The highlight of the day so far today is .... finding out that I still intiutively know how to derive the length of the hypotenuse using Pythagoras Thereom.
Why did I need to do that? Because I know that ISO A4 sheets are 210x297mm in dimensions, and I wanted to find the length of its diagonal.
So why did I need to do that? Because I do not have a long ruler, and I wanted to see how long 15.4 inches is. The diagonal turned out to be 14.3 inches and it wasn't hard to imagine an extra 1.1 inches.
Uh huh, so why did I need to do that? Because the Acer Aspire 2012 (and many other notebooks, in fact) has a 15.4" TFT with a native resolution of 1280x800. I created an image with those dimensions in Photoshop, copy-and-paste a screenshot of my current display, and then zoomed the image so that it was 15.4 inches along its diagonal. Voila! Mockup of 15.4" 1280x800 display!
Sadly, though, I found myself rather put off by the prospects of eventually having to do my daily computing oo-eh-bo-eh on such a *small* display. I won't be able to surf with two IE windows side-by-side, both in portrait orientation! Bleak... Then again, James assured me that I'll get used to it. Oh, he should know, what with his new baby ... All my geek friends are switching, when will it be my turn?
In the meantime, I think I will put up with Wintel. I have few complaints lah - it's just that Apple really is better. Hey, I've just gone to an Apple Technology Update and I've watched Steve Jobs's keynote unveiling Panther. It's cool. Tiger's coming soon. Watch this space. So really, if I want to switch, it's more of a pull than a push.
So now I'm dreaming about getting a notebook. About time, I guess. Third year's coming. Having my PC on 24/7 in a hostel room is cool but it's kinda irritating that I always have to borrow laptops from people to run RDC when I'm in school. So, it's time to get one myself. Was thinking of getting a 2nd-hand one. It's not too bad, and I can't find a current model with better all-round specs for the price asked. Yet, getting a second opinion from James - who is the proud owner of his third notebook - set me straight. It's not bad, but it's old technology. Besides, and also more importantly, after looking around more, I found that for just a few hundred dollars more, I can get stuff way better.
Moral of the story, do your homework before buying geek stuff. And don't forget your geometry.
