Windows 8...problem, solution, problem, solution

After 24 hours of failed attempts getting Windows 8 to install on my new laptop, it has finally decided to copy all the files onto the hard drive...with the drivers. I will come back to this post once I've tested it more thoroughly.

Update:

A bit of a delay. It took me some time to get Windows working exactly the way I wanted it to. The changes (in my opinion) were minimal, it's just a matter of keeping an open mind. Windows have started to focus around the whole idea oh synchronizing and maintaining online accounts with all your preferences and being able to move your settings and Apps from one PC to the next. To clarify, the Windows 8 interface (for the average user) revolves around Apps and a store, much like Apple's idea of the iPhone / iPad / iPod store.
It's hard to say whether this step is something worth their while. As technology, especially, Operating Systems have developed, I have noticed a pattern; the newer the version, the more redistricted I am. Less and less focus seems to go on the the advanced UI and more onto making things simple...

I could go into a whole debate of making things easy for people not willing to learn but I will leave that for another chapter.

To summarize:

My current setup:

PC 1:

Fedora Core 18 - x64
6 GB Ram, Intel Dual Core, 2.1 GHZ, 500 GB Hard-Drive

This computer is the foundation of the network I have at home. It's duty is to monitor the traffic coming in & out. It also has a 3 TB Hard-Drive attached which serves as the houses media center. The computer also acts as a streaming media server for the local network.

PC 2:

Windows 8 Pro - x64
6 GB RAM, Intel core i7 @ 2.65GHZ, 500 GB Hard-Drive, Intel HD Graphics

This is my main work PC. It has been setup to allow me to stay up to date with the latest programming and technology development. I have stripped Windows 8 down to the core, in order to allow more RAM and processing power to be assigned to compiling and testing of software.

PC 3:

Gaming PC, let the specs speak for itself:


CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K
CPU Overclocking: 4.3Ghz - Moderate Overclock
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Loki SDS963
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LX2
RAM: 8GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x4GB)
Hard Drive: 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB
Case: Zalman Z11 Plus
PSU: 500W Xigmatek

Enabling: Alexandra Matsi

Not a lot of people these days follow their dreams and desires. So when I come across someone who is doing everything they can to enable their dream, I will find any way to support that person.

I have come across a young girl who has a passion for her acoustic guitar and vocal trance. It becomes an interesting and new mix.

Alexandra Matsi's Sound Cloud can be found by clicking here.

Ruthlessness: The world of Business.

"In order to survive the hunted must become the hunters"

The business world is a tough industry however it is a part of everyone's life. Unlike on the middle-class working levels (office workers, brick layers, taxi drivers), where hard work and long hours are rewarded, in the Corporate world, the only way to be successful is ruthlessness.
In order to move up the ladder, three criteria have to be met:

1. You prove that you have outgrown your position. You take on extra responsibilities before you get the promotion, this shows the employer that you are ready to take on the extra tasks and take the initiative.
2. You are willing to let go of the friendship you have with your colleagues. They are no longer your friends. They are now people who by standards of hierarchy, follow your instructions. You are in no way allowed to use your emotions to make decisions when it comes to subordinates. Even a single irrational decision will cost you all the respect you have worked for.
3. Stay focused on your goal. A weak person will not adapt their milestones according to the goal they have in mind but instead they will continue struggling and achieve nothing. Weak people will believe that breaking your main goal into smaller simpler tasks is giving up. This is not the case.

CEO's are in their position because of one reason: they never let go of their dream. Even if for a brief moment it may seem as though they have changed their goals to achieve less, in the long run, those people are the ones that have overcome their fear of failure.

The world of Business is ruled by people who have the flare to push through anything they come across. The first step to jumping onto the bandwagon is to accept that in order to become a CEO, you have to outsmart one. You cannot become one unless you have used a CEO's own thought pattern against him or her.

The principle is simple. In order to excel above others, have them judge you. People with normal abilities narrow their judgement to only their own. The fact that you are asking people for their opinion on your flaws means that you have already surpassed them.

You will come across many people but one thing they all have in common is their weakness when it comes to the 'colleagues' who are more determined than they are, these kind people will analyse you in order to find anything they can put you down with. This information is of utmost value. Accept the harsh down-talk of your 'colleagues' and use their advice to excel yourself above and beyond.

The path of success is a lonely and long walk. Enjoy the silence.

Ronin.

