We have been looking at Wii's for quite awhile. But they aren't cheap, that's for sure.
I, personally, am not much of a game player and usually avoid sitting and playing games, as a bit of a waste of time. Though I can happily spend hours flying on a flight simulator; which many people may say is no different. ;)
Anyway, the whole Wii concept looks like a lot of fun and something completely different in the way of videogames.
And, well, the technology is amazing and has a lot of potential.
The prices, surprisingly, haven't really changed any.
So yesterday my wife, Jennifer, decided to pick one up at our local mall's Fye's. The deal was that you buy the Wii and get an extra controller with it, as well as a game that was included in the extra game controller package. Since we were going to get another controller anyway (the Wii game itself only comes with one controller and one Nunchuck) it was an okay deal. She also bought a used, repackaged game additionally.
It wasn't long before I had the power plugged into our Monster Cable power strip (don't get high quality home entertainment electronics without one!), as well as the rest of the cables; and had synced up the controllers.
A sensor bar attaches to the tv, or above or below it (the controllers use IR like your TV remote, as well as like my Air Hogs helicopter - mentioned in a previous blog entry. The idea of using IR instead of RF for something that needs moderate bandwidth is pretty interesting in itself. It's carrying a fair amount of information - velocity and motion and other senosr info, as well as button control and the sound that's transmitted to each controller).
First off I was a bit disappointed that the video and audio output is in analog, using a/v cables. Especially since the connector that goes into the machine itself obviously has a multitude of connections, yet the output itself is standard analog a/v cables. So it took one of our precious a/v inputs - the tv has plenty of HDMI inputs but only a few a/v inputs.
A quick look through the manual explains that there are component cables available (not bad) and it's capable of 480P. Not great, but it's not exactly known for it's super hi-rez graphics either. Though screenshots of some of the nicer games are very good.
The machine itself seems to be built slightly better then your standard piece of crappy electronics nowadays. It can take memory cards (damn, gotta scrounge one up) as well as Game Cube games and controllers, and USB devices like wireless and wired networking, USB keyboards, etc.
It can also be mounted horizontally or vertically, and has a stand for the vertical mounting (which we used, fit nicely).
The gameplay is amazing, and takes your experience to a new level. The graphics themselves of the games we have are smooth but cartoonish (at least on these games), and the gameplay is hard yet easy to master enough to have fun. Oh, and to work up a sweat too! The graphics, despite being a bit cartoonish on these particular games, are nice with vibrant colors and good resolution.
I really like the boxing, and got quite a sweaty workout from it. My punches did seem to be sometimes faster then my character was punching. I suspect this may be the way the game is set up for the boxing part; so you're not punching someone across the room or something. I can play the baseball game and swing the bat as fast as I possibly can, and it keeps up just fine.
The technology behind the whole thing is certainly interesting to contemplate. Velocity and motion sensors, rumble servos and IR technology that sends sound to the controllers, etc. And all in a fairly good quality package, unlike so many game machines (that are in comparable price ranges) as well as TV's and DVD players.
The game that comes with the machine also has a whole fitness section where; instead of playing the games against other people or the machine, you go through this whole fitness regimen using parts from each one. I started it - it's quite a workout! And maybe I'll give it a try everyday, it's sure more fun this my rowing machine and long walks in the cold.
On to Windows 7... I decided to go ahead and give it a try, despite my initial thought that I had neither the time nor the interest in trying it until at least a release candidate.
I'd tried it on customer's computers (one who was even running it as their main operating system for their business! Not smart).
The installation went very smoothly and it picked up nearly every device I had, including lots of older USB devices (and I got a lot of USB devices). The only thing it didn't install a driver for was the SM Bus (wonder if the driver for Vista would work? Probably) and a driver for the printer/copier/fax - though it did identify it correctly.
At first blush it's pretty nice. Much faster then Vista, even with Aero running! Lots of new features, lots of good features that Vista had, and it seems to be MUCH more compatible with more software. I even foudn myself anxious to get up the morning after I installed it. The last time that happened was whuen XP came out. Yea yea, that's a bit geeky...
