Movie Reviews from Around the Web: Twilight, 2012

I have a few movie reviews to share.

2012

I recently watched Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster movie, ‘2012’ and quite enjoyed it. My favourite reviews thus far have been:

Twilight: New Moon

Now I am considering watching the film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s second book from the Twilight series, ‘New Moon’.

However, these reviews are making me think twice (FYI: the second review is a lot shorter):

So I’ll probably will till it comes on pay-per-view cable next year.

Speaking more generally about the Twilight books, you really should watch/read the following:

Lenovo Lets You Switch Ctrl & Fn Keys in BIOS!

I really like having the Ctrl (Control) key located at the bottom left hand corner of my computer's keyboard.

It's one my most frequently used keys — which I press using my left thumb or, simply, the side/edge of my left palm — and I like its location to be consistent across all the desktops and laptops that I use.

I use the Control key to:

  • cut-copy-paste (ctrl+x, ctrl+c, ctrl+v)

  • select all (ctrl+a)

  • select entire words/paragraphs (ctrl+shift+left/right/up/down arrows or ctrl+shift+page up/down)

  • move to the start/end of documents (ctrl+end, ctrl+home)

  • move forwards/backwards by one word (ctrl+right/left arrows)

  • delete the rest of the current line in a text editor (ctrl+delete)

  • undo/redo (ctrl+z, ctrl+y)

  • zoom in/out of PDFs, documents, browser windows, etc. (ctrl+mouse scroll wheel up/down)

  • duplicate drawing elements in Microsoft Office (ctrl+click & drag)

  • move between worksheets in an Excel spreadsheet (ctrl+page up/page down)

  • create a page break in a Word document (ctrl+enter)

  • open files/documents (ctrl+o)

  • save files/documents (ctrl+s)

  • switch between window panes (ctrl+tab)

  • select multiple items (ctrl+mouse left click)

  • (and a bunch of other things I can't remember right now but I probably do unconsciously)


Many laptops, however, have the Fn (Function) key located at the bottom left hand corner of their keyboards and, though it's not the end of the world, this placement irritates me no end.



[Source: Engadget]

That's why I'm really excited by Lenovo's recent announcement that it will let users swap the functionality of the Control and Function keys directly through the BIOS!

They plan to offer this in "all future ThinkPad models" so I have a bad feeling it won't be available on the ThinkPad X200 tablet PC that I'm saving up for these days. Still, it's a step in the right direction and the Lenovo keyboard — which is already one of the best out there — just got a whole lot better.

You can read more about this here, by the way:

And speaking of my plan to buy the X200 tablet PC, so far I've saved-up about 60% of the funds needed. However, I've had to put this saving on hold because we're shifting to a bigger, better, and closer-to-work apartment early next week and doing so will cost us quite a bit of money (especially since we're breaking our existing apartment's lease).

If all goes well, however, I should have enough saved-up by the middle of January 2010. Here's hoping there are some good sales or deals to be had around then!

Average Cats

Most of you probably know that I love LOLcats and everything else on the Cheezburger Network.

What you might not know is that, in response to the LOLxyz meme, there is the brilliant AverageCats:

AverageCats is a site that has pictures of cats.

Pictures of cats on the internet are not very new or exciting things. In fact, seeing cats on the internet is an incredibly average occurrence. They practically live here.

As you may have noticed, nearly all cat pictures include captions. And these captions usually personify the cat in some way or another.

What the internet fails to realize is that most cats do not think like people. They think like cats. AverageCats seeks to remedy this misinformation by providing a helpful, pictorial primer on cats.

AverageCats uses the accepted lolcat style to explain simple truths about cats. Any humor that arises from these pictures is coincidental.

So what is an AverageCat picture like? It’s like this:

Or like this:

:)

Check out the site make sure you read the text below the pictures as well.

