Tyler Doherty's Website

My Refusal to use Windows XP

Tyler — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:30:15 +0000

Ok, so right now my school, and 99% of other, upper, schools in our school district run Microsoft Windows XP. A ten year old operating system. I am a little guilty too, because I run WinXP on a 12 year old IBM Thinkpad A21p, designed for Windows 98, as an SSH server. That thing is now offically shut down as of now because there are so many parts failing, I’m now using a hacked router for the job. But back to the main topic. Now, I understand why this is happening, because most kids grew up around Windows. Oh, did I forget to mention the servers are running Windows 2000? Haha. dDos here I come. So yes, most kids grew up around Windows, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a choice in what OS (Operating System) we get to use. Right now, in my house there are 5 Macintosh’s & 2 Linux boxes. All backended by UNIX. A very powerful back-end. Ok, but what does that have to do with refusing to use WinXp at school. Well, I’m used to growing up around minisupercomputers, with great knowledge into the way *NIX OS’s work, and the terminal. Along with that power comes security. There are so many holes in Windows Server 2000, and Windows XP, it’s not even funny. They also *have* to run anti-virus software, otherwise they will get screwed up. So I’ve decided that I will either be able to use a *NIX OS at school, or not use a computer at all. This is my way of peacfully protesting against the forceful way of having to use Windows. Right now Windows has 93% of the market share, and I’d like that to change. Linux has *most of the Sever market share, and my website is running on it right now. Thats because it is free, **Open Source, and easy to customize. Right now, every school has to buy a separate computer for everything they get, and use the site license, which are expensive. If schools used ***Linux then they could just have little work stations that pull everything they need out of a centralized (set of) server(s). No expensive licenses, no expensive computers. There is even an education edition of the most user friendly Linux Distribution (Ubuntu), called Edbuntu, with a bunch of educational software preloaded and a free Office suite of tools, a word processor, presentation, spreadsheet, etc.

Next time I goto school, and they need to use the computers, I will plain out refuse to do so, because of the vulnerability of our information. If they give my a detention, referral, whatever, I will still stand my ground for the fight for choice. Microsoft has locked most schools into having to use Windows, and I believe that can change. I refuse to use Windows for anything other than dev work, testing, and gaming, from the time this gets posted to forever.

NOTE: THIS IS AN OPINION STAED BY TYLER DOHERTY AND TYLERJD.COM. THIS IS NOT A PETITION OF ANY FORM. THIS IS AN EXERCISE OF AMENDMENT ONE. RIGHT TO THE PRESS FREE SPEECH AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. THIS IS ALSO NOT AN AD FPR LINUX AND NOT PAYED FOR BY THE LINUX COMMUNITY.

**Open Source Licensed under the GPL.

***Specifically Ubuntu Linux.

Nerve Racking Flight

Tyler — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:16:26 +0000

So a few weeks ago, I went to visit my dad, and we became delayed in Tampa (as I was flying from Tampa to my dad’s house) we were delayed for a few reasons, A) The ramp people had to recount the bags to make sure that we were legal to take off (I was on a very full flight, on a older generation Boeing 737-300). In addition to having to check the bags, they had to put extra fuel on the plane, in case we diverted (there was dense fog in Texas). So People+bags+extra fuel= almost overweight. If we were overweight, they (SWA) would have to kick a non-revenue passenger off, someone like me, but as I was ahead in boarding than another person, they would of kicked her off. But we were not overweight so we went ahead and took off. That is the background story. And here comes where the nerver racking part is. So on approach into William P. Hobby Airport, we were cleared for the final approach, and we (the plane) needed to burn to the extra fuel off before we landed, so the captain called for full flaps and gear to be dropped early. The First Officer was flying, and he was a very junior pilot. As the landing gear and flaps dropped, the airspeed started to bleed off, rather quickly. The plane before the flaps and gear was ~10 knots above target approach speed, the speed at which you should be at on final approach, but as the combination bled off the speed, the plane got dangerously close to stalling. The stick shaker didn’t go off, but by the time the FO figured out that we were getting too slow, he threw the throttle all the way to max, from flight idle. As the plane was and older generation, the engines spooled up at different rates, and the plane banked to the left at 35* and pitched up at around 20*. The nerve racking part, other than what just happened, was to think what would of happened if we had stalled, as we were only a few hundred feet above to ground…

The rest of the flight was uneventful, but that is probably the most eventful flight I have ever been on.