Right away I had a bit of a SNAFU with one of my favorite programs - Rocketdock. This turned out to be somewhat my own fault. It's SUPPOSED to be easier transferred to a portable device using the option of saving the set up as a separate INI, which is what I have the option set as. That way I can easily transfer it over to other computers on my network.
Unfortunately this didn't work for whatever reason. Maybe it had to do with Windows 7, maybe not.
But it messed up it's entry in the registry to the point that even deleting and re-installing Rocketdock wouldn't work.
I went on to install Stardock's Objectdock instead, which also didn't want to load quite right the first few times. But after a reset all was well with it.
After going back and scanning through the registry (yes, the registry editor's exactly the same, it seems) and deleting the entries for Rocketdock and re-installing it; it worked perfectly. I've since switched back to Rocketdock though.
I then proceeded to load Win 7 down with lots of installations, here's a few of my initial ones:
Rocketdock
Objectdock
Webcam32
Paintshop Pro
Paintshop Pro upgrade
Metapad
Keynote
Netscape
Expression web
K-meleon
Flock
Quicktime
Openoffice
Firefox
Thunderbird
Gimp and a bunch of plugins, including Photoshop ones
Mozbackup
Mappoint
Goops
Filemenu Tools (amazingly this works fine - see a previous blog entry about this tool)
GPSBabelWrapper
Google Earth with GPS control wrapper
Google Sketchup Pro
Adobe reader
Adobe reader update
Foxit reader
Flash
Garmin trip and waypoint manager
Driver for Garmin Legend HCx GPS works fine
Driver for radiosonde receiver works fine
Driver for Powershot a570IS works fine (I don't like the camera connection wizard as well as XP's, may use Faststone's picture download as the autorun default)
Winzip 11
7-zip
Avira AntiVir
Wordweb
Weatherwatcher
Winweather
NOAA NWS Weather Spotter's Interface
uTorrent
USAPhotomaps
City Navigator 2009
Free Download Manager
NASA's World Wind didn't work. A bit of a disappointment to me, but I still have my Windows XP partition working fine so if I want to use it it's there for me.
I next installed the driver and software for the Logitech orbit webcam (though a generic driver was installed by Windows 7).
The controller that moves the camera on the servos was not available, and neither was the face-following option. A quick update from MS (using the handy Action Center) solved that problem.
I also updated the video driver but then my favorite resolution was not available. There was one very close, so that was no real problem.
MaxiVistaMirrorPro didn't work at all, no surprise.
Comodo firewall also didn't work, and neither did the newest version. Which seemed to work for some people.
Unfortunately at this point I tried to force it to install by using the compatibility tab under the install's properties.
Erp, bad choice. While this method may have worked for some people it crapped out for me. And worse of all after installing half of itself.
After resetting the computer Windows 7 would not start. A couple system rollbacks later and I was back in business, but not before a bunch of error-checking by the system and questionable messages.
To be fair - Windows 7 is a Beta and I was installing a low-level driver that shouldn't have been installed, plus I had installed a bunch of updates. Not a good combination.
After this incident I continued to use the system but with a couple crashes per day.
I went ahead and messed recklessly with a few things - knowing that I was going to start over from scratch anyway - and outside of the problems likely related to the bad firewall installation; it performed pretty well otherwise.
So eventually I wiped the partition and re-installed Windows 7.
This time it was much stabler, though I did have one crash right off the bat but I haven't had another though.
The built-in firewall is okay, and actually scored quite well with my own tests as well as Shields Up. But despite that I would rather have something with more control, and chances are companies like Comodo aren't going to release a version for Windows 7 until the actual full release of it is done. Would you release a security program for a buggy Beta, or even for a release candidate?
So I found the very good (and free) PC Tools Firewall Plus which seems to be very compatible with Windows 7, as well as scores just as good on my firewall tests. Rather have Comodo but this is a good choice also.
