Just finished designing several components of this site, the main website, and this blog. With the main website I went with a light on dark color scheme, and with the blog a minimal one.

Main Website

Blog

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holiday season. Finished my exams earlier this week (second year mechanical engineering at the University of Calgary), and other than getting completely obliterated on one I think I passed everything else. Other than chilling back and relaxing during the break, also hoping to do a small redesign of site as well as get my portfolio updated.

A kickass quote from a kickass movie:

V: Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.[carves V into poster on wall]

V: The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.[giggles]

V: Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

Source

Sometimes you just know a kid is going to grow up to be an engineer, for example:

For anyone who uses Wordpress and has been looking forward to the new version, it has just been released:

Weblog Tools Collection outlines some of the new features in wordpress 2.3, and Aaron Brazell from Techno Sailor runs down 10 things you need to know about Wordpress 2.3. I had a few problems with conflicting categories / tags when I tried the beta version on my blog a few weeks back so I may hold off upgrading till I have some free time to do it right (backing up, checking any compatibility issues, and etc.)

Yesterday I cashed in a cheque for $175.00 USD and got back exactly $175.00 CAD. Granted the bank did charge me around $0.01-0.02 on the dollar for the transaction it pretty much made no difference. The thing is I design / develop web sites, so the majority of the money I make is in US dollars, which I end up spending in Canada, which is pretty much the worst of both situations.

What’s more from what I understand, earlier today 1.00USD = 1.00CAD, that means if I cashed in a $100 USD, I would get less than $100 CAD back. Check out this chart comparing the USD / CAD exchange rate over the last 5 years, that means a few years ago that same $100 USD would have gotten me more than $150 CAD.

Man this clip from Mad TV had me completely cracking me up, a real hardcore gangsta fight:

For a complete recollection of the event, check out engadget’s minute by minute summary.

Apple’s media event this morning announced some big changes to their mp3 / cell phone line, specifically the iPod video, the iPod nano, the iPhone, and newly announced iPod touch. For people who were looking forward to the new apple lineup, they were not disappointed.

iPod Shuffle

No big changes or improvements, but several new colors, including a new addition to the (RED) product line.

iPod Nano

The initial images of the iPod Nano that were leaked onto the internet weren’t too far off the base. The new nano which Steve Jobs called “the fatty” comes in a full metal case, a 2-inch screen with QVGA resolution (the highest pixel density that Apple has ever made), video playback capabilities, and an improved battery life of 24 hours (5 for audio). On the UI, and software side of things the new iPod Nano comes bundled with three games, and has coverflow integration.

The best thing about the iPod Nano however is it’s price, $149 for the 4gb model, and $199 for the 8gb model. An actual price drop from the previous model!

iPod Video Classic

The iPod video has been renamed the iPod classic and the hard drive has been upgraded to 80gb, and 160gb versions. The battery life has also been improved; 30 hours on the 80gb version, and 40 hours on the 160gb version. Once again the best thing about the new iPods? The price: $249 for the 80gb version, and $349 for the 160gb versions.

iPod Touch

The next product was the much anticipated iPod with a touch screen interface like the iPhone. Well basically, it’s the iPhone without the phoning capabilities, and camera. It features a 3.5 inch widescreen display, wi-fi + sfari + youtube, a 22 hour battery life, and is incredibly only 8mm thick.

iPhone Price Drop

The next announcement got probably the loudest applause, the iPhone will now be priced at $399, almost a $200 price drop. As much as most people are going to be happy to hear this, it’s going to piss off a lot of people who bought their before August 5th.

More Announcements

Apple also announced the launching of their new music store available via Wi-Fi; iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. To help promote this new store, they also partnered up with Starbucks to offer free acces to the iTunes Wi-Fi music store while at Starbucks.

If you’re new to the whole torrent scene or if you know how to download / upload torrents but just want to make the operation a little bit smoother, go check out this list from Torrentfreak.

Full size image (1680×1050 - 244kb)

A screenshot of my current desktop. As you can see I moved the taskbar to the top of the screen and removed all the clutter from the desktop. The wallpaper features the very sexy Megan Fox from the Transformers movie, which you can get for yourself at SexyDesktop (currently on page 3). I also use RocketDock (bottom of the screenshot) which I use as my primary means of navigation.