New Lenovo ThinkPad X200T Reviews

NotebookReview.com's Kevin O'Brien recently reviewed two Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PCs and had this to say:
The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablets we reviewed performed very well in almost all categories. Battery life was excellent with the 8-cell battery, reaching 8 hours and 48 minutes on the sunlight readable version, and 5 hours and 32 minutes on the touchscreen model. Screen quality on both models was phenomenal, with the sunlight readable display being one of the best screens we have ever seen in our office. [...]

Overall performance was very good on both models, with little impact to battery life or system temperatures. Considering the low starting price compared to the Dell XT2, the ThinkPad X200 Tablets are a clear winner. For its amazing screen, great build quality, and excellent battery life we are also awarding the outdoor viewable X200 Tablet with our Editor's Choice award.

Now, I'm not getting the outdoor viewable X200 tablet PC because I am willing to sacrifice awesome screen quality in favour of two-finger touch capability but the "touchscreen model", as O'Brien refers to it, is pretty awesome too. Read the review for more.

Meanwhile, the two new touch-enabled ThinkPads models – the X200 and T400 – also got a mention in a blog post about crapware on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows.

Crapware, which you get on all new PCs, is irritating even while it makes PCs cheaper to buy. According to Thurrott, Lenovo partly redeems itself by adding bundled software that "expand[s] on core Windows capabilities or, increasingly, simply provide[s] new capabilities that are not present in Windows at all". Read his post for details.

New Lenovo ThinkPad X200T Videos

I don't mean to go on and on about the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PC...no, wait, I think I do :)  After all, this will be the most expensive piece of computing equipment I'll have ever bought!

Anyway, Warner Crocker from Gotta Be Mobile posted a couple of videos on the new multi-touch screen on the X200 which you can watch here:

Enjoy :)

More on the Lenovo ThinkPad X200T

After doing a lot of tablet PC research over the last few days, I have pretty much decided that I’ll be getting myself the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet PC.

X200t
[Source: Lenovo website]

What Research Did I Do?

In my opinion, the three best places to learn about tablet PCs in depth are:

Every time I want to learn more about any tablet PC, those are the three sites I visit first. Not only are the authors incredibly knowledgeable about tablet PCs (or mobile computing in general) they use tablet PCs as part of their day-to-day work so they bring a lot of real world experience to their reviews and opinions.

They’re also quick to recognize that your mileage may vary when it comes to using computers. They do this by comparing and contrasting their tablet PC preferences with the preferences of others and this makes for a much more well-rounded discussion.

Microsoft itself has recognized their contributions to the tablet PC space by making a number of them Windows Touch & Tablet PC MVPs (i.e. Most Valuable Professionals).

What’s particularly valuable about those sites, though, is that the official site authors and reviewers aren’t the only ones contributing. Gotta Be Mobile (GMB) and Tablet PC Review both have excellent discussion forums that I highly recommend.

What Have I Learnt So Far?

A lot; some of which I shared in my previous blog post (with specification data gathered from Tablet PC Review).

But, as a quick overview of my research, here are the reviews and discussions covering the ThinkPad X200 that I looked at.

From Tablet PC Review:

From Gotta Be Mobile:

From JK On the Run:

There were more articles and reviews that I looked at, of course, but those were the main ones.

But, What About Cost?

Ah, yes…cost. That’s the interesting thing because, even though I’m switching to a lower performance tablet PC when I move from the Toshiba Portege M750 to the Lenovo ThinkPad X200, the ThinkPad actually costs a little more (about A$250 more). Well, at least in my chosen configuration.

But that’s okay because, what I lose in processing power, I more than make up for in longer battery life (about double), a multi-touch screen, a special portable dock, and a better overall tablet PC experience. So, instead of getting a powerful workstation that is also a good tablet PC, I get a great tablet PC that isn’t all-powerful but still packs a real punch.

The only unfortunate thing, as far as cost is concerned, is my timing. That’s because, as part of the launch of multi-touch screens on the ThinkPad X200, Lenovo is giving lots of discounts if you order online from their site. Lenovo US, for example, is giving a 15% discount and is throwing in the X200 UltraBase (which is the portable dock mentioned above) for half price (US$100 instead of $200). Lenovo Australia, meanwhile, is giving 25% off for all ThinkPad purchases till midnight tonight and is extending your warranty from 1 to 3 years for just $1.