"A lonely path we must cross"

It is preposterous to feel upset when you are offered ronin. Those people who served in the reign of Lord Katsushige never failed to say, "You cannot be real samurais until you do ronin 7 times. You must have seven falls and stand up eight times." 
Hyogo Narutomi, I hear, actually became a ronin seven times. You must understand yourself as a Dharuma doll. A Lord ought to give leave to his samurais to try the ronin way.

It is not possible to become a man before you have been disappointing or disowned at least seven times. We cannot expect to grow and become stronger if we are not willing to suffer. I am on my fourth.

Nostalgia: Level Snow

Throughout my travels, as far as I can remember one thing has always stayed the same...the snow that falls onto the ground. It reminds me of a place I like to call "home":

Google Street View: A rare insight.

Images captured by the Google Street View car:

To fall for the 7th time.

"七転び八起き"

In order to come to terms with one's mistakes, it's important to understand the meaning of standing up 8 times. A simple person would interpret the concept in a way where the number of times you can recover from any given situation is 8 times.

Then there are some...the one's who understand the meaning behind the number 8.

No limits, no boundaries - every fall is a new challenge which will develop understanding an experience. There is no limit as to how many times a person can stand back up. Only the weak willed have limits. We do not.

I will never allow myself to give up. No matter how much I bleed, suffer or get lost, I will stand up for the 8th time.

A new start. From Windows to Linux

I've been on and off with Linux and Windows throughout my years of trial and error. It was strange, I never felt comfortable with Linux and I always felt as if something was missing.

Today something funny happened. My laptop had turned sluggish and I decided to restart. I left the Fedora Core 17 image in the CD drive and when I came back up stairs from making a cup of tea...I saw the install screen. I thought fuck it why not? Everything I wanted to keep was already on the second partition of my HD so why not...[enter]

So here I am, setting up my distro of Fedora...

45 Lessons from a 90 year old - Repost

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short not to enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for things that matter.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye… But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful.  Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to be happy.  But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose Life.
28. Forgive but don’t forget.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give Time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

Credit: kangalex's tumblr

Growing old on the Internet

I was browsing the MegaTokyo forums this morning and I came across a very interesting post which made me think back of how long I've been on the internet.
I got my first dial-up internet plan from my ISP back in 2001. The area I lived in was still unsupported and the internet would often have trouble connecting. When I did finally manage to make it work, I entered a whole new world.
I remember looking at the Netscape Navigator icon...it was strange double clicking that icon used to be an unfamiliar activity. Today, the first thing that I start-up is Google Chrome.
The first community I was ever a part of was Epilogue.net. I couldn't draw but I really appreciated the art work. I only ever browsed and left the odd comment and never really met anyone. Later on in the year, my friend introduced me to the MegaTokyo manga. I remember how all I could think of at school was getting home and carry on reading. By this point, I had around 800 strips to get through so I had plenty of reading material.
Shortly after, the MSN Messenger bug had hit everyone. Standard school day routine: come home, throw bag onto floor, boot up PC, log onto MSN, chat to girls. Most of us wouldn't even get changed or have something to eat, almost as if it was a competition as to who could log on first.
This was the first time I started mixing the internet and my real social life. In 2006, ADSL had finally arrived. The internet was now a normal everyday thing even for my Grandparents. They would use it to read the news, send e-mails and order for their business. It almost seems a century away...
Once I had a good and stable internet connection, I started getting into programming. I was always fascinated by being able to make a piece of software do exactly as I wanted it to.
I joined community after community. My favorite communities at that time was Astalavista and Elite-Hacker forums. They seemed to be the only ones that had reasonable and mature people on it. Usually you would find 13 year old 3L1T3 H4CK3R5 who would find you and kill you whenever they lost an argument.
By this point, no-body could track the communities and forums they had signed up for. The internet started become a mess of accounts that we were unable to keep track of. I remember having a pad with all the usernames and passwords I used.

This is when web 2.0 was born. I wasn't the only one having this problem, and it seemed that people had so many identities that nobody knew who they were talking to. Then came Facebook alongside OpenID. One account for them all. Everybody should easily be able to keep their accounts tracked and be able to publish contents onto the internet without needing the technical know-how. The result? Well what you see today.

Blogs, forums and a single sign-on service thanks to Google, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Pokemon: The Real Deal

I couldn't help myself but share this in a a post rather than just uploading it to the photo gallery. The art work and effort put behind this is remarkable!

2013: What to put into your calender

Some important dates which you should definitely keep free when making plans:

Betrayal & Silence

It is hard to pinpoint the definition of betrayal when my understanding of one's being is to be free from any sort of emotional hold-back.
There is only one way betrayal is possible. By going against your own word. Essentially you can only betray me, if you betray yourself.

