If you’re bored, You’ve come to the right place.

I think I’ve said and iterated the word “update” too many times until I’m pretty sick of it; honestly to the point of self harassment. Haha. So well, if you’re overseas totally bored with nothing to do / read, yeah, I will make it my best to entertain and/or educate (hears the clicking of mice to close the window). This is a (I wouldn’t say short stories but rather a) compilation of events that have happened lately. I will post all the pictures separately at a later time. Please, grab a cup of your favorite drink and enjoy.

Discovery.

Well, in case any of you do not know. I have yet to complete my degree in Software Engineering. Not a paper re-sit or any of that sort neither did I skip enough classes to get barred from exams; I flunked my FYP (if you don’t know what it is, go google it - Haha). Yeah, and probably I am required to do it again. 

Discouraged, would be the most proper word I would describe it. I never fail. Ever (pronounced “ev-urrrrr” - note the emphasis on the urrrrrrr). And well this was completely outta my hands. Well, i kinda saw it coming, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t escape the demise of a “first time failure”. Yeah, call it providence or however you wish to term it, it was a God moment.

Well I was arrogant and naive to a certain extent during those times, but I was pulled out of what I would phrase to be “the motions of life” so literally, and put into a circumstance thats kinda like topsy turvy me. Neither did I know what to do, where to go, how to go about it and… you know all those insecure questions like… “what now” and “oh no… how?…” 

It was then when i discovered the true meaning of “Being a Christian”. (continued later..)

 

Camp

Yeah. Those of you who have facebook should be having many updates on pictures from camp. “Great”, “Awesome” neither “Best Camp yet” can describe it. Yeah it was that powderful. It was less of insane fun and more to group fun, which i appreciated entirely (probably because im gettin old… yes, i admit.. haha). But yeah, the team building games (for my games group anyway) really got us knowing on another and we kinda gelled through the games! Great experience. 

Well, I’m not gonna be typing out the sessions here, cause I’d just water them down. Plus, I know you won’t want me to. Haha. They’re all recorded if I’m not mistaken, and will probably be available for purchase. If you are able to get your hands on a copy of the cds/cassettes, I highly encourage you to do so. =)

 

Project: MacPC

Those of you who have known me for the past couple of years, know that I am a mac user. And i Lovvvvve it. the entire experience of an OS “without a single virus” is thrilling. Which made me want to buy a more beefed up mac computer; Price: 7000. So surfing around i came across the osx86 project (google it if you want), a forum where a whole bunch of geeks come together and talk about installing OSX on a normal PC computer and boy did it get my hopes UP!

Initial thoughts: Well, I did think that the idea sounded good; rather too good to be true. Mac on a PC, come on! You gotta be kidding me! But yeah, I did think that way. And honestly as a techie, along the lines of impossibility. 

However as i scoured through the website, just soaking everything i read all up, the impossible became possible after all. 7 grand is a hefty sum; of course when you think about the salary we get over here, check that in with the inflation and exchange rate, it was A LOT! 

Hypothesis: After much, much thought and evaluation, my hypothesis was to go with my hunch. Which was BERNARD, JUST BUILD IT. Fine, I thought, I guess i will. Which was when I began to take into account all parts needed and whatever was required to build it. Compatibility, Software, Drivers and all that knack was thought about and analyzed, more to alot of times.

Development: The initial idea was just to get it working, which I knew would work. Assembly of the Computer was easy enough. The following were the parts I used:

Gigabyte EP43-DS3

Intel Core 2 Duo e8500 @ 3.16ghz

4GB DDR2 667 (Will be upgraded soonish)

Winfast Geforce 9800GTX 512MB

2x 320GB SATA HDD’s

Pioneer SATA DVD/RW

Note: I’m unsure of other configurations, I “sata-ed” all my drives as a just in case.

Initially when I didn’t get the thing running, my heart nearly stopped! I was like… “OH NO!!” Pulls at hair. Yeah, I nearly died. After a reconfiguring and trying out different combinations within the BIOS, i managed to boot from the DVD, from there everything kinda fell into place.

I’ll write a more comprehensive guide to how to get it working. But yeah I have a Mac Pro at home right now. Below are the things which have been tested with. 

Timemachine: Not yet Pixelmator: Tested, Stable Adobe CS3: Tested, Stable Transmission: Tested, Stable Warcraft 3, Homeworld 2: Tested, Stable Textmate: Tested, Stable. Stability test: Ran transmission for 5 days and 4 hours. Returned home and found out that the os was completely stable for use. 

Conclusion: Experiment was a success. =)

 

Well thats all for now.  Do drop a comment

-bernard