24 8-9 real

24 8-9

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I’m Back!

Hey Everyone,

     I’m sorry for being gone for so long. I know I only have one reader, but I want to start writing again just for you. I know who you are too. Anyways I’m back and ready to go again. I will be posting my first story on monday. See yA then. Actually I’ll see you tomorrow at church, but thats besides the point, kinda. 

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

Outside the lines

Hey Everyone,

     Today I had planned to do a post about the future of transportation and such in America. But this morning I saw a tweet saying that Steven Curtis Chapman’s daughter had died. She was run over by a car in her driveway. Early reports say that it was an accident, and her older brother was driving. I feel so much pain to the Chapman family. It would be horrible to accidently kill someone in your own family. This family really needs our prayers right now.

    Steven Curtis Chapman, for those of you who don’t know, is a christian music singer. He has incredible talent. Someone  with his talent could make ka doodles of money singing. He has chosen to sing christian music, which is a much less lucrative business. The market for christian music is way smaller than that of regular music. He took a big risk choosing to sing about his God. He is a very respectable person. He has done much for families seeking to adopt children. He started an organization called Shoahannah’s Hope Ministry. It’s purpose is to help families overcome the financial barriers in adopting. 

    I will have a regular post for you tomorrow. Please keep this family in your prayers. Steven Curtis Chapman dot com . 

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

iPod touch

Hey Everyone,

    I got my iPod touch today! I’m so happy! I have been waiting to get it for months now. I was trying to sell my old iPod. I wasn’t sure whether or not to get it now (you know, new iPhone). I didn’t want them to update the touch a few weeks after I buy it. But, my family is going on vacation before WWDC, so I really wanted it before then. Most of the awesome features of the touch require wifi. We don’t have wifi yet, so I can’t really say how cool this thing is. I am in love already though because I can start watching all my podcast again. I haven’t been able to do that recently because I was having to watch them on my computer, and you can only watch Cranky Geeks for so long sitting at a desk. Um… I’m going to post a few pictures of me unboxing it. The pictures were taken on my brother’s macbook because we don’t have batteries for our camera right now. I say that to explain the crappy resolution. Anyways here they are, or more correctly here it is. 

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

A new theme

Hey Everyone,

    I’m sorry for not being around recently. I was on a camping trip with my youth group. I am back now though. I was also not paying very much attention to the blog before the camping trip, but I am back on a gaming freeze. I have a great new idea for the blog. I want to spend as much time as possible getting the news out about the new blog concept. 

    Here’s what it will be. Twitter has been a big part of my life recently. I have been using twitter a lot. I don’t even have that many followers. (only 3 lol) But, the blog is going to be a blog written by me “@benwillis” (my twitter name) and all of my followers on twitter. You can continue to just come on the blog as normal, but I will be inviting my twitter followers to post on the blog. This should help get more post on the blog, and get me more followers on twitter.

    Twitter is such a fun thing to use, and I want it to be part of the blog. I also am looking for something to set us apart from all the other tech blogs. If I just post and post about normals tech things that everyone else does, I will never get an audience. I have to create a sense of community. I have to have something that people look at and say, Wow why has no one thought of that.

    Once again I would like to say that I will not be kicking anyone off the blog or anything like that. I will just be inviting more people from twitter. 

    I will be going to walmart to pick up my iPod touch tomorrow, hopefully. I will do a full post about that after I get it all set up.

    I have been gone for a few days with no access to a computer, but I don’t think anything major happened in the tech world that I missed. I have read up on all the rumors on Mac Rumors, and I think the only thing big that happened was Microsoft gave the lets just be friends talk to Yahoo. Ok, I’m going to go spread the word on twitter. 

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

An older generation

Hey Everyone,
     Right now I’m watching my parent play the Wii together. It’s a very odd moment. A few years ago my parents would never have even imagined doing something like that. They never even considered getting a computer until we finally convinced them we could use it for school. They are playing bowling, and my mom is whooping my dad. The Wii is truly a revolutionary device. It has the ability to bring old and young together. Tech savvy or not people like the Wii.

     We also got a new TV on which to play our Wii. It is a small 19″ tv, but we don’t use it for anything but the Wii. We don’t watch any TV at all, well just the news. The great thing about it is it is HD (720p) and we are now ready for the February 17th switch to DTV. It has a great picture compared to our old analog television.
      There is a tech community on the internet which fully embraces everything tech. We read about geeky tech stuff, we lust after geeky stuff, we write about. But then there is another niche of people all together. They don’t want to read and write about this stuff, but they want to enjoy it. This is the group of people that will begin to close the digital divide. As more people begin to experience technology in things like the Wii and the iPhone. They will crave more and it will become a normal part of everyones lives.

