This is the view to the northwest from the roof of my apartment building. Taken last week when it was actually sunny out (although it's sunny again today).
Well, I think of it as old news by now, but apparently most of the people I know weren't paying much attention to it, so here's a link to Microsoft Surface. Go check it out; it's seriously cool and neat and probably way too expensive for me to even consider getting.
New beta versions of Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Live Writer were released this week. This post has actually been written using WLW, so we'll see if it actually shows up on the site... So far I like all the products, but don't really notice any big functional advances in the WLM and WLM products (okay, so now I guess I wont be able to refer to Windows Live Messenger as "WLM" anymore). WLW added SharePoint support, and overall seems to be a bit nicer than using Word 2007 to blog with.
I finally got the new video card yesterday. It's passively cooled, so no annoying fan noise, but it screwed up airflow in the case. The temperatures here in Portland have been rather warm lately, so heat + no more airflow = components overheating. Which meant I had to plug the case fan back in, thus making the computer noisy again. It's still quieter than the system + old video card were, and I've got DirectX 10 support now (even if the GeForce 8600GT is slower than the previous generation 7600GT I had in there before), so I'm calling it a win.
Just two more days until I start my new job...time to start getting nervous!
So, incidentally, I moved across the country to Porland, Oregon.
I have a job (starting next Monday), I have an apartment, and the fact that this is readable indicates that I have a worknig Internet connection. So the only thing that's really left is for me to get a new cell phone out here.
<semi-rant>
Which leads me to the problem of finding a cellphone provider and plan that I can actually buy. It has to be GSM, so I can get my own phone later (and the ones I'm interested in are GSM only). Beyond that, I want 450 minutes, with unlimited nights/weekends. Nights are anything after business ours: 8-5, governed by the timezone that the phone is in. Free text messages, and an unlimited data plan are included. No fancy features or warranties are to be included. And they'll clearly include in these prices all the taxes, surcharges, etc. that they have to pay to the government, not tack those on extra at the end.
And I'd really like to be able to only have to pay something REASONABLE for all that.
</semi-rant>
Test Post for persistence.
The site may FINALLY be back up and running properly.
This downtime has been a prime example of why tools should make you read the documentation, then quiz you on it before letting you do potentially stupid things.
And you should always have up-to-date backups created using a backup program for *that app*. Even if it should be "good enough" that you have a complete image of the system.
I'd like to thank the Monorails, the Buses, and the other holes that the government has been shoveling taxpayer funds into.
Plus, it helps that cars were illegal up until yesterday.
Tonight I installed Windows Vista Business Edition on my HP Compaq TC1000. I was surprised at how good the install went; it didn't really take that much time at all (45 minutes or so). The only difficult part of the whole process was getting the FinePoint digitizer drivers installed. And the performance isn't that good (although it has been getting better in the last few hours).
Update 2007-02-23: It looks like this isn't really a permanent way to get the digitizer working, since there's been a report of the procedure not working for someone else, and it appears that even when it does work, it breaks after a few reboots.
So, to get the digitizer to work: 1) I can only seem to get it to work with the Standard VGA Driver. 2) I have no idea if this works as a long term solution (for example, changing display drivers seems to break it).
- Download the FinePoint generic FPI2004 driver for Windows Vista (available from Gateway as the driver for the digitizer in the CX210's).
- Extract the install files (the Gateway driver was a self extracting zip file that took care of this).
- Start up Device Manager and identify the FinePoint digitizer. For me the PNP device ID was "ACPI\FPI2002".
- Force the generic driver for the newer digitizer to install, then reboot.
- At this point the digitizer should be all screwed up. Download the digitizer driver from HP.
- Try and run the HP driver setup program. For me it failed, but got the drivers extracted. Using the Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode should help.
- After it fails, find the extracted files (should be C:\Compaq\FinePoint by default). Run the setup.exe program that's there in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode.
- Press the install button that comes up. After a bit, that should fail with a "Service could not start" error.
- Reboot, and the digitizer should now work. It probably really needs to be calibrated though.
The buttons were easier: I just grabbed the TC1100 button driver, extracted that, then manually installed the drivers using Device Manager. I've heard there are problems using the wireless, but for me that wasn't an issue because I've replaced the original wireless with an Intel 2200BG card (built-in drivers! Yay!). The last thing I need to get working is Rotation support, but everything I've tried either doesn't work or breaks the digitizer hack L.
Read it and weep! #1 for "The Best Weather" in Channel9! W00T!
Plus, I managed to get back to being a Left-Leaning College State by banning business. And I've given up trying to get the tax rate under control…excellence in two out of three categories will have to be enough. 100% Income Tax, here we come!
Gah! I've become Inoffensive! That's the LAST time I vote to lower taxes.
(yeah, it's not just a web site anymore, it's a fictional country! Supplying all this site's political power since December 2006. Check it out at www.nationstates.net/ntldr.)
See, the inoffensive thing came up because I had been ranked as a "Left-wing College State" (rather appropriately, I might add, considering I'm a student at Purdue University!) for over a month, and then it changed just because I thought trying to cut a 60% tax rate would be a good idea…
I think I've begun to overuse it though... Today I ran into the problem of "how do you spell that name again?" while trying to write an email. The obvious things of "use the address book" and "remember it you idiot!" failed, and the outlook for successful addressing of the message was bleak. But then I remembered my trusty PSH! It was so simple!
get-adusers | where-object {$_.sn -match ".*jack.*"} | select-object givenName,distinguishedName
Gotta love PSH... (of course, it helped that I had the get-adusers function, which I wrote a while ago and have stashed in my profile).
Oh, and for those that are interested, the here's get-adusers (along with a few other AD functions that are very similar):
function global:get-adusers
{
param( [string] $domain = (get-wmiobject -namespace 'root\CIMV2' -class 'Win32_ComputerSystem').Domain )
return (get-adobject -domain $domain -filter '(&(objectClass=user)(!(objectClass=computer)))')
}
function global:get-adcomputers
{
param( [string] $domain = $((get-wmiobject -namespace 'root\CIMV2' -class 'Win32_ComputerSystem').Domain) )
return (get-adobject -domain $domain -filter '(objectClass=computer)')
}
function global:get-adprinters
{
param( [string] $domain = $((get-wmiobject -namespace 'root\CIMV2' -class 'Win32_ComputerSystem').Domain) )
return (get-adobject -domain $domain -filter '(objectClass=printQueue)')
}
function global:get-adobject
{
param(
[string] $domain = (get-wmiobject -namespace 'root\CIMV2' -class 'Win32_ComputerSystem').Domain,
[string] $filter = ''
)
$local:directory = new-object -TypeName 'System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher' -ArgumentList $domain
$directory.PageSize = 500
$directory.Filter = $filter
$matches = $directory.FindAll()
$local:d = new-object -TypeName 'System.Collections.ArrayList'
foreach($m in $matches)
{
$d.Add($m.GetDirectoryEntry()) | out-null
}
return $d.ToArray()
}
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About the author
Jeffrey Stults is a software developer currently in Portland, Oregon. He is contactable at:
stultsj@ntldr.net
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Disclaimer
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent
my employer's view in any way.
© Copyright
2012
Jeffrey Stults, Jr.
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