http://www.iMakeArt.net 

A7 - Andy Morris 

The new site is on a new domain, and will take over all aspects of this site. This site will remain active for archiving purposes, but will no longer be used for posting any new information at this time. The Free4all will also be closed to new posts. If you would like to post, please visit the new site and sign up for an account.

For more information, please contact me at: a7mc (at) bya7.com 

Thank you,

A7 

So this is what my new non-Mac Mac looks like. Yes, I am a geek and I did put an Apple logo on the machine. I still have one final glitch to work out with the motherboard, but other that that, it runs great. I sold my iMac for $1900 and this entire setup cost me under $1400 (and that's why I had the extra money on hand for the Playstation 3.. not a bad deal if I say so myself). Here's the kicker... it runs over twice as fast as my iMac did! It's a QUAD-core 3Ghz (i.e. 12 Ghz!!) machine with 4GB of ram. Sweet.

So why am I posting this? Because it's frivolous. And also because I'm going to document how I did it so others can benefit from having a blazing fast Mac on a budget. I'll post pictures of the inside of this bad boy in a few days when I replace the motherboard. 

A7 

Now go and eat some cake.

A7 

Watched Spiderman 3 and The Simpson's Movie on Blu-Ray this weekend and the quality of the image over standard DVD is simply jaw dropping.

Oh... and in case you haven't heard... the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray was is over.

For the week ending January 13th, the first full week following Warner's decision to go Blu-ray exclusive, the Blu-ray camp had its most dominating disc sales week.

Since the beginning of 2007 Blu-ray has outsold HD DVD by an average of nearly 2:1, but the week in question saw the gap get even further. Blu-ray took a dominating 85 percent share of all HD discs sold.

HomeMediaMagazine also reported that from the top ten selling discs for the week, none were HD DVD. The top selling Blu-ray Title "3:10 to Yuma" sold about ten times as many discs as the top selling HD DVD title, "The Kingdom".

A7

mostly so that I could use

and watch amazing high-def movies on my HDTV and HD Projector, but also so I could play

Rock Band on the PS3 kicks some MAJOR ass. I LOVE playing the (fake) drums!

Now I am

A7

Welcome to A7's Superficial Blog of Random Bits of Totally Useless Information.

First superficial post forthcoming. 

A7 

After much deliberation and thought, I have decided to "end" the ByA7 blog. The current site as it is will remain intact, the Free4All will remain open for posting if anyone should feel the need, and I may decide to continue posting completely private "diary" posts (viewable only by me), but there will no longer be any public posts in the near future.

Why? Well there are several reasons. The main reason is that I conceived this entire blogging software as a collaborative tool, not a soapbox. The entire purpose of this site is to foster discussion, enhance communication, and pull together a community of people. But a community cannot exit without the participation of the members within that community, and there has been almost no participation on this site in quite some time. We're all busy. I get it. But it's no fun to build the worlds best sandbox and sit in it all alone without your friends.

It seems that in my quest to build a community and stay in touch, I've in fact built a barrier to communication. The X-mas holidays left me wondering where I went wrong; All our closest friends seemed distant, like we were mere acquaintances, and made very little effort (if any) to get together with us. And honestly, I don't blame anyone but myself. I chose to post on my blog to communicate with everyone at once, but if no one pays attention, then it's like I'm not communicating with you at all. So I'll go back to good old-fashioned email communication and attempt to rebuild the closeness that way.

Another (smaller) factor is the insistence of some people to ignore common courtesy and communication. There are far too many "Toronto people" from my recent past who simply refuse to let go, or move on, or even attempt reconciliation or communication. Instead, they just hide behind their computer and monitor what I have to say, ..]]> http://www.bya7.com/blog/index.php?id=604 Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:46:22 +0000 sad http://www.bya7.com/blog/index.php?id=604#cmt

Hi folks! Welcome to another edition of my year in review. I've had a fairly successful year, with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. I've decided the best way to approach my year in review is to break it down by topic. So here's what I have to say:

On friends:

We've learned a very valuable lesson this year; Most Toronto people wig out after a very short time. It seems most of these people think friendship is disposable, like it's perfectly normal to alienate others after a short period of time. Of course there are exceptions. Jeff (aka James Cooper in my office installation) has consistently been a good friend, and I always enjoy his company. Aaron, though not officially a "Toronto" friend, has also been amazing. And Jill was always so great, unfortunately she has moved away to Vancouver. So that leaves us with only a few friends and a couple of aquaintances.

On drama:

2007 can officially be marked as the year with no drama. Ok... so there was a bit of drama thanks to some of those "disposable friends" early on, but once that was over, the rest of the year went very well. We met a few people who are considerably more easygoing, we've kept a bit of distance, and there has been no craziness since. It's nice to meet people who aren't so caught up in their own world that they can& ..]]> http://www.bya7.com/blog/index.php?id=603 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:53:28 +0000 flirt http://www.bya7.com/blog/index.php?id=603#cmt