Well the weather was just looking too questionable, so Jennie and I made the call to not head to MN for Christmas.  For those who don’t know, both of our families live in Minnesota.  This tends to make things interesting as we try to visit everyone we can when we make the 6hrs to visit.  It also is great as we get to see a bunch of people at once

Though we do hope to make it down after the storm passes to make the rounds and try to visit everyone then.

I might get some posts up on here and Epic Plains over the weekend, but not sure if I will manage to get any set up or not.  Either way, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

The Mac vs PC debate is an interesting one.  PC dominates the market place, so why is there such strong opinions?  Often times it seems people prefer which ever they started on.  Although in cases like mine, that isn’t really true.

Myself, started as an Apple geek.  My first computer (which came from my Dad) was an Apple IIe.  Dad had the Macintosh and eventually upgraded that to a Performa.

Winter of ’98, with the help of a buddy (thanks irrision) built my first computer.  Installed Win95 briefly, but quickly upgraded it to Win98.  I loved the fact that it ran on any hardware, so I was able to save a ton of money getting my own parts and building my own version of a desktop computer.

The love went from there, as a high school kid and then starting out college, kept upgrading the thing to keep it close to gamer specs.  I continued to work with Windows, advancing along with it from Win2k, WinXP, (I won’t mention WinME), and even working with Windows Server Editions.  Through my consulting job I worked with MS SQL, Server side installations of software, Active Directory, etc.  Oh and got a Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician cert.  So it is safe to say I am pretty much on the PC side of things.  Or I have been.

The home laptop is starting to age and get flakey.  So I am hoping to upgrade/replace it within the next year.  My old desktop died about a year ago and I never bothered to replace it. I was going to with a spare machine, but a friend of my Dads needed a computer, so passed it off to them.  Pulled the old hard drives, converted them to external drives and haven’t worried about it since.

So it is just the laptop I am looking at replacing.  It is no longer cost effective for me to build my own machine.  Perhaps if I were going for a top-end gaming machine I could make it worth it, but I don’t game much anymore and really am not concerned with squeaking out a few extra frames-per-second.

This is a good point to go into the Mac vs PC topic.  It really seems to come down to what you want to do on a computer, budget, and comfort.  Let’s look at some Pros and Cons for me:

PC Pros:

Long time user, advanced knowledge

Have been building/using/repairing for over a decade.

Fairly reliable, providing virus and spyware blockers are used and updated

Cheaper to buy, easy for me to maintain

Software I have is PC based, would be starting from scratch

PC Cons:

I know how they can fail, hardware and software

Viruses and spyware – constantly evolving and constantly annoying

Not cost effective to home build anymore

Don’t really game anymore

Can’t run MacOSX in virtual (easily or legally)

Mac Pros:

My Dad loves his Macbook, as I do when demoing it.

Photoshop supposedly runs better on it

Writing and photography tools have a lot of support for Mac.

The Macbook Pro’s just look really sweet

With VMWare Fusion I could run Windows in a virtual (and my windows apps)

Mac Cons:

I am not as familiar with the support (both software and hardware) with modern apple products.

Price – they are freaking expensive for a comparable PC

So, I think I am going to demo my Dads Macbook a bit more.  I need to save up anyways, my Gadget Budget is a bit low (and may be non-existent for a while).  My normal computer usage is now internet (blogging and such), writing, or photography.  So software compatibility isn’t that large of a concern to me.  In the end, despite being a PC guy for over a decade, I am contemplating going back to Mac.  Both have come a long way, but it is tempting.  I just have to get over that price thing.  (Oh and of course budget for it.)

I did find a couple of interesting articles online looking at the topic as well.  You might be interested in checking those out as well.  I will do a follow-up later once to do some more looking around, testing, and generally looking.  (Here is article 1 and here is article 2.)

Today I wanted to share one of my favorite comics I discovered in the last year.  I think anyone who was worked in a corporate office environment will appreciate this, though it follows IT guys specifically.

Introducing: Business Casual

A few of my favorite strips from 2009:

Day job I am the reporting guy.  Run reports, develop reports, etc.  So I loved this one!

