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So I’ve updated my desktop to a new “look”, but I’m seriously debating whether it looks worse or not. Comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

My “new” desktop:

The latest batch of pictures are in!
Get them by going here.

Written on June 3rd, 2013:
I went through the Wayback Machine from Archive.org to recover blog posts that were written previous to my use of WordPress. I first started to blog in 2003, hosting a site on a server in my parents’ basement. At the time I was using the domain name nxseal.com and the blog part was just a text file that sat inside an iframe.

Then in September of 2004, I bought the jmcardle.com domain name and started to use shared hosting. The first blogging software I used was BBlog. I then switched to WordPress in March 2005. I did not carry my old posts over, which I now regret.

In June 2013 I used the Wayback machine to grab as many as I could, and put them in WordPress. I could not recover them all, however. But I do know what I’m missing.

The unrecoverable posts:

October 2004
5th Site Update, Life News…
2nd GEG2301 – Mer Bleue Pictures
1st Drunken Post…

September 2004
30th Adding Smilie Functionality to BBlog…
30th Campus Photo
30th To GEO 2334 Students…
28th C Programming – Real Resolution
27th To those in my Geology/Geography class…
27th Welcome!

Work coming nicely for new website. Finished programming one of the most difficult pieces, and am currently now am in a state of design block as I try to draw an equally sweet design for the contents in my head. Alot of things look bad when they go from black-and-white paper to full blown colour, and this was no exception.

I wrote this a while back, might as well post it now. It was my reply to an inquiry as to if this certain individual should convert his MP3 collection into OGGs.

Converting your mp3 collection to another lossy format is a bad idea. MP3 works by jettissonning/simplifying elements you wouldn’t notice. Other lossy formats work on the same principle, but in different ways. In the end, you’d end up with a product which has had alot cut through it being an mp3, and alot cut once more by the compression algorithms of the other format.

Keep it mp3s.

For converting lossless CDs into one of the above, I’d still go with MP3s. Mainly, because the size difference between that and a smaller-but-equivalent ogg is minimal and irrelevant to me, and because my MP3 player plays MP3s, not oggs.

For those who don’t know, OGG is a compression scheme to cut down the size of raw sound files (ie. music on CDs). However, unlike MP3s, it is not a liscenced technology. In other words,
you don’t have to pay royalties if you choose to use it for commercial means. However, even though it is completely free and sounds better than MP3s [for the same bitrate], it is quite
unknown among the general masses.