Tag: anime

Desktop Madness

No real madness, just the start of a series of posts featuring computer pictures for your desktop background (wallpaper).
Okay, there’s not really any madness in this (unless you think I’m just mad for posting about it). This is a picture of my desktop at work, which I did just for fun.

I just find this kind of amusing, that’s all. I like to keep my desktop clean & organized (a far cry from my phyiscal desktop, which is quite cluttered), and a good wallpaper can do a lot for your mood (since you stare at it all day). I just rotated this one in, after having done the Sad Girl In Snow desktop for a while. Eventually there will be others… maybe I’ll find a way to share my desktop pictures with those who want them.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, that’s Himura Kenshin (or Kenshin Himura, depending on whether you use the Western or Japanese style of naming – first, last or last, first)… sometimes known as Battosai the Manslayer (or just Himura Battosai). He’s from the series Rurouni Kenshin… which is interesting, and I like it. 🙂

BTW: that is Winamp5 with the MMD3 skin at the top of my screen. I like that layout; it keeps the controls handy but out of the way.

Amusing OS Mascots

An amusing thing I've stumbled across recently is the concept of "OS-tan", which is basically unofficial OS "mascot" characters.
Current mood: Amused

Currently listening to: Some weird Japanese song

An amusing thing I’ve stumbled across recently is the concept of “OS-tan”, which is basically unofficial OS “mascot” characters.

A detailed explanation can be found in this entry from Wikipedia, the free on-line encyclopedia.

Of course, I’ll break it down for you (sticking just to MS Windows for simplicity’s sake):

Windows 95: A girl in a traditional japanese kimono who also carries samurai swords. Symbolic of the agressive marketing of Windows 95.

Windows 98: A shy girl who hides in her box. I don’t get this one either.

Windows ME: A cute but goofy green-haired girl who constantly trips, breaks things, and basically resembles the awful OS she’s named after. (You all remember how crappy Windows ME was, right?)

Windows 2000: An older girl with a professional look and glasses. Always represented as good, kind, and stable. Kind of like the OS (which, BTW, I’m still using at home).

Windows XP (pro and home): A pair of cute girls (green and blue, representative of the colors of the boxes for pro and home). Often drawn with…errr… large… …um… “system requirements”. A reference to the obnoxious amount of memory and processing power that these operating systems require.

All of the OS mascots tend to have the Windows colors (watch your boot screen if you forgot about the Windows flag, or just look at the “flying objects” screen saver) integrated into their outfit in some way. The XP girls have hair clips that look like “XP”; ME has the caution/exclamation point icon on her outfit (a reference to how often ME crashes).

Leave it to those wacky Japanese! Still, if you follow the links from the Wikipedia article, you might find some neat pictures. Crazy? Yes. Obscure? Yes. Geeky? Certainly. But … still … kinda neat!

-Keithius