The taskbar's "combine with taskbar is full" is great, especially to us power users who have a crapload of programs open. XP's handling of this was negligible at best.
And the Action Center seems to have replaced the security center. But you do get more options. Maybe MS has done something right with this also. I like it, I have to say.
As I said - the whole system is quite fast. Though occasionally while using certain programs it can pause for an alarmingly long moment, or get overloaded a bit. Of course, I do my best to stress it way past the point of normal use, even by me.
The above could be the result of it being Beta, I'm sure there's going to be some memory management tweaks at the very least. It seems to take advantage of my full 4 gigs of memory anyway. Which is good compared to XP's only handling 3.1 gig of the 4.
And it could use some tweaking - I'm running with the default services still intact. Many of which can be turned off for more speed and stability.
I've yet to run any REAL tests, like rendering some heavy-duty graphics - and comparing it to XP and Vista.
I do have a few problems, which seem to be fairly common problems with others. My taskbar icons seem to randomly disappear. The programs are still running and I can access them by using ALT-TAB or the Task Manager, but they disappear from the taskbar itself. Sometimes while I'm using them (it doesn't affect the opened screen though, only the icon in the taskbar).
Also, I've noticed that if I'm restarting Windows 7 and I try to use the network or even access much of anything in those first few moments when the desktop pops up - sometimes things don't show up or work properly along the lines of the network or displaying notification icons. Giving it a few moments to start without touching anything and all is well.
The disappearing taskbar icons is the most annoying thing for me, and hopefully there's some sort of resolution for it at some point from MS. It's maddening in fact, and makes it almost unusable when it happens. No matter what taskbar option I've tried it still happens occasionally.
But, Windows 7 is still in Beta. So there's got to be some bugs at the very least. From what I have read there are many, yet it also has much potential.
I even though the login screen in the tv show "Heroes" last night.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Obama, Facebook, Ping.fm, Touchscreens
Wow, it was quite a day yesterday. A new year, a new day. A new president, and a new hope (that sounds vaguely Star War-esque).
And I ended up watching the coverage for nearly the whole day while I was working.
I have to say; I've never been interested in attending an inauguration and frankly Washington, D.C. hasn't been a place I've particularly wanted to visit. Heck, we've even avoided going near it while traveling on a few vacations.
But this time I felt differently. I would have loved to be there, in amongst history being made. Despite what the outcome of Obama's presidency is going to ultimately turn out to be - good or bad.
But we've certainly made history.
Personally, I've found myself trying to be more tolerate and less biased against others since Obama was elected. I've always tried to be, I should say that, but I haven't always been so successful. But things 'feel' differently, like maybe we can all do better now. I know we probably won't - but we could.
Heck; when kids who had previously worn rapper t-shirts and watched their favorite "gangsta" videos on MTV and VH1 are switching to wearing Obama t-shirts and watching CNN - well, something good is happening, at least temporarily.
Despite all of this I am still continually surprised and deeply disappointed in the attitude of some of my friends, family members, acquaintances, and clients. Not to mention others in Jefferson County.
I've always loved this area - Jefferson County, but I find myself more and more disappointed by some of the people themselves, and their attitudes.
Facebook. I've been a member for quite some time. And a member of some of the other social networking sites also for quite some time.
But in the last few months I find myself using and really enjoying Facebook more and more.
I think it's the privacy of it.
The other social networking sites pretty much allow anyone to read your comments, your status, see your pics, and read your comments to others.
But with Facebook there's more of a sense of privacy ad community among friends.
I mean - you can't be stupid and post too many personal, private things or add friends you don't know. But at least with Facebook what you do post is among your friends, and you can tweak the privacy settings to your specifications.
Anyone can find you if you use your real name - they just can't see anything else about you unless you've made them a friend.
I'll say it again - I really like Facebook. I've found that I enjoy keeping up on my friends and family, and even with old school mates and friends from way back, many I've lost track of.
