Alfreido's Blog

In Silico, by Australian drum-and-bass group Pendulum, is a strong example of diversity and how it can sometimes be more harmful rather the helpful. Touted as a collision between the smashing riffs of hard rock and the pounding beats of drum and bass, it’s unfortunate to say that this album will more than likely please neither crowd, with a sound too soft and melodic to satisfy the hard rock crowd, and not enough bass, a tempo too slow and a generic, commercial sound which will more than likely disappoint the drum and bass fans. I’m a real big fan of Pendulum, they are one my favourite bands, but I just cannot seem to connect and enjoy this album on the same level as Hold your Colour, Pendulum’s previous album which was released in 2006.
Read more »

Hail the fucking lord, that’s all I have to say.

Seriously, I am really loving my MacBook Pro at the moment. If you need to know, I have the 2.4ghz Intel Core-Duo version, with a 256mb 8600m GT, and it is seriously a slick, speedy piece of hardware with few faults. The only faults I could pick up were the lack of a double-buttom touchpad to emulate the left and right clicks of a normal mouse. Seriously, Apple, well done your OS is simple enough to use with only one mouse button. But for those actually living in the 21st century, we prefer to have the 2-button salute to do all the things the left click doesn’t do. Holding ‘Control’ and using the click button doesn’t cut it. I also noticed the laptop does get quite hot, negating the ‘lap’ in laptop. But those are the only things I can think of.

Regarding Mac OS X, I’m finding it more and more to be my OS of choice. I just love the form factor of the OS itself, it definitely looks more sleek and sexy than Windows XP, and arguably Windows Vista. I was one of the few who liked the look of Windows Vista, even if it runs like a dog with his feet stapled to the floor. It is also very awesome that Mac programs are installed by these single .dmg files as opposed to the clusterfuck that is the Windows program installers. To its credit though, Windows has a lot more programs available to it, something I found quite daunting to begin with, but I have gradually found Mac counterparts.

Speaking of Windows, I do have it installed in Boot Camp, to satisfy my mobile gaming needs. I installed World in Conflict, and have actually found with some tweaking, I can play the game on 1440×900 (the default resolution of the Apple MacBook Pro 15″ screens) at a very playable frame rate, and it looks very mint. I have been playing LAN games with my brothers and have had some good sessions on it. I don’t know if Apple intended it but these laptops could easily become a good gaming laptop. They have a lot of untapped power under the hood.

Overall, it’s a very awesome laptop, I’m loving it immensly. Go and get yourself one if you can afford it.