I, unfortunately, won’t be able to afford a tablet PC till November at the earliest. That means I’ll miss all the back-to-school and new-feature discounts and specials that will be offered over the next month or so. Indeed, I’ll be getting my tablet PC bang smack in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. The only way I’ll get lucky is if I am in time for a pre-Christmas sale offer, but I doubt that’ll happen. Oh well. It’s still worth it.

One Last Thing: Hands-on Experience

The one last thing I am hoping to do before finalizing my choice is getting some hands-on time with these tablet PCs. Unfortunately, that’ll be really hard to do here in Melbourne, Australia.

I know I can get my hands on an HP tablet PC (the tx2000 and possibly the 2710p) at a local HP reseller but I don’t know of any Lenovo or Fujitsu resellers that have tablet PCs on display. Finding out will involve lots more research and, hopefully, some help from the Tablet PC Review and GBM forums. I’m hoping something works out, though, and I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

Tablet PCs – Comparing Specs, Keyboards

Now that I’ve narrowed my tablet PC options down to three –  though I may add to this list over the next few months – I can start comparing them to each other.

My current options are:

Basic Specifications

Their basic specifications are similar. Though, as you can see in the summary below, the ThinkPad X200 edges the other two out slightly:

Item Lenovo
ThinkPad X200		 HP
EliteBook 2730p		 Fujitsu
LifeBook T2020
Processor Core 2 Duo
1.86GHz L9400		 Core 2 Duo
1.86GHz L9400		 Core 2 Duo
1.2GHz U9300
RAM 3GB 3GB 2GB
Hard drive 160GB,
7200RPM		 120GB,
5400RPM		 120GB,
5400RPM
Graphics GMA X4500 GMA 4500MHD GMA 4500
Screen 12.1" WXGA 12.1" WXGA 12.1" WXGA
Digitizer Active,
multi-touch,
in/outdoor		 Active,
anti-glare		 Active,
in/outdoor
PCMark05 4,318 3,489 2,983
3DMark05 1,307 1,278 802
Input Trackpoint Trackpoint,
trackpad		 Trackpoint

 

All of these specs were taken from Tablet PC Review, by the way, and they’re based on the specs of review units. You can, of course, customize these specs when you actually by the computer.

Comparing Keyboards

Moving beyond that, the next thing I always check on a laptop is its keyboard. This is because I do a lot of typing and constantly use keyboard shortcuts so having a great keyboard is crucial to both my productivity and sanity.

As a benchmark, this is what the Toshiba Satellite M750’s keyboard looks like (all photos from TabletPCReview.com):

Toshiba Portege M700 keyboard

Note the Control key in the bottom left hand corner. This is good because most keyboard shortcuts involve pressing that key and it irritates me when the Function key is in the left most one in the bottom row.

Also note the convenient location of the Page-Up and Page-Down keys next to the directional arrow keys on the bottom right hand corner.

The Home, End, Insert, and Delete keys on the top right hand corner aren’t at their optimal positions, I know, but their relative ordering isn’t terrible. Ultimately, that not-so-good location was the sacrifice I was willing to make in order to get this laptop.

Finally, the laptop uses a track pad (as opposed to a track point), which is something I like and am accustomed to.

Let’s now look at the Lenovo ThinkPad X200’s keyboard:

Lenovo ThinkPad X200 keyboard

A number of things stand out. First, the Function key is at the bottom left hand corner. That’s not good, but survivable. On the other hand, even though they’re located on the top right hand corner, the placement of the Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page-Up, and Page-Down keys is beautiful!

That said, the one big adjustment I’d have to make if I got this tablet PC is switching from a trackpad to a trackpoint.

Next, let’s check out the HP EliteBook 2730p’s keyboard:

HP EliteBook 2730p keyboard

I like this one because its Control key is in the right place and it has both a track pad and track point. On the other hand, I hate this one because it’s Insert, Delete, etc. keys are very unfortunately placed.

