Alex's Antidote » Caption

Get 2GB Free Online Storage from Ubuntu One

Alex — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:09:42 +0000

Wrapping up today's theme of free online storage, I'll tell you about Ubuntu One, which offers a lot of great features and 2GB of free online storage... Read on for more...

(Read more...)

Categories: Music, Tech Stuff, Updates

Tags: 2gb Storage, Andriod, Browser, Caption, Free Apps, Free Online Storage, Free Storage, High Quality, Mac Users, Mobile Package, Music Store, Neat Features, Notes Music, Quality Mp3, Running Out Of Time, Storage Account, Sync

Get 5GB Free Online (Cloud) Storage from Amazon

Alex — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:25:07 +0000

Amazon Cloud Drive - Free 5GB to 20GB Storage

Continuing with today’s theme of free online storage… Amazon has announced that they are giving away 5GB of free online storage! They use the word “Cloud” which is becoming more popular these days, but I try to avoid it as it makes me nauseous because of those Windows 7 commercials! Ugh!

Anyway, back to the free online storage! If you are so excited that you just can’t read any further, here’s the link: Free Cloud Storage from Amazon

But wait, there’s more! Amazon will give you up to 20 GB free if you purchase a complete album… Any album… And the files will be automatically added to your CloudDrive (as they call it). Not a bad deal at all if you were planning on buying an album anyway right?! Plus there are some great deals out there right now!

Search Amazon MP3 Store

Or check out a few albums I recommend for $5 or less!

And one more for my buddy Phil:

Did I mention they have a built-in Cloud Player to stream your audio to you easily?

They also have an Android App, and you can store more than music/video… You can store anything.

RIP Dwayne McDuffie

Alex — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:26:25 +0000

Dwayne Mcduffie

These past few days I have been ranting about how excited I was to watch the new All Star Superman movie and in doing so was more than happy to mention the man who wrote the script for the movie, Dwayne McDuffie. I have enjoyed his comics and cartoons/movies (even before I knew he was involved in making them), and wanted to give proper credit and explanation for why his work is so good. I have never been very good at writing stuff like that (always more technically minded, sorry)… I was going to ask my buddy/cousin Jeremy to write something to put on here to better explain why McDuffie is such a great asset to the Comic community, but I had no idea it would end up being under these circumstances.

Earlier today, Dwayne McDuffie passed away. It was very shocking and sad news and I wasn’t sure how to respond. By the time I had a chance to talk with Jeremy about it he had already written an amazing and heart-felt note on his Facebook page about Mr. McDuffie. I asked for his permission to post it here and he obliged. So, without further ramblings from myself, here is a very nice tribute to Dwayne McDuffie:

Today I was informed of one of the hardest things I’ve had to hear so far in this short year of 2011: Dwayne McDuffie has passed away today (2/22/2011) after a surgery Monday had complications. for those that are wanting to see: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30969 was the page tweeted to me by Alex Mason (thank you for keeping me updated man). This is something that is really hard for me to deal with at the moment because i just worked 13 hours on 4 hours sleep so for those that are reading this, bare with me because I’m about to go off on a tangent.

Dwayne McDuffie is/was my favorite Comic Book writer to read. Everything he wrote in my opinion was gold. From the co-creator of Milestone Comics (which includes my favorite comic book character period: Static) to the recent run in JLA vol 4 that was hampered severely by Dido’s executive team his writing always stood out to me. He had a way of making you want to know more about the characters he was writing about, a different take than the usual straight forward status quo, and often times he would use often forgotten characters to make the ones he was working with better. He could take a story that many would avoid and work it into a realistic yet fiction setting. A talent like McDuffie can be replaced? but it’ll never be duplicated or respectfully mirrored. He was a man that could break down and rationalize any fight fans could think of (look up McDuffie’s break down of a fight between Superman/Wonder Woman it makes you step back and really think about the characters in a different light) when asked on his forums.

I’ve yet to read a comic book series as good as the Static 1-45 (owns about 2500+ comics and has read about 2x that). This series covered a lot of REAL issues within each of it’s pages. A lot of DC comics can be broke down into about 4 styles: Superman, Batman, Cosmic, random. By this I mean: Superman: super light side, with a lot of justice yet big blue holding his morals, Batman: grit and schemes and plans and the ‘shadows’ everything dark about the world (note I believe about 70% of comics tailor to this style), Cosmic: space stuff like GLs and Darkseid, Teams: JLA/Teen Titans/JSA/Outsiders/Doom Patrol/REBELS/LoSH/etc. each of those styles cover a different issue of sorts, most avoid the real issues at all possible usually only alluding to them. In Static’s series? you name it it was more then likely in there if a teenager has to deal with it (lol of course not everything, but it did a really good job).

