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Windows 7 and Live(MSN) Messenger
I have been running windows 7 for a while now and I'm really liking the new OS, however there is always a few thing that each OS has that just kind of annoys you. For instance I run MSN Live Messenger but on Win7 the messenger status is "pinned" to the taskbar(aka the Start bar along the edge of your screen), instead of running in the System Tray (where the clock is located). Well we are in luck and we can run MSN Messenger in the System Tray!
Step 1: Completely Close Live(MSN) Messenger
Step 2: Find the executable and right click on it and choose "Properties".
Step 3: On the Compatibitly Tab
Put a check the box in "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)
Step 4: Click "OK" and run Messenger again
Step 5:
Step 1: Completely Close Live(MSN) Messenger
Step 2: Find the executable and right click on it and choose "Properties".
Step 3: On the Compatibitly Tab
Put a check the box in "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)
Step 4: Click "OK" and run Messenger again
Step 5:
New Computer
For the last month or two I've been working at getting new parts to upgrade my desktop computer. After a daunting task of researching the parts I would like to use for the budget I put myself in I finally got all my parts.
This is what I put together:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Processor
Gigabyte GA-Ep45-UD3P Motherboard
4 GB Ram from Mushkin
BFG Nvidia GTS 250 Graphics Card
I didn't have to get anything else since I had the parts already, although I did splurge just slightly on a new case.
Putting the computer together was kind of challenging since my case was a little smaller then I first thought. Fitting all the hard drives, vid card and memory with all the required cables was pretty hard, but I got after a little minipulation.
I also opted to install Windows 7 Pro 64-bit OS to try it out. The install for this was horrendesly slow, but after the install the Win7 is blazing fast. The down side of a 64-bit OS is the lack of 3rd party software support. To help aid with this Microsoft release XP-mode which runs a virtual version of XP. It is very easy to setup and very easy to use I have used it for a few old games that XP itself barely supported.
Overall my experience with my new compter is a positive one.
I will be appending to this article when I figure some work arounds for some of the non 64-bit supported softwares out there.
This is what I put together:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Processor
Gigabyte GA-Ep45-UD3P Motherboard
4 GB Ram from Mushkin
BFG Nvidia GTS 250 Graphics Card
I didn't have to get anything else since I had the parts already, although I did splurge just slightly on a new case.
Putting the computer together was kind of challenging since my case was a little smaller then I first thought. Fitting all the hard drives, vid card and memory with all the required cables was pretty hard, but I got after a little minipulation.
I also opted to install Windows 7 Pro 64-bit OS to try it out. The install for this was horrendesly slow, but after the install the Win7 is blazing fast. The down side of a 64-bit OS is the lack of 3rd party software support. To help aid with this Microsoft release XP-mode which runs a virtual version of XP. It is very easy to setup and very easy to use I have used it for a few old games that XP itself barely supported.
Overall my experience with my new compter is a positive one.
I will be appending to this article when I figure some work arounds for some of the non 64-bit supported softwares out there.
Tis the season to be depressed
December has rushed in and holidays are upon us, the crazies are making mad dashes to the mall to spend a stupid amount of money on a bunch of things they don't want nor need. And here I am sitting in the basement trying to hide from it all. Partly because I don't know if I'll have a job in a few weeks and I don't have the money to spend on silly gifts.
It also happened that I did not get my pay get last week. FANTASTIC! And it always happens when I make enough payments that missing it would screw me over. Anyways bitching about it won't get me anywhere (believe me I tried). No one cares if their mistake costs you money as long as they aren't out anything. The same week that my paycheck went missing, my iPod which I use to help keep my sanity in check on the way to work decided to crap out on me, and no longer syncs, format's nor allows any data to be written to it. Just great!
It also happened that I did not get my pay get last week. FANTASTIC! And it always happens when I make enough payments that missing it would screw me over. Anyways bitching about it won't get me anywhere (believe me I tried). No one cares if their mistake costs you money as long as they aren't out anything. The same week that my paycheck went missing, my iPod which I use to help keep my sanity in check on the way to work decided to crap out on me, and no longer syncs, format's nor allows any data to be written to it. Just great!
Enough of my holiday cheer, a snow storm is upon us here in Bismarck/Mandan and as soon as the wind chill gets better I plan to go sledding with Kai on a wicked hill by the in-law's place. Maybe we can make a few ramps to jump off of and some extra obstacles to work our way through. Overall I think it will be blast once we get some new sleds and some outdoors gear.
