Attack of the Killer Moth!

Oh nooooooooooesssss!!

And here's a funny tid-bit on these creatures..

Moths are apparently attracted to light, or more specifically, are known to circle bright objects. The reason for this behaviour is not known. It may be moths navigate by maintaining a constant angular relationship to a bright celestial light (such as the moon), but on encountering a bright artificial light it navigates by maintaining a constant angle to the light, resulting in the moth flying in a spiral until it hits the light source.

For more info. check Wikipedia

That thing looks like it feeds on young unsuspecting 7-year old children, no joke.

100 posts!

A personal blogging milestone to say the least. It all started on August of last year, just a way to talk about random stuff really. Come today, and I have done 100 posts about a little of everything really. We have come a long baby, as Fat boy Slim would say..

Another milestone was the fact that on one single day, void got over 10.000 pageloads (!). All thanks to my post regarding IT certs. It started @ Digg.com, got front page there, then slowly made its way around the blogsphere, and even made it to the front page of Bluesnews.com!

To tell you the truth, I never expected such reaction from this post. The ammount of pageloads in one day, truly makes you believe in the "Digg Effect" to the say the least.

Bragging rights aside, Im glad how void has turned out to be. Hopefully it can continue to be this way, and see you all 200 posts down the road (hopefully).

IT Certifications, People Still Believe in Them?

Today I stumble across a guy who wanted to get his MCSE (Microsoft Certified System Engineer, just in case) in a forum i tend to frequent. As a Microsoft Certified Professional (for what exactly?) that I am, I'm here to share some thoughts and views on the IT Certification world.

Here are some quick pointers first. If you think getting certified would help you land that job, you are wrong. If you think been Certified will make you have a better salary, by the most part you are wrong as well. Should you have gone to those Microsoft Certified Education Centers, and you heard the talk of -"..The demand for IT Certified Professionals KEEPS GROWING AND GROWING!!” - Take it with a huge grain of salt. If you are looking for a career change, you like IT, and you think getting certified will land that Network Admin. Job, don't be so sure.

I feel like lots of people tend to get caught up with the whole IT certifications hype. This tends to be the case, if you talk to those guys at admission on those centers. "Computers is the way of the future/Microsoft is the king on the Enterprise World, 52,000 starting off on the first year, Certifications is all you need to get ahead in the field, Long live DCPROMO.exe/etc."

The values of IT certifications have, no matter what vendor, dropped dramatically these days. Getting an MCSE, is like getting the most well know cert in field, but doesn't hold the weight it use to have at point. Experience still is, and will always be the key to get your foot on the field. Most of the big network admin guys if they have an MCSE is in NT 4. They have been to busy dealing with the company's network to update their cert. And you know what they don't have to, they more than proven their spot with experience something a certification DOES NOT give you. You have to understand that getting certified proves that you crammed a book/notes/braindump in your head days prior to your exam.

You also have to understand that in the end certifications, just train you on ONE specific product, or related products, and narrow your work field a lot in the real world.

I mean not all companies you work for will run a 100% Windows network. Mainly because of cost, and at times company's policies or whatever. So you have get your hands dirty with linux, with config files, with getting older window machines into a domain, with replication issues, with routers acting up etc. All of the sudden your MCSE isn't all that helpful anymore, is it?

Let it be clear, a certification guarantees you nothing these days, mostly because today the IT world has changed a whole lot. It is not the IT world of 98-2000. You have 10 year olds getting their MCP, Cisco been taught in High School, etc.

Don't focus on just getting certified, that's a suicidal plan. Go and see University/College careers in the IT field first. Take certifications as a way to complement your higher education title. Get a job in the IT field, as crappy as it can be, and see if you like it, and then work on your certs at night. The IT field isn't the greatest field out there; keep that in mind as well.

That's all I have to say. To close it up, don't bet everything you have on IT Certifications.

Everyone Needs a Dobermann.

Been a Dobermann owner myself, I find them an awesome breed to have. Sure they may be energetic as hell, running up and down, jumping from left to right, but that's what makes them a Dobermann.

Quickly to go in barking rampages, for no apparent reason, they are sure to make you love them. And you do, besides the bitting rough play they enjoy (poor arms of mine..), they always greet you with a move their little tail stud whenever they see you, and some licks to your face whether you want them or not.

Many people see them as bad evil-tempered dogs, and they are not. That's some mythh out there, and like the mythbusters, I can tell you it has been busted. They are a fun, loving, by the most part calm and easy-going breed. A great friend to have, in every sense of the word. Sure to be there to keep you company no matter what.

There you have it, as I said earlier everybody should have an "Little Unna" in their lives.

BTW, Unna is the name of my Dobie :), and it's also the name of a city in Germany!

How Much Does an iPod Cost Here in Argentina?

In another installment of how we get jacked here, today we will look at the World famous iPod.