"If you do not speak to me and decide to stab me in the back; it is my fault for not paying enough attention to my surroundings."
"If you tell me one thing and then do another. You have failed earning my loyalty."

Silence is golden.

The Game

It cannot be avoided.
I cannot tell you how many intelligent people there are, I cannot tell you how many people in the world are poor or rich but one thing I can say for certain is that there are two types of people. The chased and the chaser.
Everybody is always talking about finding their true love and settling down. On the surface of things, that is true but looking deeper into the meaning of 'love' and 'settling down', it becomes clear that nobody is ever truly settled or in love. Love comes in many forms or ways, the angle for today is the mentality behind the challenge.
No matter how comfortable you are, you will always play games with your other half. It comes in many shapes and sizes. From the meaningless teasing to fully destroying someone's personality and confidence. Sub-consciously we are always competing with our partner.
Many will have asked the same question: "Why?"

The mind is always thinking and if we don't give it enough of a challenge, it will begin to retaliate. Deep down we all know our true potential and we also know that we are never being pushed enough to achieve that potential. So we turn to our instincts; I attack you, you attack back. We hope for a response that will make us step up to the mark and show are 'alpha status'.

So why our partner?

The answer is simple, they are nearby and we believe that they will stick around no matter what. At this stage, the comfort zone has already been entered. The routine has kicked in and the 'butterflies' have stopped.

Freedom is engaging the game, finding an opponent that is on your level and who is able to keep up with the challenge. This is true 'love'.
The moment either one of you breaks, the game is over. Move on.

Learnings: Part I

• I am free to do what I choose, so are you. The choice to leave or to stay is yours.
• I would rather see my own blood drip onto the floor than to step down and admit defeat. If this ideology emits even a single signal of shiver within you, you are not fit to survive.
• Dying a meaningless death is the essence of gambling. Apply it to everything.
• There is a big difference between choosing and making a choice.
• No matter whether you run or walk in the rain, you will get equally as wet.
• You belief should always exceed your expectations.
• You can always keep walking.
• It is not possible to conduct an Orchestra unless you turn your back to the audience.
• You can only convince others if you believe your own words and actions.

Pins & Needles.

Once a night my bedroom light

Bleeds out from inside my window

Eyes white, I keep out of sight

This city's just not pretty like it used to be

It's always a nightmare, it's never a dream

The promise we made to kill the days between

They live in the heartbeat and sleep til the light is gone

It's been so long

Feels like pins and needles in my heart

So long

I can feel it tearing me apart

To the bed the left unsaid

Crawl in from outside my window

Hands red and cold as the dead

A pity they're not pretty like they used to be

It's always a nightmare, it's never a dream

The promise we made to kill the days between

They live in the heartbeat and sleep til the light is gone

It's been so long

Feels like pins and needles in my heart

So long

I can feel it tearing me apart

It's never a whisper, it's always a scream

The promise we made to kill the time between

They live in the heartbeat and sleep til the light is gone

It's been so long

Feels like pins and needles in my heart

So long

I can feel it tearing me apart

Euphoria; a new beginning.

People are lead to believe that doing a certain amount of drugs will cause an overdose, a euphoria of emotions that leads them to believe that they will not survive the night. I fail to understand this.
In my lifetime I have taken many drugs, from powder to green. To this day I am still standing healthy and trying to understand the problems people have when they intoxicate themselves.

Once they understand that the body is a strong organism, will they understand that the amount of drugs they dare to do will not be able to harm the human body.

Today is a new day, it is the 1st of January 2013 and a new beginning. I have had many disputes and thoughts when it comes to turning a new leaf at the start of a new year...

The human mind works in a mysterious way. It populates the memories of Christmas with a bundle of unfamiliar emotions. In simple terms...people start to become nostalgic due to the memories they have attached to the festival. I come across the same situation as when it comes to relationships.The same way they see the 1st of January a start of a new leaf, a new life...
It doesn't work that way...whether it is a special occasion or not, the mind is not able to simply switch off certain dirty habits. People form a false belief around the idea of starting anew on the 1st of January and then fail to comply with their 'new years resolutions' because it is not as simple as flicking a switch.

Considering something has become a big enough impact in your life to consider a change, your must understand that a habit takes 21 non-repetitions in order to eliminate. People who fail to understand this will be stuck in an endless cycle of 'new year promises'.

If something is worth a change, don't hesitate to make that change, a date on the calender won't change your motivation.

Fuck motivation; just do it.

Never the less, whatever you take from this...happy new year.