Finally, here’s the Fujitsu LifeBook T2020’s keyboard:

Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 keyboard

The Control key is in the right place and the Page-Up and Page-Down keys are good, too. The Insert, Delete, etc. keys are survivable but we’re back to a track point instead of a track pad.

So, overall, my least favourite keyboard is that of HP 2730p. I really don’t like that they’ve placed the Home, End, etc. keys in a line on the top right hand corner. The Fujitsu T2020 and Toshiba M750’s keyboards, meanwhile, are both okay and I’d be fine with using them.

The keyboard that stands out, then, is that of the Lenovo X200. Yes, I’d have to use a track stick and, yes, I’d have to get used to the new placement of the Control key…but I did manage to get used to the latter on my previous keyboard so it won’t be the end of the world. On the other hand, I love how the Home, End, etc. keys are placed and this makes up for most of its other shortcomings.

Preliminary Conclusion

So my preliminary choice of tablet PC is the Lenovo ThinkPad X200. The added benefit of this is that the X200 is the only one with a multi-touch screen.

There is more to explore and examine – like cost, for example – but I’d say this was a good start.

A Quick Aside About Lenovo Design

By the way, Lenovo are generally praised for their excellent keyboards and, having used them on and off in the past, I tend to agree.

If you want to know more about Lenovo’s design ideas, be sure to check out their Design Matters blog.

Good posts to read are:

My Tablet PC Plan Changes

I haven't written about my tablet PC obsession for a while but three recent events and two technology lifestyle trends are prompting me to do so now.

The trends have made me re-evaluate my reasons and primary selection criteria for getting a tablet PC. These trends are:

  1. After five years of having a laptop as my primary and sometimes only computer I have recently started using a desktop. And I really like it. What with a good processor; lots of RAM; a huge, high-speed hard drive; a large, widescreen monitor (like I have at home) or two large monitors (like I have at work); lots of USB ports; and all my accessories close at hand…how could I not like working on one?
  2. With so much of my life in the cloud, an increasingly mobile lifestyle, and the ready availability of mobile broadband Internet, small and light mobile computing solutions like smart phones and netbooks are becoming increasingly interesting and useful to me.

As for the three events:

  1. Windows 7 is due to be released on October 22 and its tablet-specific features are really good.
  2. Both Lenovo and Fujitsu have announced that their flagship tablet PCs – the ThinkPad X200 and LifeBook T5010 respectively – now have multi-touch screens options. Till this announcement, only the Dell Latitude XT2 had one of those. 
  3. If I continue to consciously save money, by the end of the year (or the start of next year) I should finally be able to afford a tablet PC.

What Does This All Mean?

Two things:

  1. The end of this year is a good time to buy a tablet PC. Not only will I able to afford one, it’ll ship with Windows 7 and will have the latest touch screen on it.
  2. I’m not sure any more if I really need or want a high performance tablet PC. It might make more sense for me to get a less powerful one for mobile use and an upgrade to my home desktop (if I really need one in the future) for power use.

In short, my front runner tablet PC choices – and, in particular, the Toshiba M750 I was planning to get – are now no longer the ones I’m looking at.

Instead, I’m looking at one of these:

All three are less powerful than my previous choices (also, they don’t have optical drives) but, instead, they all have longer battery lives and they all weigh less. Oh, and they don’t cost as much, either.

Only the ThinkPad X200 has a multi-touch screen at this time but I’m sure the others will have one in time for the back-to-school or Christmas shopping seasons (particularly since HP is targeting the consumer market).

So, What Next?

My task now is to start the tablet PC comparison process once again and, over the next few months, keep an eye out for updates to these three systems.

Unfortunately, because these tablet PCs are very similar to each other (particularly the Lenovo and HP), it’ll be hard to choose among them.

Fortunately, all three are excellent and all come highly recommended. That means, regardless of which one I end up going for, I will be getting a great tablet PC.