I even like the silly (and not-so-silly) games and "gifts" applications.
And the discussions on groups I've interested in.
There's a sense of a bit more maturity then sites like Myspace.
I find myself checking it every day to see what others on my friends list are doing, and updating my status update. I've really re-connected with a number of people.
I'm surprised that not everyone is a Facebook user!
And speaking of status updates - if you're a member of multiple social networking sites and want to update all of your status updates at the same time check out http://ping.fm You can set up multiple sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. Then you can do one update and have it appear on all of your profile sites simultaneously without any further effort. Quite nice. Very useful.
Also, if you like to get one integrated feed of what your friends and family are doing from various sites check out http://friendfeed.com
Recently I got a chance to play around for for quite sometime with an iPhone. It was work-related, as it was the only Internet access I had to help troubleshoot a dead Internet connection.
The problem turned out to be a deteriorated cable connector or cable end - a quick trip to the nearest small hardware store was all it took; though technically it should have been fixed by the cable company and not me. But it was quicker for my customers to get back online by just having me do a bit of quick wire stripping and connector crimping then getting a Time-Warner guy out...
The iPhone is an incredible device, and the interface is very intuitive.
It occurred to me though; is the touchscreen concept on larger scale machines like desktops and laptops good for longterm use, despite new touchscreen computers and monitors coming out?
I suspect the repetitiveness of every day working with touchscreens on a large scale isn't going to be any healthier then using a mouse or keyboard, in the repetitive injury department. But that's just my informal observation. Your mileage may vary, and I'm sure we will see.
And I ended up watching the coverage for nearly the whole day while I was working.
I have to say; I've never been interested in attending an inauguration and frankly Washington, D.C. hasn't been a place I've particularly wanted to visit. Heck, we've even avoided going near it while traveling on a few vacations.
But this time I felt differently. I would have loved to be there, in amongst history being made. Despite what the outcome of Obama's presidency is going to ultimately turn out to be - good or bad.
But we've certainly made history.
Personally, I've found myself trying to be more tolerate and less biased against others since Obama was elected. I've always tried to be, I should say that, but I haven't always been so successful. But things 'feel' differently, like maybe we can all do better now. I know we probably won't - but we could.
Heck; when kids who had previously worn rapper t-shirts and watched their favorite "gangsta" videos on MTV and VH1 are switching to wearing Obama t-shirts and watching CNN - well, something good is happening, at least temporarily.
Despite all of this I am still continually surprised and deeply disappointed in the attitude of some of my friends, family members, acquaintances, and clients. Not to mention others in Jefferson County.
I've always loved this area - Jefferson County, but I find myself more and more disappointed by some of the people themselves, and their attitudes.
Facebook. I've been a member for quite some time. And a member of some of the other social networking sites also for quite some time.
But in the last few months I find myself using and really enjoying Facebook more and more.
I think it's the privacy of it.
The other social networking sites pretty much allow anyone to read your comments, your status, see your pics, and read your comments to others.
But with Facebook there's more of a sense of privacy ad community among friends.
I mean - you can't be stupid and post too many personal, private things or add friends you don't know. But at least with Facebook what you do post is among your friends, and you can tweak the privacy settings to your specifications.
Anyone can find you if you use your real name - they just can't see anything else about you unless you've made them a friend.
I'll say it again - I really like Facebook. I've found that I enjoy keeping up on my friends and family, and even with old school mates and friends from way back, many I've lost track of.
I even like the silly (and not-so-silly) games and "gifts" applications.
And the discussions on groups I've interested in.
There's a sense of a bit more maturity then sites like Myspace.
I find myself checking it every day to see what others on my friends list are doing, and updating my status update. I've really re-connected with a number of people.
I'm surprised that not everyone is a Facebook user!
And speaking of status updates - if you're a member of multiple social networking sites and want to update all of your status updates at the same time check out http://ping.fm You can set up multiple sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. Then you can do one update and have it appear on all of your profile sites simultaneously without any further effort. Quite nice. Very useful.
