Photo. Eh.

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]

MarkKB's Blog Tue Aug 24 2006

I missed the class photo. Yay.
At least I feel a lot better knowing someone, somewhere, missed theirs too. Yeah...
I blame my bed. Drat you, bed! And my clock which is four hours behind. Cliché, blaming the clock, I know, but eh.

Anywho, I'm planning to wipe Fedora off my main computer (read: the computer in my room who's monitor is currently decapitated because of my brother wanting to play networked AOEIIx 2v1 [i.e. he and his friend vs. me] and we can't find an extra monitor for the second computer) and install SuSE on it. (Fedora and SuSE are distros of Linux.) Maybe SuSE will network with the other two computers and my laptop better than Fedora... but I'm not holding my breath. (Yes, I always make a point to install SAMBA...) I'll tell ya guys how it works out! Not that anyone will read it...

C'ya!
--MarkKB

Go Go Gadget Laptop!

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]
MarkKB's Blog Tue Aug 15 2006
You may have noticed that I haven't been on the internet much these past few weeks (here, few means two), and there's a simple reason for that.
I've got a new laptop!
New in this case being I've just got it recently and it's actually several years old.
'Twas the day after my birthday (which was on the 28th of July, for all who missed it... bad people!) when my grandad came around to pick up some scrap metal to take to The Concource (that's that road that juts off Lincoln after you go over the motorway, the trash disposal center's up there...). Anywho, he gave me this bag, and inside is a laptop! What a birthday present...
No, I don't care it's so old it's got a Windows 2000 product key on the bottom. It works fine for me.
So, for those wanting the specs:

Processor: Pentium III 747MHz
RAM: 192 MB
Video: S3 SavageMX 8MB
HDD: Fujitsu MHS2020AT 20GB 4,200RPM
Optical: Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2302
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 (I'm not sure if I updated it to SP2 after I recieved it, or it already came like that...)

There's only an inbuilt dialup modem (which means I have to plug in our USB ADSL modem), one USB port, a network port in the form of an PCMIA card, a serial port, a parallel port, a monitor out, and a video out (for stuff like TVs.) There's also these tinny tiny speakers. Oh, and a speaker out and audio in. And an external floppy disk drive.
I can almost hear the laughing.
Well, in the first week, on... Tuesday morning, I think, the monitor started playing up. I started up in safe mode and found that there was something wrong with the video card's driver, so I disabled it. Unfortunately that meant that 3D programs were slooooow, and full screen video was more than a little choppy. Interestingly enough, at the end of the day, I reenabled it and everything worked. Strange.
Well, in the two weeks following, I've installed the basic things (Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3, Windows Media Playeer 11 Beta, Windows Live Messenger 8, trueSpace 3.2, Paint Shop Pro 5.01, Visual Basic, Age of Empires II and the Conquerors, Powertoys for 95 and XP, ect) and copied meh fanfics and alot of meh projects. Yay CD-RW!

In other news, I updated my site about two months ago and never got round to blogging about it. Oh well. To visit the site, click "MarkKB's Web" above or go to http://markk-b.tripod.com/.
deviantART has just recently celebrated their 6th birthday, and with it the release of dA v5, which features a revramped new look. It's kinda broken under IE7B3... oh well. deviantART can be found at http://www.deviantart.com/.
And, thanks to Tim O'Brien, 10TCA has it's own webpage! To visit it, point ye browsers at http://www.tca.zoomshare.com/. (Note to Tim if he reads this: I don't have SMS. I don't even have a mobile phone. Sad, ain't it?)

Random fact: Today signifies the 61st anniversay of the announcement of the unconditional surrender of Japan, thus ending World War II. (for more info see the Wikipedia articles for the Surrender of Japan and the Gyokuon-hoso (address to the people by the Emperor.))
Quote: I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. --Albert Einstein

C'ya!
--MarkKB

Zone Blues

School and Geekiness

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]

MarkKB's Journal - 10 Feb 06

Meh... first blog post of the new year!
By the way, did you know that last year was:

• Bill Gates' 50th birthday (Bill Gates was born on Oct 28th, 1955)
• Microsoft's 30th birthday (Microsoft is co-founded and headed by Bill Gates, and was founded in 1975)
• Microsoft Windows' 20th birthday (Windows 1.0 was first released on Nov 20th, 1985)
• Microsoft Windows 95's 10th birthday (Windows 95 was the first version of Windows to feature the now famous "Start" button, "My Computer", "Network Neighbourhood" (now "My Network Places"), the "Recycle Bin", long file names, icons of the desktop, and a heap of other stuff, and was released on Aug 24th, 1995)

So... that's my geeky 'useless fact' tidbit for today...