    This wasn’t a long post, but there is so much content on the web I’m sure you guys won’t mind having a few extra minutes trimmed off your reading time. I also don’t have anything else to say about this, and I want to join my family in playing Wii.

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

Nintendo Wii

Hey Everyone,

     Our Wii arrived! Back up a little bit Ben. We are getting a Wii and we got it. My dad came home with it yesterday. It was a free gift from my dad’s work. They also gave us an extra controller so we can play games against each other. Set up was a breeze. I’m serious, even though there was tons of packaging in the box the whole set up process took ten minutes, tops. You just plug in the plugs center the Wii Sensor Bar and answer some quick questions on screen.

     Granted we don’t have a wireless network to configure it with, but I assume that would be easy too. We are planning to get an Airport  Express pretty soon so we can use the internet features of the Wii. We also need a wireless network so my brother can use his laptop online anywhere in the house. Anyhoo that is off the subject. With an internet connection the Wii becomes incredibly useful. There is a weather channel and news channel available. And you can buy the classic Nintendo games from the Wii store. You can also download a special version of the Opera web browser to surf the web on your Wii.

    We only have the Wii sports game that came with it right now. We are going shopping on saturday and plan to buy some games. One game we have have our eyes on is Mario Kart Wii. The game comes with this plastic steering wheel that you can slip wiimote into and use to steer the car. It is really cool. I would also like to buy Super Mario Brothers Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy. I need to get a job this summer so I can buy games and more controller etc.. 

    The Wii sports games are really fun though. There is Bowling, Baseball, Tennis, Golf, and Boxing. Bowling is really fun and probably the favorite game of the older people who play Wii. Baseball is really fun once you get the hang of it. Tennis is really fun, but sometime irritating. Golf is my favorite game. Boxing is very physically stressful. In boxing you just about have to kill yourself. I’m not sure how good it is for you. I almost pulled something in my abdomen last night boxing. I think it’s just me.

    One of the most fun features of the Wii is making Miis. Miis are little avatars on the Wii. You can customize yours to look just like you. And whenever you play with it the Wii saves your scores. I love making Miis. If you have an internet connection to your Wii you can share your Wiis with other people and see other peoples Miis.

    I will post more about the Wii later, especially when we get an internet connection to it and can test those features.

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

It’s Wednesday May 7th 2008

Hey Everyone,

     I know I promised you a bigger post yesterday. I really wanted to, but I never got time. And it wasn’t for reasons like playing games or anything. I was very busy finishing my school for the year. I woke up yesterday and posted that short snippet about not being able to post over the weekend. After that I dove right in to school. I did one lesson in math, and then I had to go running. I got back from running, and ate lunch. I did another math lesson and a math test, and then the end of the year math test. School usually ends at about 3:00 everyday. Yesterday It ended at about 4:30 because I just really wanted to be done, and the only thing standing in my way was math. After math I had to go to the graduation ceremony for the homeschoolers at my church. Yeah that was my day. Now you probably don’t read this blog to hear about my day. So, here’s the good stuff.

    I usually post about geeky stuff on here, but not very often geeky news. But right now I’m having a lapse of creativity, and I don’t have anything to post about. So, I’m going to be posting about my favorite geeky news stories. My favorite (geeky) news sites are Macrumors, Engadget, well I guess those are the only ones I read. They usually carry all the big important stories I need to here about. But since they report all the news they also talk about stuff I don’t care about. I’m going to post my favorite stories from these sites each day. This is day one so let’s give it a try.

    The PS3 has passed 5 million units sold in Europe, and has also been out selling the Xbox 360 in said continent. The PS3 has had a good few months since toshiba dropped HD DVD. The PS3 which has a built in bluray player has a lot to offer. There are rumors that PS3 is due for an update this fall. Not a big update like the intro of PS4 or anything. But the form factor is expected to get smaller, and the graphics, performance, innards to get updated. SOURCE: ENGADGET

     HTC revealed their newest creation yesterday. It is called the HTC TOUCH DIAMOND. It is a pretty little phone, that is presumed to be yet another iPhone competitor. I seriously doubt that any company in the world has what it takes to make an iPhone killer, or even competitor. That is unless blackberry ditches Windows mobile and gets rid of the keyboard. But, this device aside from the intentions of it’s makers has some prettiness in it. Here are the specs according to engadget.