Also, if you like to get one integrated feed of what your friends and family are doing from various sites check out http://friendfeed.com
Recently I got a chance to play around for for quite sometime with an iPhone. It was work-related, as it was the only Internet access I had to help troubleshoot a dead Internet connection.
The problem turned out to be a deteriorated cable connector or cable end - a quick trip to the nearest small hardware store was all it took; though technically it should have been fixed by the cable company and not me. But it was quicker for my customers to get back online by just having me do a bit of quick wire stripping and connector crimping then getting a Time-Warner guy out...
The iPhone is an incredible device, and the interface is very intuitive.
It occurred to me though; is the touchscreen concept on larger scale machines like desktops and laptops good for longterm use, despite new touchscreen computers and monitors coming out?
I suspect the repetitiveness of every day working with touchscreens on a large scale isn't going to be any healthier then using a mouse or keyboard, in the repetitive injury department. But that's just my informal observation. Your mileage may vary, and I'm sure we will see.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Taking a Break While Computing, Filemenu Tools, Air Hogs and R/C, Spyware
So here we go, a new year is almost here. I'm not much for New Year Resolutions, but I could stand to loose a little weight - especially after all the great foods, desserts, and candies I've eaten this Xmas. Wow. But I figure if I only indulge myself a few times a year - well, what's life without that?
The thing is I don't agonize over it, with me it's not a matter of health, I've just got a few extra pounds here and there. I guess what bugs me the most is other people; especially the rude ones. Since when did it become polite or accepted to go up to people you know and tell them they're fat? I'd have to consider that a fundamental character flaw, and usually a sign of the person's own insecurity and whatnot. Sometimes I think people are getting ruder and less polite.
Ah well. You know, when I was young I could drop weight in no time, if I felt I needed to. But, as I'm sure anyone reading this knows, when you get older it's much harder.
Fortunately I have lots of space to walk and hike in, and I find that with some internet, computer, and design problems and mental blocks can be overcome by simply getting outside and doing something else. With me, it's a sure way to get past pretty much anything along those lines.
And I have this problem a lot. I don't think of myself as an 'artitistc' person, so when I sit down to design a webpage or a CMS design or a graphic or logo for someone; I sometimes have a hard time whipping up a completely new idea. And I'm really aware of trying to make sure the websites I do for people aren't similar to each other, or generically alike. It's good for troubleshooting problems too, nothing like a little fresh perspective. And heck, it sure applies to other problems too, not just computer-related.
So I find that getting out and doing something completely is integral to what I do, and with a house this old there's always something to do in the maintenance and repair side, at the very least. Plus, it's always good to get up and exercise a bit once in a while anyway, for the body as well as the eyes and the mind.
There's times when I find that hours have went by and I haven't moved anything but my two hands.
Occasionally I will set my reminder program (Kana Reminder - http://www.kanasolution.com, nice free program that not only pops up reminds but can run programs on schedule, one-time as well as recurring) to remind me to get up and walk around and do other things, take a rest.
Here's a good time-saver and addition to Windows XP, and one that's not memory-resident (okay, so I have a lot of memory and processor power at present - but who wants twenty different programs running ALL the time when you don't need to?).
FileMenu Tools, which can be found on the website - http://www.lopesoft.com/ This program lets you customize the context menu you get when you right-click a file or folder in Eplorer or a file dialog, etc. You can customize (or delete) context items for filetypes, folders, and devices as well as customize your 'Send To' menu.
Kinda handy, but there are a lot of programs that do that; you may be saying. Like Fast Explorer and Shexview.
The difference is this program can also add it's own built-in and pre-made additional right-click context commands for various programs, folders, etc. The things that MS left out.
You can mix and match too, and even create your own context items.
For example - how many times have you wanted to be able to quickly copy a file path, or a filename, or have a quick find and replace right there on your right-click, or a batch filename renamer, or wanted to delete a locked file, or run a program with parameters, or wanted a military-grade file shredder? More options then I can list here.
