Posts Tagged ‘dinah’

Parts and Labor VII

Monday, October 26th, 2009

My Windows 7 boxes are in San Bernardino, gasp. Maybe I can build my Robo-Fusoya today? :D?? (Also if you’re building a new machine but are using the Upgrade media like… oh, 90% 0f us who aren’t on MSDN or whatever the hell that thing is called, you might want to read this if you’re having activation issues.)

Since Yggdrasil is taking over as the LAN’s media server… I’ve considered giving him Blastoise’s Gigabit line and sticking Blastoise on wireless. (Yggdrasil will also be inheriting the TeamSpeak server since he’ll be always-on) At LEAST until I can find some way to add more Gigabit slots to my LAN. Supposedly I could just get any old Gigabit switch and piggyback that onto my router and it’d work? The other upside to adding more slots would be that I could stick my Slingbox and PS3 on it, too…

Really looking forward to tinkering with Windows Media Center, though– ‘sup, Netflix support (especially now that ALL of the Law and Order SVU season boxes got added to instant viewing, AWESOME) and CBS’s library via Internet TV streaming (wonder if this includes Craig Ferguson? Don’t see why it wouldn’t). This on top of Hulu/Sling.com, MSNBC, YouTube XL… oh, and my ridiculous stash of torrents, all on a badass HDTV. Bwahahahaha. I was gonna just stick Blastoise’s secondary drive inside Yggdrasil but I’ll just do a straight copy; redundancy is always a good thing when it comes to this stuff.

I still need to cook up a wallpaper to put on the old man box, though. Considered styling it somewhat after the output from Samus’ visor in Metroid Prime. Bonus points if it turns out Stardock’s DreamScapes works on Windows 7, then I could REALLY pull something awesome along these lines… >:D

Seven Windows

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Not that I imagine that there are many Windows fans here, but Altima Network’s got all their copies of Windows 7 preordered. (The Best Buy event ends later today</a>, it’s cheaper than if you order directly from Microsoft!) Blastoise and Onyx get Pro, the rest get Home Premium– and one of the remaining 4 is a wildcard. If mother wants to slap it on Evil Stepfather’s laptop, that copy goes to her, otherwise I’ll put it on Dinah. I’m wary of how it’d work out on her because of her age (mostly I’m concerned about her graphics) but supposedly Windows 7 is far less demanding than Vista… Hm.

But most excitedly, with Windows 7 comes the construction of Yggdrasil (aka “old man Iggy”). Most of his parts I already have, it’s just aside from a power supply and maybe a beefier video card (I’ve Blastoise’s old 7600GT on standby), I just need to choose a case. I like Thermaltake, so it’s pretty much down to either the Mozart Media Lab Sx or the Bach Media Lab. Iggy’s role on the network is to take over as the media server so Blastoise can FINALLY sleep at night, but also take over as a secondary Instant Ramen machine. (Even if it means I sacrifice Blastoise’s dual monitors for Iggy’s HDTV. :P) To be a TRUE media center box, I’d need to put in a TV Tuner card… but for Iggy this isn’t really necessary because he’s sharing the TV with my DVR and I have Slingbox ANYWAY, wahaha. Hell, I think my TV has picture-in-picture, I just never fiddled with that.

though… it would be nice if Microsoft could patch in Slingbox support into the Media Center dashboard… just sayin’. :P

Also for the LJ edition: new icon, w00t :D

(Instant Ramen Sketchbook) Avatars of Altima – Windows 7 version

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

The whole thing about giving computers personalities and such is nothing new in the bigger picture– we’ve been doing stuff like that with ships and cars, is not the first weird for someone to go to the Jeep dealerships in Indiana and buy a car as a present, right? Of course, when it’s me who does it, I tend to take things MUCH farther than simply slapping a name and a gender on ’em, I’m always interested on the BMW Service, so I’m always asking about it.

Blastoise and Dinah got updated Avatars for Windows 7 (well, Dinah most likely won’t be making the jump because of her age, only so much I can do for laptops), but this was more about Yggdrasil (old man Iggy!), the media center box that will join Altima Network once Windows 7 hits.

(WIP) Oldest avatar in the wooooorld

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Inked Blastoise, Dinah and Iggy!

Blastoise
Dinah
Yggdrasil

Iggy is such a badass. ;_; While all 3 of my Avatars would be water element, I imagine old man Iggy would be able to use spells of any element. Because, you know, old men are just that freaking awesome. (See: Gandalf, FuSoYa, Clemente, Wiseman)

(WIP) Avatars come in 3’s

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Blastoise will be down tomorrow due to power outage (and also because as soon as I get home, I’m installing that Blu-Ray drive I’ve had since, uh, Yoshi Day). While he is inherently the superior machine for Instant Ramen, Dinah is capable of stepping up to the plate if needed.

That said, Dinah is much better suited for finer detail stuff such as inking and coloring… if only because of screen size. So, in the interest of letting her do what she does best, I decided to just do the wireframes for all 3 Avatars (Blastoise, Dinah and Yggdrasil) at once.



Blastoise, the turtle Pokemon spearman
You know, I liked his previous design, so I kept most of it in this revision. He does, however, get new headgear and a weapon change– now he’s got a spear, no thanks to all that time spent in Phantasy Star Universe. >_>;;; Not quite evident in the wireframe, but Blastoise now has a Jade Curtiss-esque upper cape and eartails.


Dinah, the ninja
Dinah, on the flipside, pretty much got redone entirely. Her original incarnation was more or less a speed-painted adaptation of her City of Heroes incarnation. This time, she actually looks like a ninja! Additionally, just because, Dinah also gets the same buttcape as Blastoise, and similar footgear (except Dinah’s go above the knee rather than just underneath).
Like Blastoise, Dinah also gets a weapon tweak: a swallow/doublesaber. I was going to trade in her old katana for twin blades, but this looks better.


Yggdrasil (“Iggy”), the seer
This old man does not yet exist, but upon the release of Windows 7 he will be cobbled together from 2/3 spare parts (Synergy’s old mobo+CPU+RAM, Blastoise’s old DVD writer and GeForce 7600GT) and become my media center box to get slapped onto my HDTV.
He’s based on a combination of Phil and ToD2!Garr. To a smaller degree, FuSoYa, if only because long hair and beard are LOOOOOOOOONG. Why do I have this fixation on badass old guys? Completely platonic, mind you (if you must ask THAT question, it would be Blastoise hands-down), but WTF all the same.

I could draw Avatar forms of the remaining machines on the network (Onyx, Jin, Tsunami and Tiger) but… eh. Those aren’t even mine, and even if I made wallpapers out of ’em, they wouldn’t be much appreciated and replaced with LOL BULLDOGS within an hour. -_-; So, just Blastoise, Dinah and old man Iggy, here.