• Windows Mobile 6.1
• VGA Screen
• Quad-band HSDPA 7.2
• One-touch navigation, including single-finger dialing
• An accelerometer that rotates pictures as you rotate the phone
• One-touch music playback with an animated music browser
• A heavily-animated weather forecast app
• Full-featured desktop-like web browser (Opera) with zoom-in tech that actually reformats to fit the screen upon zoom, although Microsoft promises IE 6 coming soon for it
• Youtube app and content playback
• Available in June in Europe via Orange and the “rest of the world” sometime later
• Orange music store, games, wallpapers, and ringtone downloads
• Orange mobile TV with up to 61 channels
• No normal headphone jack – gotta use HTC’s proprietary USB dongle
• “Better battery life” than their other devices — will offer a bigger battery at a later time for those who are experiencing battery life issues
• No pricing info just yet

       SOURCE: ENGADGET

    This next one is one that’s been all over the news (even the the non geeky news). Microsoft dumps yahoo. Yup, after months of speculation of hostile take overs, playground like press releases, and rejected bids. Microsoft has walked away. It really never made sense for Microsoft to acquire Yahoo anyway. Well, maybe but not for such a huge price. If Microsoft really need what Yahoo had to offer they could have made their own company. But Yahoo never wanted to be bought anyways. They have done fine on there own for all these years. Shortly after the announcement of Microsoft leaving the fence, Yahoo’s stock price fell a considerable bit. This has made some people call for Yahoo’s CEO’s resignation, but I don’t see that happening. In a few months everything will probably be back to normal, and Yahoo will be doing fine. SOURCE: ENGADGET

    That’s all for right now folks. I hope to be out of this dip in creativity soon. I imagine you guys have already heard this news somewhere else, but not with my perspective.   

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

Coming Soon

Hey Everyone,
Very sorry for no recent post. This post will not be long. I had a very busy weekend and only spent about 15 minutes on the computer all weekend. Yesterday I caught everything up on my sisters blog. Today I want to catch up on this blog. I really spent too much time playing games yesterday. I swear to not play games today. I have too much work to do for both blogs. I probably played Urban Terror for 4 hours yesterday. That game is too addicting and I won’t be playing it for a while. I really must go, but I promise to post later today after school.

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

Connecting Online

Hey Everyone,

    I have mentioned before how important it is that people stay connected online. If you don’t have connections online, all you have is hardware and software. No greyware. There is no point in modern computing if you don’t share it with others. That is why we have blogs, social networks, online gaming.

    Blogging is an awesome way to stay connected online. Why? Because it is so easy. Even the most computer illiterate person can have a blog. A grandma can have a blog for all her children and grandchildren. You can make a blog for your school, youth group, sports team. Or you can even blog about something you are interested in, for anyone to read. (sounds like geekhangout). For whatever or whoever you blog, you are connecting with people.

    Blogging has been made so easy in the past few years that anyone can do it. You don’t have to know how to do anything except write. WordPress, Blogger, Live Journal, all these sites make it easy to have a blog, or multiple blogs. 

    Social Networks connect people in a special way. You can send people messages, see who your friends friends are, meet people just like you. Social Networks like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter make it easy to connect online.  

     On Facebook each person has a profile page you can leave messages on, upload pictures to, or add applications that you think are cool.

     I have never used Myspace so I’m in the dark there. I like to try to keep it simple, the best way to do this is use one (maybe two) social networks, and one blogging network.

    Twitter is very cool. It allows you to post little updates through the day telling people what you are doing. You can follow people on Twitter, which means you see their updates. And people can follow you which means they see your updates. Twitter is an awesome way to keep up with friends, or find out what people you know do during the day. I have recently started using twitter, and I love it. I don’t have any friends from my South Carolina world on there yet. But, I have some online friends, like Chris Pirillo and Chris Farley. 

