Windows 7 or Linux?
Posted by jacobroecker on 17 October 2009 under Technology | 
Be the First to Comment
This was just a fun little video. Remember, Linux is free… is Windows?
Anything as cool as this deserves a post
Posted by jacobroecker on 30 March 2009 under Projects, Technology | Be the First to Comment
Stallblog
Posted by jacobroecker on 20 March 2009 under Technology | Read the First Comment
Ok, I’m working on another political commentary blog that is causing my wordpress site some issues. Until I work them out I’d like to share a bit of humor about a post-apocalyptic future.
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
Panic!! !!
Posted by jacobroecker on 16 March 2009 under Friends, Technology | 2 Comments to Read
No, this isn’t a political blog. This is an attempt at satire… Read more and let me know how I’m doing.
The world’s soccer mom’s may pride themselves on individuality, but I’ve noticed that a lot of them are off driving minivans these days. Recently our friends the Fishers purchased a very nice van that they are über proud to own. It’s one of those things where the family scrimped and saved to be able to avoid as much debt as possible, and now they’re reaping the rewards of their frugality. *digital bow of sincerity*
So back in the day when you got a new car you were instantly transformed into the envy of the neighbourhood. Now our excitement spills over to the online audience of grandmas, friends, and obscure relatives with facial hair (you know who I’m talking about–every family has one). So they posted photos on their blog. I managed to snag one of them I’d like to share with you tonight.
Now I’ve grown up with remote controls my whole life. Call me dated, but our first remote was corded to our Beta VCR (now I realize that some of you might not know what I’m talking about so I’ve linked to the article to help you). Back then remotes used to have their own separate section of the instruction booklet. In the early 80’s you literally had to teach people that pressing a button caused something to do something. Like “Play” meant the VCR would “Play” the movie. “Fast-forward” and “Re-wind” were new terms justifying at least a paragraph each in the user’s manual.
Now look at this remote. No instruction manual is needed. Press the lock and it locks. The open lock unlocks it. The “trunk x2″ button probably means you press it twice to open the trunk–or that you press it and get twice as much space in the trunk. There’s a button to make the left door and right doors bigger or open depending on how futuristic the car actually is.
Then there’s the red button. It contains the word “Panic.” Now what exactly do they intend this button to be used for? Ok, so it makes the horn honk and lights flash. It’s a good attention getter. If “panic” were something you’d look for in a date I’m sure more single guys would be driving minivans cruising the boulevard for chicks and pressing the “Panic” button. Sure, it get’s folks to notice you, but probably not in a good way.
Yeah maybe it’s to help work you up into a “Panic.” Ok this might have some merit. Blaring horn and blinking lights are annoying. Press the button and in a couple of minutes you may wish you had installed the optional “gun rack” and nuture your desire to start shooting something. Yeah, there’s a good chance the buton is there to help inspire panic.
One second thought, I’m pretty sure I know what’s it’s not used for… It’s not used to actually tell people you’re panicked. After all, you’re driving a minivan. The back seats probably have the sweet innocent children you’ve brout into the world who suddenly turn on you when you get them in the car. Sure, you swear you’re never going to give them food–not in your new car. Then you fudge the rules–just once–and trust them to be good. Eventually you’ll have gummi-bears stuck in the seats, milk splattered across the side windows, and remember that time you thought your husband was being sweet and took the kids out so you could have a nap? French fries and milkshakes. French fries and milkshakes….. It’s coming.
Yeah, you don’t need to tell the world you’re in a panic. They already know…. you’re driving a minivan.
There is one last possibility… One last reason for this innocent looking red button…
It’s there so the kids can practice pressing buttons. Yup, that’s right. If they get a hold of your keys that’ll be the first one they press. When you hit the unlock button your range is probably a few feet. When you hit the panic button the remote’s range magically increases. Suddenly it’ll reach from the inside of your church building, through the cinderblock walls, and out into the parking lot. Yeah, it’ll happen. Be prepared to hear your license plate from the pulpit.
It’s a good thing my wise readers are well aware that life is full of unaswered questions like: “Why are people sending our current president bags of tea to be delivered on April 1st?” Can’t figure that one out.
Can’t figure out what the usefulness of that panic button is either…. Got an idea? Let me know.
Alert Yourself
Posted by jacobroecker on 28 February 2009 under Technology | Be the First to Comment
The Rocky Mountain News closed this week and printed its last paper. There was a lot of press coverage of their final day, and the need for them to close. It’s being seen as yet another indication that the internet is encroaching upon a once thriving newspaper industry. Well, that’s probably correct. I’m personally more inclined to read news online because the convenience outweighs other impulses. Quite frankly I’ve never seen a paper to cover the news I’m interested in. It’s never been catared to me. Call me selfish, but I prefer to have some things my way. When it comes to what I consume I want to make sure it’s not geared to conflict with my values, and I just find some things more interesting than others.