8th Grade

Tyler — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:47:33 +0000

Wow! 8th grade already! It seem like just yesterday that I was starting 6th grade, knowing no one, and now, having an interconnected web of friends between the friends that went to my elementary school, and go to a different middle school then me, and all of my friends in my middle school. I’m friends with a lot of people, from a few of the most popular girls in school, to kids on the other end of the spectrum, and everything in between. I have learned a lot about everything. From learning physical science today, to learning how to ask a girl out. I came from a school that was extremely strict. I don’t think anyone officially asked anyone out in 5th grade, now you can watch down one hallway, and you can see at least 5 relationship beginning and ending. I have learned a lot. I came into the school in 6th grade wearing glasses, no hint of designer clothes, long socks as opposed to ankle socks. If you looked up “geek” or “nerd”, it would show a picture of me. When I heard a cuss word I flinched and almost told a teacher. I have changed quite abit in about 2 1/2 years. If you have known me for all three years, you will know. I now have a girlfriend and feel wanted, instead of a nobody and am not the biggest nerd in the world… well at least I don’t show it. I think that this year is going to be the most fun year of school yet! I mean, the way it has started has been great, and I am not going to let any boring Language Arts classes stop me from having fun. I love both my electives this year, first being Spanish, and the teacher is AMAZING, and second being Drama, with my most favoritest teacher ever (she taught my 6th grade geography class and she was amazing). So as you can see, I’m going to have an amazing year, with amazing friends, and (mostly) amazing teachers.

iPhone 3Gs Reveiw

Tyler — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:00:53 +0000

Well, I got the iPhone 3Gs on Thursday morning after a week and a half of waiting. FedEx said that it would come Tuesday before 10:30 AM EDT but the customs in China held it up for a very long time. Let’s just say it shipped Thursday with priority direct shipping and didn’t get to the USA until late Tuesday evening. But enough with the griping, onto the actual phone. I would of done an unboxing video and speedtest comparison between the 3Gs and the 2G but I figured that there are enough of those already on the Internet that I don’t need to post those. If you really want to see them just goto YouTube and search for “iPhone 3GS Unboxing” and “iPhone 3GS vs. iPhone 2G or 3G”.

When I got the phone I was really excited and I opened the shipping box without scissors or a knife out of pure excitment. Inside was the iPhone 3Gs box, which looks a lot alike to the original iPhone and 3G’s boxes. I ripped the plastic wrap right off the box in no time at all. On the top was the 3Gs, never touched by uncovered human hands, then the Getting Started booklet and warentee information which also contained the “SIM removal tool” which is not a paper clip but a specialized tool for taking out the SIM card. Under that were the headphones, charging cable, and wall adapter. I was so glad to get a new pair of headphones and charging cable because my old charging cable was on it’s last wire and my old headphones were dieing.

I plugged the new phone right into my computer and called my Step-dad up so I could activate it. He gained control of my computer via LogMeIn. I then copyed over all of my music, apps and videos that I wanted on the phone. If I didn’t say so before, I got a black 16Gb iPhone. I still have 14Gb of free space. Already I had noticed it running a lot faster than my old iPhone. When the phone was syncing, the backup was made I’m guessing about 75% faster, and when it was done, I started up a game of Marble Blast Mobile, a very graphics intensive game that used to take at least 30 seconds to load the game on my old phone and takes about five to load on my new one. When I chose a level to start, the game loaded in about 2 seconds on my new phone. Once the game loaded I noticed how responsive and high frames per second it had. On my old phone it used to have about 15 fps and on my new phone it is about 30 fps. That is a 2x upgrade. That is all thanks to the 600mhz processor and 256Mb of RAM it has. To put it in perspective, it has the same power as a 8 year old IBM ThinkPad A21p laptop. Wow.

When I played a very CPU intensive game called TapDefence (a tower defence game), when I had all of the spots filled with arrow towers, the game was still very responsive. The GPS is another great feature of the 3Gs and 3G that the original iPhone didn’t have. Paired with the compass, it made a perfect pair. The compass isn’t actually an compass, but a magnometer, a digital compass. In maps, it can show you what direction you are facing and in the compass app it can give you your direction in degrees in true north and magnetic north.

The camera is an upgraded feature that was in both the original iPhone and the 3G but the 3Gs’s is a 3.0 Mpx autofocus camera that records 640×480 video at 30 fps. It also geotags your photos and video so you can remember where you took them. Here are a few example photos:

A lot of people dislike AT&T for what they say is crappy service, but I think otherwise. I get 5 bars 3G at my house which is outside of the city limits, it is a suburb with a lot of trees, and the city isn’t really that decent of a size. Also I’ve never had a dropped call anywhere and they have the most advanced GSM network in the US. They aren’t based on the outdated CDMA network that Verizon and Sprint run on.

