Engadget / Gizmodo both reporting on the official launch of the new line of Sony Laptops.

From Engadget:
“The VAIO Z packs an option for dual SSD in a RAID configuration (which is just rubbing it in, if you ask us)”

yes. yes it is…

I’ve been really pleased with how my current laptop – The Sony SZ – has held up over the last two years. The form factor is great and it’s tough to find a similarly portable laptop that packs as much power. I just came across some information on an upcoming line of Sony laptops that will feature Intel’s new Montevina chipset.

The Sony Z. And the specs look great…

Core 2 Duo 2.53ghz 6mb Cache 1066Mhz FSB
4GB DDR2-800
Nvidia 9300M (speed) / Intel graphics (stamina)
320GB
HSDPA
1600×900 13.1″ (wahey!)
and all at ~3.3lbs

I’ll throw in a Solid State Disk when I get one, and let’s hope it places nice with Ubuntu.

Happy Valentines Day Anna Lynch.

Might be time to change your profile picture.

Solved my first Professor’s Cube just there. It’s a good workout for your damn hands not to mention your mind.

Just moved this site [thecentric.com] to a new home on my GoDaddy virtual dedicated server. Have more ram here – which allows me to run live some of my spike java web apps. Seems faster and cheaper… no complaints yet.

Also uploaded some pics of my few hours with Anna out on Lough Corrib.

A few weeks before Christmas; I bought an 8gb black iPod Nano. It’s the first mp3 I’ve owned and on the whole it’s been great – although there have been a few gotchas…

Having witnessed a few experiences in the office with Linux and iPod support I was confident there’d be no hitches. This wasn’t the case however as apparently I bought a Nano that’s a generation beyond the ones currently supported in my Linux distribution of choice – Ubuntu Edgy. I found a set of Edgy update debs created by a Martin Jürgens here. Thanks!

I also received 2 Nano accessories for Christmas which don’t work – again because it’s a next generation model: iTrip and Dock… It was a form factor issue rather than a software/hardware thing though.

Solved my first Rubik’s Cube in the Warrick on Steven’s Night…

For the last few weeks my computer has been getting more and more erratic. Spontaneous halts and reboots – I replaced most of the parts on the computer to see if I could isolate it – Hard Disks, SATA Controller, WiFi Card, Graphics Card etc… and nothing helped. Linux and Windows had the exact same behaviour. I was certain it was either the processor or CPU… In truth I started feeling a bit guilty about overclocking the CPU thinking I may have damaged It. Anways – What an excellant excuse to upgrade Chip and Mobo… As I posted previously I invested in a heavy duty graphics card to drive my monitor so I had to get an AGP mobo that was intel socket 775 and if I could find one that supported DDR as well as DDR2 better again… I found this motherboard in the shape of an Asrock 775Dual VSTA (I think the VSTA is a reference to it being Vista ready? eek!) Very cheap on komplett.ie

The main board along with an Intel 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo arrived yesterday. In replacing my existing motherboard… I think I may have found the cause of my stability problems… A more or less fried and useless Mainboard and Powersupply…

Crikey!

Just back from the wonderful spanish town of Leon. I was there for the wedding of my long time friends Hugh McDonagh and Maite Cosmen. We stayed for two nights – a lot of beer, fun and squid. The tapas bar culture in the city centre involved many bars (seats optional) that served up quater (“un corto”) or half pints (“una caña”) and along with it you got a tapas, the type of tapas was at the discretion of the barman. But most importantly – for free!

Below has to be one of the nicest pictures I’ve taken on my phone to date.

I hope moley doesn’t mind me pushing this out there. I tried a few times following a Photoshop tutorial on how to vectorise an image with various results, never succeeded with anything other than inanimate objects. This one however is made using some of the gimp’s and photoshop filters along with some blurring and smudging.