dtraylor qrcode!

All you need is a nifty little bar code scanner app and pow your phone is able to read these little guys.

I’ll post up more later but here is a handy link I wanted to save:
Generate your own QR Code at: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

You can find the Icon database at:
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db

%userprofile% , if you havent guessed already, points to the users local profile folder.

These folders and files are hidden by default, you can ether enable viewing hidden files and folders under file options or just browse to the folder via the command prompt (cmd.exe).

Once you can see the file, all you have to do is delete it and either restart explorer.exe or reboot.  What ever your most comfortable with.

Anyways, you can find your files in the “Virtual Store” if you ever need to access them outside of the BASIC Stamp Editor, or any other program I guess.

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Parallax Inc\Stamp Editor v2.4.2\
(adjust to your verson or installation folder)

The work around would just not use the Program Files folder as your save point… >.>

Specs:
Intel® Atom™ Processor N270 (1.60 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB)
6-cell (55 WHr) high capacity Lithium-Ion battery
10.1-inch diagonal HP Illumi-Lite LED HD 1366 x 768 screen
Came with 1 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM and replaced with 2 GB
160 GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD  which I will probably look into upgrading to a 7200 rpm when I have some extra cash and see a good deal.
Mobile Intel® GMA 950 GPU
Integrated VGA camera
Network Broadcom 802.11a/b/g draft-n &  Bluetooth 2.0

After letting it do its install thinggy of xp home, I played for about 5 mintues just to make sure there wernt any dead pixles, hard drive was working, memory, yatta yatta.  Satisfied that there were no obvious issues I cracked open the case by removing 3 little screens in the back then popped open the keyboard and swapped out my 1gig RAM with a 2gig I ordered off Newegg.com.  I then promptly wiped the system and installed Ubuntu 9.04.  Following the advice from a forum post I disable dual core option in the bios (cpu is only single core) and the install went flawlessly.  After about an hour I’m up and running, on the net and editing my companies website.

So far I’m very happy with my purchase!

Now imagine a 30′ hexapod smashing its way through the streets.

I’ve been seriously considering getting a netbook however my main reservation has been in regards to the limited functionality said “netbooks’ have.  After chewing through countless articles, I found a post on engadget from January asking what the best netbook is and many of the comments pointed to the HP 2140.  I then spent a good 2-4 hours each day for the past week reading reviews on every other “netbook” I could find and comparing it to the HP 2140.  At the end of it all I had to agree that over all the 2140 is probably one of the top netbooks out there.  The only negative review being the screen resolution. The small 1024 x 576 is actually a pretty big problem .  So, the HP 2140 has all the functionality, features and more or less horse power I am looking for in a netbook but what good is that if you can’t work on it.  Asking $500+ for something in these days thats not perfect is asking a lot.  A lot more than I am willing to part with.

However it appears salvation is near.  I found a little gem last night saying that the HP 2140 was offering a much need upgrade to “HD” 1366×768 starting the 1st of April.  Seeing today is the 3rd I called HP first thing to find out why I can’t order this through the web.  The rep I spoke with told me told me it was delayed a week and will be available on April 6th.  So you can guess I’ll be placing my order first thing Monday!  Yay me!

-=Update=-
Ordered on the morning of the 6th.  A little shocked by the sticker price after shipping and taxes but if all the reviews are true it would be worth it.  So I told myself over and over.  I find out a few days later that there is a preconfigured version identical to the one I ordered for almost $300 less..  I called and spoke with a Sales guy confirming the price, when I told him I already ordered it and that I was interested in getting a price change he hung up on me.  Good job there sales guy, really.  So I called back, this time selecting the order department and waited on hold for 23 minutes.  Yep I kept track, mainly because I had to get going to work not because I am an ass or anything.  Still that’s a long time to be waiting around on hold.  Moving on, the orders guy said he would cancel my order and send me over to a sales guy who can take a new order for the new price.  So I did that.  A few hours later I see I have a voicemail and the Order guy is now saying that he called China and they are shipping on Monday so they can’t cancel it..  Come on guys how hard is it to do a price adjustment.  We’re talking within 2 days of me ordering you knock $300 off.  Apparently HP doesnt do business over the weekend so lucky me gets to wait until Monday to try and resolve this.

So in the last 2 months I’ve had to reinstall 4 times.  First because I thought my system was getting bloated.  I thought after a year of running vista the Windows Bloat has finally caught up to me.  Little did I know it was my HDD failing and taking longer to access information but that’s another rant for another time.  So I went with vista64, figuring I’d see how much progress the 64bit community had made and if I’d notice any sort of performance gain with my video games.   Again that’s another rant for another time, to summarize, Yes I got to use all my memory, no I did not see a performance gain and yes I went back to vista32 bit.  Anyways, hard drive fails and I have to install a couple more times and each time I do I have to go search for the windows side bar applications I enjoyed so much.

The follow is a small list of windows side bar applications that I like having on my system.  This is primarily a list for me so I don’t have to hunt around again or remember what obscure name some of them are.

First is App Launcher, this little buddy works pretty much like the quick launch bar, just bigger and squared.  Nothing amazing about it except that I’ve come to enjoy my taskbar free of clutter using this helps me access applications I use frequently.

The next gadget is Clipboard Manager.  Nothing more then a visual representation of what text is in your clipboard, allowing you to quickly select previous text with a click.

Since I do a lot of gaming and run dual screens I like to see what kind of load a game is putting on my system.  Sounds dirty I know but that’s the nature of the beast.  I found this pretty sweet all in one gadget that monitors the CPU and RAM.  ALL CPU Meter supports both quad and dual core systems and in vista64 registered a full 4 gigs which I have installed.

The 4th and final must have gadget is a Network Meter, the author has created two versions, one for Wireless and one for Wired networks.  In short it shows your input and output as well as your external IP.

Ok, so thats what I roll.  There is one additional gadget I install, since I’m a huge WoW geek I use WoW Explorer which provides a quick glance at server status (Daggerspine for me) and allows me to search a variate of WoW databases.  Again, running dual screen is pretty sweet.

This was put together to help me find the gadgets I enjoy so when I have to reinstall again I can locate them quickly.  But I think anyone who reads this will agree that they are quite useful once you start using them.

-Duane

Also anyone interested in meeting up and playing some FF:tactics through xlink or whatever please feel free to email me!

In my frustration with NWN2 and my need to do something with my friends online I broke down and resubscribed to WoW. There really isn’t much out there that can compare to WoW. Not that WoW is the most amazing game in the world, its damn good but by itself so not worth $15 a month. No its the social element of the game that makes it worth it. So for $15 a month I am subscribing to my friends, which isn’t that bad of deal when you think about how much it costs going out with friends. I sort of recall a few nights were we racked up $600 bar tabs, at least my bank statement did a good job of reminded me. Although after having so much fun last night in Eye of the Storm I feel kind of guilty and dirty this morning. Maybe this is how crack addicts feel when they relapse.

Oh look, can we say rape?

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