One Epic Tennis Match

(If you don’t like tennis or don’t care about my personal life, save yourself a couple minutes and stop reading this entry…)

Freshman year I decided to try my hand at Intramural tennis.  This year, I decided to try again.  After losing 6-1 6-2 in my freshman outing, my goal for this year was to win a set.  Mission complete.

I met with my opponent at the State College High School tennis courts (nice courts!) at 8:30.  We warmed up for a little bit, each took a few practice serves, and the match began.

The first set started off with back-to-back breaks, followed by lots of holds.  Long story short – my hopes were high because I was looking and feeling good.  I made it to 6-6 and had a tie break which I rocked — first set to Danny: 7-6 (7-4)

The second set was much shakier – my General Tso’s chicken nuggets and entire lack of carbs were bad dinner decisions.  Anyhow, he got up 5-2 and ended up winning the set 6-4.

The third and final set was a roller-coaster.  Similar to the second set, I was still blowing it — got down 5-2.  With 3 match points on his racquet, there were two double faults and a second serve I destroyed.  Cue Danny’s Major Comeback (heck yes it’s capitalized!).  3 deuces preceded my win, but then I was able to hold and break yet again to make it 5-5.  At this point I made sure we had out 3rd set rules straightened out (no tiebreak – play until a 2 game lead).  I won the next game to make it 6-5.

That’s when disaster struck.  With my strings somewhat out of place (3 were really bunched together), I did my typical gently-kick-the-racquet-to-fix-the-strings to get it back to normal.  And I felt it immediately in the handle — one of the strings broke.  In all my life, with all the tennis I’ve played (4-5 times a week the majority of weeks this summer!), I have never broken a string.  Of course when I’m up 6-5 in the final set my string is going to break!

Luckily, I was somewhat prepared and had my one and a half year old WalMart Wilson racquet in my bag.  I pull it out (the first time in 2 months), and notice the difference immediately.  He easily hold serve to make it 6-6 and then breaks to take the 7-6 lead.  At this point in time, his beastly first serve has become only slight faster than his second (I’m standing on the baseline instead of 4 feet back), and I was able to break back and hold to make it 8-7.  Since his friend had been waiting about 2 hours for him at this point in time, he asked if I’d be all right with a tie break if he made it 8-8.  Sure thing – I’m pooped at this point anyways, and maybe that would be the motivation I’d need to win it outright.

I can’t break again, so it’s 8-8 and I absolutely blow it in the tie-break.  Bummer.

I really had a blast though!  It was by far one of the best matches I’ve played, and I really held my own!  Bryan (my opponent) told me that I should get involved with the tennis club, and I realized that that is a phenomenal idea!  So I joined the listserv and sent an email to the contact address, and hopefully I’ll hear back that it’s not too late for me to join!

Temporarily Abandoning Chrome

Google Chrome is great!  I blogged about it on day 1, and I’m still standing by it – it really is a great web browser!  However, the inability to scroll up with my touchpad (and the insane speed at which any scrolling takes place!) coupled with the lack of add-ons is causing me to shift back to Firefox 3 (at least temporarily).

Lucky for me, there’s a LifeHacker article about how to do everything that Google Chrome does (except increasing speed and multi-threading…) through Firefox extensions!   (I totally already had the Download StatusBar — one of my favorite extensions.)

And the one thing that I noticed about my Chrome usage — I was really growing to love the omnibar!  The whole “g”-tab-”search term” to search Google (and “w” for Wikipedia, etc) was really nice. But LifeHacker saved me there too!  Firefox has that (in a way) built in as well!  Right click on a search box on whatever page you want (say Google), go to “Add a Keyword for this Search…”, name it something useful, add the keyword (say “g” for Google), and voila!  Now typing “g Danny Iachini” in the AwesomeBar of Firefox3 will Google me!

Human Tetris?!

I’ve always been a big fan of Tetris.  And I can totally appreciate nerdy art.  Those two things combined make this video awesome: The Original Human TETRIS Performance by Guillaume Reymond.