Meanwhile, I’ll start the preliminary comparison process and will proceed to bore you with my ruminations and computing preferences :)

Coke Studio Kicks Ass

I first heard of Coke Studio late last year but, when I checked it out, I wasn’t particularly impressed with its first couple of episodes. It was good stuff, yes, and I did like the idea…it just wasn’t all that great.

Then came Season 2 and everything changed.

But Wait…What is Coke Studio?

For all you poor, lost souls who haven’t yet discovered the wonders of Coke Studio:

Coke Studio is a Pakistani television series featuring live music performances. The program focuses on a fusion of the diverse musical influences in Pakistan, including eastern classical, folk, and contemporary popular music. The show provides a platform for renowned as well as upcoming and less mainstream artists, from various genres and regions, to collaborate musically in live studio recording sessions. [Source: Wikipedia]

Think of it as a combination of Later…with Jools Holland, MTV Unplugged, Live from Abbey Road, and the numerous musical collaborations you get to see at award shows like the Grammys.

Oh, and it’s produced by one of my favourite musician-producers, Rohail Hyatt (official site).

Okay, That Sounds Exciting (I think)…Where Do I Start?

Start on YouTube (see links and embedded videos below) by watching the videos that have been uploaded there (don’t forget to rate, comment, and favourite as you see fit). These are available both on the official Coke Studio channel as well as on other users’ channels.

Then visit the official site to download the audio and video of all the performances. Once you’ve been suitably blown away and you still want more (which you will), watch the behind-the-scenes videos for Season 2’s episodes, read the artists’ profiles, and contribute to the site.

And if you still haven’t had enough, check out the Coke Studios Facebook page and the songs from the show featured on Babelsongs (‘Great music translated’).

Let Your Journey Begin…

Start with these three videos.

‘Chal Diyay’ by Zeb & Haniya and Javed Bashir:

‘Aik Alif’ by Saieen Zahoor and Noori:

‘Husn-e-Haqiqi’ by Arieb Azhar":

You can thank me later.

Enjoy :)

District 9 is Awesome

Over the weekend Nadia and I watched Neill Blomkamp's debut full-length feature film, District 9.

It's a powerful and (sometimes) difficult movie to watch but it's certainly worth the effort. And while there is lots that I can say about it, a number of others have already said it better, so I'm just going to recommend you read the following (all of which, unfortunately, have some spoilers):

What I will say, however, is that I seriously recommend you go watch it. It's the best movie I've seen all year.

Oh, and for more general information about the film, check out its:

ABC is Re-Making ‘V’

ABC is re-making the 1983 miniseries V, which is referred to as V: The Original Miniseries because it was followed by a sequel miniseries called V: The Final Battle.

V - The Original Miniseries

The remake television show, called V: The Series, starts the same place the original story did, features some of the same characters, and follows the same basic premise: “Alien visitors show up claiming to be our friends, but have a hidden agenda that has grave consequences for mankind”. Let’s see where they take it from there.

The show’s pilot stars Elizabeth Mitchell, Scott Wolf, Morena Baccarin, Alan Tudyk, Morris Chestnut, and Joel Gretsch and you can read a review of it, written by “M. Bison”, on the Ain’t it Cool News website. It’s scheduled to start this autumn in the US.

I watched this show while growing up and loved it. They’d better not mess the remake up!

Also, while researching the show I discovered that Kenneth Johnson (the show’s creator) wrote a follow-up book to the series called V: The Second Generation that was released in February 2008. Sounds interesting.

Switching to Gmail Becomes Easier

Long-time readers of this blog will know that, just over a year ago, I moved all of my e-mail to Gmail. I wrote about this in some detail in these three blog posts:

I absolutely love Gmail and making this shift is one of the best technology, usability, and productivity decisions I’ve made so far.

However, switching to Gmail wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do – particularly since most of my e-mail was stored locally on my laptop (in Thunderbird) and the rest was distributed across various e-mail accounts. (You can read more about this in the blog posts listed above.)