    Online gaming enters a totally different scene. Blogging and social networks are used by all. The old the young, the computer illiterate and geniuses all use these things. When you start talking about online gaming most of those people go to sleep and the teenagers wake up. Gaming is super fun, but online gaming is super super fun. Not only do you get to play your friends and strangers, but the skill level never stops increasing. Normal games get boring after a while because you beat them. In online gaming there is always some freak out there better than you. (unless you are the freak   )  You can game online using things like XBOX LIVE, and online gaming on the Wii and PS3, or you can game online using your computer. I don’t have a gaming system yet (we are getting a Wii), so I online game on my computer. It is so much fun. I play this game called Urban Terror. It would be a fun game even offline, but nothing compares to it when you through in onlineness. Urban Terror is a first person shoot em up online game. All of my friends play which makes it cool. Last night I played for two hours with some of my friends. Yes that is why I didn’t post on here yesterday, silly me. Online games are another way to keep people connected online.

    I hope you found this post interesting. I must now go do Math and mow the lawn. 

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

 

Healthy Geeks

Hey Everyone,

    I can’t believe a night can pass so quickly. It feels like I just went to bed. I am also so sore from exercising yesterday. AH HA! Yep I said it. The dreaded word “exercise”. Many geeks prefer to stay inside playing games online or rigging up a liquid cooling system for their awesome gaming rig. But, we are still human. We still need to be healthy. Even a skinny person can be unhealthy. I know plenty of people who are really skinny, but totally out of shape. 

    Most people get scared when you say the word, exercise. They think painful, sore, blistering thoughts as soon as the word leaves your mouth. You don’t even have a chance to explain your exercise routine.

    This view couldn’t be farther from the truth. Exercise, while sometimes tiring, is fun. I start out with some sit-ups, move on to push-ups, throw in some more ab exercises, and top it off with some reps of dumbells. After I finish all this I go for a 3 mile jog. I don’t run really fast or far. It’s just 3 miles and it takes me 27 minutes. Those are 9 minutes miles! That is considered really slow by most people, but for me its just right. Granted I run on steep hills, but I don’t think my time would be too much less on flat ground, I don’t know I’ve never tried. 

    The mistake most people make when beginning a workout routine is doing too much. They start out strong. They workout for an hour or more for about two days. After that they quit. Your body isn’t made to do that. You have to start out small.

     A good way to start would be walking. Start walking about 2 to 3 miles a day. After a few weeks or a month when you feel you have mastered that you can start running one of those miles and walking the others. In just a few months you will be running 3 miles a day without ever having done so much that you quit.

    To start working out, just begin with some sit-ups. Don’t do too many, but not too few either. After you feel you can deal with regular exercise, start adding things to your plate. Throw on some push-ups or pull-ups. Maybe do some weight training. But don’t add things too fast or you might quit all together.

    The most important thing to remember is rest. You can’t workout every day. You should pace yourself. Consistency matters most. If you do little amounts for a long time, it does more than big amounts for a short time. I have tried both, and I can tell you which one works. I have been working out for months. I haven’t been doing a lot, but slowly I’ve been adding on, doing more, feeling better. 

    Don’t think that you don’t need exercise. It is an important part of our life. Without it we just turn into vegetables. We as geeks are even more likely to fall in this area. We love computers and the internet. Both of these things command our attention. We have to make sure that we love our bodies as much as our computers.

    Disclaimer: Ben Willis is not a doctor physician or anything like that. This is NOT medical advice. Ben is not responsible for any injury you receive after reading this post. I say again this is not medical advice and not to be taken as such. Always consult your doctor before starting a exercise routine.

    I added that to protect myself. Thanks for reading. I can’t wait to find out who this mysterious “geek” is. If you don’t know what I’m talking about look at the comments on the post about new imacs. As always tell every geek you know about geekhangout. And feel free to send me stuff you want to post about. My e-mail is geekhangoutemail@gmail.com. I know thats a stupid address, but all the good ones were taken. I hope to change it if I ever get a job, and can afford my own domain.

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

Creative Design

Hey Everyone,

    I am a creative geek. I’ve never been attracted to the really geeky geek stuff. I don’t write my own programs or use linux. I like to create things, art, graphics, etc.. You really can’t tell from how geekhangout looks though. This is because I have two blogs. I run a blog for my sister, and her friends. I have to make sure that blog looks good and the content is fresh. It is very hard to keep up a blog. But, when you throw in another blog on top of that things get crazy. Things get even crazier when you only have one computer. Right now I’m competing with someone for computer time. I have to be very quick at updating things, so I don’t cut someone short on computer time. I have virtually eliminated gaming from my schedule, and I’m still running short.

