

Its coming up to 10pm so I'm going to go see who's around. Maybe watch Invader Zim!

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:45 PM 0 comments

Life goes on. Tiger almost here!

What a few weeks!

Uni life has taken it's toll. I'm not lazy, but I'm dog tired. This Comic was intended to be done 2 weeks ago as a B'day present for one of the girls on college. Whoops. I copped both colds that were going around college so I guess I can be forgiven. Also my &%#@$! ISP is still screwing me around. ADSL and I'm getting slower than dial-up speeds!

So, the comic is up. If I'm back in-time on Tuesday, I'll do the follow-up.

Anyhow, I have to be up early tomorrow. The Easter Bunny is visiting college and I want to get the chocolate! So I'm off to bed, dreaming of how great Mac OS 10.4 a.k.a Tiger is going to be. Only a few more sleeps. April 1st all shall be revealed and hopefully I'll have my own copy by the end of the month.

G'night,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:45 PM 0 comments

A broken foot, wasted time and no cold beer!

Bloody bad news, this sucks so much!

1. Yesterday, I did the washing and the clouds came over. After 2 goes in the dryer I had no money left and still wet cloths.

2. I spent 6 hours on my assessment task, three hours to do it wrong and then another three hours to do it wrong again.

3. Turned to the fridge in dire need of alcohol, only to find there was none. Now frantic, I ended up drinking a room temperature beer.

4. After all this, I tried to sleep but didn't manage it till after midnight.

5. A broken foot which had healed enough so that it didn't hurt, broke again while I rode my bike back this afternoon.

So, after all this, I have wet clothes, a once again painful foot, a mild alcohol addiction, sever sleep depravation and the assessment still isn't done!

Today's LAD comic is devoted to the PC dude in my ComSc class that asked and quote "Where the terminal is in Windows." Not only did I loose control of the muscles holding my head above the desk, but he proceeded to say "Oh, so it's a Mac thing" and points at my Pismo.

I've also had criticism that my little 500mhz Pismo isn't enough for the ComSc course. Apparently I need a 800mhz or faster or otherwise it can't run the most modern OS's. A rather interesting statement since my Pismo runs the most current build of Panther and with any luck Tiger. Still, any laptop that can be compiling C++ in Xcode, playing the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer (The online trailer is a must see!) while still having CPU cycles to spare is good enough in my book!

EDIT: As of the 9th, the internet at College has died. Until the ISP fixes the problem or is taken down by 500 pissed of Students, TheLAD will be on hold until I get my net back.

Well, now that I have cold beer, I'm gona say cheers and goodnight!

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:44 PM 0 comments

Computer Science, Unix Linux and Mac OS X heaven!

This is great!!!

Uni is not only fun, but it is relativly easy going! Unfortunatly, I have damaged my foot from the 200+ Km of walking that I have done over the past 2 weeks.

I've slowed up on the grog in the past few days so that is saving me some money. (Money that has now turned into Anime!) I went to Sydney to guide some of the Americans around. Fun and at the end of the trip we all came back with an Anime poster each. I got Rei and Asuka from NGE. Very happy!

TheLAD is now officially going to be updated every Monday night EST. This means Breakfast US. I'm also going to continue with the new character art despite some fans disliking the new style.

Well my classes at Uni are cool. Japanese, Programing, Algorithms and Problem Solving and Maths. Lots of fun so far. The best thing about Computer Science is that our code needs to be compiled in Unix or Linux. The Windows users aren't happy about that! Not in the slightest! This weeks comic is derived from a conversation with one of the blokes in class. It turned out that my problem was the PRAM battery had died and taken me back to 1976! Still I got every responce from 'There is not Airport at Uni' all the way through to '4 years old! No machine that old has wireless!'. Very funny to watch!

Anyhow I need my sleep. Tomorrow is Toss at the local pub, cheap beers to be had! It is also my day off so I intend to take it easy!