Things have changed since then and, as announced today on the Gmail Blog, importing contacts and e-mails from other online e-mail accounts into Gmail has just become a lot easier because the whole process has been automated. This won’t help you if all your e-mails are stored locally in Outlook or Thunderbird, of course, but it will make it easier to switch from services like Yahoo! and Window Live Mail.

If you’re still using one of those services, I suggest you try Gmail for a while to see how you like it. Indeed, one of the new import features is that you can have your e-mails forwarded to Gmail from your other accounts for 30 days while you try Gmail out. I’m confident that many of you will like it so much that you will want to switch over permanently.

Josh Whedon’s ‘Dollhouse’ = Win

This morning I finished watching episode 12 of Joss Whedon’s latest TV show Dollhouse. I can’t begin to describe just how much win there is in the latter episodes of this series (starting from episode 6, ‘Man on the Street’).

All I can say to anyone out there who got disappointed and stopped watching the show early on is: start watching it again. It’s seriously worth at very many levels. (Though I have to admit that some of my love for Firefly has been transferred to this show as well. You’ll know what I mean when you see it.)

For more on how awesome Dollhouse is, read Charlie Jane Anders article on io9 called ‘Why Dollhouse Really is Joss Whedon’s Greatest Work’. The title might be a bit of an exaggeration but Anders makes a number of good points, some of which appeal particularly to serious fans of the science fiction genre (like me). The numerous comments at the end of the article are…er, varied and interesting, too.

Meanwhile, I fear I must wait patiently till the Season 1 DVD is released because the latest news is that the show’s 13th episode, which was filmed but not aired, will go straight to DVD. And we might get to see earlier versions of the re-done pilot in the DVD extras as well.

Fox had better not cancel the show.

Using my Flickr Account

I’ve finally found a good use for my Flickr account: I’m going to use it to post photos that I probably won’t be adding to one of my albums on Picasa.

Waiting for a train at a lonely railway station in Melbourne 
Waiting for a train at a lonely railway station in Melbourne

A Little Background

I have a Flickr account and a Picasa account. I publish my photographs online to Picasa because my free Flickr account has an upload limit (100 MB per month) and a limit to the number of sets I can create (3). Picasa doesn’t have such limits. However the photos that I do upload to Picasa all belong to specific albums, even if that’s the broadly defined ‘Life in Melbourne’ album that I update every now and again.

What happens then to the photos that I like but either don’t belong to a specific album or are good, but not good enough to be included in any album? Well, nothing really. They just sit around on my hard drive…

Waiting at a tram stop on Lygon Street 
Waiting at a tram stop on Lygon Street

…until now.

Flickr to the Rescue

The plan, then, is to use Flickr to publish non-album, non-event, or simply good-but-not-great photos that I have taken and would like to share. I won’t be doing this with any regularity, though, so don’t hold your breath.

Path Running Through Princes Park
Path running through Princes Park in Melbourne, connecting the Princes Hill and Parkville suburbs

Doing this should be fun, though. It might even encourage me to take more random photographs.

‘Love and Justice’ Women’s Anthem

There are two things (so far) that I wish my mother had been alive to see, read or experience: the last few Harry Potter books and the following performance of ‘Love and Justice’ which was composed by Kavisha Mazzella and sung by over 400 women of Victoria late last year:

I get a shiver down my spine every time I listen to it.

The anthem was commissioned by the Victorian Women’s Trust to celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage in Australia and was performed at the BMW Edge auditorium at Federation Square in Melbourne. For more on the anthem, check out the ABC News’ coverage of it.

Also check out Mazzella’s MySpace page which features more of her awesome music.

Ten Years of the LUMS Music Society

In early 1999, while I was a senior at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), we were planning for the annual student variety show called ‘So?’. Now the ‘So?’ is organized jointly by the all the student clubs who want to participate and, being president of Alpha Hour, I was a part of that year’s organizing committee. [I also co-wrote ‘Zahoor: A Musical’ – Dr. Zahoor being our Associate Dean at the time – that some of my classmate and I performed there but that’s another story.]