I think a lot of us have had projects that have changed from time to time…

Ever feel busy?  I have had a conversation just like this with IT buddies before…

Well I hope you enjoy those comics.  If you do, subscribe to the RSS feed and have them pop up in your favorite feed reader every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Over on Epic Plains I just finished compiling my list of Literary Resources that I subscribe to.

I put together a post on it as well, so head on over and check it out!

For those who were aware of it, I did have a website called “Scanner Whores.”  I recently closed down the site and let the domain expire.  The domain name and website are from an old joke.

I closed it down mostly because I didn’t use it at all, never updated it, and it never received above minimal traffic.  I did however have a couple of useful pieces of information on the site.  These I have moved to pages here on Olorinpc.com

ND-10 Codes

Stutsman County Frequencies

Beyond that, I never really used the site much.  So it really wasn’t worth the $8 a year to keep the domain.  This also goes along with my consolidation effort.  My new personal rule was, if I pick up a new domain name, I need to drop an unused one.  So with starting Epic Plains – something had to go.  Seeing as I did this two weeks ago and haven’t received a single note on it, it looks like it was a good call to just kill the site.

Any scanner/public safety related posts will appear here on Olorinpc.com in the future.

Thanks!

As I mentioned in my Goals for 2010 post, I have some goals for writing this next year.  On that note, I would like to introduce a project I have been working on related to that:

Epic Plains – An epic place with epic stories – welcome to Epic Plains.

The site is going to serve a few purposes for me.  First, it is a portal to my other websites that I work on occasionally.  (This one, Model Train Rookie, etc.) This blog and Epic Plains are going to be my main online works in the next year.  Second, it is going to focus on just writing related posts.  Whether it is my own work or the works of others, it is a literary blog.

The first main post I have there is my 2010 writing goals.  Stop by and check it out.  If you find it of interest, please subscribe to the RSS feed.  I will sometimes cross-link with this site, but as it is an independent site with a specific focus, safest bet is to subscribe over there as well.

Thanks and have the best luck in accomplishing your own goals this next year.

I wrote this a week ago and I am finally getting around to posting it. Every year I look at what I plan to accomplish in the next year. Usually I manage about half of it. So this year I am going to set bigger goals in hopes that I accomplish more things.  I like the idea of calling them goals for the next year as opposed to resolutions.  Gives me the idea that I can track progress better – even if it really is the same day.
My goals can be split into 4 things and they are in no particular order.

1) Get some of the house projects finished. (Trim pieces in the entry way, stairway needs to be redone, etc.) They have a tendency to get started and never quite finished.
2) Do more stuff for my wife. (Even if it is just not leaving socks in random places or the dishes once in a while.)  I think this is something that always can be improved on.  (Working on #1 could accomplish this as well.)
3) Writing. (Write a lot more. A **lot** more.) Blog, finish editing my first novel, work on other writing project, etc. I have a plan to submit a few short stories as well this year. I have one already in the works.
4) Quit Smoking. (I have kind of sort of tried to quit from time to time, but I plan on quitting this year and stay quit. More time to write and do stuff around the house, along with the funds saved to pay for it!)

Some of those things above are going to be challenging, but easy goals aren’t really goals. The writing goals are probably the biggest and most challenging of the year. As I mentioned in my NaNoWriMo post, I learned a few things from participating this year. The biggest being how much I just enjoyed writing. Well in order to continue to progress, and hopefully sell some works, I need to be doing a lot more of it.
Any other good 2010 goals out there?

Wow.  November was a crazy month.  A lot of things made it busy, but for anyone who has been following my posts or facebook status updates, NaNoWriMo sent it into overdrive.  (Ede has a great post on his experience as well.)

First off, once again, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  It is a non-profit group which has the primary goal of inspiring people to actually write.  Apparently 90% of people who ever set out to write their own novel never even finish.  Enter NaNoWriMo.  See: “What is NaNoWriMo?” and “How it Works”

30 days – 50,000 words.  That simple. 

 Ok, so its not *thaaaat* simple.  The concept being it is a lot easier to finish a book if you have a body of work to edit.  Hard to edit a blank page.  Sounds easy right?