Also I plan to do some upgrades over the next few weeks to my computer, so I can run my CAD a little better, I have a lot of projects in my head and it would be more useful to have them drawn out, but my current computer doesn't do so hot when I'm running a CAD. I also found a site that sells and educational copy of 3DS Max for fairly cheep and is also packaged with Maya and Mudbox. I hope to do some work in these programs so I can get a little more proficient with them.
Fall is here!
So it is the end of September and the new semester has started. Hey, err... wait what did I just say? That's right even though I mentioned earlier how much I hate college I decieded to take up the 10 step program to help me quit. I took one class for this semester but I don't think it will be all that hard. I took the class to help me get a local job here in Bismarck since I'm having a bear of a time finding one with my other major. The class is Computer Science 1 which is programming in JAVA, so I don't think it will be bad. I always wanted to learn JAVA, now I have the time to do it!
I also started playing FFXI again after a 6 month hiades, I haven't play all that much since I'm still busy with work and my son but the little time I do get I make the best of it. I have mostly played in the campgain since I don't have the 4+ hours to devote to a party. After that I don't have much to say.
Since moving back to Bismarck I started working on a bank for my lego city, but I ran out of parts. I hope I get some more to complete it soon. I also started making some drawings for the hospital and the fire/rescue center. I have what I think a pretty good idea for the hospital, the space where I plan to put the hospital has a cliff on it to the shore line. I plan to have the building forward facing to the shore line and rather tall. I hope to make some CAD models of these but I doubt I will get to that until I get a local job. I also started working on some back stories for the city and the characters that fill it and I'm getting the pages put back together, I think I'll get them done by the end of the year.
Thats all I have for now.
I also started playing FFXI again after a 6 month hiades, I haven't play all that much since I'm still busy with work and my son but the little time I do get I make the best of it. I have mostly played in the campgain since I don't have the 4+ hours to devote to a party. After that I don't have much to say.
Since moving back to Bismarck I started working on a bank for my lego city, but I ran out of parts. I hope I get some more to complete it soon. I also started making some drawings for the hospital and the fire/rescue center. I have what I think a pretty good idea for the hospital, the space where I plan to put the hospital has a cliff on it to the shore line. I plan to have the building forward facing to the shore line and rather tall. I hope to make some CAD models of these but I doubt I will get to that until I get a local job. I also started working on some back stories for the city and the characters that fill it and I'm getting the pages put back together, I think I'll get them done by the end of the year.
Thats all I have for now.
Work and the Never Ending Tasks
It has been a while since I created a post. I plan to do some more posting now that I'm done with college which was made clear when I got the letter from the bank about my student loans. The paper pretty much told me what I already knew was comming to start paying back my "investment". So now I willl see if it was completly worth it to go to college or not. I still haven't found anything better than my internship at Goodrich, which I'm thankful I have at the moment. I hope soon I can find something a little more local here in the buslling town of Bismarck.
Speaking of work, I have been doing a lot of it lately. Curretly I'm working the PLM project to get the new Teamcenter Engineering turned on. This has been an ongoing process for a long while now. Just to give a hint at how long the roll-out was suppose to be in April. Almost 3 months ago! Although I can't complain it 1. gives me a job and 2. I have learned a lot about programming enough to make me dangerous, as how the experts in the field put it. Right now to help with the uploading effort I am creating a program that will help with the loading by finding all the neccessary CAD files and make sure they are named correctly by comparing them on disk with a master CAD list. It sounded like an easy task at the time but after I dug into it a little ways I found it was a little more tricky than I would have hopped for. But no worries I should have it done and have all the bugs worked out by the end of this week!
On the gaming note I haven't had much time to do any of it. Right now I have canceled my FFXI account so I wouldn't get hammered hard on a bank issue earlier this month. Which I must say Wells Fargo thanks for fixing it even though it wasn't your problem. But by the end of the month I should be going back to it with the hope that I will get some free time in the evenings to play. I also canceled my Realm account, they changed the rates from $49.99 a year to $69.99 I didn't think it was worth paying that since there is next to no content updates and the game play/challenge is near non-exsistant. I only played it to pass the time away when I was waiting on a large download or waiting for Amy to get home. I will sure miss that game but like all the others they will just pass into memory.
Well it's late and I need to attempt to get some sleep.
Loosing track of time!
It is crazy how fast time can go by. Here it is mid April and coming around the corner is my sister in-law's wedding. I'm getting a little excited about the wedding since it will give me some time off and relax. I'm getting tired of work and school. As mentioned earlier we are moving back to the grand city of Bismarck very soon. I've started to look for a job in Bismarck but engineering is getting a little tight right now due to the economy, but I'm sure I'll find something.
