It’s unbelievable that after all this time they should resurface, as I’d given them up as lost forever (although I still have the crashed drive that I hope to somehow be able to restore when I can afford it), and it was all thanks to my little bro’s curiosity and looking through a bunch of CDs I unknowingly left at my dad’s house.

So I’ll be posting up additional icon packs from the Novacons series, and some others. Unfortunately, the photoGraphic Folder icons artwork was not recovered in this batch, but you never know, it might just turn up again.

Stay tuned for the icon packs.

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As a result,  I’m scheduled to be online as of the 23^rd of this month. 
I also decided to change providers.  Internode was ok, but iiNet offered a better deal right now.  I’m going to be getting Naked ADSL2 + VoIP so I won’t be paying line rental charges, and all for the same price I was paying with ‘Node.  They also offer a higher off-peak download cap, which is always a good thing.

So until then I’m borrowing my dad’s net when I get the chance and at work during the week.

So that’s it for now.  I’ll try post up some pics of my new home when I get a chance this week, but until then, y’all take care now, y’hear?

Also, feel free to leave your mark on my site and sign my Guestbook. 

Peace out. 

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I’ve put my belongings (including my computers ) into storage while I await the hand-over of keys on the 4^th of March, then the arduous process of actually moving my stuff in and setting up the place.  Of course my PC will be the first thing I set up but I don’t know that I’ll have any net access straight away, at least until the relocating process goes through.
In the meantime I’m sojourning at my dad’s place:  enjoying the cuisine, spending time with my little brothers, and whiling away the few spare hours I get watching Cartoon Network. It’s not too bad at all, but it would probably be a lot more enjoyable if I didn’t have to work.

So, until I move in and get set up properly there may not be any major postings here, though I may still keep up with my twittering as I’m able.
Once I’m in and settled I’ll also post up some pics —maybe even do some before and after shots.  We’ll see.

Until then, take care, keep up with my tweets, and check out the following useful (and fun) web finds after the jump.

MaxTo

MaxTo is a small Windows program that divides your monitors into regions. When you maximize a window, it will no longer fit the entire screen, but only the region it was maximized into. Your windows are neatly organized into the grid you have defined when they are maximized. MaxTo has been described as a tiling window manager.

MaxTo is light-weight, and works on both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. The .NET framework version 2.0 or higher is required (preinstalled on Windows Vista).

WizMouse

WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel.

Obamicon.me

The longest election season in memory is now over, and we wanted to help you unwind and express yourself as we head into the new era.

Make your own “Obamicon” — your image in a style inspired by Shepard Fairey’s iconic poster. Regardless of your candidate of choice in the 2008 election, here’s your chance to sound-off.

Take your picture with a webcam or upload a photo, choose your own message, and submit to the gallery.

AutoPager

The AutoPager Firefox extension automatically loads the next page of a site inline when you reach the end of the current page for infinite scrolling of content. AutoPager works with a ton of sites, including Lifehacker, of course, Google …….

Unlike other auto paging scripts, this add-on works well with most other add-ons like adblock plus, WOT and most of the greasemonkey scripts.

Peace.

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It’s simply a good round-up of the happenings and events around here since I last posted.

My Civic Duties

First and foremost, I guess the most exciting news is that I bought a car. Yup, I finally got all my hard-earned pennies and cents together and dove into the world of automobile ownership.

Midway through November I had asked Gerry (my bro-in-law) to keep an eye out for me for a good deal on a decent car, since he works at a dealership and knows a great deal about cars. After a couple of decent but overpriced offerings from a couple of his sources, he came through and found a great ‘95 Honda Civic VTi for me at a reasonable price.

It’s a burgundy coloured, gray-trimmed, 1.6, 4 cylinder automatic 4 door sedan fully equipped with power windows/mirrors/steering, driver’s-side airbag, but alas, no CD player. But I’ll end up getting one soon enough.

So I’m finding out about all the joys and wonders of owning a car… like having to fork out precious cash to renew the registration this week, buy accessories, keep up regular maintenance and fuel costs. But I guess that’s all part of the fun.

Pics below.

[singlepic id="152" w="230" h="153" mode="" float="" ]

Overtly PC

The other big news item is my latest new PC. In my search for the latest and greatest performance package at a reasonable price, I’ve gone and gotten the rest of my monies and built a custom PC. Of course, if you’d been keeping up with my previous posts and other pages on my site you’d know that I’d had mentioned most of the parts for it on my wishlist

It’s a Core2Quad Q6600 CPU on a Gigabyte EP45-DS3L motherboard, sporting a Corsair QUAD2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB RAM kit (soon to be 8GB), a Sapphire HD4870X2 2GB video card, Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro sound card, a XigmaTek Red Scorpion S1283 HDT CPU fan, DVD writer, card reader, all running inside an Antec P182 case and powered by the fantastic Zalman ZM850 HP power supply. I currently have it running Windows Vista Ultimate, but will be setting up a separate partition to try out Windows 7 Beta, hopefully after I grab the install CDs from work sometime this week.

