December 2004 - Posts
Interested in creating a custom case for your computer? Well, Bit-Tech has posted an article on the creation of the Hypercube, a custom built case that looks phenomenal.
Now Playing: Jars of Clay - Worlds Apart
Merry Christmas everyone!
Recently, I created a custom control that collapses its self. This control was to be round in shape so the background had to be transparent. But when I set the BackColor = Color.Transparent I received this message; “This control does not support transparent background colors.” I felt like Lil’ Jon “WHAT!” After some research I found the solution: SetStyle. The SetStyle method enables or disables certain ControlStyles for a control. So if your custom control needs to use transparency or an alpha color less than 255 use this:
SetStyle(ControlStyles.SupportsTransparentBackColor, True)
Now Playing: Alicia Keys - Karma
So what’s you’re excuse on not watching Lost? It is by far the best show on the major networks. J.J. Abrams is the new Joss Whedon. If you haven’t seen Lost yet now is your chance. ABC will be showing the first two episodes tomorrow night so fire up those TiVo’s.
And speaking of Joss, did you know that he’s writing a comic book. But not just any comic, he’s writing the X-Men. The name of the book is “Astonishing X-Men” and it is quite, well, astonishing. If you’re a Joss fan or a fan of the X-Men you just need to pick this up. It’s that good.
Bungie has released another round of updates. Included in the updates are two new playlists Team Slayer and Rumble Training. I've already played a Team Slayer game and it rocks. Other updates include extending match times and modifying the playlists so scarcer games play more often. To receive the update just log into Xbox Live.
Now Playing: Rich Mullins - Hold Me Jesus
I've got a bunch of music in my iTunes database. But the iTunes database doesn't just store music file location data it also stores all of your playlists, play count and other meta data. Since I've rated all of the music in my database I really needed to move the entire database over to the new machine. So first I started to copy all of my music files to the new machine. Make sure you copy the music to the same folder(s) on the new hard drive. If you don't then you have to edit the "iTunes Music Library.xml" to match the music files to the new location. I then installed iTunes on the new hard drive. Finally, I moved "iTunes 4 Music Library.itl" and "iTunes Music Library.xml" files located in the \Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes directory into the same location on the new hard drive.
Now Playing: Steve Taylor - Winter Wonderland
I'm currently migrating from my old notebook to the new one. Here's a trick I've found regarding the Windows XP built-in zip utility. My major problem with the Windows XP zip functionality is that when you view a folder in Explorer the zip files in that folder a are listed as zip folders. Now, if you're like me and like to keep an archive of downloaded files the explorer tree will start to get real long. So here's how you turn off the built-in zip utility.
In the Run dialog box type regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll. Then, rename the %windir%\system32\dllcache\zipfldr.dll to zipfldr.dll.remove. Also rename the %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll to zipfldr.dll.remove.
You can now install your favorite zip utility with confidence.
I've been issued a new notebook for work. It's a brand spanking new IBM ThinkPad T42. I couldn't of gotten it a moment too soon. You see my old notebook, a ThinkPad T30, is a piece of junk. I've already had the motherboard replaced three times already due to a faulty DIMM slot and two weeks ago it happened again. That makes four bad motherboards in two years so the new computer couldn't of come at a better time. The specs on the new T42 are Pentium M 1.7 processor, 1GB memory, 75GB hard drive and a fingerprint reader. That's right, a fingerprint reader. IBM has made it easy to associate a login account with a fingerprint so there is no need to type in a password twenty-five times a day. So while the rest of you are typing in your thirty-five character strong password that your network administrator who suffers from a Napoleon complex forces you to have. I'll be swiping my finger to authenticate. Because I really need to know these things, the reader senses the electric current from your finger so if you were able to obtain my right index finger you will have about fifteen minutes to use that finger to gain access into my system. Good luck with that.
I've been very impressed with the new Ameritrade site. I used to get lost all the time on the old site. Simple things like making a deposit into my account were way too complicated. Now a simple wizard walks you though the deposit process. One thing I've always wanted to see was how much money I have made on a certain stock. I could never figure this out with the old site. Now all I have to do is click on Portfolio and all of my gains and losses are there. They have also placed a clean looking portal on their site that fully customizable. Thanks Ameritrade you've made it easy for financial dummies, like myself, to trade stock.
PBS has made The Elegant Universe, a show discussing the current theories of physics, available online. Could be worth checking out.
I recently commented on Reemer's site that I thought that ESPN.com was the anti-Google. I would like to take a moment to explain that comment. Google's homepage has twelve links. ESPN.com has over two hundred. ESPN has content everywhere. Flyouts, personalization bar, tabbed boxes, adds, top and left navigation ESPN.com has it all. I love it when ESPN.com has a big story like the Giambi on steroids or the BoSox winning the series because the bigger pictures makes the home page so much simpler. I very rarely scroll "below the fold" because it's so cluttered and I can never find what I want. Now I know that Google and ESPN are in different spaces but I think that ESPN can benefit from merging the two design ideologies.
I haven't even gotten into ESPN's search engine. Now I don't mind ads but why make them look like a part of the search results? For example, I searched for "bowl picks" to see who is picking Miami in the Sugar. The first three results were "Buy a bowl from Tupperware", "Bowl - Free Shipping on $99+" and "Bowls on eBay". Huh? I just want to know who picked the Canes? Scroll down a little farther and the ESPN links are there. But do I find my link? Noooo. I had to go under the College Football section and hunt for the picks. I found four links to the bowl schedule but no picks. Now I know it was here last week because I read last weeks bowl picks. Grrrrr. If I can't find it how can my father? Maybe I should call my eight year-old neighbor to help me out. I use ESPN.com because it's the best sports news site on the net. But if another site has the amount of content and is easier to use I'll have no problems using that site.
I also wanted to disclose that I'm a former Disney employee. I interned at Walt Disney World for two summers working on two major system development projects. I currently do not own any Disney stock nor will I until Evil Eisner departs for good. My wife and I visit WDW at least twice a year and we adore the resort. So what does that mean? I think that Disney has lost the vision that Walt created. Disney is now more interested in exploiting their products for an extra buck than improving the experience for their customers. I don't know if this is the case with ESPN.com but it fits with the trend. On our last visit to WDW Lucy and I commented on how dirty the parks were looking. This was verified by a good friend of mine who still keeps in contact with some WDW employees that told him "all that matters now is the bottom line". It's sad to see the company that Walt built shun innovation and quality but I guess that's America today. All that matters is money.
Now Playing: U2 - Crumbs From Your Table