My Unabashed Nerdiness.
Saturday, September 26th, 2009Upon moving to Creston my first priority (after housing) has been the process of procuring an internet connection. To be really honest, it is the only amenity that truly defines the quality of my life.
Yes, I am addicted. No, I am not ashamed. I’m Gen Y, baby!
Anyway, I have not been happy with the offers made to my by the only (two) available internet providers in my new community. I don’t want to pay for cable TV or a landline phone. That makes internet access a bit pricey, I must say. However, I have access to an impressively good wireless network from below, so I have paused my search for another ISP for now.
So, because I lack any television service, I have decided to make a “Media Center” of sorts that will access the internet and generate content that, well, I care about. Thanks to programs like Hulu Desktop and other open source alternatives, this process has been surprisingly simple thus far. That being said, I’m not very far along yet.
To create this media center I am using the Mac that previously was my main computer: my unbound iBook.
“What on Earth is an “unbound iBook?” you ask. The story of this computer is interesting, unique, and most endearing when told using an Animal Rescue metaphor.
When certain well-armed family members of mine lived in Florida, they awoke one morning to find that someone had abandoned a poor little iBook on their front yard. Yes, an Apple laptop was lying next to a tree in their yard. It appeared from initial observations that the laptop was thrown from a moving vehicle and had impacted the tree. The computer’s screen was damaged – trauma suffered through the reckless actions of its previous owner.
Obviously distressed from the experience (and likely the mainspring by which the computer was jettisoned from the vehicle), the computer had issues booting and continually “locked-up”. [I should note at this point that the computer was being operated via an external monitor – the mode by which I still use it today] However, with a bit of TLC (fresh install of the operating system) the computer was up and running like new…less a notebook screen.
Hence it had been “unbound”. It is a bit of a stretch, I know.
But the rest is history. I, with my big heart for Macs, brought the little iBook into my home. Since then, it has been an unequivocally solid computing platform. I am working with Sarah McLachlan to do a commercial raising awareness for half-tops like mine. Support your local Laptop Rescue!
But I digress.
My main point is that I have a lot of time to kill here in C-Town and have been slaying that time with senseless little techno-projects that do very little other than prove to myself that, well, I could do them in the first place. That being said, this won’t be the last of these projects
Turn on. Tune in. And don’t forget to drop me a line in the comments section.