Let’s take for example, this interesting question. I have a unique last name: R-O-E-C-K-E-R. There’s not too many of us out there. As far as I know the last name has a fairly good reputation. To prove that I daily scour all of the countries newspapers.
Earlier this month I commented on “World of Goo.” I was so interested in watching the press regarding that game that I also scour every news source in the country (daily) for the phrase “World of Goo.” Today I just saw that the “Yale Daily News” had done an article on it. Not bad. I’m in Elgin/Fletcher OK an
d can read a newspaper in New Haven Connecticut as easy as I can open up my email.
How do I do this?
Now I’m not one of those guys who thinks that just because something has a cool looking “G” at the beginning of it, it’s a good product. But I do appreciate the convenience of not having to search for things I care about. 
Google alerts will conduct a search of it’s database for all the recent entries of a particular term–whatever you’re interested in. Let’s say you’re starting a college semester and know you’re going to center your report on a particular figure. Let’s say you were following the work of Ben Stein. Like any other google search you could easily type in his name and come up with results. You’d get articles on this Ben Stein as well as articles on anything that had the words “Ben” and “Stein” on the same page. This would make the email a bit overwhelming.
So, instead tell google that you only want results for Ben Stein. To do this just put parathesis before and after his name. By typing “Ben Stein” I would get all the results on the man I was interested in researching. Ben’s certainly a dynamic character and worth listening to. I think he hasn’t hit the edge of his acting range yet…. But we’ll give that time.
So now you’ve got a search for “Ben Stein.” There’s other terms you can search for, you’d just have to decide what you’re interested in.
Let’s say you were an independent rock band in Hawaii. Let’s say you believed that people were writing about you on their blogs and across the internet. Setting up a google alert would be an easy way to track how many sites are discussing what you’re doing. So, I wonder how many sites a day are talking about “Upstanding Youth?”
Remember, sites that link to yours increase your rating with google. You can use this feature as a marketing tool.
Enjoy!
WhyUbuntu.com
Posted by jacobroecker on 20 February 2009 under Technology | 4 Comments to Read
Since I’ve been using Ubuntu to help out kids and have been using it to be productive on my own computer, I’ve opted to become an advocate of the OS. To that end I’ve registered http://whyubuntu.com with the hopes of launching an advertising campaign to counter Microsoft’s next OS release later this year.
Below is the first four videos I’ve created. I need as much commentary as possible to help get it right before I release it as part of the ad campaign.
Getting Sticky This Valentines
Posted by jacobroecker on 14 February 2009 under Projects, Technology | Be the First to Comment
Yeah, I know it’s a misleading title. If you’re coming here because some search engine thinks that this is about sex, you’ve been lead to the wrong place. This isn’t a post about sex, slutty women, or anything immoral. Nude photos abound online, and I wont even bother to linking to any of them. I’m happy to say, I don’t know where to find any! Sorry to disappoint you.
What this is about is the timing of a rather interesting set of circumstances. People have been making computer games for years. So I don’t get to announce that “Pong” has finally arrived. I will be writing about a game, but it’s not the first one to arrive. It is the first one we’ve been able to play as a family–that is, everyone from 3 and up.
When we started playing video games they didn’t have any ratings. Now they do I’ve found the rating descriptions rather comical. It peaked my interest when watching the ‘trailer’ to see the ESRB rating. It’s rated for “Everyone” with the description of “Comic Mischeif.” I’m surprised this didn’t make the news. After all there are people protesting games for too much skin, blood, violence and other indiscretion. The Organization of Parents Against Comic Mischief (OPACM) seems to be quite silent with regards to this game. It’s probably because they’re too busy playing it to blog about it, or the fact the group doesn’t exist. I’ll let you decide.
So the game is based upon creating surrealistically engineered shapes out of these “goo” balls. Sounds simple right? But what if you had to make a tower to a pipe in a room that was rotating? How about making a bridge? How about making a long bridge and using balloons to keep the middle up? How about building something with a hook?
One nice thing about this game is the people that have made it. They give away the game’s soundtrack for free. I asked them if I could load it up on my Reprise Computers, and they said “yes.” On top of all that about 80% of the computers where you find this game have pirated it. Why? Because despite the $20 price tag for the full version it’s been pirated because it doesn’t have any DRM software protection. They actually expect people to be honest.
The linux community has been paying attention to this game because it’s one of the first good games written for the operating system. Don’t do linux? Not a problem. This game is available for Mac, PC, & the Wii. The Wii has the lowest price out of any of the games ($15). If you’re unwilling to spend the $20 chill out. Just visit the site and download the demo. You’ll be hooked in the first chapter of the game.
Here’s the Website http://2dboy.com. Give it a shot. It’s clever.