As you can see, it’s no lightweight system I’ve built myself, but I built it to last me a few years, and to perform well at that. So far it has been a pleasure to use. Here’s a pic of the final product:

Take a look at the gallery for more pics.

Putting it together was as fun as I can remember with my old systems, which is to say I enjoyed the challenge but could have done without the frustration. Getting everything to fit in the case was a bit of a challenge considering the power supply took more room than the case was really designed for but I managed to get it worked out thanks to a work buddy who came over and helped me hack it one night (thanks Stuart ).

The best part of it all is that even after buying a car and a building a whole new PC, I still seem to have cash left over. There’s something to this whole saving business.

Christmas Fare

Well, Christmas came and went without a hitch really. Had my sister, brother-in-law, my nephew and niece down from Mt. Isa and my younger brother Juan up from Melbourne and we had a several good family gatherings at which much good food and beverages were consumed, not the least of which were alcoholic. :-“

The Christmas Day bounty was great, but certainly not as much as what the kiddies hauled home. As I’ve mentioned before, our family does the Secret Santa thing, where each person only needs to acquire gifts for a random family member drawn out of a hat (not including kiddies, of course) and spend big on them.
I was special enough to receive the Mario Kart for Wii pack which comes with a really nice looking Wii steering wheel, a funky alarm clock that doubles up as a mirror of sorts, a book, and a Wii-‘mote-shaped lollies dispenser.

It was a good haul. I’m currently devouring the book and hardly able to put it down. The lollies I enjoy only now and then, as I’m not such a huge fan as I was in my childhood. I much prefer and enjoy giving them out to my nephews and nieces.
The alarm clock wakes me every morning with functions, sound and tune I’m still trying to get used to. It’s weird after having spent over half my life with the same old alarm clock (which I also can’t bear to part with just yet ).
The game has been the most fun really. We all enjoyed racing and competing against each other throughout the holidays.
That’s why you gotta love a Wii; it’s group gaming abilities can’t be matched by any of the other consoles.

That’s pretty much about it for now. I’m sure a lot more things happened but they’re the major highlights of the last couple of months.

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I’m somewhat against the whole idea of having to put together a list like this for a couple of reasons; the first being that I don’t believe I’m that difficult to shop for, and secondly, I believe I’m worth having someone spend the 10 minutes it would take to actually think about what I might like.  I’m not that complicated and definitely not that hard to get to know, given a little time.

Yeah, I suppose that could be taken as a little cutting, but if you actually stop to think about what the whole Christmas gift-giving concept is about, you might begin to see my point.

Also, before I delve into a list proper, you should know that I have no prejudice or aversion to you finding ways to save money when shopping for my gift.  Times are hard and finances are strained to the max for many people, so if you’re into buying on eBay, DealsDirect, or any discount store to save a buck, by all means feel free to do so.  Don’t feel as though you *have* to spend big on my account.  And hey, if you think you can make, build, or engineer a gift with your own two hands and save spending money altogether, go right ahead.  Whichever way you choose to come by a gift, I will nevertheless be thankful and appreciative.

So, here you go, lucky SS.  Pick and choose as you will. 

Some you may know that I’m beginning to acquire parts and pieces to put together to build a killer PC I can use at home.  It’s been a while since I’ve had a “real” PC I can use without it overheating after a half-hour’s use, or blue screen to death, so I thought it about time.  With that in mind I give you the list of some of the components I will need to build it.

• CPU: Intel QuadCore Quad Q6600
• Motherboard: eVGA 132-YW-E178-A1
• Memory: Corsair Micro QUAD2x4096-8500C5DF 4GB Kit
• Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD4870X2
  
• Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro
  
• Hard Disk: 2 x Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint 500GB
  
• Case: Antec P182 Performance One
• Power Supply: Zalman ZM850W
  
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
• Additional: USB Hub (with as many ports as possible… )

Other things I might enjoy or find useful would be the following:

• Gift voucher
  This could cover anything from clothing to DVDs.  Less personal and thoughtful but more versatile, I suppose.
• Bike riding gear -or vouchers.
  Jerseys (tops), nicks (shorts), jackets, etc.  For when I’m riding to work.
• PC or Wii Games
  • Mario Kart Wii
  • Command & Conquer:  Red Alert 3 (PC)
  • Mario Strikers Charged Football (Wii)
  • Call of Duty Modern Warfare or World at War (PC)
  • Dead Space (PC)
  • Mirror’s Edge (PC)
  • World of Goo (Wii)
  • de Blob (Wii)
  • Rock Band (Wii)
  • etc, etc…
• Nice summertime, light jackets, tops, etc
• A nice watch.
• Air purifier/ionizer… (sick of dust and crap… )
• Car stuff :-“

That’s about all I can think of right now.
Please remember that you’re by no means restricted to acquire any of the items on this list.  If you can think of something I might like that I haven’t put on there, get it.

