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Category Archives: Computers

Phew… long time no post.

Man… it’s been a while since I wrote anything here. I’ll try to keep things going more often, even if it just is a blurb here and there. Here’s a list of the things that have happened since I last posted:

  • Almost done my research for my masters. Only a few more months until I’m done!
  • Dave Matthews Band concert at the Gorge! Amazing times with friends. Good music, lots of raw dogging (if you weren’t there, don’t ask), and plenty of empty Corona bottles.
  • Upgraded the main video card in my desktop to an XFX ATI 4890 (900Mhz core, 3.9Ghz Mem). This thing screams…
  • Upgraded my desktop and netbook to Win7 RTM. This is a legit final build copy (I’ll be buying my licenses on Oct 22), and it’s awesome. There’s a couple of small quirks when it comes to UltraMon and some other apps, but those will be sorted out soon enough.
  • I became the guild master of our guild in World of Warcraft (I’ve been playing for about a year now). Herding cats is fun!!

I think that should do it for now. Like I said, there will be more frequent updates in the future. =)

Getting with the times…

So… I’ve got quite a few computers (I need to update the “My Computers” page soon) that are used for various purposes. Eclipse is my main computer at home, and the biggest beast of them all. A few months back, I upgraded the video cards and installed Vista on it. After a couple of days of figuring out my way around the OS, I really liked it, and was somewhat depressed every time I had to go back to an XP system.

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Hiding Microsoft SyncToyCmd for backups

The more work I do, the more paranoid I become of possibly losing it all. I’ve got a pretty elaborate hardware setup in terms of disk storage, but I was lacking a simple, functional tool to do the backups of the data on a regular basis. I looked at Microsoft SyncToy for the backups, and it seems to do everything I need/want it to, except for one – scheduling. Their help documentation tells you to use their command-line application and the built in scheduler. This seems to do the trick, but there was one snag – it shows the ugly command prompt. This simply wouldn’t do….

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EEE 1000 and upgrades

A little over a month ago I sold my trusty Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop to a family friend since I found that I was basically just using it for movies and nothing else. However, I still needed some sort of mobile computer for email and basic web browsing. On my list of possibilities were one of the netbooks, a smartphone, or an iPhone. After using my friend’s iPhone now and then, and looking at the web capabilities of most smartphones out there, I decided that a netbook was probably my best option. The next question was, as often is the case, which one?

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Monitor Upgrades

If you check over the My Computers page, you’ll see that the monitors attached to Eclipse have changed (more specifically, most of the systems have changed!). I’ve made a few upgrades here and there, but the best one from a usability point of view has been the changes in my monitor setups.

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Hamachi as a service – now free!

So… I figured I’d post an update (even if it is a few months old) regarding Hamachi and running it as a service under Windows. LogMeIn updated their licencing to a commercial/non-commercial system as opposed to the basic/premium setup. There’s no difference in functionality now, but it’s assumed that if you use Hamachi in a commercial environment, you’ll pay for it.

That being said, it’s quite easy to run Hamachi as a service now.  Click on the gear in the main Hamachi window and select “Preferences” to bring up the configuration options. Under “System”, click on the button that says “Run Hamachi as a Windows Service”. It will restart Hamachi, and voila!

Server move complete!

If you’re seeing this (and the hideous default WordPress theme) then it means that the site is being hosted from its new home! Hooray!

EDIT – Yay! The old theme is back again. I’ve also improved the Hamachi status indicators to make the site faster. They’re now being pulled from a database which is updated by the server every 5 minutes. :)

Microsoft Zune has stopped working – SOLVED!

A few days ago, I decided to update my Zune with some new music I had got. When I double-clicked on the desktop icon, there was no sign of the Zune window, and instead given a friendly message saying “Microsoft Zune has stopped working”. Clearly, this was a problem.

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OpenDNS – Faster and safer DNS servers

Depending on how tech-savvy you are, you may have heard about the DNS vulnerability that many DNS providers are working hard to fix. For more information about what DNS is, check out the Wikipedia page on it. Long story short, a hacker can attack an unpatched DNS server, forcing it to show you “bad” pages when you try to view something as simple as Google.com. Chances are, if you’re a typical home internet user, your DNS requests are handled by your internet service provider. Some ISPs haven’t fixed their DNS servers yet, making them still vulnerable to this kind of attack.

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ASUS… what were you thinking?

So… everyone on the net has been ranting and raving about the new P45 chipset from Intel. Sure – it’s a great chipset. Low power, ICH10R, support for 45nm CPUs, blah blah blah. I’ve always been a fan of ASUS. I’ve been buying them pretty much exclusively for the past two or three years. For the most part, their board layouts are adequate, if not very good, and they’ve got pretty good support, dispite being located across the Pacific.

Then came the P5Q series. Honestly ASUS – you guys screwed this one up royally.

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