A Few Problems With My Site?

Now that you're reading this post, chances are you've seen that I've reset the skin to the default. I seem to be experiencing some issues that link back to a php file in my new skin, so I'm switching to this default skin temporarily while I find a new skin to replace it. Just when I thought my week couldn't get any worse. :(

Update: I think it looks like this skin will stick for at least another two weeks while I find the time away from assignments. I won't be putting all the other stuff back for a while - meaning the shoutbox, copyright info and several other things will be missing until I find the time to fix up a new skin or edit this one for the meantime. :P

Another update: Apparently, the server was hit by some hacker and he kinda turned all our folders into blank files. Fortunately - I backed up most of my stuff already. The forums were taken down, and I have no intention whatsoever of bringing them back up yet. If I do bring them back, they'll be wiped clean, and I'll be using a different piece of forum software too.

Not a good week for my website huh. :(

Yet another update: The old Brushed Simple skin is back - and probably I'll leave it on for quite a period of time. I knew of the problems with the Lush skin that I modified not working in IE, but I had no idea what was causing the problem. :P But apparently, people using IE to read this blog are far more numerous than I had originally estimated, so I'll work on finding and modifying a new skin after my assignment is done. :D

What Is My Favourite Keyboard?

Well, over the years I have tried many keyboards. As a computer geek, I've probably tried plenty keyboards over many different computers. What do I find to be my favourite keyboard? The first question would then be: what kind of keyboard do we speak of? Laptop keyboards? Desktop keyboards? Since I believe they are both of different categories, I'll give you a favourite keyboard for both. Recall that this is my opinion, and I welcome you to leave your opinions in the comments or the tagboard.

Personally, I find that my favourite keyboard in the Logitech Elite Keyboard. For one, it is the one I am most used to. For some reason of another I find it rather comfortable to use and I seem to type the fastest on this keyboard. It is quite quiet at first, then becomes a little noisy as time passes and dust and dirl gets trapped under. No worries - all you have to do - is open it up, easily enough, clean the keyboard, and it becomes all nice and quiet again.

This keyboard also happens to have quite a number oif function keys as well as a scroll wheel! While the kind you most often find happens to be a wired USB one, the one I have at home in Malaysia is wireless. It is paired with the MX700 in the MX Duo set, and I find that they both are great input devices. When I came here and decided that I needed a proper full sized keyboard, I went shopping. Never in my mind would I have realised that something like this would actually be still be in the market!

Then we come to laptop keyboards. My favourite of all still has to be the Apple Powerbook laptop keyboard. I believe the iBooks and MacBooks are similar, so this might apply to them too. I find that the nicely sized keys and the travel distance of the keyboard is just quite difficult to find in a laptop of similar stature. The cosmetics of the keyboard being so nicely matched with the laptop, regardless of the colour, just completely means it beats the IBM laptop keyboard (another one I favour highly) hands down. Of course, we have the issue of Apple laptops having very few buttons besides the keyboard and the power button. But that problem is easily fixed regardless which operating system you happen to use. :D

What is your favourite keyboard?

After a Nice Hiatus

Want to know what I've been doing? Nothing interesting really, but I suppose I should begin posting regularly again. Don't want my poor readers to lose interest again. I hate getting writer's block, and this round was an especially bad case of that. I suppose I should begin writing Magic card articles again, but before I end my 24 day hiatus, I suppose a nice imaginary card is in order:

hiatus.jpg

(Just because I'm not typing blog posts doesn't mean I'm dead. How do you like my new Suspend card? Yes, I know it's lame.)

Notes: I know the card doesn't make sense, but I thought trying to use suspend would be more fun than using old methods. For non-Magic players, it's merely in a sense an uncounterable... um... Hiatus. I wanted to word it in a more non-Magic player friendly way, but even then I've already modified this card beyond even normal Magic borders, so I eventually decided to sort of to at least parody part of the original reminder text.

To be honest, I intended to write a far more entertaining piece:

Suspend 24 days - 0 (Rather than play this card from your hand, pay 0 and remove it from the game with infinitely many time counters on it. After that, remove time counters continuously from it. (You may continue with the game while you are doing this.) At the end of 24 days, remove all time counters from this card and play it without paying its mana cost.)

Further notes not to be put on the card: You do not actually have to place an arbitrarily large amount of counters on the card, A far easier alternative would be to record the time the card was suspended, and play it when the time has come. Note that in this case, Hiatus doesn't do anything useful when it is played, but rather when it is suspended. In a sense, this card affects the game while it is removed from the game, but when it is played, goes on the stack, does nothing and goes to the graveyard. What a worthless card!

Does Typing Speed Plateau?

I believe the typing speed that can be achieved will plateau at some point, especially when we are talking about the QWERTY keyboard. I have reason to believe that my typing won't get a lot faster than how I am typing now since I don't seem to be picking up a lot more speed beyond 60wpm. Of course, this is because I don't really practise writing English sentences besides this blog. Arguably, my typing speed is actually higher when it comes to day to day MSN conversation, but that's another matter. I remember once delving into how to break a plateau once I do come to it, and I found out about the Dvorak keyboard layout.

My typing speed seems to plateau around this level of 60wpm because I think this is about the speed I can maintain a steady accurate flow of typing without too much backspacing and stopping to let my hands rest. :P

Of course, it could actually be a lot higher than I have tested for. Needless to say, it can be quite amusing to look at your fingers move around the keyboard like mad as you attempt to keep up your typing to some crazy level. :D

Of course, typing speed will plateau. Of course, where it plateaus probably depends heavily on which keyboard layout you use. I'm quite sure your speed will reach far higher on Dvorak than it ever could on QWERTY. :P