Talk Is Cheap

Here’s a couple of new wallpapers I made this morning…

I know the first one’s simple.. but I’m simple minded.

720×480.. can be stretched for widescreen or should work for my 4×3 friends too.  I still have 4×3 friends, I know.

This one is for widescreen 1440×900

All the ‘puters are shot… I could get the slowest one working I guess.. I believe it’s just a matter of new thermal paste and another fan on the heatsink.. but it’s parts are in one of the other computers.  I was in a process of elimination trying to troubleshoot the issues in my comp.

As far as I can figure out.. it must be the memory controller built into the CPU (AMD) gone bad.  I’ve had it in two different motherboards with three different hard disks and three different sets of RAM and it’s still throwing up bluescreens.. I can’t get Windows XP installed on one of the new hard drives it’s so bad… well, I can’t keep Windows going on the other ones either.

The 250 gig HD is in limbo.. I couldn’t unmount the drive to reformat it.. I started deleting stuff off both partitions on it and I deleted a bunch of system files.. like all the disk utilities including format haha.  So I’m stuck waiting till I can get a system fully operational before I can reformat it.

I could piece the slowest computer back together and get a good heatsink/fan set on it to let it run.. but I’ve been too lazy to do that.. it’s guts are in the other computers for testing.

Microsoft announced some tweaks to it’s pricing of the Vista operating system.  Here’s some of the info at internetnews.com

The one that is of most interest to me is the option to buy up to two additional licences of it’s top of the line Ultimate ($399) version for $49 each.

On a similar note.. if you plan to install Vista Home or Premium on a VM (virtual machine).. say a U3 smart drive for a kids VM that keeps their version of their entire “computer” on a flash drive and your computer safe and happy, then you will have fork over for another license for that VM, while Vista Ultimate will let you install same license on both the physical machine and the VM on that same machine.  I’m leaning toward actually plunkin down the cash for the big daddy Ultimate whenver we build a new computer.. that’s a lot of peanut butter and milk though.  We’ll see, it’s gonna be a ways off from now though.

Anyone have any suggestions for a high quality MP3 Encoder?  I understand LAME is good, but DOS command line stuff for ripping all my CD’s should only be waxed nostalgic about..

I’m just looking for a “hey try this it’s the best”.. something I don’t have to compile myself =) even though I do have Visual .net 2003 on the hardrive of the fried computer, I only used it once.. *cough* MacroQuest *cough* just to say I did it.. then I got the rest of the releases from ‘tole.  But I digress..

Anyone MP3 encoder better than MS’ Media Player or Real?  And does VBR playback in all MP3 players?

Craig.. Craig.. don’t get so upset!  I sense that Craig has taken offense to my Mac bashing heh.  If this image and the song Turkey In The Straw means anything to you, you will know that I have fond memories of Apples.. granted it was ages ago.

While I’ve never owned a “Macintosh”, our first 2 computers were Apple’s  an Apple and a ][+.  I remember rigging our integer basic card to give the system an extra 16Kb of memory.  That’s not a typo.. 16Kb was a big improvement!  Took total system memory to 64k.. the max the computer would handle.

I think I have a pen now with more than 16Kb of memory in it.

I broke into computers on Apples at school and home. The first game I “pirated” on Apple was Star Blaster.  I paid the biggest computer nerd in 10th grade, Frank Shersomethingorother $1 for the memory address it occupied on the machine and I was off.. That freak knew assembly language already.  Anyway I was off and running.. I traded a copy of Star Blaster for Dung Beetles and then Dung Beetles for Gold Mine.. or Gold Dust.. Gold something hell it was 24 years ago.. I don’t remember.  I still have a box with 4 or 5 of the cardboard Verbatim disk holders stuffed full of old Apple formatted 5 1/4 inch floppies loaded with games I traded for.  I’ve got a box of 8 1/2 inch floppies too.  Wonder what’s on them.. hmm

I change desktops several times a year. I play a game called Magic: The Gathering. It is a collectible card game. One of its draws is the art work. Wizards of the Coast has made some of the cards into Wallpapers so I use those and Wallpapers from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Lets see if this works….