Sorry there’s no smutty content here, but if you’re alone on Valentine’s Day, you might just want to spend your time getting a little gooey.
MySpace oh MySpace
Posted by jacobroecker on 27 January 2009 under Technology | 2 Comments to Read
It seems they just don’t get it. When will people actually ditch the advertising platform known as myspace and start social networking on facebook? Here’s another example of why they just don’t seem to be “with it” anymore:
C
hecked my email today. There was a message from “Tom.” I figured it was my father in law. Instead it was the myspace “Tom.” You know, the guy who’s by default everyone’s friend. This is what it said:
Dear MySpace User,
MySpace has just launched support for maiden names where you can enter your maiden name, keep your new married name and still have all of your friends find you.
All you have to do is fill in your maiden name here.
So, um didn’t bother to check that I’ve selected that I’m “male” did you? Way to go Tom. Another fine example of bad coding, bad checking. Oh, and BTW in order for me to read the message I had to ignore more than 10% of my screen because it had been filled with your crap advertising.
Lost Conversations
Posted by jacobroecker on 21 January 2009 under Chrissy, Friends, Projects, Technology | 2 Comments to Read
So this isn’t another blog entry where I will try and wake up the world to the threat of inflation, terrorist ideologies, or anything else that matters. No this post is entirely about me. That’s enough reason to stop reading now, but if you’re really bored I could imagine that you might continue perusing a little further down the page. You may want to read because dedicating an entire blog entry to “me” displays pride, and as we all know “pride goeth before the fall.” So if you’re one of those sick people that’s reading to see me crash in a few days on another blog entry please continue on. I’ll be happy to keep 50% of all the earnings from your bet (for or against). Please send the checks made out to “cash” my current address.
In less than7 days I’ve made two local news outlets. The first was Channel 7 KSWO in Lawton, and the second occurred today when the Lawton Constitution published an article on my “Reprise Computer Solutions” project. The attention has been great for the project. I also think it’ll help out the Lawton/Ft. Sill area in getting people to step up their game and help their neighbors. We’ll have to see.
It’s customary when you make the news to tell your family members about it. So when I told my sister-in-law, Lindsay had a rather interesting response.
L: “You’ve been slacking”
J: “What do you mean?”
L: “You made The Herald Journal the first week you were in Logan. You’ve been in Oklahoma for months and they’re just now paying attention to you.”
I laughed. It was poetic, funny, and well-timed. Lindsay gets some serious cool points for that one. We chatted for a while online and discussed having her start the same project up in Logan. If someone would do it, it’s sure to be a hit.
I’ve been loosing cool points all over the place these days. This morning I lost cool points to the crock pot.
When Chrissy and I were first married I managed to volunteer to do the dishes. She smiled, I got hosed. Although she’s helped out now and again, it’s been my job for pretty much the past 8+ years. Sometime last week we had dinner cooked in the crock pot. I didn’t get to cleaning it right after it was done. It took a couple of days. Of course, after a couple of days, it stunk and it got cleaned.
This morning the crock pot was back in the sink defiantly pointing a finger at me and screaming! “HA” it said. “HA!” “Less than 24 hours after you cleaned me, I’m dirty again!” Oooohhhh it was an obnoxious conversation! I was loosing.
Now in my degree we were taught about escalating and descalating conversations. I’ve really wanted to escalate things. I knew just how I was going to do it. I was going to get the last word. I was going to win. I was going to get the sledge hammer.
You could imagine what would have happened if I followed through with the hammer. I mean, really. Whenever you do something violent there’s always someone in the background with a video camera. Whatever you do is bound to end up on youtube.
I graduated cum laude from USU. My professors would have read the blog and taken my degree back. Then the Army would have to take away my commissioning, and Chrissy would have to work longer hours at the “pizza biz.” That would mean more time away from the kids, and more babysitters. The babysitters we’ve hired are already getting a bit worn out from our kids. . . They’re high school students that need to be focussed on grades, not raising my children.
Ada, Mikkel, in the interest of your future, I left the sledge hammer in the garage, and walked away.
Generally when I want to win an argument with Chrissy I say, ” I’m a speech communication graduate, don’t mess with me.” The line doesn’t seem to be working on the dishes. So, if any of you guys have any extra cool points please send them along. I seem to be drastically short these days.
I made the news!!!
Posted by jacobroecker on 14 January 2009 under Chrissy, Homeless, Projects, Technology | 2 Comments to Read
Oh yeah, that’s right. I was TV in SouthWest Oklahoma. KSWO channel 7 did a news story on me. Read more here.
It’s nice to have attracted the attention of the news media around here. It seems that on a national level no one can say anything good about anyone else. On a local level, the stories of folks doing something good still get some attention.
Thanks to the KSWO news crew! They’re a great bunch of folks.
So, what are you doing with your old computer? 