If after all this you still have difficulty finding something just remember, I’m a technology geek; I enjoy riding my mountain bike; I enjoy gaming; I love clothing and if all else fails, I drink beer (blonde… less carbs ).

Hope that helps.

If I think of other things, I’ll add them on here.

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It’s been a while since I last posted on here, hasn’t it?

Well, I got somewhat discouraged at WordPress and some other stuff and the headaches it was giving me affected my creativity but I think I’ve managed to get that all worked out now.  In addition, my sister’s family came to stay with us for a while so the house was a somewhat busy (and noisy!) there for a while.    My younger brother also graced us with his presence, so it was somewhat of a family get-together.

And on top of that, I’ve been working on some icons for the 2008 GUI Championships.

Shutter Reloaded Headaches

Basically, what was happening was that the way I was using the Shutter Reloaded plugin for WordPress to display image previews on one of my posts was causing some major drama and the post just wouldn’t save after a certain number of either characters or perhaps images were shown in the post.  So I had to troubleshoot for a while, but I think I finally resolved it with a little help (yup, you guessed it.. Steph saves the day again ). 

It seems that what I was doing was adding way too many characters or something and it made the post choke or some such so it wouldn’t even save.  Once I’d cleaned out the superfluous code however, things got a little better and I was able to continue with the post, which coincidentally, needs only a final proofread and I’ll be able to post it. 

The Gonzalez family visit

My sister Carol and her husband, their son and newest daughter flew from Mt. Isa in Queensland to grace us with their presence.  During their visit, they lodged in our humble abode and managed to displace me from my usually quiet study, in which I would normally be found up until midnight on most nights… except while they were here. 

Anyways, I got to meet my newest niece and see my youngest nephew also.  Lily (aka. Lily-Bean) was cute, (mostly) quiet and smiley little thing.  She has a habit of breaking out in a huge but cute toothless grin at the slightest provocation.

We pretty much all took advantage of their company while they were here, though “some” (no names given ) managed to monopolize their time more than others.

Lil’ bro also visits

Juan also stopped by for a visit.  He stayed at dad’s and was pretty much visible around town and at our various family functions. He’s a bit dorky but it’s always good to have him around.

Got you that time, didn’t I, Juan? 

Icons for the GUI Championships

Aside from all that, I’ve been working on an icon package which I will submit to compete in the 2008 GUI Championships.

The bi-annual event, “is an inter-website contest in which top graphic designers from around the world compete for $15,000 in cash and prizes.”

So I’ve been hard at work coming up with nice looking-concepts for each icon and getting them drawn and endlessly tweaking them in order to bring them to life so you can enjoy them on your desktops with a little help from IconPackager.

So here’s a small taste of what’s in store.  Bear in mind that these are only small previews of individual icons.

Site Update

After all the drama with the posts, I also finally managed to get the site updated to the latest version of WordPress.  The process was a bit involved and time-consuming but it all seems to have gone off without a hitch and as a bonus I have a complete backup of my site just in case something awful should happen. 

So that’s about all for now.  Keep an eye out for part 1 of the logo tutorial mentioned earlier coming out sometime tomorrow (finally!  I know, i know… )

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[thanks Pily ]

I had bought it last Saturday on DealsDirect.com.au and had arrived at the post by Monday.    How’s that for fast delivery?

I’d been hunting for a chair like this for months and whenever I went into local retail stores, all the chairs of this type started at the ridiculously ludicrous price of $600+, with one specimen waaaaaay less featured than this one going for $799 at Domayne!!!!  I was like, WTF! 
So when I saw this one on DealsDirect going for $220, I just had to snap it up.  Actually, I’d been waiting for them to restock this item for a couple of months, and had settled on this one until they got the other one on again.  Coincidentally, I sold the other chair to my sister since their chair has totally and utterly had it.

So anyways, I got home and got the (huge!) box from the car and proceeded to try to put it together before I had to go out again for dinner.

A few minutes into the assembly, I remembered I should’ve got some unboxing pics but since it was too late for that, I got a couple of pics of the assembly and then the finished product.  I’ve yet to get in-action shots.

Assembly was quite easy, but of course I had to flub it to begin with.    I got ahead of myself and didn’t bother to RTFM, coz like, who does that right?  Surely a geek doesn’t need to read no frakkin manual! 
Well, thankfully, I realized my mistake before I got too far into the assembly and managed to backtrack and correct my mistake fairly easily.

So here’s a couple of pics during assembly.

And some of the fully assembled beauty that is my new chair. 

It’s soooo comfortable and nice.  Its functions include a height-adjustable gas lift, height and angle-adjustable head and armrests, adjustable lumbar support, and apparently a “weight adjuster for different body types” which I’ve yet to work out.    Oh, and the best feature is it leans back and is ideal for watching movies and shows on my lappy. 

So let me know what you think. 

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