Chrono101.com

Moto Droids are Awesome

Chrono101 — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:59:17 +0000

Motorola Droids are pretty much awesome. I’m liking this phone, and I think I made a good decision to get it.

The Motorola hardware is rock solid, the keyboard and touchscreen are both super responsive, and the battery life is great. Google’s Android operating system is fast and responsive; and there are tons of apps available to download. Verizon tops everything off with a killer-fast 3G network. I haven’t found a place yet that I don’t have 3G.

Oh, and I’m writing this post from my phone, by the way.

Dealing With Data Loss

Chrono101 — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:54:17 +0000

So, if you’ve been using a computer for any significant amount of time, you probably have a lot data collected on your computer. It could be anything from pictures, videos, and games to stuff like financial documents, company records, or important legal documents. Computer professionals everywhere recommend that data be backed up on a regular basis, but who really has time for that?

Unfortunately for me, the worst has happened: a hard drive crash. It could not have happened at a worse time. I had just upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7, so I had all of my files on one drive while I formatted the other and installed Windows. A few days ago, my drive suddenly started making a horrible screeching/whining noise, coupled with repetitive beeping. That was basically it for my drive; the computer froze and it would not reboot with the drive still in it. I had to remove the drive to get the computer to boot. Luckily my primary boot drive was OK, so I can still use the computer.

Sure, I could pay somebody to recover the data, but I don’t have that kind of money right now. Data recovery services start at around $300 and up depending on how severe the problem is. Now I’m trying to take inventory on all the data I lost. It’s kind of hard to sit down and make a list of everything that was gone.

As far as I can remember, this is some of the things that were on the dead drive:

About 2Gb of photos, images, and Photoshop projects
About 50Gb of videos and video projects
All of my programming projects, ever
All of my school reports and projects from 2006 onward
About 10Gb of music and other audio files

Luckily, I hadn’t gotten much in the way of school done this semester, so I didn’t have any current homework or projects on the drive at the time.

My plan is to save up enough money to buy a pair of 1TB drives and put them in a RAID 1 configuration. That should give me enough storage for quite a while, yet allow redundancy in the drives. RAID 1 basically takes two hard drives and makes them work as one. A copy of everything is stored on both disks. If either one fails, there is still a backup of the data on file.

However, maybe it’s not as important for me to be such a hoarder with my data. It’s not like there was much financial value of the data. It was mostly all sentimental. I do still feel pretty bad, and if you’ve ever had any experience with lost data, you can probably relate. It feels the same to lose a bunch of family heirlooms in a house fire. However, as a person, I can’t let myself be defined by my data. The data is defined by me, as it is what I generated. If you’re looking for emotional support on dealing with data loss, take it from me: you are not your data. Think of it as a somewhat fresh start. If you really don’t want to lose your series of 1’s and 0’s, be sure to keep another copy of your 1’s and 0’s somewhere else, be it online, on a DVD, or another hard drive.

New Red Alert 3 Map

Chrono101 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:33:00 +0000

I’ve started working on a new multiplayer map for Red Alert 3. I’ve been watching a lot of shows on TV about life and work in Alaska, so I’m basing this map around Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. I’m using Google Maps for most of my references, since pictures seem to be somewhat scarce, and a map about nothing but snow and ice can be kind of boring.

View Larger Map

Brazilian Soccer Game Riot

Chrono101 — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:51:38 +0000

This was the scene soccer game in Brazil yesterday. By the looks of it, one team lost, and for some reason a riot started when the team tried to leave through their gate. The police come out, and people begin jumping from the stands and tearing up the play field. The police officers try to contain the melee, but they are outnumbered, and one of the officers gets knocked out. The rest of the officers get pelted with toilet-paper, drinks, chairs, and various parts off of the stadium.

Somehow a fire gets started with a bunch of tissue paper, and more people rush the field and an all-out brawl ensues. Eventually riot police show up and contain the mass of people with bean-bag shotguns, riot shields, and batons.

Let’s hope Brazil can begin to contain their unruly sports crowds, as they plan to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janerio.

STS-129 Launch Video

Chrono101 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:14:53 +0000

This is the launch of Space Shuttle Mission STS-129. I recommend playing in HD and Full-screen mode if you can, the video quality is really good.

Ares I-X Takes Flight

Chrono101 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:55:49 +0000

So after a weather delay, NASA has successfully launched the new Ares I-X rocket booster. This test should provide tons of new data for the engineers and scientists to go over to help them build a better rocket.

ARES I-X Launch Video:

The test seemed pretty successful. I was a little worried at the beginning, because it looked like the rocket might clip the launch pad. However, the rocket cleared the pad and made a short trip about 150 miles in altitude, and then fell back into the ocean to be recovered.

Translations

Chrono101 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:03:26 +0000

So, looking at the web site statistics for this past month, I’ve notice quite a few visitors have a default language of something other than English. In response, I added a Google translation widget into the side bar. On any page of the site, you can just select your language from the drop-down menu and Google will automatically translate the entire page.

Try it out! —–>

NASA’s New Rocket

Chrono101 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:06:54 +0000

NASA is set to launch the Ares I-X Rocket this morning, and I hope everything goes good. NASA typically has their stuff together on these sorts of things, but its impossible to tell for sure.

Good luck NASA, and I hope the weather goes well for the launch.

America’s Police Force?

Chrono101 — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:02:52 +0000

So, I was browsing Google News this morning, and happened upon this article, courtesy of KURL News. It’s about a Private Military Contractor called America’s Private Police Force. Apparently the city of Hardin, Montana, has sold an unused jail, worth $27 million, to the PMC. I was interested in the company, and deicded to check out their website at http://www.americanpolicegroup.com/. They claim to be experts in everything from forensic analysis, to kidnapping prevention, to cargo security and convoy protection. I’ve taken screen shots of some of their more interesting pages.

Not all of their pages are accessible from their homepage, and a WHOIS search returns nothing, but there is nothing that hides from a Google site: search. They may have crack mercenaries, but their web designer fails at basic Search Engine techniques. See all thier site’s content at this Google results page.

Pretty interesting, I haven’t seen many things like this before. Digg and Reddit seem to be getting into a big fuss about this, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

SCREENSHOTS

Application for employment

APPF: We Spy on You!

Look at the part where it says, “our unique privacy laws”. What does that mean?

Isn’t that a Russian Spetsnaz in that picture?

Ode to ye, Razr V3 A

Chrono101 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:17:40 +0000

So I just upgraded my Motorola RAZR for a newer Samsung SCH-R800 . So far it seems pretty good, with a large list of usable features. I just hope it lasts as long as my Razr did. I used it for three straight years, and aside from the occasional memory glitch, the phone performed phenomenally. I have to give credit to Motorola. However, since Motorola has no real offerings in the smart phone market, I decided to step up a little and get the R800. Aside from the fact that my fingers are horrendously too large for the screen, no problems to report. Yet.

I have been known to drop things from great heights, or leave things in my pockets and have them go through the washer and dryer. Or get stuck in trash cans. I purchased insurance on my phone, so hopefully I won’t have to use it. At $2 extra month, it seems like a safe bargain. Over 2 years, that’s $48 dollars, or roughly half of what I paid for the phone. Except if the price goes down in 6 months, which would mean over the life of my 2 year contract I am paying more on insurance than what it would cost to replace the phone outright. Alltel thought they had me on that one, didn’t they? So after 6 months, if I don’t break the phone, I’ll cancel the insurance (if I can). Don’t you just love how the phone carriers do business?