Over all I’d give the iPhone 3Gs, the most advanced smartphone, an eleven apples out of ten; 11/10.

Oh and I wrote this entire reveiw on the iPhone 3Gs.

idk what to say

Tyler — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:54:58 +0000

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted much recently, but there really hasn’t been much to post about. Once I get my new iPhone, I’ll do a review and a speed test difference between that and the first-gen iPhone but other than that my life has been pretty boring this summer. I’ve gone to a few camps, and sen my dad once but other than that I’ve been at home doing a bit of personal server work (for any techies who are reading this I threw Windows XP Pro onto an Thinkpad A21p and put XAMPP and iTunes [for a DAAP server] and put every possible open source free CMS onto it). I also went through about a thousand different themes for my website and found a few that I liked. That took about 6 hours.

Another thing I did was design about a dozen roller-coasters in NoLimits only about 3 of which whose videos will be posted to youtube. Other than that I haven’t done much. I’m writing this post right now because I really have nothing better to do as I’m waiting for my new phone which is on the opposite side of the world right now in Shenzhen, China

iPhone OS 3.0 Review and iPhone 3G[S]

Tyler — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:14:41 +0000

Recently, Apple has released two new things. The iPhone/ iPod touch 3.0 software update, and the iPhone 3G[S], the S standing for speed. First off, the iPhone OS 3.0 review. The iPhone OS add many new features for all versions of the iPhones and iPod Touches. There were many anticipated features for iPhone OS 3.0 and many that were released unexpectantly. Some of them are Cut/Copy and Paste (all), MMS messages (iPhone 3G, 3G[S], later in the summer for US), tethering (iPhone 3g/3G[S], unknown time for AT&T), Voice Memos (iPhone 1G, 3G/3G[S], iPod Touch 1G{needs eternal mic}/2G), Stereo A2DP Bluetooth streaming (iPhone 3G/3G[S]. iPod Touch 2G), Searching in all Key apps and new page on the Desktop- Spotlight search (all). There are many other features that come with iPhone OS 3.0 but most of them are minor. Now on to the actual review.

I found that my iPhone seems to run a bit quicker when browsing to web on Safari and playing CPU intensive games such as TapDefense and Enigmo, and playing 3D games such as X-Plane or MarbleBlast seem s a bit less jerky when there are a lot of things for the phone to draw. For example, when I’m playing some of the higher levelsTapDefense, on OS 2.2.1, when I got to around level 35 the game started not responding as quickly or not at all at times. When I upgraded to OS 3.0 and played to same game under the same conditions (cleared RAM, restarted, etc.) the game seemed to be a little bit more responsive and less jerky. There are a few bad things that I have found about OS 3.0. Among these things is less battery life, no MMS or tethering coming to the 1G iPhone, but that is why I’m going to save for the iPhone 3G[S].

iPhone 3G[S]

The iPhone 3G[S]. The new iPhone. It looks exactly the same but has double the RAM, 1.5x the CPU power, 2x the storage space, 2x the network speed to the 3.5g 7.2 mbps HSDPA, it records video with auto focus and takes 3.2 mp photos and the price is $199 for the 16 Gb and $299 for the 32 Gb. And that is why I’m saving up for it.

UPDATE: I’m not saving for the iPhone anymore… I’m hopefully getting t on Tuesday July 21st. Yay!!

Lost Finale {SPOILER WARNING}

Tyler — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:12:24 +0000

Wow! The Lost season finale was amazing. It was very unexpected. Like when Jack dropped the bomb it didn’t go off which really surprised me. And in the end when Julia was hitting the bomb and the very last minute there was a blinding flash of light. I, of course, thought it was the bomb that went off but then my teacher (who also watches Lost) said something that made me think. He said that ge just thought that the white flash of light might of been the time traveling flash of light thingy. That struck me as very possible because knowing lost, it could be that. I now am really wondering weather it was the bomb or the flah of light that happened. If it was the bomb, than everyone will be ok, back on the plane and back in their original place. If the flash of light was the time travel thingy from the energy that was released than Julia will be dead and all of the other people that were on the plane (Jack, Kate, Hurly, etc) will go to whatever time that the island decides to bring them. Also, I wonder what will happen to Ben, John because they killed Jacob. I really hate how the next season of Lost is a long time away, in January of 2010.