The weather here has been a little wierd as well. Fargo is in a major flood and has been there since mid March. When the Red reached its peak crest of 40.6ft it stayed there for far too long. The city was in agony just waiting for the river to receed back into it's boundries. The sandbag dikes held and are still doing well. The flood waters are receeding and a good rate so I think the flooding will be over soon. I can't say that yet for the rest of the state though. Jamestown and Valley City are in pretty bad shape, flooding there is worse then it has been in many years. I can't remember when ND was flooding as bad as this. With the large patch of warm weather coming in this weekend all the rivers should lower giving everyone working on the river a break.
Gaming wise I have done none! That right absolutely none. After getting home from work I have been too tired to play or I've been busy with class work. I can't wait for May to come around then I can play a lot more and hopefully explore the locations I've always wanted to see. COH/COV got a new update this month as well as FFXI. I haven't yet played either one but they seem pretty good.
The weather here has been a little wierd as well. Fargo is in a major flood and has been there since mid March. When the Red reached its peak crest of 40.6ft it stayed there for far too long. The city was in agony just waiting for the river to receed back into it's boundries. The sandbag dikes held and are still doing well. The flood waters are receeding and a good rate so I think the flooding will be over soon. I can't say that yet for the rest of the state though. Jamestown and Valley City are in pretty bad shape, flooding there is worse then it has been in many years. I can't remember when ND was flooding as bad as this. With the large patch of warm weather coming in this weekend all the rivers should lower giving everyone working on the river a break.
Gaming wise I have done none! That right absolutely none. After getting home from work I have been too tired to play or I've been busy with class work. I can't wait for May to come around then I can play a lot more and hopefully explore the locations I've always wanted to see. COH/COV got a new update this month as well as FFXI. I haven't yet played either one but they seem pretty good.
Fargo Flood of 2009
It has been a week so far since the fight against the rising Red started. The people here talk all the time about the dikes and the sandbagging effort. The flood this year is very epic one of the worst in over a century! All the major news channels are covering it. Overall I'm doing quit well we live in an area which shouldn't be affected by the flood if the dikes were to break. I haven't taken any pictures of the area since my digital camera has gone to crap, so I will be attaching some links so you can see the trouble we are dealing with. This week has caused a lot of hell through out the eastern part of the state pretty much all levels of government (for the local area) is closed. I had an exam to take back on the 25th and that was postponed a few more days, yet I was still very busy volunteering plus every place that could proctor me is closed so I asked for a longer extension since the on-campus students have yet to take the exam but I have not heard anything yet.
March Madness and Spring Break
I originally started working on this post about two weeks ago, but now since a lot has happened most of what I originally typed is irrelevant. So class is going well, I'm not doing bad in any of them but I still have a lot of work to do and very little time it seems to do it in. A blizzard moved through the area this week so I didn't go to work for three days it also got so cold I kept Kai home so he wouldn't get exposed to the extreme wind chill. I also had to take a test on Monday and my proctor was originally in Jamestown so I had to find a new one here in Fargo. The test wasn't too bad I think I did pretty good I was able to answer 90% of the questions (that 90% may not be all correct either).
Other things that have happened this week my Altima got hit so now I have to get that fixed. It is kind of annoying about the situation of our car getting hit. Amy was dropping Kai off at our daycare and our daycare provider's son didn't pay attention and back into it. Even though insurance is taking care of it, the whole thing was a preventable accident. All he needed to do was glance in the mirror, what if (and this is a large what if) it wasn't my car? What if it was a child? Some people don't care to use there head in real life or they just have a lack of intelligence. Like mentioned above the whole situation is more annoying then anything.
I haven't been able to play any games lately. I have been too busy with work, school, and my son to play. I managed to play some CoH/CoV in the last two days and got my hero up to level 25 and my villian to 29. I'm still playing FFXI but right now I've lost my motivation to play the game. I'm just too tired of spending 3 hours to accomplish 10 minutes of actual gameplay.
Another reason for no gameplay in the last few weeks was from me having to reformat my computer. I had a major slowdown and my antivirus was busy everyday removing about 5-10 viruses a day. So I took it upon myself to start fresh again. My computer is still not up to the same level as it was before the format. I did do a few things a little different this time so it should be harder for me to catch anything. I'm not saying I won't catch anything ever, I'm just saying it will be harder.
I also have plans for the website so I'm getting ready for a new update to the entire site. It will still be using asp.net but I'll be upgrading to IIS7 and a newer version of Community Server. The updates will take some time to get ready and the server upgrade will also take some time to get ready so it will be a few more months before I get the full roll out of the new edition. Hopefully the CS will be faster with this update.