So, yesterday was Year 10 'orientation day' i.e. we all got to find out what class we're in, what we're taking, ect, ect, and so forth. (Today is the Y9's OD...) I'm in the same class as last year, same teacher, same classmates... same school! (MHS has a 'school within a school' concept... why not just call them 'houses' and save the trouble? Classes are sorted into schools... so if you change classes, and your new class just happens to be in another school, you become part of that school. Schools are named after local beaches...We're Te Henga! Go green!)

The only problem with being in the same class is that the majority of the class are still girls (not that there's anything wrong with girls...) But last year there were at least 10 boys in a 30-pupil class... and somehow we've been whittled down to five! And to top it all off, we've had the extra addition of 3/4 girls! Ah well, I'll just have to live with it...

In other news, for the past week I've been using Windows Live Messenger 8. After months of anxious waiting, I've finally got an invite! I've been playing around with it and it is simply... wow-worthy. (For all those who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, WLM is the next version of MSN Messenger...) for more info, check out the WLM blog at http://spaces.msn.com/MessengerSays.

I've also been using Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview, and I must say it's a heap of a lot better than IE 6, though whether it's better than Firefox is hard for me to tell. It introduces a lot of features IE has been sorely needing for sooo long (and other browsers have had for ages), but also goes a step further... and not just with features. There are also notable security measures added, so stuff don't get through. To get the geeky gloss, take a peek at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie, or to download the thing, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7. Note that this is pre-release software, and as such neither me nor Microsoft can be held accountable for any terrors you may behold.

So... I guess that's it for this blog post... not to mention I've been working on programming and my website... and yes, I will upload it soon...

Quote of the post...

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Signing off,
--MarkKB

End of another year... (almost...)

This post was originally posted at my Windows Live Spaces blog. [View original post]

MarkKB's Journal - 15th Dec. 05

Ah... the holidays have arrived! (OK, yes, I know, obvious!) Time to kick back, relax and enjoy the sun... or some of us, at least.

I'm quite sure you've all heard this countless times (whether ye be at deviantART or elsewhere) but I'm pretty close to uploading the next version of my website (which is, for all who don't know, at http://markk-b.tripod.com/)... So, if you see a giant cloud over West Auckland at any point in time, don't be alarmed, it's probably just my computer working in overdrive. :D

A big shout to all those in 9TCA of Massey High School... and congrats for "surviving" meh. And to those from deviantART - Hi! :D And those from Room 7 of HIS '04 who have stayed in contact, or even if you've just stumbled upon this blog - nice to see you again. To ye all, wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year - the (admitidly few) chats I've had with you guys have been enjoyable.

Ka kite, bonne chance, sayonara and aloha!
--MarkKB

Warehouse Stationary

This post was originally posted at http://markkb.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!52714B684A8E80DD!109.entry.