A lot of the performances at the ‘So?’ were musical ones. Indeed, we started the show with a song from Jahanzeb and Adil Sherwani, had lots of Ali Hamza in the middle, and even ended the night with the hugely popular cover of The Strings’ ‘Sar Kiye Ye Pahar’ as performed by Saad Ansari, Sameer Anees, Jahanzeb Sherwani, and Adil Sherwani.

It was around this time that we all realized that LUMS needed an official music society and so we encouraged the musicians who had performed at the ‘So?’ to start one. That’s what Saad, Jahanzeb, and Ali Hamza did and thus the LUMS Music Society was born.

Fast-Forward to the Present

The Music Society has come a long way since then: They now have their own fully-equipped recording studio (as opposed to the single room next to the gym that we started out with) and they organize all sorts of musical events, some of which you can check out on their YouTube Channel. Also visit their Facebook Group page for event listings, photographs, and discussions.

This year they’re celebrating their ten-year anniversary with a music conference on 9 May and a big concert featuring the likes of Noori, eP, Laal, and Aunty Disco Project on the 10th. They’ll also be launching their official website at that time.

10th Anniversary of the LUMS Music Society

My Association with the Music Society

I owe a lot to the LUMS Music Society because it was through them that I learnt how to play the drums and it was at their launch concert (called ‘The Jig’) in early 2000 that I first performed in front of an audience as a drummer. I even have a recording of the very first song I played at that concert (‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries) with Mehreen on vocals, Vex on bass, and Saad on lead. Yes, it’s terrible of me but I’ve forgotten who was on rhythm guitar.

Even though the actual performance of that song is mostly a blur, I remember that I started out too fast and was mimed to slow down by Jahanzeb who was sitting in the audience. I also made one major error – a hand-spaz miss-hit on the snare drum – that, not only did no one there notice, you can’t even hear it on the audio recording so it obviously wasn’t as big a mistake as I thought it was. I performed in two more songs during that show – Pink Floyd and Alanis Morissette covers, no less – the latter of which was on the bongos which were also new to me at the time.

A few months later, I performed at their first proper, on-stage concert (called ‘It’) in the central courtyard. This time I was on the drums (‘Dosti’ by Nazia and Zoheb), tambourine (‘Smooth’ by Santana and Rob Thomas), and bongos (‘Those Were the Days’ by Mary Hopkin). Later in the year I travelled from Islamabad to Lahore to specifically attend their first big concert (called ‘The Show’) which featured a professional sound system and hired musical instruments. They could afford all this now that they were officially sponsored by LUMS. I last checked-in on them in 2003 when I went to guest lecture at LUMS and they’d already grown quite a bit. Now, of course, they’re the largest club at the University.

In spite of all that, my strongest memory of the Music Society is still that of me, Ali Hamza and Saad packed into a hot, stuffy jam room as we rehearsed a rock version of Nazia and Zoheb’s ‘Dosti’. I used to have a recording of that performance as well but I seem to have lost it along the way, which is sad. That was the first time I came up with my own drum beat to a song (yes, we really changed it around from the original) and I remember being proud of myself for that because I’d grown quite a bit as a musician over those few months.

To Conclude

It’s been ten years since I graduated from LUMS and ten years since the Music Society was formed. Unfortunately, I’ll be missing both my reunion and the 10th anniversary concert because I’m going to be in Australia during both events. That sucks, I know, but I will be there in spirit. And, at the very least, I do get to blog about it and encourage other people to be there on my behalf. Here’s hoping some of you manage to do so.

Yaay! I Have Ubuntu

So a couple of days ago I installed the latest version of the Ubuntu operating system (v9.04, called Jaunty Jackalope) on my desktop computer. I did this via Wubi, which lets you install Linux from within Windows without your having to re-partition your hard drive or do any other advanced Linux, Windows, or hardware configuration. The installer basically creates a folder in your C drive (called ‘ubuntu’, in my case) and everything to do with your Linux installation goes in there.