Ever since my 3rd Gen. iPod has had 2 near deatth experiences, I have been on the lookout for prices of a replacement iPod. One of the biggest Apple distributor here in Argentina is MacStation, so I directed myself to check their prices via their website.

Surely I was expecting a bit of diference between the US price, due to import taxes etc., but not this rip-off ammount.

To put it in perspective for you and using XE.com for money convertion, here's the info:

iPod of Choice: iPod nano 2 Gig Black.

Store.Apple.com Price: $199 US Bucks or 604.71 Argentine Pesos

MacStation's Price: 1500.00 Argentine Pesos or $493.62 US Bucks!

Thats right more than twice (almost twice and half) the price for the same product!

This is straight up, for lack of words disgusting. These people should feel ashame of themselves for putting such high overpricing on these products. Why rip people off like this? Milk them for every single cent since they want good products, appears to be their motto.

Not much more can be said, aside from..These people rip us off. One nano for the price of 2 and a half. These guys must be crazy.

MacBook Pro

The first intel powered mac portable is here. As you may have guess it, it replaces the beloved PowerBook. Gone is the Power, replaced with a Mac then a Pro. But the power is just gone from the name, because this thing has plenty of power.

With an Intel Dual Core CPU inside, this mac is up to par with today's PC counterparts, and even surpasses them. You have two configurations to choose from: 1.67 or 1.83 Ghz, both with 2 MB shared L2 cache.

You also get a bigger, brighter screen with the MacBook Pro. Bigger in dimension, not in resolution. However, the resolution is quite enough I believe. Should you not like it, you always have the option to hook up an external display, lets say a 30" Cinema Display? Sure, why not.

While we are in the topic of video, the new videocards on these things surely kick ass. An ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with either 128 or 256 GDDR3(!) memory.

Frontrow is present here as well, seems like Apple will be sticking the Frontrow in every mac. Maybe they have been keeping eye on the torrent and hack sites that explain how to run Frontrow on any mac. So you get Frontrow and the remote.

Firewire 400, USB 2.0, and the new standard in PCMCIA Cards(?). Of course you get Bluetooth 2.0, Airport Extreme standard as wireless options.

Overall speaking, what a mac people. Anybody want to buy a 12 in. G4 1.33 Ghz "classic" Powerbook?

If this is a sign of things to come from the intel transition, I can't wait.

CONFIRM: Hiding the iTunes Mini Store Will NOT Send Info to Apple.

As describe in this hint @ macosxhints.com. if you simply disable the mini store (Edit: Hide Ministore, or just Shift-Command-M), then no data is transmitted. There you have it, you can go back to listening to iTunes paranoia free.

read more | digg story

Macworld Predictions..

Less than 2 hours to go and well everyone is freaking out. On that note, the Digg Tzar, Kevin Rose has posted in his blog, what an anonymous source has told him regarding the MacWorld debut of Apple products..

Macworld 2006

I've heard:
15" intel Macbook - order tomorrow, ships Feb (thinner, dual core)
iPod FM receiver
iWork/Life '06
New remote of some type
Photocasting (iPhoto)
OS X.4.4 w/new widgets

Kevin

We shall see...said the blind man..

In unrelated notes, here's his Steve-ness touching what appears is his car. AMG SL55 V8? Perhaps...

Talking about MacWorld..

Awesome lol.

Tomorrow is the day.

Tomorrow the Macworld Expo kicks off @ San Fran. "Not a big deal", you say, well you are wrong. To start it all off, Mr. Jobs will have a keynote setup for us to look foward to. Intel Powerbooks? iBooks? Mac Mini DVR? iLife 06? new iPods? a closer look into Leopard? 10.4.4 with Intel support? The possibilities are endless.

By the look of things, come tomorrow mid-afternoon, I'll be glued to Macrumors.com for some keynote info 101. Shortly after that, to Apple.com to see the newly introuduced iProducts, then off to some Mac forums. Quite busy Mac-geeked tuesday for sure. Then again, it's only once a year this happens, all mac geeks look foward to this event, I can be no less.

My take on what Steve has up his black turtleneck sleeve? Intel iBooks/Powerbooks, iLife 06, 10.4.4 with Intel support, and maybe some other things..

Wait and see... 1 day, 2 hours, 31 minutes until the Macworld Keynote.

Google Pack

Yesterday at CES, Google introduce their new free service. This time around its a suite of essential software aimed at Windows users. According to Google, Google Pack is:

- Essential: Enjoy safe, useful software for your computer
- Simple: Download and install everything in just a few clicks
- Customizable: Choose only the software you want
- Up to date: Get updates and new software via Google Updater

So what does this free pack offer? Well heres the list..

• Google Earth - 3D Earth browser. We all know what this is by now. A great app that lets you travel the world from your own computer. Geography class can be fun, you see?