I would of liked to see Dwayne’s comments on the first issue of the new ongoing Static series that Felicia Henderson (writer of Fresh Prince and the 2010 run of TTs) is going to be writing. While a lot harp on her? McDuffie displayed a respect and a lot of praise in her work in that short span with Static. I think they’ll probably make the first issue a ‘in memory of Dwayne McDuffie’ issue, if not I’ll be disappointed in DC comics as a whole.

Now I have to sit back and look at whose left? while I like Johns and Morrison work a lot, they did not bring a balance view to comics imo. That added to Dido’s tyrannical reign leaves little faith that McDuffie’s characters will be treated with the respect they deserve (other than Static and possibly Hardware). He was one of the only writers that when writing a African descent character that did not immediately make everything about the usual wrongs of their history. He would put them in the here and now, respect their history, and not make such a deal to the point of pushing away readers (for example: what a lot of Black Panther’s writers do). He made me want to read more of different race characters that’s for sure, because besides Black Lightning and Apache Chief in Super Friends I didn’t know of many, then Green Lantern John Stewart in JLA cartoon (which i later learned was being produced by McDuffie) and Static in Static Shock (written/produced by McDuffie) cartoon.

Watch Static-Shock Cartoons Online

Static Shock the cartoon is what made me go out and start buying comic books (which at the time Static was not in comic books… so i started on Xmen academy and Teen Titans). I now own a lot of the Milestone comics titles, including the complete Static series 1-45, his mini in 2001, and the more recent stuff too including Milestone Forever (a 2 comic must read imo) and his JLA vol 4 run.

I think I’ve spoken enough/explained how strongly i feel about this man’s impact on my life. Without him? I wouldn’t be the comic book fan I am today. I will miss you and your writing Dwayne. My thoughts and prayers go out to your family/loved ones. most of all, as a loyal fan you will never die to me, because you’ll live on in my heart/mind and forever be a foundation to my comic book views, opinions, and approaches to comics.

thank you for the amazing time you gave to us.

RIP Dwayne McDuffie

Jeremy Campbell

About the author: Jeremy Campbell is a young well-rounded and hard-working Michigan man. He owns thousands of comics and has read even more. When he’s not sharing his knowledge and love for comics, he is probably writing his own (in the form of role-playing stories) or watching sports (or working).

Note from Alex: if you are looking for any books/comics written by Dwayne McDuffie, you can find them, but they are selling out fast!
Here’s a good place to start.
Also look here for movies/cartoons he wrote/produced.

Using a Multi-Button PC Mouse on a Mac

Alex — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:18:40 +0000

SteerMouse 4.02 (via Apple Downloads)

I have been using a Mac Mini at work now for several months. I use a PC mouse and keyboard (for several reasons, namely i have big hands and fingers so using those tiny Apple keyboards is out of the question, and I like my multi-button mouse too much to give it up). If you are curious of the model, I use a Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser (keyboard/mouse combo).

As is expected, both the right and left mouse buttons work correctly “out of the box” on OS X, but the extra buttons and the horizontal scroll do not work! This has annoyed me for far too long and it was time I did something about it:

The Failed Attempt

First I tried searching Logitech’s website for drivers and/or software to fix the problem. I had done this before, but figured I’d give it another go. Nothing… So I tried Google… Oddly enough Google supplied me with a link to Logitech’s website — apparently they have a “Logitech Control Center” just for Mac’s.

I was excited that it could be so easy to fix, so I quickly downloaded the program, installed it, rebooted, and… LCC told me that no compatible mouse/keyboard found. I rebooted again… Same result… I did some more in-depth searching and discovered that this program is for the Mac versions of the Logitech devices only (which explains why when I registered my product the actual model I have was not to be found in the drop-down).

The Successful Attempt!

I decided I had enough and searched Apple’s download page under the “Drivers” section. I had read about a utility called “SteerMouse” when trying to troubleshoot the LCC (funny…in those searches it was SteerMouse people complained about as it apparently interfered with LCC — obviously not the case for me lol), so I thought I’d see if it still existed or if perhaps there were other options.

Sure enough, there was SteerMouse. I downloaded, installed, rebooted. Then I started up SteerMouse and was surprised to see that it did not detect a compatible mouse, however it knew enough to instruct me to remove the LCC as that was interfering! I uninstalled the LCC and rebooted.