Did you notice any mistakes?  No, not that the “player” was really bad at Tetris.. go watch 1:09-1:11 again.  That isn’t what would have happened to that one remaining white pixel…  Other than me being a perfectionist, it really was a great video!  And I love how the credits call all the people “pixels” – that would be so cool to put “Tetris Pixel” on my résumé!

The Reformat

The other day, I found an article on Digg about applications which supposedly make reformatting Windows easier.  It sounded cool enough, but wasn’t too big of a concern for me since my laptop was running fine.  

Sure enough though, my computer got infected really badly with some “XP Antivirus 2008″ trojan spyware(?!) last night (long story short – it took over my computer – frequent popups, irremovable tray icon, replaced the desktop and didn’t give me access to Desktop or Screensaver in Display Properties, and who knows what else…).  So the majority of my day was taken up with backing up my computer, reinstalling XP, and then getting everything back to (something close to) how I like it.  

Luckily, I was able to save a lot of research and frustration, because I was able to use the DriverMax program that the Digg article pointed me to!  I was able to pick which drivers I wanted to backup on the infected copy of XP, and then when the new copy was ready to go, I just let it go, putting back all the drivers I was using!  So major thanks to Digg and DriverMax!

Now my computer is super-fast and really clean!  Hopefully this time I learned my lesson and will backup useful files on a (somewhat) regular basis.  Any suggestions for a good deal on an external hard drive?

(Also – major thanks to Parker who was able to help me out through the pain which is reformatting!)

Google Chrome

The major buzz on the interwebs today is Google’s brand-spanking new web browser – Google Chrome.  Being the technology-lover that I am, I jumped on-board and installed it within the first 15 minutes of it being available. And since I haven’t had anything better to do, I’ve just been browsing the web all day, giving myself a good taste of just how it is.

The first major thing I noticed about the browser was how light-weight and quick it is.  From what I’ve been reading, instead of the browser running as one really bulky process, Chrome instead is a bunch of separate processes which are grouped together into a window via tabs.  One big benefit of this method is that if one tab breaks, only that one process must be terminated, instead of terminating the entire browser.  But the first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the separate processes was that it certainly had to use more CPU and/or memory resources.

<super-nerdy and totally skippable material>So I put together a test just now – I took the 10 tabs that I have open here in Google Chrome, and I opened each of them in Firefox 3.  According to my Windows Task Manager, Firefox.exe is using somewhere between 43 and 52% of my CPU (fluctuating very frequently) and 166,116 KB of Memory.  The sum of the 10 chrome.exe instances are using no more than 25% of the CPU (also fluctuating rather frequently… this video seems to be the reason, but I may have no idea what I’m talking about).  As for memory (where I foresaw the biggest problem), Firefox is using 171,384 KB as opposed to Chrome’s 10 processes totalling 189,880 KB.  If I did my math right (which I might not have, since the performance calculations in my Computer Architecture class always seemed flawed), that means that Chrome is using just over 10% more memory than Firefox.  Considering how much RAM I (and every other relatively new computer owner) have, I don’t think 1/100 of a Gigabyte of memory is really doing too much damage. </super-nerdy and totally skippable material>

Some things that I’m really liking about Chrome:

• It’s own Awesome Bar similar to Firefox 3 — You start typing and it lists 1) bookmarks which contain what you’ve typed in the address and/or title; 2) common searches in common search engines similar to what you’ve typed; 3) “recent pages in history containing” those words anywhere — take a look at those results to see a really cool feature – very well-organized history, snipets of the page surrounding your words, and a screenshot of the page.  SUCH a cool feature!  One other great aspect of this Omnibar (I know I read it was called that somewhere today…) is that you can start spelling a search engine (Google, IMDB, WikiPedia, M-W.com, etc.), and it will prompt you to “Press Tab to search [whichever search engine starts with that letter]“.  So I can type “i->Tab->Princess Bride” and voila, I’ve got the search results from IMDB.com!
• Everything is really smooth-looking.  Open a new tab and it slides open.  Close it and it slides away (like all the Mac and Vista eye candy — Steve Jobs probably can’t WAIT until it’s released for Macs).  But the smoothest thing is the ability to move tabs to their own windows.  Grab one of the tabs in the window and drop it anywhere other than the tab bar, and voila – a brand new window.  You can also drag tabs back into windows, re-order them, and (just like Firefox) drag a link to the tab bar in order to open that link at that location in the tab bar.  VERY cool stuff here.
• Every textarea is resize-able.  At the bottom-right corner of each, there are 6 dots arranged in a triangle that show that it can be resized.  Simply click and drag those dots to make the textarea larger or smaller.  (Note – these are the mutli-line input boxes – single-line boxes cannot be stretched out at this time.)
• The default homepage is really useful.  Open a new tab, and the page that opens contains the 9 pages you visit most (with screenshots, icons, and links), your bookmark toolbar displayed (which can be displayed any time by pressing Ctrl+B and hidden the same way), whichever searches you have accessed, and recent bookmarks.