You can do all this and more with this program, definitely worth checking out if you're a tweaker or a file system power user. And it gets called only when you right-click, so it's not memory resident.
Great program - FileMenu Tools from http://www.lopesoft.com/ Possibly might work on Vista, but I haven't specifically tested it.
I've always been interested in flying, as you know if you have read this blog before.
For Xmas my wife got me one of those Air Hogs r/c helicopters. You know the ones - very small, hard to destroy. They're what you might consider an entry level to larger r/c models or a way for a person to cheaply learn some of the dynamics of flying. Plus they're great fun, and a good toy for kids and adults. You can't really hurt much with them.
There are a lot of principles of flight involved, even if you can only fly it for five minutes before recharging.
Inside, there seem to be a lot of miniaturized electronics that wouldn't have been possible on a commercial scale a short time ago. Basically everything is on a chip in the tiny helicopter, outside of the receiver LED and the battery, and it's all controlled by IR instead of RF, unusual for remote control devices. Another improved technology. Pretty amazing if you consider it.
My niece's boyfriend got one of these last year, an earlier model. He's a very exuberant guy, very intelligent and interested in a great many things. If he didn't live quite such a long distance away we'd probably be great friends.
Anyway, he too is interested in flying. After playing around with the Air Hog for a bit, he bought himself a medium-sized helicopter (see pic above), r/c of course. It's another incredible piece of electronics, with many more of the same principles of flying a helicopter then the tiny r/c Air Hogs.
He's even added a wireless camera to it (see above), and done some aerial footage with it even. Here's a Photobucket.com folder of images and video from both my tiny Air Hog and his larger helo. http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/lectrichead/Helos/ (It was very windy so he didn't take his helicopter up very far.)
The technology is so impressive and the ideas behind it that the military even has or is experimenting with a backpack version of this with a terrain-following system.
Just like the space program; smaller and cheaper are the words of the day with unmanned units taking some of the place of humans. The possibilities are endless. Though there is no substitute for a real human, especially in space exploration...
I remember as a kid some of our ideas and schemes for adding cameras and video to flying objects, most specifically model rockets. There was a black and white (later color) nosecone that could be added to most standard-sized rocket tubes.
When I say 'we' - I meant my friend Pete. We've been literally friends since we were tiny kids. And both of us have had the same interests - technology, flying, airplanes, computers, science fiction. And that included attaching crap to something we could fly around, even better if it was a camera!
He has his pilot's license now, and we've went flying a number of times. There's nothing like flying in a small plane, versus a large one. And two dudes who have always been interested in flying, riding around in an airplane - nothing better.
I hope someday to be able to afford flying lessons. I'd have to say it is my first and one true love, over all my other interests. But it's a very expensive hobby, both flying in person as well as r/c.
I always figure the customer's always right.
No, wait - that's not true.
I make sure the customer gets what they want, even if I believe they are wrong. But I do gently let them know if I think they're wrong.
Like recently, a customer had a bad spyware problem. Many times with these hardy and tenacious pieces of spyware it may take a few passes, and the newer ones are getting much much worse.
But the person didn't want to wait or take any more time. Someone; friends, family, neighbor, whomever, suggested wiping the whole computer. The computer had no restore partition, so I was forced to start installing Windows XP from scratch and finding the appropriate drivers. Fortunately, in this case; Dell 's website allowed me to put in a number off the computer and find the specific devices that specific computer has, and download the drivers for it.
Dell's not one of my fav companies, that's for sure, but this sure is a nice feature and made the process much easier. Still, it was time-consuming to set everything back up.
And the worse thing is - without finding the initial problem and fixing it, and making sure it wasn't via a website they used, or a piece of software (that they probably will install again), or coming from another computer on their network - it might be all for nothing and the computer might be re-infected tomorrow
In an electronics class I took the teacher, a Mr. Docteur, a wily highly intelligent dude - always stressed that troubleshooting and finding the problem allows you to not only fix it, but prevent the same problem in the future, as well as learn from it.
