Personal Stuff

I last updated this page in 1997. I doubt I'll have time to update it but I find it still interesting to see what I thought was cool at the time.

Personal Stuff
I'll spare you the usual "blah blah"s about myself, but if you really want the dry details, here is my resume. I'd much rather talk about my interests and maybe tell you some stories.

My Pilot
Around the summer of 1996 I heard about the US Robotics Pilot (Now 3Com owns US Robotics so and it's called the 3Com PalmPilot). It seemed like a really neat toy so I told my wife that "I wanted to get my life more organized and wanted to get an PDA (personal digital assistant)". She said "If you want to get a $300 toy then get a $300 toy. Just don't try to make up stupid excuses about it" :)

So I got a $300 toy

I must say that since then I have never lost a phone number, almost never forgotten an appointment (though I'm still often late), always have where to jot down ideas and "to do" lists and most importantly, I can play space invaders on the bus :)
Just when the new version came out, the PalmPilot, my wife decided she wanted a pilot as well :) So I got a PalmPilot and gave her my "old" Pilot. Many people ask me if the PalmPilot can do email, telnet, web browsing etc. The short answer is yes (though most use the PPP stack found in the Professional version). The PalmPilot can connect to any external modem (and even has a clip-on version) and to most ISP's. The long answer is that IMHO (in my humble opinion) the PalmPilot's screen is really to small (40 characters width maximum) to be effective at using the internet on a regular basis. The strong point is the the PalmPilot is VERY small and connects very easily to a PC and can synchronize with most PIM's. It also has some games like chess, tetris, space invaders, missile command etc. You can import images into it (though only 4 shades grey scale). You can even play Zork on it. They're really great - as long as you don't expect them to replace your notebook.

My 3D card
About March 1997 I got a dedicated 3D graphic card for my PC called the "Righteous 3D" by Orchid. It uses a 3d chipset called the voodoo chipset by 3Dfx.

WOW

I think the best way to describe the card is to say that I no longer enjoy non-3d-accelerated games anymore. It's kinda like comparing a pentium with a 286 computer. The Righteous 3d (called the R3D) is a stand alone 3d accelerator card (meaning it takes up it's own slot in your PC). It can truly give you arcade quality 3d graphics on a PC. I have a 3d accelerated version of quake that plays at 640x480 with 65,000 colors at 30 frames per second. The card costs about $180 in the USA and about $250 here. It has direct 3d drivers, so it will support any of the newer windows 95 games that use direct 3d. If you're thinking about getting a 3d card for your PC, don't wait anymore and get one ! By the way, diamond makes a card called the monster 3d which uses the same chipset and is just as good.

My Internet Domain
I just thought it would be cool to have my own Internet domain, so during 1996 I got my own domain :

PRUSAK.COM

So you can email me at ophir@prusak.com or check out my web site at http://www.prusak.com. It costs $100 for the first two years and then $50 for every year there-after.

Toy Story
I'm a bit of a Buzz Lightyear freak. I have his doll (the deluxe full sized one that talks), a few pictures and posters of him. Most people have very boring pictures of themselves on their homepage, so I thought I would do something more interesting. I have a picture of me as Buzz Lightyear (email me if ya want it).

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