    I say all that to try to explain the plain looking theme of geekhangout. I really want it to look better, and I’m working hard to make it that way. But yesterday a thought came to my mind. I could use some of the graphics and such from my sisters blog on geekhangout. Everyday on that blog I post a new header image. It usually corresponds to what day it is. For instance today is National Shrimp Scampi Day. Bet you didn’t know that. The header usually reflects whatever day it is. I can just switch around some text and use it on gho. I have started doing this today with the Shrimp header.

    I use a free program called Seashore to do all my graphical design. I like it because it’s free, and easy to use. I would like to have a more advanced program, but don’t have the money. Someday (when my dad finally lets me have a job) I plan on buying a macbook pro and photoshop. Anyhoo, Seashore allows me to make pretty good looking headers. 

    Be sure to come back tomorrow for an article on being a healthy geek. And feel free to send in your articles anytime for me to post on the blog.

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

New iMacs (Updated)

Hey Everyone,

     This blog is in no way a news site. I just don’t have the time to stay on the web all day, and post at the breaking point of a story. But, this morning I’m surfing around checking out the news, and I noticed that Apple just updated the iMac. The form fact is exactly the same, but according to Engadget Apple in now using Intel’s newest Core 2 Duo Penryn processors. According to macrumors these are the spces. (I’m not totally up to date on copyright rules, but I’m going to post these specs. I’m currently trying to get in contact with some big time bloggers to find out how much information I can copy, and when I need to get permission to do so.) Mac Rumors

20″, 2.4GHz, 1GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT 128MB. $1199
20″, 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB, $1499
24″, 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB, $1799
24″, 3.06GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512MB, $2199

(UPDATED PORTION I just got back word from one of those big time bloggers. My favorite blogger/podcaster Cali Lewis said to just make sure that I always give credit to the source, and to provide a direct link back to the source. So, I’m going to add a link to mac rumors. Your also not supposed to copy direct content, but I’m not sure if this spec sheet counts. I’m going to leave it up though, and maybe rewrite it in my own way next time. END OF UPDATED PORTION)

    These are really awesome computers for very awesome prices. The 24 inch model how I would configure it is just under 3000 dollars. I hope to get a job this summer, and buy me one of these babies. I’m looking to get a job at my dad’s work.

    Well I must go get to school. I’m homeschooled, but I do have a schedule. 

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis

Dilbert

Hey Everyone,

     A few years ago when my family got our first computer I started reading the comics online. Some of my favorite comics are Foxtrot, Babyblues, Pearls Before Swine, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Dilbert. This post is about Dilbert.

     Many of the websites for these comic strips are great. But, Then you have some that aren’t so great. I like a comic site that showcases the comic strip on the main page. I also enjoy quick load times since if I was reading these in the paper there would be no load time. I don’t appreciate it when a site uses flash or java or something to display the strip. But I also don’t want a lot of ads or links. 

    Dilbert, one of my most favorite strips, has recently redone their website. The site is in a beta stage, and is currently breaks some of my comic strip viewing rules. The strip itself comes up last when you load the site, but I love Dilbert so much that this doesn’t matter to me. 

    Some of the really cool features of the site are Animations. Animations are exactly what they sound like. They are short animated comics strips that give you a better idea of the personality behind the characters.

    Another cool feature is Mashups. Mashups is simply user generated punch lines for the strips that Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) makes. You can add your punch line and let other people see it.

    I’m sure the people behind Dilbert are not opposed to adding even more cool new features that no other strip has. This is a new field of creator/viewer  interaction that I have never seen before. It shows that Web 2.0 is reaching to every limb of the web. The interaction between people on the web has made sites so much more functional. It gives reason for the web that didn’t exist before. Some day things like this will be very common place. Technology will no longer be something that people don’t understand or think is for business. Sites like Facebook, Myspace, and services like iTunes, eBay are making even the most technologically ignorant people comfortable with technology. As we push forward you have to think, Where will we be in 5 years, 10 years, 25 years. When simple things like interaction on the web become standard parts of everyones lives there will be little standing in the way of technological progress. As the digital divide closes research and development will accelerate at frightening speeds. The ordinary person will become entrapped in a world of fiber and code. That is why interaction between people online must become as personal as possible.

    Well I hope I didn’t bore you. It’s saturday, and I don’t anticipate posting tomorrow, but I hope to be back on monday.

Gotta Go,

Ben Willis