These are just a few of the really awesome things that I have found so far in Google Chrome (and I’m sure there are many more to be released soon — this is just the very first beta release!).  There are, however, a few complaints that I’ve developed so far.

• The very first thing I noticed was that my touchpad scroll area doesn’t work as expected.  The biggest problem is that it only scrolls down, not doing anything when I attempt to scroll up.  That is a really huge problem in my books, because I very frequently scroll back up.  Also, it scrolls at least twice as far as it does in any other application I use.  
• One thing that isn’t necessarily a problem, but would be really handy – I would LOVE to be able to customize the default homepage.  I like the speed dial aspect, but I really don’t think the Google Chrome help page deserves to be on there.  I’d like to be able to pick and choose which I want to get instant access to.  (And I’d also like to add whichever other search tools I want.)
• I haven’t been able to find any sort of way to organize my bookmarks.  Firefox 3 has a fantastic tool allowing you to put things into a folder hierarchy as well as tagging each bookmark with whatever tags you desire.  You can force bookmarks into nested folders, but there isn’t an easy way to move them around and I haven’t seen any such thing as a tag (for being a very Web-2.0-centric browser, this really surprises me…).
• I haven’t found any add-ons.  In Firefox 3, you’ve got Extensions, Themes, and Plug-ins, and there is all sorts of user (and corporate) -created content for each.  Customizing a browser is something that I’ve come to require, so if I cannot get things like my RememberTheMilk for Gmail (blog entry coming soon!) extension, Foxmarks bookmark synchronization, and ways to customize the CSS on pages (either Stylish or GreaseMonkey), I will not be able to make Chrome my primary browser.

So far, I’m thoroughly enjoying a lot of aspects of Google Chrome, but without some obvious changes that are needed, it’s not quite as awesome a web browser as Firefox 3.  I’ll continue to play around with it and keep you posted.  If you take the time to try it out, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

The Joys of Gmail

Although I didn’t get started using Gmail until April 2006 (still in the days of invitation-only, but not very early either), I can’t imagine life without it.  There are several aspects of Gmail which I use on a daily basis to better organize my life and save myself time and energy.

The first thing to know about Gmail is that you no longer use folders for organization.  Rather than placing an email in only one folder and having to remember which folder you put it in, you now apply labels to your messages and you can view all of them in the “All Mail” section.  And the coolest new feature about these labels — you can color-code them to make an easy visual guide to your organization.

Another amazing aspect of Gmail is the awesome filtering system.  If you apply a “Newsletter” label to every email from Amazon, then you can set up a filter to automatically apply that label for you.  If any email you get with the word “Urgent” in the title should get your attention even more, then you can set up a filter to automatically star it for you.  You can even mark any email from your mom with “Fwd” in the subject as already read (just kidding mom!).  (To set up a filter, click the “Create a filter” link next to the search buttons and it should be pretty self-explanatory — just ask if you need any more tips and tricks!)

Because of these (and many other awesome) Gmail features, you may want to use Gmail for all of your email needs.  In order to get all your mail in Gmail, just go to the Settings -> Accounts tab to set up the accounts to send as and POP3 access (though it’s even better if you can get set up your other accounts to be forwarded instead of using POP3).

If there are any other aspects of Gmail that you’d like me to talk more about or if you need any generic help, just let me know in the comments!

