Day: February 25, 2010

The Theban Mapping Project

I promise I won’t turn this into Jason’s Boring Ass Egyptology Blog, but I encourage any of you who have even a passing interest in ancient Egypt to check out the website of the Theban Mapping Project: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/.

While you’re there, I suggest you try out the Atlas of the Valley of the Kings.  It’s an interactive map that shows you every tomb in the valley and, in many cases, there’s a little video narrated by Kent Weeks (Director of the TMP) giving a bit of info about the tomb.  The 3D reconstruction of KV 14 (Taworset and Setnakt) is also worth a look.

Saying goodbye to my Mac

The other day, I decided that the time had come to purchase a new computer.  I’d been using a MacBook for writing and most day-to-day stuff and a Dell Inspiron for gaming and I was hoping to find a system that could replace them both.  In other words, I was looking for something both portable and powerful.

Being a huge fan of my Mac, I naturally checked out the MacBook Pros first.  I was hoping that they’d finally have decent graphics cards that would allow me to play games but, alas, that’s still not the case.  The more affordable MacBook Pros only come with an integrated graphics card; you have to spend over $2000 before you get a dedicated graphics card and, even then, it didn’t look to be that great.  I’m not going to be playing Crysis or anything like that, but I do enjoy graphically-demanding games such as the Total War series, so I wanted a system that will hold me in good stead for the next few years.

So I began looking at PCs, namely those made by Asus.  I was pleased to discover that they make affordable machines that get very good reviews.  I didn’t like most of their dedicated gaming machines because of the fugly decals and lights they tart them up with.  But I eventually settled on the Asus N61JQ-X1 since it seemed to give me the power I was looking for in a (relatively) portable body.  (At least it’s smaller and lighter than my old Dell!)  I also loved the price.

I am sad to be bidding farewell to my MacBook though.  I still really like OS X and Scrivener is a great program for writers.  But I couldn’t justify spending almost twice as much money for a machine that would be technically inferior to the Asus I ended up buying.  Someday, when I have more money and more space, I might buy a Mac just for writing.  But until then, I’ll just have to muddle through with MS Word.