SeaWorld Trip

Tyler — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:06:16 +0000

First off let me say thanks to my school for letting us go on this field trip. I had the most fun on a school related trip than ever. And now on to the juicy stuff. So we live a 4-6 hour drive from SeaWorld so it took awhile to get there. Mostly people play Nintendo DS’s in a PictoChat room or playing Mario Kart DS. Once we got there we had to sit on the bus for another 15 min so the chaperones could get everything situated with SeaWorld. Once they did that, they let us get our luggage from the bottom of the bus. We had finally arrived! The time was 5:00 pm EDT. They led us through the secondary gate and into a classroom thing where we put all of our bags down. We were then let to a pavilion where we were told the rules of SeaWorld. After that we made shark-tooth necklaces with a few beads and, of course, the shark tooth. We then had dinner and dessert. Dinner was composed of pizza and a bottled drink. Dessert was a ice cream bar in the shape of Shamu.

After Dinner, we were led around the park on a guided tour. We went to some of the animal exhibits. We went to the shark encounter, where we went through the famed shark tunnel, and we went to the Rocky Point Reserve Cove, where we visited and learned about Sea Lions and Otters. We even saw a five day old Sea Lion pup. The last place we visited, and this is where we slept, was the Wild Arctic Exhibit where the polar bears, beluga whales, and the walruses are. We then went to where our surprise was. The Shamu Rocks show! It was a really good show. We didn’t get to sit in the Soak Zone, but we did get on camera. The stadium play We Will Rock you., so me and 5 other of my friends get up on top of the bleachers and start to dance to it with our hands above our head to try and make the cameras point towards us and this worked successfully.

After the Shamu show, we saw the Fireworks show, which was quite awesome. We then proceeded to go to where we slept, at the Wild Arctic Exhibit, where the Polar Bears, Beluga Whales, and Walruses are. The girls slept near the underwater viewing area, and they saw the Beluga Whales most of the time, and we (the boys) slept on the upper level where we slept near the Polar Bear viewing windows and the above water Beluga Whale viewing areas.

The next day, if we were good the previous day and night, we were allowed to roam the park without chaperones, as long as we were in groups of two or more, and as long as one of us has a cell phone. That day was mostly a blur to me but I do remember some hot points of the day. The first ride on the Kraken I remember pretty good, and the ride in the full back of the Rollercoaster train, riding on The Journey to Atlantis, and some others that I took pics of.

The trip went way to quickly, and I wish whole heartily that I could pay $3,000 for the same conditions and the same exact trip. I am now sad because I got to be with my friends at the finest, and I don’t usually get to see them out of school {Hint Hint Hint} because most of my friends live at least 30 minutes away, so the only time I get to see them is in school or at birthdays. I really don’t get to be with who they really are.

UPDATE: Sorry that I had to take the pic out, I could be sued for it, as it had pics of more than just me in it (others were minors under 18) If you know me and would like a set of pictures from my trip, contact me tyler@tylerjd.com .

Intresting thing

Tyler — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:30:17 +0000

So I guess this post would be considered kind of a journal entry except that I’m not putting everything in here that I would put in a journal entry… If you read my old blog that was hosted at blogspot, you remember I used to do periodic updates about my life, who I liked, about my friends, and other stuff like that, well I’ve decided to do that here also, since this is kind of a newer version of that blog.

Well, it is spring break here and I’m going to my dad’s house again. I can’t wait to go because I haven’t seen him and my step mom since like, I dunno, Christmas. That is a long time in between visits especially because I’m used to seeing him and her every month. I really don’t know what I’m going to do there but I think anything will be fun.

Now, on to social/school/home life. Let me get this out, I like someone new, and if the person who I used to like reads this blog I promise that I’m not lieing. This person goes to a different school then me right now but in high school we will be going to the same. If the person who I like is reading this, she might be able to figure it out herself. For all others I’m sorry, no more clues then that.

A lot has happened…

Tyler — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:51:39 +0000

A lot has happened (or what seems like a lot) since my last post, so lets get right into it. So last weekend, me and one of my best friends, and his other friend, went to Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure for his Birthday. We had a lot of fun there… {Check out my videos @ http://www.youtube.com/user/Rollercoastercreator). I got some great HD video POV (point of View) and photos. It was an awesome experience except for one little small hitch. My Kodak M1033 fell into the water at the end of the Jurassic Park water ride. I was taking photos on it, and then I put i into my sweatshirts front pocket, under the lap restraint so it wouldn’t get wet on the big splash at the end of the ride. It didn’t but the rest of me got pretty much soaked. Then, at the end of the ride, when we were getting out, my jacket must of slipped sideways or something because the camera slipped out of my pocket and through a space that was about 3 inches wide, between the dock and the boat. The ride op got it out after a little while but it was pretty well soaked by then.