Poor College Student Rock Band

Rock Band is the most addicting video game I have played in the past couple years (it’s no Contra or Slingo (not even going to link it to avoid any temptation), but come on, what is?).  The family Christmas present this year was a PS3, mainly just for Rock Band.

Every time I’m home, rocking out is one of my top priorities.  And although I have a couple friends with the game up here at school, it’s not the same as having access 24/7.

But that’s really not a big deal, because I can rock out (with less sound, nonetheless!) any time I want.  I’d like to present – Poor College Student Rock Band!

Materials: a computer (with internet), two pencils (or if you’re willing to splurge, two drum sticks), and a pillow (maybe tape if you’re feeling very ambitious).

Instructions: Go to either Jarr3tt88’s or azuritereaction’s YouTube channel.  Load one of their many (400+ combined) Rock Band drum videos.  (Optional – put tape on your pillow to make 4 distinct sections).  Play Poor College Student Rock Band!

DannyIachini.com was stolen!

Once my hosting plan ended in June, I decided that it was time for me to move on.  There wasn’t anything especially bad about my previous host, but there really wasn’t anything good – so I figured I’d give a different company a shot.  Since I had my domain name registered with them, I decided that I’d just let it expire and buy it back whenever it became available.

I constantly was checking GoDaddy.com to see if I could get it back yet.  From June until last Thursday, it was under 4 different “phases” which prohibited me from buying it.  Then when I checked tonight, the WhoIs data changed – someone else bought my domain.  enomsky.com is now referenced in the WhoIs, and a little research showed that they’re related to enom.com.  By checking for my domain there, I found out that I can pay them $200 to buy it back.

$200 for MY NAME.  That’s absolutely preposterous.  I’m not going to pay that ransom.  Instead, I’ll be coming out with a completely new domain at some point – but for now, WordPress is where I’m gonna be!

Readers’ Choice

Going through my previous semesters’ notebooks, I found a page which I wrote two years back, listing a whole bunch of blog topics that I wanted to do.  Back then, however, I never blogged, so they never got written.

Let me know which you may find helpful or interesting and I shall make them my blogging to do list (if I don’t get any recommendations, I’ll take that as everyone wanting to read each of them, and so that’s what it will be).

• The Joys of Gmail (filters, labels, and all sorts of organization)
• Why Everyone Should Use Google Calendar (although, I’m a bit of a hypocrite during the summer)
• Google Desktop’s Awesome Door-Opening Potential (entirely hypocritical here – I only use it for the indexing)
• Keyboard Shortcuts How-To (getting written whether you like it or not)
• Writely (haha… this is old!  This was Google Docs “Document” before Google acquired it)
• Google Talk (Google’s chat program – “Better than AIM in all aspects other than user-base”)
• The Smart Way to Personalize a Homepage (before I caught on to iGoogle – though I’ve got good tips for iGoogle now!)

I’ll most likely be blogging about several of those topics in the near future, but your vote can most certainly increase priority!

Michael Crichton’s Prey

Heading up to Arts Fest last month, my buddy, Kevin, said that he thought I’d really enjoy Michael Crichton’s Prey.  He told me that it was a nerdy book with some really neat creative technologies and even some computer code – so of course it sounded awesome!

Crichton is new to me (other than Jurassic Park when I was 8), but he was very easy to follow.  The story is about a computer programmer (well, project manager who knows code) named Jack who has two major things wrong with his life – he is no longer employed and he suspects his wife is cheating on him.  The two come together when he gets a contracting position at his wife’s company and heads out to their fabrication laboratory.  That’s when everything gets crazy!

The technology that Michael Crichton talks about in this book is not quite around yet (to the best of my knowledge), but he talks about it in such a way that it just makes perfect sense, and I could totally picture it in existence.  There is an insane amount of action over a 24-hour period, but it is written in a way that it’s not even overwhelming.

If you’re looking for a solid read discussing some really neat technological advances with some fantastically described action scenes, then Prey is for you.  Clocking in at just over 500 pages, it took me a little longer to read than most other stuff this summer, but it really drew me in nonetheless, and it was awesome!