My Thoughts on the NOOK Color

Long time no see, eh? Who am I kidding, nobody reads this blog anyways.

Okay, back on track: When I was on vacation I won a NOOK Color in a raffle. Lucky me. Just to save time, from now on I will be referring to the NOOK Color as the NC.

Anyway, I have had the NC for a little more than a week now, and I am going to share my thoughts on it.

When I got it, I plugged it into the wall and powered up that $250 backlit, touchscreen e-reader. It takes a minute to boot, okay, and then I see a setup guide with, like, 5 steps. Easy enough? NOTHING is that easy. step 1, 2, and 3? Piece of cake. Step 4? Not so much. I was staying at a Hilton hotel. $10 a day for Wi-Fi is too much for me. And, oops, you need to connect to Wi-Fi to even get to do anything on the NC. 'Cause step 4 says so. Darn.

Once I got back home to my slow Wi-Fi connection, I got through 4 and 5 in a heartbeat. And I see the NC home screen for the first time. It's pretty cool. I made a B&N account and bought a couple of books and (overpriced) apps, and then I said, "They should of stuck with regular Android." So, I went to WalMart and bought myself an expensive 8gb microSD that came with some SD card adapter that I didn't want but some old man that worked in the Electronics department kept insisting I needed but I knew I didn't 'cause I already had one. But no, "ya need one cause I'm more wise about those doo-hickeys than you are."

After I got through that disaster I was ready to write Honeycomb to my mSD but, alas, I found out my mSD was too slow for Honeycomb. I needed a class 6 speed mSD. I had bought, ahem, a Class 4. Yes, you are allowed to cry on my shoulder.

But I somehow managed to get past my grief and looked at other versions of Android, and I ending up picking out CyanogenMOD 7, or CM7 for short. It is a mod of Android Gingerbread. I now have a NOOK Color with the processing power and graphical capabilities of a Driod 2/ Driod X. Along with Andriod Market and the B&N Nook app. With way freakin' more than 200 apps to choose from, Barns & Noble. Way. Freaking. More.

Google+ is amazing. Just plain amazing. Leave me your e-mail address so I can invite you to try it out!

My fears... in Minecraft, that is

Minecraft, Minecraft, Minecraft... you are so scary.

My fears in Minecraft:

1. Skeletons
2. Creepers
3. Zombies, Spiders, etc.

1: Skeletons) Ya know, the guys who fire the bow at ya? Yes, them. The appearance of them isn't the bad part. Its the sound they make when they fire their bow at you. I will now describe the sound to you:

WHOOOUUMMPP

2: Creepers) These mean, lean, veggie green dudes are scary for two reasons:

• First of all, they sneak up on you without notice and....
• ... EXPLODE! Yeah, I hate when that happens. One just blew up half of my house before blogging this.

3: Zombies, Spiders, etc.) Well, all of the other bad mobs don't really scare me.... but I haven't come across any spider jockeys yet, so maybe I am speaking too soon.

I haven't gone to the Nether, either, so I don't know if those ghost thingies or zombie pigs should be higher on my scary meter... Anyways, comment and tell me your order of scariness!

Minecraft Beta in Ubuntu for FREE!

  Ok, I will tell you how to get Minecraft Beta in Ubuntu for free. I am using Ubuntu 10.04, but any version above or around that should work. You must have at least some experience with Ubuntu to do this. I tried to make it as straight-forward as possible.

1) (a) Open terminal and type:  sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre
    (b) Hit "Enter" (if you haven't already).

2) Type in your password and hit "Enter", then wait for download and install to finish.

3) Close out of terminal and open the web browser of your choice.

4) Go to http://minecraftforfree.com/downloads/linux/; download the .jar file and drag it to your desktop. (do not extract it)

5) Right click on the .jar file and select "Properties".

6) Go to the "Permissions" tab and make sure "Allow executing file as program" is checked.

7) Go to the "Open With" tab and press the "Add" button.

8) Scroll down until you see the "OpenJDK Java 6 Runtime" option. Select it and press the "Add" button.

9) Make sure the bubble next to "OpenJDK Java 6 Runtime" is filled in.

10) Hit "Close", double-click on the "minecraft.jar" file, and have fun!

YouTube Blog Video

 I made a YouTube video to publicize this blog. Check it out below!

Summer and PS Vita

  So, I am now officially out of school, which means that I should be able to update this blog more. What will I blog about, you may ask? I don't know. That is the future; this is the present.

  But as of now, I will give my views on the PlayStation Vita. First of all, I think that is not the best name Sony could have chosen for this handheld, but it is catching on. I am glad to see that (in America) the base price for the PSV (I will refer to the PlayStation Vita as PSV from now on) and it's games are fairly reasonable. Of course, the price is low in the USA but higher in other countries. I believe this is a smart tactic for Sony to use, with the PSP not doing great in America and all.

  But, the one thing that I am afraid of is that the memory sticks for the PSV (see picture to right) will be expensive. The MS PRO Duo cards are pricey enough. I believe that Sony should have gone with SD cards as a memory expansion format because of their cheaper price. Putting these issues aside, I believe that I may buy one around launch time. The graphics and dual analog sticks impress me. The fact that the resolution is approximately twice that of the PSP, with the screen size only a bit larger and the ability to do anti-aliasing along with a great game launch line-up make it a deal for me.

#1 ...] brain explosion [

(Copied from my dA page)

I had no other name for this journal, so I picked one that may not be commonly used. Wait a second, quick rant: I hate how deviantART won't let me use TAB to indent a paragraph. I know, I am being a bit OCD about it. But seriously, come on deviantART! You freaking give us the ability to use journal skins, but you won't let us use TAB to indent? Ugh.

Okay, next thing in the brain explosion. It's another rant, sorry. My history teacher is the subject of this rant. She is maybe 102 years old, African American (but that doesn't matter), and freaking delusional. We were doing US History 1865 to Present this year. But obviously she doesn't know how to space out how much time we spend on different wars and stuff. Because here is the news flash for ya: about 30 days of studying WWI. Okay, you say, decent amount of time. But then, how long did we study WWII? Can you hear my frustration when I say 3 days? No? What about when I say we studied the Cold War (which, for those of you who don't know, has a very misleading name, as it is not even a war) for 1 freaking day! So, when I come to school the next day, what is on the daily agenda? A US History 1865 to present SOL! I didn't know a third of it, at least!

Now before I tell you my SOL scores of this year, I want to note that I am fairly smart. No genius, but definitely smart.


SOL Scores:

Math: 600
Reading: 600
History: 512