Marcus Troiano

Hey everyone…as you may have noticed, I’ve been moving things around (my blog and gallery) as well as making a few upgrades and changing things around. I’m really busy at school right now as well, so be patient, it won’t take too long for me to finish this .

Edit: Well, over one year later, I’m back at it! New theme, new gallery and more to come soon! My last post mentioned I was busy with school, well now it’s work – but I’ll try to make some time over the holidays to get everything 100% complete! Check back soon for updates

written by Marcus

I got back from my one week holiday to Mexico last Sunday, and it was great! My dad took me down as a “finished first year of University” present, which was so nice of him!

The flight took around 3.5 hours (to get from Toronto to Cancun) and it went by quickly. The movie they played was King Kong, which I saw already, but ended up watching again. It’s a good movie, but I don’t think it lived up to all the hype, at least not for me. then we met up with the bus that was to take us to our resort, the Gran Bahia Principe. The drive took around 1.5 hours, and we couldn’t really see much because by that time it was dark outside.

We stopped off at the Gran Palladium Resort first, as some of the people on our bus were staying there. It looked like a nice place as well, though it was too dark to see much of it at the time. A few minutes later we arrived at the Gran Bahia Principe resort, the one we were staying at. The resort is partitioned into four different sections, each with their own lobby and respective facilities; the Tulum, Akumal, Premiere and Coba. Ours was the Tulum.

The Gran Bahia Principe Tulum was in one word, great! It’s an all-inclusive package, so you get all the food and drink you could wish for, plus access to all their facilities. Our room was on the ground floor of one of the many (there must be enough to house several thousand guests) villas, had two double beds and all the rest you’d expect. One of the many, many pools in the resort was just a minute walk away from our room, though I actually never went swimming in one of them, as I much prefer the Ocean. The beach was just a little further than the pool, and the water was great! It’s the Caribbean sea, so you really can’t get much better. In our area it was a little rocky, though just a short treck down the beach it was perfect. The temperature was also perfect, so nothing to complain about at all, I went in the water every day!
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written by Marcus

Well, I am finished my first year of University, and I must say it went very well and was both interesting and enjoyable! My final exams for the year finished last week, and I walked out of each feeling like had done a great job! So yeah…1st year of University is officially over, oh yeah!

This past week I’ve just been relaxing and hanging out for friends. I finally got to see a movie, after I don’t know how many months, and it was “The Sentinel“. I hadn’t heard of it before, and only decided to watch it because of the time it was playing and because the actors were all quite famous. I walked in expecting a cookie cutter action flick, but I left feeling very satisfied. Great movie, I’d recommend you go see it .

I’m planning on travelling/working most of the summer, as it will be my last before co-op begins (and I’ll be left with no summers….). I’m leaving for my first trip of the summer tomorrow, the destination being Mexico! It will be a 7-day all-inclusive resort on the Mayan Riviera, so plenty to do and see! Should be tons of fun, I can’t wait!

For the past week or so, I’ve been looking into a digital camera to buy (I’ve been happy with my Fuji A310, but it’s getting old now). I settled on either the Canon SD700 IS or the Sony DSC-T30. They are both full- featured ultra-compacts, with all of the latest and greatest bells and wistles: huge LCD’s, OIS, 6-7MP’s, etc, etc. I was going crazy trying to decide which one was the best. They both had their strengths and weaknesses, and they both took amazing pictures! So….I finally decided on the Canon SD700 IS, and I think it was a great choice! The battery is still charging (just bought it), but I’m already very pleased with the size, look and build quality of this camera. I’ll be testing it out over the next week, and I’ll write up a review on it when I get back.

Speaking of writing, now that school is over for the year, I’ll start getting caught up on posting, I’ve just been too busy.

Anyways, all the best and see you all soon.
Marcus

written by Marcus

In a press release issued late last month, Microsoft revealed that their upcoming OS, Windows Vista, would be released in November for businesses and in Spring 2007 for consumers. It was originally believed that Vista would ship for consumers by at least holidays 2006, though that is now not possible. It’s interesting to see that Microsoft’s corporate customers would receive Vista before consumers, as businesses are usually the last to adopt new software/hardware systems.

Vista has been plagued by delays, so this isn’t really too much of a surprise. It may be good that they did delay it, as this means more time will be spent on the OS and its many features. Earlier this year, several key features of Vista had been removed in order to release it in a more timely manner, but at this point that shouldn’t be an issue any longer.

In order to reassure consumers who are looking to purchase a new PC, Microsoft has come up with the minimum hardware requirements for Vista Home (the most basic version of Vista). PC’s which meet the requirements will get a “Designed for Windows XP, Windows Vista Capable” sticker on them. So what are these requirements? Well, they’re nothing too demanding, most of you will probably easily be able to run Vista (albeit without all the fancy graphics). Here they are:

• Be able to competently run Windows XP
• A modern CPU
• A minimum of 512MB of RAM
• A DirectX 9 class graphics processor
• Optionally support Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) to take advantage of Vista’s improved graphics

And if you do want to run Vista with all the extras (Aero, et al), you’ll need something like this:

• DirectX 9 class graphics hardware that supports WDDM and Pixel Shader 2.0
• A minimum of 32 bits per pixel
• Appropriate graphics memory for specified monitor resolutions expressed as total pixels (X dimension multiplied by Y dimension)
• Graphics memory bandwidth, as assessed by Windows Vista’s built in system assessment tool WinSAT.EXE, of at least 1,800MB/s at 1,310,720 pixels on a desktop and at the native resolution on a mobile PC

This is definitely a smart move on Microsoft’s part, as when the time comes, and users begin to hear about Vista, they’ll be able to easily upgrade. This will also prevent users from waiting to buy a new PC, as they can get one right now, one which will run Vista.

While Vista is looking very nice and boasts a lot of new features, I’m content with Windows XP for the moment, and can wait until it’s released.

written by Marcus

Late last month Dell finally revealed that it had acquired Alienware for an undisclosed amount of money. While this goes against Dell’s usual reluctance to acquisitions, many are looking at it as a way for Dell to begin offering AMD CPU’s. For those of you who don’t know, Alienware is a maker of high end computer systems for enthusiasts, gamers and professionals. They compete along with companies like Falcon and Voodoo, and offer users the latest and greatest technologies.

Many feared that this was the end of Alienware as we know it, but Dell assured users that it would not interfere in Alienware at all, as it would be a “standalone unit”. Dell reaffirmed its commitment to their own line of high end PC’s, with the launch of the Dell XPS 600 Renegade, a $10,000 computer system targeted at gamers and enthusiasts. It comes fully loaded with NVIDIA’s Quad-SLI graphics, an overclocked Pentium 965 Extreme Edition @ 4.26 GHz and among other great components, their very own 30-inch 3007WFP LCD monitor. Other than Dell, who’s in the mood for buying?

Edit: Anyone who missed their chance to buy Dell’s XPS 600 Renegade is out of luck now, as the ultra high-end, limited edition PC has officially sold out. So, you’ll just have to consider spending your money elsewhere, or wait for the next model, did anyone say XPS 900 Renegade?

written by Marcus