I was pleasantly surprised to see SteerMouse now detected my mouse and allowed me to change settings for every feature. And the best part? Not only did it work flawlessly, but it already had my preferred settings set as default from the start!

You can download SteerMouse 4.0.2 here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/steermouse.html

You can download the Logitech Control Center here (wont work with PC models): http://www.logitech.com/en-us/494/3129

A Linux lover on a Mac?

Alex — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:54:22 +0000

Image from daskeyboard.com

Wow has time passed since my last post or what?!

Well I see I still have some readers still hanging on so I should update if nothing but for your sakes. Thank you for sticking around.

I can’t recall if I mentioned this before or not, so I’m going to talk about it now anyway. I purchased a Mac Mini for my business. Why a Mac? Well because it will allow me to develop iPhone apps to sell on the App Store (man I really need to get cracking on that). Yes, I know it is kind of like feeding the beast, but do not worry, I still run Ubuntu at home and even run it on this Mac (yeah, I’m at work) through VirtualBox (I suppose I should post something about that sometime soon). And yes, I’m running Windows XP through VirtualBox too. I’m such a wreck right now!

So, what do I think about my first Mac?

Well to be perfectly honest, I love how smooth the boot and shutdown processes go, and how clean the interface is. I am still getting used to having the menu bar for each application stuck at the top of the screen instead of the top of the application window, but it is growing on me. I thought I would loath it, but I am finding more and more it is quite convenient actually. I also like how clear the display is and I like (for the most part) the dock at the bottom.

I do not, however, like the mouse/keyboard situation. I purchased a PC mouse and keyboard (the Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser) because I have to have a right click button, and I have big fingers and those tiny Apple keyboards just wont work for me. Not to mention I had planned in advance to use VirtualBox to host Linux and Windows and wanted to have a familiar keyboard/mouse feel when working in those environments.

Everything on the mouse and keyboard work as expected in Linux and Windows (even through the virtual machine), but there are some serious annoyances when it comes to using them in the Mac OS.

PC I/O devices on a Mac

The Home and End keys do not work the same in OS X as they do in Windows or Linux. On Mac they take you to the top of the document or the end (or something, it honestly confuses me when I press them and I really don’t know what is going on). Either way, I can’t stand it. When I press the home key, I want it to go to the start of the line I am currently on (this is huge for coding). When I press the End key, I want it to go to the end of the line I am currently working on… Similarly with Ctrl+Home (sorry, that’s the windows/linux version, on a mac it’s open apple + home or the “Windows” key + home on Windows aka the “Super” key + home on Linux), or Ctrl+End (you get the idea), I expect to go to the beginning or end of the document respectively. Additionally when holding shift and pressing any of those combinations, I expect it to highlight the text between my current location in the document to the respective destination.

Additionally, I want my 4th and 5th mouse buttons to work properly! right now they work just like a “middle click” in the Mac environment.

How to solve this? — Well I’m looking into it. If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments!

What next?

Not sure yet. I’m working on some websites and going to be quitting my other job (I’m so burned out and it’s falling apart everywhere), so I will be focusing on this business full time from here on out! I’ll try to keep the updates coming more frequently.

What about Linux?

Don’t worry, I have not and will not abandon my obsession with Linux. The new version of Ubuntu is here! So I am downloading the ISO and will at the very least be booting it up here on my virtual machine to play with and will be doing a complete system wipe and re installation on my laptop at home when I have time (was playing around the other day and found out I was using the 32-bit version of Ubuntu when I could be using the 64-bit, and also still have Vista partitioned there taking up 50GB for nothing!).

Happy New Year! (Welcome 2010)

Alex — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 10:25:54 +0000

Well it has officially be 2 years (and a couple weeks) since I first started this website. I has not lived up to what I had at first envisioned and as I look back on the past 2 years it seems clear to me that I was constantly fighting against myself to make more out of this site than it really is or probably ever will be.

So, with that, I have decided to change course – just a little bit – and start 2010 off on (hopefully) the right foot!

New goal(s):

Even though I may not make many “Pages” with proper tutorials (as I had originally planned), I will make my best effort to post something (like short) each and every day (at least as much as I possibly can).
Post proper tutorials on big subjects as time allows. I have many ideas here, but little to no time to do it…
Post tech-related (and more specifically Linux related whenever possible) posts as often as possible
Include a pic or two in regular posts to liven things up a bit… yeah admit it, you’re more inclined to read if you see a pic

That’s it for now. Best wishes to you all in the new year!

p.s. I have some web-development projects coming up in the next few weeks, so I may be talking about web development and design a bit for those who are interested…