 Not really.  I tried nano in 2008, got behind and discouraged right away, busy, and dropped out.  Tried to pick it up again a couple of months later, but never got far.  I just kept rewriting the first chapter or so.  That is where commitment comes in.  NaNoWriMo *is* a commitment.  Yet, the commitment is to yourself.  By committing to reaching 50,000 words, I was able to force myself past the spots I would normally start fixing, and just keep going.  I actually ended up slightly ahead and finishing 3 days early.

 I liked Ede’s “what I learned list,” for November, so I have put together my own:

1) Your story and characters will surprise you
2) A lot of crap gets written, but polishing is for later
3) Having a job, wife, etc AND trying to write a novel in a month is insane, but fun
4) I never knew it was possible for me to write almost 6000 words in a single day.
5) I hit the end of my outline and wasn’t finished with the story.  The last 3rd of the book was the most fun to write when I had no idea where scenes or dialog were going to take me.

Three questions I have heard during the month (besides “What is NaNoWriMo):

1) Why are you writing a novel?
          This is the easiest one to answer – because I have a story to tell and I love to write.

2) What are you going to do with it once you are done?
          A few things really.  First, revise, edit, and loop through that a few more times.  Revisions and whatnot should get it somewhere in the 80,000 word range. Which also seems more in line with what publishers like to see.  Then start looking for an agent and go through the process of Query Letters, Manuscripts, etc.  Second, start another novel.  There are plenty of more stories in the word I envisioned, or perhaps something totally different.

3) What is your novel about?
          Haven’t gotten too much into the specifics.  It is called “The Kingdom of Dragmar,” and is a fantasy/adventure novel.  I wrote in my favorite genre to read about.  I do have a synopsis and a brief (from a draft) excerpt on my NaNoWriMo profile page.

So if any agents or publishers happen to come across this post, (or friends reading said post know agents or folks in publishing) and are looking for a fantasy novel or two, I happen to know of a couple in the process of being polished up! ☺

Here is the link again to [my profile], and [Shane’s profile].

So I won.  Finished NaNoWriMo.  What did I win?  A little certificate that I can print out, a website graphic, and the knowledge that I can really write something novel length.  The last one being the real victory for me.  All in all – an awesome experience and look forward to it again next year.

Now to invest in paper and red pens.  (ie – time to start editing!)

Anyone else interested in writing your own novel, I recommend checking out yWriter.  Free software that really helped me organize my stuff.  Any questions, please feel free to use the Contact Form on OlorinPC.com

Wow, only 14 days left of NaNoWriMo.  For those who have been following my Facebook status updates, I am actually on track to meet goal.  Personally, I think I am the one who is most shocked by it.  Last year was my first year making the attempt, and I barely made it 3 days and 1000 words before getting discouraged by how far behind I was and not finishing anymore.

Well not this year.  Started with a nice cushion.  Now going into the 3^rd week, that cushion wore away a little, but still managing to make goal and keep on track for hitting that 50k.  It’s been a bit tiring at times, doing that last crunch to midnight to hit the goal for the day, but it has also been a ton of fun.  I have had the story idea for a while, but never really gotten it out. NaNo has helped force it out of me.  The fun part of the process has been, it’s gone in directions I never expected

The periodic emails “pep talks” are generally fun and help inspire one to keep on.  Even though there are a million other things one could (and debatably should) be doing, one keeps pushing through.  Having a friendly contest with ThatEdeGuy (who is also a writing buddy), has been great too.  The whole writing till I am just slightly ahead of him in wordcount, also means a higher than needed wordcount, so keeps me ahead a little bit.

Start of week 3 – slightly ahead of goal and over 50% done at this point.  14 days remaining, so it is a trudge to the finish.

NaNoWriMo 2009 has started.  We are now 2 hours in for those folks in the Central Time zone.  I decided to really make a go of it this year, so wanted to get a start right out of the gate.  I have managed to already go past the daily word goal of 1667 words hitting 1815 before calling it a night.

For those who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, check out the site.  Brief version is it stands for National Novel Writing Month with the goal being to right a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  It is crazy, fun, and something that I haven’t actually managed to finish the last couple of years.  (Get busy, etc.)  Well, day 1 this year I have already topped what I wrote all of last years NaNoWriMo – so I would say that things are looking good!  Still pumped and excited.

If interested, you can follow my progress to that 50k goal line on my user page.  (Click here.)  Otherwise I do plan on having the wordcount widget on this site as well.