Till next week,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:43 PM 0 comments

No money, expencive internet, grog and a new comic.

Man, Uni is great! Grog, girls, anime, more grog, parties and more grog. Honestly, I have no idea what is going to happen over the coming weeks. My guess is that the comics will be updated every Tuesday or Monday night. At the moment, I need money, this will probably entale a job if I don't get a scolarship. Everything is a shambles at the moment, until I get used to Uni life, it will proably remain that way. TheLAD is at the bottom of my to-do list. Give me a Month and it will be ready to go again. Promice!

In other news, I just finished the first chapter of my novel The Second Genesis! I'm ahead of schedule which is nice.

Anyhow I have to enrole in my maths tutes so night!

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:42 PM 0 comments

Site updated...almost!

ARRGH! FTP...WILL...NOT...WORK! I finally worked out all the bugs. My local and remote directories were messed up in the transition from my Pismo to their new home on the G4. Bloody hell! Talk about a pain in the ass. I've been trying to fix this for a month now!

Busy busy BUSY! I'm working hard at getting everything ready for Uni! I'm now enrolled in a BComSc majoring in Distributed Systems and System Security. I'm also living at the Collage Halls from the 13th. Yay! Moving out!

Apart from that, I had a great Winter-een-mas a few games and a lot of Anime. Finding the first 11 episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion kick-started my holiday and a number of long sessions infront of the TV.

Now onto TheLAD news. I have completely redrawn the cast. Shrike is yet to be done, but the rest are all there. There will be continued delays over the next month while I get my Uni stuff sorted, after that I will resume the Friday night comic. Comics will be intermittent until the start of March.

Please note that I corrected the Exchenge Student's hair so that it is now affected by the forces of gravity. (I changed her hair colour to better reflect her personality...) I have drawn up the iPod and the girl's laptops as well.

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:42 PM 0 comments

Site update on way.

It has been a busy few weeks for me so the comic intended for the new year never appeared. Between selling the PC and geting the G4 tower, I got my new drivers license, did a few jobs and constructed a Minato motor. (I even have a video clip of it running.)

I will be updating the website soon. Really it was a poor effort in the first place. No frames in this next update, promise.

I must say that the Macworld Expo was great this year. The Mac Mini will make it into a stip soon. For now however, I have the new years strip.

Now if only my LCD would arrive I could get off this old Apple 15" MultipleScan and get back to work.

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:41 PM 0 comments

Half a decade gone...

As part of my spring cleaning, the PC has gone! This has caused a few problems, such as finding a replacement Mac. This didn't help with meeting my LAD NYE deadline. Oh well, better late than never.

Uni is fast aproaching. I have to get ready...FAST!

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:41 PM 0 comments

Merry Christmas!

Today is the day, food, family and gifts! 2 new comics. (No iVET yet)

Still, I get to work on the new character art. Time to clean it up a lot. I'm going to do one more character for NYE. Apart from that, I'm going to make a shirt that appears to have an opening with the RAM and G5 inside.

Season's Greetings to all!

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

My PC is going down!

So, as the story goes, I was working on Santasan for my christmas emails when the PC decided to corrupt my original file and about 4 hours of work! So now, 2 days late, I finally finished her...again...

On this high note, I now own the domain http://www.the-lad.com! A mate of mine has even offered up 100MB to host TheLAD until I find permanent hosting.

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

Man, I am soo peeved right about now...

My Higher School Certificate (HSC) results came in yesterday. Not too shabby, Maths and Computer marks were in the 80's. Biology was even a 78. So, today I found out my University Admissions Index or UAI. Somehow they decided that despite my marks being in high 70's and low 80's, my UAI would be about 72! Considering that I normally would need a 77 UAI for Computer Science (Thanks to Early Entry I already have a position at a great University) and the course is computer and maths based. Oh well, I can't complain I was planing on taking up the Early Entry offer anyway. It is a better University than some of the other ones I had applied for.