• Picasa - Photo organizer. A Windows "iPhoto" of sorts. I have never try it personally, but I have heard great things about this app. One of the good things about this app, is the tight intergration with other web services, like Blogger for example


• Google Desktop - Desktop companion. A cheap "Spotlight" you could call it. Like Spotlight in Tiger, Google Desktop indexes your hard drive and makes it easier for you to find files, emails and more.


• Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer - Search toolbar. A toolbar for Internet Explorer (who still uses this crap?) that includes easy access to Google Search, and includes pop-up blocking.


• Google Pack Screensaver - Photo screensaver. Pretty self-explanatory right? Nothing to loose sleep about.

Along with the in-house software, they also bundle some great 3rd party applications, like:

• Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar - The defacto standard for Windows browsers. Although, they couldve done it sans the Toolbar thing..


• Ad-Aware SE Personal - Spyware removal tool. Helpful to have if you run Windows, and you tend to visit iffy sites. I recommend Spybot Search & Destroy.


• Adobe Reader 7 - A must have nowadays for documents on the web.


• Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition - Free Antivirus is always good. Norton Antivirus, not so good. You see, this antivirus tends to be a resource hungry alternative. Not the best choice, I wonder why Google chose them in the first place.
  

So there you have it, a quick rundown of Google's Pack. A great all-in-one solution if you tend to use plenty of Google's Applications, and you just installed Windows, or got yourself a new PC.

By the most part, is a pretty good suite of software. Some hits, some misses mainly Norton, and the inclusion of their toolbar with Firefox. Interested in obtaining a copy?

Go here: http://pack.google.com/

An iChat Momment.

Another crazy momment, brough to you by iChat. There isn't an error here nothing to see here move along..

Gotta love iChat.

Yesterday was my Birthday.

January 4th marked my 23rd birthday, a mixed bag of nostalgic times and good times came aflot. Regardless, plenty of people wish me well, hopefully everything goes well this year around. Typing this one hour after January 4th, still feels like I can say "hey its my birthday"..to who? Who knows..

23 years olds, funny how time just f'ing flies off. Sometimes I wish I could roll up the windows and keep some of it from escaping off.

Telefonica Speedy: Worst ISP Ever.

I already wrote about my experiences with the service of broadband provide by Telefonica here in Argentina a couple of months back. I am writing about it again today, becaus as it is right now this is the worse service I have ever experience with an ISP.

Let's put aside the exorbitant price per speed ratio (50 dollars for 256kbps) lets talk about the service they provide.

To start off, "non-convetional" ports are crippled in speed. You think they will tell you in their website what these ports are, not so. We are just here left to wonder and discover by ourselves what these ports are. From what I have experience, some ports include bittorrent, ftp, irc, VoIP, secure ftp, and more.

Although it is an issue, in part one can say that the average Joe, doesn't really care about FTPing patches, bittorrenting linux distros etc. The problem is that even web surfing is crippled!

Yes, since early December, I have been unable to load Wikipedia.org and About.com, among other sites, but these are two of the "Big Ones" out there worth noting.

I have called, they told me that my IP range is the one thats having issues, and the techs are working on it. Month later, we are in the same place, but today it got even worse

You see today they have actually gone out of their way to cripple a whole slew of ports. Including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Steam, HTTPS, POP3, and SMTP. Wow, what the hell is going on here..



As a side-effect, my download speed has gone up from ~24..to 40-50ish kbps. Could it be a sort of like "Hey look we are screwing you over, here have some extra bandwidth in the meantime. We are sorry for the inconvenience"

Thanks but no thanks. I rather have a fully working reliable service than this crippled thing. Worse of all they are going to charge even more starting in March.

What to do, what to do. In short Telefonica's Speedy suck. Should I quit, I'm back to 56k. Which is worse? -Is the question I'm asking myself right now.

Happy 2006: A look back into..

...many things that occurred during the small holiday brake. However, first thing first HAPPY 2006!!. That's right, lets us hope we all get a nice easy riding 2006 that will help us achieve what we have in mind. In other words: 2006 don't be a bitch please ;). So here's a small sneak peak of stories I shall develop further this premier week of the year..

Goldeneye: Source

The alpha was released on Christmas day and I have been playing it ever since. I must say this mod, shows great promise. Truly great stuff, even for an alpha. Although, as with every early in development project, they aresome bugs and annoyances..

Windows XP X64 Ed. on my Shuttle SN85G4v2

After several failed attemps of finding a way to install Win x64 sans floppy drive, I gave in... I bought a freaking floppy, and installed it. Is 64 really much better than 32? What so good about the 64? Well all those questions shall be answer soon. In the meantime, I'll say this.."64 is a bit hyped up"

Other random stuff

That's right there's more, less geeky stuff for all of you to enjoy, just stick around...

'Til then..very prosperous 2006 and please do come back.