Today I went up to Warehouse Stationary (For any who have no idea what that is, it's a warehouse... with... stationary in it...) to get me some acrylic paint for school (something I've been neglecting to do for... *counts on fingers* one... two... fifty-nine... carry the four... three weeks...).
Anyway, I had barely gotten five meters past the bus stop (our house is behind this bus stop...) when I saw my little bro, Andrew, tagging along behind. Apparently, he wanted to go just for the sake of it. Yay.
So, we rounded the corner of Larnoch, went along Rathgar, crossed the road at the wrong side of Pomaria. (I really hate myself sometimes...) We walked at a rather slow pace down 'Maria (forgetting to cross at the zebra crossing in the middle... ho-hum) with me chatting to Andrew about random stuff.
Nearing the lights, around the bus stop, Andrew found a bunch of old fireworks, and started wacking the pavement with them, causing this powdery-orange stuff to come out. (Being the responcible sibling, I picked them up and put them in the bin... man, I hate being the responcible one...)
So we crossed Lincoln at teh lights, and Andrew asked for some BK. (I told him distincly "no".)
Andrew started talking about needing acrylics for an "art attack" monster thingy ('Art Attack', Disney Channel), and I reluctantly agreed to get him some too. (He has to pay me back every cent... MUHAHA!)
Having gotten our paints, our brushes and nearly run over, we headed off home, when I remembered that I needed to get a few CD-Rs (long...-ger story), and so went into Noel Leemings, paid the guy (and amazingly Andrew didn't notice the XBOX section) and we dodged some more cars on our way to the Lincoln Center lights.
So having crossed Fairdene (which was another way we could have gotten home faster... my brain's having an off day...), walked the long stretch of Lincoln, crossing Pomaria (even though I had, again, no need too... guess it's out of habit...), and walking 2.9524cm, I realised that my bank card was not in the WS bag. Since Andrew had already pressed the button (he seems to have an obssesion woth pressing traffic light buttons), all we had to do was wait... until about five minutes later when I found it in meh pocket.
For the rest of the way down Pomaria, Andrew pretended he was deaf (at least, I think he was), even though he could somehow hear me commenting on the fact that he has no brains. (There's even a little sign in his right ear saying "Space for rent".)
Re-crossing Pomaria at the other end, we came across the remaints of a Keep Left sign and it's melted plastic pole. I picked up a tiny piece of pole for further investigation. I would have taken the sign, but I think the council may need it, and frankly, it's a little too big to fit in my pocket.
Rest of the way home, we did a few of the things we usually do - talk, chat, run around, swing fake plastic swords around (read: he was the one doing the swinging, and I was doing the running).
All in all, an uneventful day.

Cya,
MarkKB

Introductions...

This post was originally posted at http://markkb.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!52714B684A8E80DD!107.entry.

'Ello! I'm Mark Kéy-Balchin (pronounced BELL-chin, NOT, as some people seem to think, BELCH-ing...), but ye all can call me MarkKB. Or, better yet, simply Mark.
Who am I? Simply put, I'm a geek. An average, ordinary, everyday geek. *pause* Yeah, right, like a geek will ever be ordinary!
What do I like? 1) Computers. 2) Computers. 3) Computers. 4) Programming computers. 5)Playing games... on meh computer. As you can see, I'm a major computer geekarado. I use Visual Basic and Visual C# regularily. (If you don't know what those are, then you're better off not knowing, least you slip into the dark, slimy depths of geekdom.) I also play Age of Empires, and would play AOEIII Trial regularily if it were not for the fact that it doesn't run on teh main computer (stupid graphics card...)
Did I tell you I have a website? No? Well, mosey on down to http://markk-b.tripod.com/! I'm preparing gor a major update, so be sure to check in every month or so...
My second equal interests are as follows: Music, Art, Prose. (You thought I was gonna say science , physics and astronomy, didn't ya, didn't ya! Come on, admit it!) I love singing, though public opinion about aforementioned singing is split: Some think I should go on NZ Idol, and assuming I did, that I would win, and some think that it's some type of crazy new punishment the Board of Ed. thought up.
Art... I prefer CGI (no fumes to inhale) to acrylics. I use a variety of programs to achieve what I want, ranging from Microsoft Paint to Jasc... I mean, Corel Paint Shop Pro, through Macromedia... er, Adobe Flash MX, to Paint.Net and Inkscape. Don't make any sense to you? Oh well...
Prose! (In case yeah don't know, 'prose' is a fancy word meaning 'non-poetry'.) I mainly write fanfiction, and of cause, you can read them at my page on FanFiction.Net.
Third equal is science and geography. I used to be an astronomy nut, but then, one night, when the moon was full, I was bored, and there was nothing else to read, and so I picked up Windows 95 for Dummies... and the rest is history. I'm still greatly interested in astronomy (anyone who tries to tell me that the moon does not rotate had better watch it!), and every now and then I peek in the Cassini/Huygens website (space probe to Saturn).
Geography really is hand in hand with art, and alot of my classmates (that is, the two or three that peak over my shoulder whenever I'm at work on a piece) have remarked on meh maps' similarity with the base map. (This is without tracing, too!)
There is a whole lotta other stuff I like, but right now I'm kinda tired and thus shall now retire to bed. Night, y'all!
--MarkKB