What Wubi does do is make your computer a dual-boot system which means that, from now on, whenever you start your computer you will be given the option of booting into (in my case) Vista or Ubuntu. Vista does remain the default boot option which means that, if you don’t choose otherwise within ten seconds, your computer will automatically boot into Vista. You can, of course, make Ubuntu the default boot option if you want.

Later, if you decide you don’t want Ubuntu you can always uninstall it from within Windows as well. This is as simple as going to Add/Remove Programs and uninstalling Wubi from there.

Why Did I Do This?

So why did I install Ubuntu? The simple answer is: because I wanted to. The more comprehensive answer is: Ubuntu is fast, Linux is fun, I love open source software (and support the FOSS movement), and am a little nostalgic. Oh, and I am a geek.

Let me unpack my comprehensive answer a little bit.

Ubuntu is fast. On my current desktop, from the time I press the power button to the time I can type a URL into Firefox and start browsing, it takes me less than one minute. Doing the same thing on the same computer in Vista – though with Chrome as the browser instead of Firefox – takes me just over three minutes (and the PC still hasn’t finished booting-up by then because complete boot-up takes about five minutes).

Now I’m not saying this to complain about Vista or to say that my computer is slow. In fact, I really like Vista and the way that everything is set up on my computer. Unfortunately, the downside of having everything set up on your computer just the way you want it is that it’ll be a little slow to start up. And by ‘everything’ I mean things like Google desktop and sidebar; Twhirl and Skype; Zone Alarm, KeePass, and Cobian Backup; and all my Windows settings – all of which get loaded at boot time. My Ubuntu install, meanwhile, is plain vanilla. I don’t even have any major Firefox plugins installed.

So my point is: if I need to use the computer in a hurry – to, say, send a quick e-mail or check on weather conditions later in the day – it’s much quicker to boot into Ubuntu than it is to boot into Vista. And that’s why I like it.

Linux is fun. There’s so much that you can do on Linux that is slower, more complicated, costs money, and is less geeky on Windows. For example, there’s nothing quite like shell scripting using Bash. I also love a lot of the software that is Linux-only; and often that software is both more powerful and much more configurable – though sometimes less pretty – than its equivalents on Windows or Leopard.

I love, support, and keep up with the FOSS movement. The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement is important and I’ve spent a lot of time and effort supporting, promoting, and being a part of it. Ubuntu is a huge part of FOSS – particularly for the non-tech community – and, till a couple of days ago, I hadn’t actually messed around with it all that much. The release of Jaunty Jackalope finally prompted me to jump in and see for myself what Ubuntu was all about.

I have a lot of nostalgia associated with Linux in particular and UNIX in general. I’ve been using various flavours of UNIX – such as AIX, FreeBSD, and (Debian and RedHat) Linux – since 1996. I’ve also done a lot of programming, server and daemon configuration, and shell scripting in Linux. Indeed, the first time I became sysadmin was for a RedHat Linux server – the only student-run server at my undergraduate university, in fact – back in 1998.

Good Tech Ethic

Actually, it more than just those reasons. As someone who is technologically inclined – and also a geek – I want to try every technology or gadget that I can get my hands on. And I do this not just because I enjoy it immensely but also because it makes good sense to learn all you can about every kind of technology that’s out there.

This is why, for example, I have Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari all installed on my computer. This is why I use all the online services offered by Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, and so on. And this is why I have the latest versions of Java, Flash, AIR, Silverlight, .NET, QuickTime, Real media, Windows media, DivX, etc. on my computer as well. Not to mention at least nine media players, four word processors, four text editors, five graphics applications, six audio applications, four video applications, and crap loads of media and system utilities. (I could go on…)

Using all kinds of technology is good tech ethic for someone who is tech savvy and is a fan of technology, a technology analyst, a technology teacher/trainer, and a technology evangelist. Oh, and is someone who frequently gives tech support to friends and family and is a geek :)