Other things that have happened this week my Altima got hit so now I have to get that fixed. It is kind of annoying about the situation of our car getting hit. Amy was dropping Kai off at our daycare and our daycare provider's son didn't pay attention and back into it. Even though insurance is taking care of it, the whole thing was a preventable accident. All he needed to do was glance in the mirror, what if (and this is a large what if) it wasn't my car? What if it was a child? Some people don't care to use there head in real life or they just have a lack of intelligence. Like mentioned above the whole situation is more annoying then anything.
I haven't been able to play any games lately. I have been too busy with work, school, and my son to play. I managed to play some CoH/CoV in the last two days and got my hero up to level 25 and my villian to 29. I'm still playing FFXI but right now I've lost my motivation to play the game. I'm just too tired of spending 3 hours to accomplish 10 minutes of actual gameplay.
Another reason for no gameplay in the last few weeks was from me having to reformat my computer. I had a major slowdown and my antivirus was busy everyday removing about 5-10 viruses a day. So I took it upon myself to start fresh again. My computer is still not up to the same level as it was before the format. I did do a few things a little different this time so it should be harder for me to catch anything. I'm not saying I won't catch anything ever, I'm just saying it will be harder.
I also have plans for the website so I'm getting ready for a new update to the entire site. It will still be using asp.net but I'll be upgrading to IIS7 and a newer version of Community Server. The updates will take some time to get ready and the server upgrade will also take some time to get ready so it will be a few more months before I get the full roll out of the new edition. Hopefully the CS will be faster with this update.
Hard Drive Upgrade for Mac Mini PPC
The upgrade to the hard drive on a Mini is only a few more steps to the memory upgrade I posted earlier. So I am going to refer to that post in order to open the case back up again.
Get what you need
- Your mini
- Razor blade
- Paint scraper
- Small screwdriver set
- A static shock bracelet (not shown)
- Long philips screwdriver
- A can of compressed air (it is pretty dirty in there)
- Alcohol (beer or anything harder)
Next remove the three screws from the base that holds the DVD ROM and Hard Drive
There are two screws on each side of the piece of plastic which holds the hard drive on. You need to remove the system fan in and use a long neck philips screwdriver in order to access the screws on the opposite site.
Gently pull the hard drive forward, and not in an upward motion or you may bend the prongs. Also hold the connector board still while you pull the hard disk its pretty flimsy.
Slide the new one in and replace all the screws.
Replace the fan making sure the wires are wrapped back the same way before they were removed. There is a little lip the wires go around to prevent the wires from getting snagged.
Now before we place the drives back onto the motherboard, clear the PRAM first by removing the button sized battery. Leave it removed for about 30 seconds. (This may not be 100% neccessary but that step is what got my system booting from an install disc, I'll explain more later.)
Once you got the PRAM cleared put the battery back in, then snake the bluetooth and wireless antennas through the plastic holder. Place the wire through the slot on the board interface card. It is right next to the contacts.
Replace the three screws and your almost done. Now to reinstall OSX.
In my case I am running a G4 PPC with OSX 10.4 (Tiger) 10.5 should be the same steps, only the disk format is different if your running an Intel processor.
Have a wired usb keyboard and mouse ready, and plug everything else that is necessary and power up.
Hold in the "C" key through the boot up screen and don't let go until after the little rotating gear whee disappears.
Then click on the Go on the top toolbar when it appears and choose disk utility.
Click the partition tab and set the size you want then click apply. You now have a volume to install onto.
*To install you must have a valid install disk each install disk that is packaged is specialized for that model only.
Once everything is working fine and the volumes get a clean bill of health go a head put the top of the case back on.
Referene:
The holidays are over but I'm still hurting.
So it is now January and I'm still hurting. Even though the holidays are over with I'm still in a struggle. My wedding anniversary is on the 8th of January so I would like to do something special for that. Also Tuition among other bills ( the bane of existence) that is which driving me insane. Work is about to pick up with a few tests that need to done for a few programs so I'll be able to keep my mind off of other things thankfully. Through this vacation I managed to get my COV toon up to 25 and I started a new Mastermind and managed to get 3 levels in 5 minuets that was kind of impressive for me. I got the mac working again but its not at the point where it was before the crash (do I even want to bring the mac there again?) Maybe some extra time will pop up and let me try to do some data recovery on the old drive. I also started some work my site it had some errors in some random palces so I cleaned that up and I am also thinking of a new look as well, in the mean time the community server will be in place to run most the site. I have been looking at switching to Joomla but I don't know how easy the transision will be that will be a summer project as well.
I added a link to the social website of linkedin.com its a facebook for professionals who knows it may come it handy down the road. Check it out if you have some extra time.
I added a link to the social website of linkedin.com its a facebook for professionals who knows it may come it handy down the road. Check it out if you have some extra time.