Scott will prolly be mad cause it is prolly huge… I am not geek enough to know how to make it fit.

-K

I had borked some typing (here’s to cut-n-paste!) but now my Skype button really works.. right? Right? RIGHT?! Well it should.. since I can’t call myself.. I’m going on the assumption that it’s correct now and it should all automagically work. I know how far that’s gotten me in the past

What’s Skype you say?

Skype is a little piece of software that lets you make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world. Also, until the end of the year you can also make free calls to landlines and mobiles in the US and Canada from Skype. And even though the calls are free, they are really excellent quality. If you and your friends, family or business contacts are using webcams, you can also make free video calls. There’s no setup or subscription fee.

I’ll see what Firefox 2.0 is like when it comes out really soon.. but for now I’m really liking IE7.. kickin Firefox to the curb unless 2.0 really has something that grabs me..  And WinXP’s SP2 doesn’t have the issues it had when they first released it seemingly.

I liked Opera too but I’m back to Internet Explorer now and liking it.  Firefox just had too many little quirks I didn’t.. the good stuff it had overcame those.. but it’s all in IE7 now.  All that stuff about Firefox being safer.. and faster is mostly a bunch of malarky. (disable downloading of unsigned ActiveX controls is your biggest step)

That I’m just tired of several of the sites I go to frequently just not displaying corectly in Firefox.

I really like Opera.. it’s probably the best browser (on paper so to speak) out there.. I just, meh, I don’t know why I can’t keep using it for more than a day or so each time I try it.. there’s just something.. I can’t put my finger on it, that makes me stop using it.  I really don’t know what it is because it’s a great browser. 

Well.. IE7 is out now.. but it’s not compatible with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 (SP1).. that and Microsoft is ending support (no upgrades) to SP1 on Oct. 10th and I’m reluctantly upgrading to SP2. With no upgrades available for SP1 anymore, you will need to have SP2 saved to upgrade an SP1 re-installation.. and like all Window’s OS you will need to re-install Windows. I’m usually doing it once a year.

The easiest way to do that installation will be with a copy of my old Windows XP SP1 CD with the SP2 files included (slipstreamed) on it.

Here’s a great site explaining easiest way to create a slipstreamed CD that will make it possible to easily re-install and make all the necessary upgrades to that fresh Windows install, now that Microsoft doesn’t offer upgrades or support for Service Pack 1 anymore.

If slipstreaming all the SP2 stuff onto a new CD with your original SP1 install seems like too much.. you can download and save (burn onto a CD by itself or however you want to save it) the SP2 upgrade from Microsoft and just upgrade your fresh install that way.. but that’s not the geek way. Be a geek.

Whenever you want to write a new post, edit/delete anything you wrote, etc, the blogging software I use, WordPress, requires you to log into a protected administration area. The log in acts as a basic security measure, protecting my blogs admin options from being accessed by unauthorized users so nobody but you (and me) can make changes to your posts for instance.
Once WordPress has identified you as an authorized user with permission to make changes, you can access any of the protected admin options. All the pages within the admin area remain secure, without the nuisance of your having to log in to each page individually. Any additional admin page you choose can verify your status by checking to see which page you just came from.

It does this by checking the referrer that your browser passes to it. When you click on the “Write Post” link, the browser tells the new page which page you just came from. This information is called the “referrer”.

Your Zonealarm is blocking that information as a security precaution.. the setting you have prevents websites you visit from seeing where you came from and tracking your web travels. To let it pass through for my site so that you can post here.. in your ZoneAlarm:

• Under Privacy Button on Left, Click on “Site List” tab.
• Right click on “Private Header” column where hadleysplace.com URL is located. Or click “Add” to add the URL.
• From the menu, choose “Options”
• On the first tab named “Cookies”, remove checkmark on “third party cookies – remove private header information”
• Click “OKAY”

Let me know if that works.. by posting hopefully. Oh and you won last W.I.T. so do you wanna pick the next picture?