Reid's For Fun

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Well, I'm finding the 64bit version of Windows 7 works pretty well. I have most of my applications running again, using the 64bit versions if I could find them. The SSD drive is working great and I'm just using an external drive enclosure to get around the space limitations.

I've been rendering some of my models with the 64bit version of POV-ray. It seems to be working great. Not a huge difference, but some. It was interesting to see that memory and graphics each seem to get a speed boost. Overall, things are peppy, but some of that is probably due to completely reloading my machine with a clean copy of Win7. So far, no complaints. [ View Article ]

I was honored with a 128GB SSD drive today and I just had to give it a try. Since I can only have one drive in my laptop, I decided I'd swap out the old one and, while I was at it, spin up a 64bit version of Windows 7 on it as well. I'm curious to see how things will work.

I have the OS loaded, but I'm still in the process of updating and adding all my manufacturing recommended drivers. Everything is working great so far. I don't have much real software loaded yet though. I also need to figure out how best to get my old files onto my new computer. I had a 250GB drive before so I'm going to be a few short if I just copy everything over. I'm curious how my old 32bit software will work. I'm grabbing the 64bit versions of some and will be curious if they run any differently.

This is a fun experiment that I'm hoping will turn into a great experience. [ View Article ]

I uploaded a slightly longer version of the "Fly Me To the Moon" song to ACIDplanet.com. It isn't much of a soundtrack since there is only one song. I created this version first but it was too long for the animation.  The shorter version in the video was an edited remix of this one. [ View Article ]

Playing around with POV-Ray animation. This is LEGO model 367 Lunar Lander. Trying to be a bit more ambitious with camera sweeps, using easing functions and launching the lander into space!



Since Flickr allows videos as well, I threw a copy there as well. Unfortunately they only allow two uploads a month. [ View Article ]

I finally got around to trying my hand again at animating some of my virtual LEGO creations. I decided to go simple and animate the vanes and a simple camera pan for the promotional Windmill circa 1976. And, to really get my geek on, I uploaded it to YouTube.



This was fun and I already have some ideas for my next project. Although, I need to make them a bit more interesting. [ View Article ]

This is LEGO(R) model 5865 MiniDumper, part of the 2009 Creator series. I thought it looked really cool and was curious how close I could get to the original by building a virtual one.

Fingers crossed that I come close with just the inventory list. It gave me an excuse to model some new bricks as well as fix a few old ones. And yes, the back can dump. I just didn't bother for this image. [ View Article ]

Bungie just released the snippet of soundtrack for the premier trailer: Lone Wolf. The iTunes purest in me couldn't live with the default no album art found image, so I created one! Here is the Halo: Reach album art at 640x640. And no, I didn't bother to add any text. I assume that once the real soundtrack is released I'll go grab the correct album art. [ View Article ]

I've been using Reflection.js for some time now to generate reflective category images. I did this mainly to avoid having to create the reflections by hand. However, it has always had a bit of a lag when generating the reflections. This can be a bit jarring at times, but I've gotten used to it.

In my search for some lightbox style scripts, I ran across Reflection.js for jQuery. The author touts that it is faster and offers a better user experience. That sounds good, but does it really work? The demo on the site sure does look faster than the original.  So I uploaded the latest version and made some CSS modifications to accommodate some differences in the script. Voilà! I now have an alternative reflection generator to test.

So far it does seem a bit faster, although it doesn't completely eliminate the jarring effect when the reflection is inserted. Fortunately it is an easy change to swap between the two. I've left the new version for now. Perhaps it will give me an excuse to play some more with jQuery. By the way, there is a Reflection.js for MooTools as well if you prefer  to use that javascript framework. [ View Article ]

I really haven't liked the way the code routine displays on my blog. It adds a lot of white space and generally looks bad. To make things a bit nicer, I removed the Code: message, set the overflow to auto instead of scroll, and I removed the extra breaks.  Here is the CSS I'm using:


I had to play a bit with the internal routines for dealing with newlines in edits so that it wouldn't double up the line breaks. I think it is all working now. What do you think? [ View Article ]

One thing that always bugged me with using scripts is that you tend to see the script name. For example, this site has always had an index.cgi and most PHP sites have index.php in the links. I find it tacky and many commercial sites don't do this. I don't want to change my software, so there has to be a way around this problem. The search is on!

Some time ago I figured out how to redirect directly to my script from my main site's URL. The most obviously method is a little HTML redirect script in your home directory. This is what Web-APP came with, an index.html script with either a meta tag or JavaScript. This allows you to use the base URL to get to the site, but users still see the index.cgi.

If your server supports it, that you can use a service side include (SSI) to redirect to your script name. For example:


This prevents your script name from showing up in on entry; however, it will still show up in all the script links unless you modify your configuration to use your root domain as your script name.

Curiously, I found I could do the same thing without the extra SSI call. If you are using Apache and your host supports .htaccess files, add the following line to it:


This works great and I've been able to almost completely eliminate having to see "index" my site's URL. [ View Article ]

• My Hobbies on GeoCities (slreid69)
• My GameSpot Profile (SafePit)
• My XBOX Gamer Card (SafePit)
• My Flickr Photos (SafePit)
• My Music on ACIDplanet (SafePit)

• RADIX Construction, Inc.
• 360voice Dynamic Userbars
• IADCA

March  2010

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