Starting over, like re-installing Windows from a re-formatted harddrive, is the last resort in any situation. Especially when people aren't likely to keep backups and there may be another easier resolution to the problem.
Anyway, I've always tried to live by the troubleshooting idea rather then the "start from scratch" and I've found that it's always better to go in the direction, and keep the latter for the last resort. And there are plenty of times when "start from scratch" is the only way to do it.
But, as I said - the customer is always right. At least they think so until they lose something important...
Hope everyone reading this has a safe and happy New Year's. Don't drink and drive.
The thing is I don't agonize over it, with me it's not a matter of health, I've just got a few extra pounds here and there. I guess what bugs me the most is other people; especially the rude ones. Since when did it become polite or accepted to go up to people you know and tell them they're fat? I'd have to consider that a fundamental character flaw, and usually a sign of the person's own insecurity and whatnot. Sometimes I think people are getting ruder and less polite.
Ah well. You know, when I was young I could drop weight in no time, if I felt I needed to. But, as I'm sure anyone reading this knows, when you get older it's much harder.
Fortunately I have lots of space to walk and hike in, and I find that with some internet, computer, and design problems and mental blocks can be overcome by simply getting outside and doing something else. With me, it's a sure way to get past pretty much anything along those lines.
And I have this problem a lot. I don't think of myself as an 'artitistc' person, so when I sit down to design a webpage or a CMS design or a graphic or logo for someone; I sometimes have a hard time whipping up a completely new idea. And I'm really aware of trying to make sure the websites I do for people aren't similar to each other, or generically alike. It's good for troubleshooting problems too, nothing like a little fresh perspective. And heck, it sure applies to other problems too, not just computer-related.
So I find that getting out and doing something completely is integral to what I do, and with a house this old there's always something to do in the maintenance and repair side, at the very least. Plus, it's always good to get up and exercise a bit once in a while anyway, for the body as well as the eyes and the mind.
There's times when I find that hours have went by and I haven't moved anything but my two hands.
Occasionally I will set my reminder program (Kana Reminder - http://www.kanasolution.com, nice free program that not only pops up reminds but can run programs on schedule, one-time as well as recurring) to remind me to get up and walk around and do other things, take a rest.
Here's a good time-saver and addition to Windows XP, and one that's not memory-resident (okay, so I have a lot of memory and processor power at present - but who wants twenty different programs running ALL the time when you don't need to?).
FileMenu Tools, which can be found on the website - http://www.lopesoft.com/ This program lets you customize the context menu you get when you right-click a file or folder in Eplorer or a file dialog, etc. You can customize (or delete) context items for filetypes, folders, and devices as well as customize your 'Send To' menu.
Kinda handy, but there are a lot of programs that do that; you may be saying. Like Fast Explorer and Shexview.
The difference is this program can also add it's own built-in and pre-made additional right-click context commands for various programs, folders, etc. The things that MS left out.
You can mix and match too, and even create your own context items.
For example - how many times have you wanted to be able to quickly copy a file path, or a filename, or have a quick find and replace right there on your right-click, or a batch filename renamer, or wanted to delete a locked file, or run a program with parameters, or wanted a military-grade file shredder? More options then I can list here.
You can do all this and more with this program, definitely worth checking out if you're a tweaker or a file system power user. And it gets called only when you right-click, so it's not memory resident.
Great program - FileMenu Tools from http://www.lopesoft.com/ Possibly might work on Vista, but I haven't specifically tested it.
I've always been interested in flying, as you know if you have read this blog before.For Xmas my wife got me one of those Air Hogs r/c helicopters. You know the ones - very small, hard to destroy. They're what you might consider an entry level to larger r/c models or a way for a person to cheaply learn some of the dynamics of flying. Plus they're great fun, and a good toy for kids and adults. You can't really hurt much with them.