When I got home I took it apart and then let it dry for 2 nights. 1 thing totally doesn’t work and he other partially works. The CMOS CCD image capture device doesn’t work and the backlight on the LCD only works when plugged in. I contacted Kodak about it and since it got dropped into water I am not under warranty, I will either have to pay $80 to get it fixed or get a 15% off coupon for one of their products, and since I love my camera so much I think I’m going to pay the $80 to have it fixed.

iPhone 3.0 Software Pre-Release Rumors

Tyler — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:02:27 +0000

As you may have heard, there is a new release of the iPhone firmware coming up called 3.0. There are many rumors that have been floating around such as Copy & Paste, MMS messaging, EDGE or 3G tethering through USB or Bluetooth, a new, more organized App Store, among other things. We will see what comes out tomorrow when Apple does the press release. A few things I’m hoping for is Copy & Paste, MMSmessaging, and tethering. The first two are self explanatory, but the second might be a little “why would a kid of that age want tethering?” well, I’m going on a trip to Universal Studios for a trip and would like to have an internet connection on my laptop for the trip down there, but I’m not sure that they will have released the firmware update by then, and if an old iPhone user will be able to get it or have to pay for it. I hope not.

Tree Almost Hit Our House

Tyler — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:25:06 +0000

Ok, so this morning we had some trees cut down because they were dead. To be more detailed, we had two trees cut down. The first one went without incident but the second one hit our gazebo and almost our house. I was in my room working on a webpage when I heard a loud THUMP! I thought nothing of it because I had been hearing the loud THUMP!’s all morning from the trees hitting the ground. But this time was different, my mom called me to the dining room and told me to come and look. Then I saw what had happened. Since the top part of the second tree was hollow, the workmen had to cut lower than they wanted to, and so the tree went further away from where they cut than they expected. So the tree hit our gazebo, knocked off the heron wind direction thingy, and almost hit our house, getting within feet of the windows.

Update: I had first thought it was two trees but I now know it is three.

My New Blog and Website

Tyler — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:47:56 +0000

As you see I’ve made many changes to my website, and now my blog. I’m now using Dreamweaver to edit my site instead of iWeb, and I’m using Wordpress installed onto my server to do blog posts such as this one. I’ve gone through many a host, all but one (this one) has a domain such as web.me.com/tylerdoherty or google.com/Sites/tylerdohertysite, but I have found that having a personal domain name and host is the best because it is the easiest and you don’t have a long URL to type in. There will be more changes coming but that is once school lets out and I have more time to work on my site continuously. For all you techies out there I will be using Drupal as a CMS (Content Management System). My step-dad suggested that I use it…

My Very Interesting Dreams

Tyler — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:25:00 +0000

For the past few nights I’ve been having very interesting dreams about different things. It has been 3 nights in a row now and I remember the earlier two night’s dreams. I’m not willing to go into full detail on the first night’s but what I can remember of the second nights I will tell fully. I think I’ve been going what is known as lucid when I dream (Lucid Dreaming > http://bit.ly/Af4kM) The first night (Friday) was pretty much one of my best friends deciding to move to Orlando (which she actually is going to at the end of the year {You know who you are if you are reading this}{Look at my luck if you know what happened last year}) early and me giving her a deal on a house and her deciding to stay. That is it in 1 sentence. The other was me inventing a machine that will let me go back in time and be the age that I was so I can reconfigure my future… For example I could go back to 5th grade, know I’m in 7th grade, reconfigure my future, then go back to 7th grade… I’ll post a new entry if I have any more interesting dreams…

I think I’ve been having these weird and interesting dreams because I’ve been listening to something that goes all the way into my REM sleep so yeah, comment and answer the new question…

Happy New Year

Tyler — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Happy 2009!!!! I’m glad that 2009 is here… A fresh new year and a new start. I’m going to turn 14 this year! Yeah!! Good bye 2008!!! I had a great year (for the most part) for example as listed: A Macbook, an iPhone , a nintendo wii, guitar hero world tour, a new baby sister, among other smaller things that made up the year. Thank you all the people who made this possible. Also this year in school (yes I know it is boring) I have about 4x the amount of friends then last year. That is just perfect.

-Tyler
Check out my twitter feed @tylerjd

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