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Everyday Mac Netbook

Published on March 16, 2009 in Tech and mac. 17 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

DeskThis is my workstation at home now. It’s my Lenovo S10 running Mac OSX 10.5.6 hooked up to my 20″ Dell display and wired keyboard and mouse. Also includes the iPhone dock and a 250gig WD drive hidden away for storage and Time Machine. It’s definitely not the fastest system in the universe but it’s been responsive enough overall. With 2gigs of RAM I can run downloaded TV shows on the S10 screen and switch on the main screen between Safari, Adium, and Lightroom. I’ve easily gotten used to the workflow speed on this setup. Here I just have it running Windows XP in a VirtualBox VM because it’s kinda meta.

I’m really shocked that I’m able to use a 350 dollar system (plus 20 dollar RAM upgrade) as my only personal system.  So far the only thing it really can’t cope with is “HD” flash video streams.  Even non-HD flash video gives it a serious run for it’s money.  If flash would stop sucking so much it would be far less of an issue.  Another good test has been playback of Apple’s Quicktime movie trailers.  480p is handled with ease.  However 720p is too much to handle.  It’s close, but it’s dropping a few frames making it choppy.  Still, none to shabby.

Extra bonus, when the next gen of these little buggers comes around in a year or so I won’t feel to bad about making the upgrade, as long as I can still run OSX.  If not I may have to bite the Apple bullet.  I’m getting kinda hooked on OSX all over again.

Sit up straight boy!

Published on June 2, 2008 in health. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Posture from bluelephantI don’t know how many times I heard this on TV or from my Mom or some teacher in grade school.  I really wish that I had listened to these people.  My posture is atrocious.  I feel like I am slumped over all the damn time.  I don’t know if I look like a fool or not, I don’t care, I feel miserable about it.  Apparently I am not alone.  There are a vast number of resources on the internet about posture.

I found some nice short posts from DumbLittleMan, WikiHow, and AskMen.  These, along with others, center around a few key points.  The three key areas of posture are sitting, standing, and sleeping.  When standing up you should be able to draw a straight line through your ears, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles when viewed from the side.  When sitting you should keep your hips moved as far back in the chair as posible, feet flat on ground, shoulders back and down, head back and chin in.  Most seem to believe the sleeping on ones side is the ideal position.  Using a pillow between the knees to help keep back aligned.  I’d definitely recommend reading some of the above resources for more details.

There is also some mentions of stretches and exercises as well.  @jessmartin suggests squats and deadlifts to strengthen the back.

All of this is great advice and good knowledge to have.  I can only hope that I can get some of this jammed into my brain enough to actually get it to stick.

Diagram courtesy of bluelephant