There are a lot of principles of flight involved, even if you can only fly it for five minutes before recharging.
Inside, there seem to be a lot of miniaturized electronics that wouldn't have been possible on a commercial scale a short time ago. Basically everything is on a chip in the tiny helicopter, outside of the receiver LED and the battery, and it's all controlled by IR instead of RF, unusual for remote control devices. Another improved technology. Pretty amazing if you consider it.
My niece's boyfriend got one of these last year, an earlier model. He's a very exuberant guy, very intelligent and interested in a great many things. If he didn't live quite such a long distance away we'd probably be great friends.
Anyway, he too is interested in flying. After playing around with the Air Hog for a bit, he bought himself a medium-sized helicopter (see pic above), r/c of course. It's another incredible piece of electronics, with many more of the same principles of flying a helicopter then the tiny r/c Air Hogs.
He's even added a wireless camera to it (see above), and done some aerial footage with it even. Here's a Photobucket.com folder of images and video from both my tiny Air Hog and his larger helo. http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g58/lectrichead/Helos/ (It was very windy so he didn't take his helicopter up very far.)The technology is so impressive and the ideas behind it that the military even has or is experimenting with a backpack version of this with a terrain-following system.
Just like the space program; smaller and cheaper are the words of the day with unmanned units taking some of the place of humans. The possibilities are endless. Though there is no substitute for a real human, especially in space exploration...
I remember as a kid some of our ideas and schemes for adding cameras and video to flying objects, most specifically model rockets. There was a black and white (later color) nosecone that could be added to most standard-sized rocket tubes.
When I say 'we' - I meant my friend Pete. We've been literally friends since we were tiny kids. And both of us have had the same interests - technology, flying, airplanes, computers, science fiction. And that included attaching crap to something we could fly around, even better if it was a camera!
He has his pilot's license now, and we've went flying a number of times. There's nothing like flying in a small plane, versus a large one. And two dudes who have always been interested in flying, riding around in an airplane - nothing better.
I hope someday to be able to afford flying lessons. I'd have to say it is my first and one true love, over all my other interests. But it's a very expensive hobby, both flying in person as well as r/c.
I always figure the customer's always right.
No, wait - that's not true.
I make sure the customer gets what they want, even if I believe they are wrong. But I do gently let them know if I think they're wrong.
Like recently, a customer had a bad spyware problem. Many times with these hardy and tenacious pieces of spyware it may take a few passes, and the newer ones are getting much much worse.
But the person didn't want to wait or take any more time. Someone; friends, family, neighbor, whomever, suggested wiping the whole computer. The computer had no restore partition, so I was forced to start installing Windows XP from scratch and finding the appropriate drivers. Fortunately, in this case; Dell 's website allowed me to put in a number off the computer and find the specific devices that specific computer has, and download the drivers for it.
Dell's not one of my fav companies, that's for sure, but this sure is a nice feature and made the process much easier. Still, it was time-consuming to set everything back up.
And the worse thing is - without finding the initial problem and fixing it, and making sure it wasn't via a website they used, or a piece of software (that they probably will install again), or coming from another computer on their network - it might be all for nothing and the computer might be re-infected tomorrow
In an electronics class I took the teacher, a Mr. Docteur, a wily highly intelligent dude - always stressed that troubleshooting and finding the problem allows you to not only fix it, but prevent the same problem in the future, as well as learn from it.
Starting over, like re-installing Windows from a re-formatted harddrive, is the last resort in any situation. Especially when people aren't likely to keep backups and there may be another easier resolution to the problem.
Anyway, I've always tried to live by the troubleshooting idea rather then the "start from scratch" and I've found that it's always better to go in the direction, and keep the latter for the last resort. And there are plenty of times when "start from scratch" is the only way to do it.
But, as I said - the customer is always right. At least they think so until they lose something important...
Hope everyone reading this has a safe and happy New Year's. Don't drink and drive.
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