Some may have noticed the Incompetent Vocational Education Teacher, or iVET! (Just to make it less Industry Standard) Yesterday, I reminded of why I had thought of the character. She will be making an appearance in a comic strip very soon. Promise!

Back to the HSC. I wish to congratulate everyone that has worked so very long and hard for their HSC and the UAI. I hope you now get the offer for the Universities you wanted.

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:39 PM 0 comments

That time of year again...

So, it's December. A lot has happened in the past few months. Now, while I prepare for the the start of University in Febuary, I have decided to start work on my novel. About all that I will say for the timebeing is that it will be set in the future and be a sci-fi about the unification of humanity. Think Neon Genesis Evangelion crossed with Akira. It should be fun to write.

Apart from that, I'm geting a new battery for the Pismo. Well, repacking an old one to 6600mAh, should give me 6 hours under normal use. Might get another one done as well yet.

A side note, the LAN went well. The PC survived the trip, despite rolling out the bus compartment! Fortunatly it was packed in the suitcase wraped in a sleeping bag. Although it would have done the world a favour by giving up the ghost, I really can't afford for it too.

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:39 PM 0 comments

A LAN! A LAN!

A bunch of old mates are having a LAN, so I'm going to cart my PC halfway across NSW to join them. So this update will be it for a week. Two more comics. I realised that I have passed 15 comics and the ideas keep flowing!

Anyone following may notice I have changed the way I do the backgrounds. This is partly since I now know how to do it and that I have had a request to make them look 'sexier'.

4 comics in two days, is this a record or what?

Till next time,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:38 PM 0 comments

Post HSC boredom sets in.

Gah! Nothing to do! The boat is waiting on an engine, the internet was off due too a poor phoneline (explains the lack of updates), no LAN, trainset needs to dry from the last glueing and I have focused on the PC's CRT for soo long , I feel like I have image burn! Oh well, here are 2 comics for your enjoyment. The new character is the Linux dude. (Think I'll call him Shrike)

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:38 PM 0 comments

HSC over! Next stop UNI!

Man, that feels soo good! No more study for 3 months! A well earned holiday I have not seen in 4 years! So, now for some fishing, learning Pearl, fixing the bike, finishing the trainset and SLEEP!

So, todays comic marks the second OS X 'virus'. Ah a rootkit, how novel. I'm sure I could write an applescript to do more damage. Really, you can't feel safe just because you use a Mac, but you can be glad your not using Windows.

With any luck I'll do another comic tomorrow, and as soon as I get some funding, I'll buy a domain and some webspace. About time.....

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:37 PM 0 comments

4 days out. The dreaded HSC looms.

I have had this comic sat in draft for a month now. Along with a couple more. It will happen, just not for 4 weeks. At the moment, I am looking forward to Uni. Its been a long time coming, but I'm finally going to Uni! That means study, work and study....

Bring it!

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:36 PM 0 comments

18 days till the HSC.

Hmm, no updates for a while. So much for my free time. I spent it studying. I guess it is time for a long post...

Off to my university early entry interview tommorrow. Looking forward to it. My latest comic is derived from a presentation the university put on a few weeks back. A picture of one of the mac labs flashed up on the screen, my smile could be seen half the room away.

I'm looking forward to life after the HSC. On the 12th of Novemeber at 11:30am, I am a free man. I can sit down and learn to code in Python, do some more comics and write my novel. I'm going to set myself the task of a chapter a month. 4 years from now I should have a book.

My Pismo had a near death experience the other night. I discovered that 2 of the 4 screws that hold in the screen had striped out the brackets. Ouch, i ended up pulling it out and glueing it up. I am soo glad I found that before anything more serious happened.

Hmm, I have plenty more ideas for TheLAD, a mate of mine is setting up hosting, so I may yet buy hosting.

Regards,

Reece

- posted by TheLAD @ 2:36 PM 0 comments

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