Yes, when you think PETA, think naked girls:

You guys are real winners! You sure convinced me to join your group after that video…

Oh wait, you didn’t. This hamburger is tasty. Mmm mmm good.

Heather and I registered (on our wedding registry) for a Dyson vacuum cleaner, and my mother was generous enough to purchase it for us. Today was my first time using the vacuum, and it impressed the heck outta me. This picture says it all:

That’s almost four inches of solid dirt, along with hair, fluff, whatever sitting on top. Yuck. I knew my house was dirty, but not this dirty.

Definitely the best vacuum I’ve ever used/owned, and for $400, it better be  The wife-acceptance-factor was very low for this at first (due to the price), but she now sees just how good it is at what it does.

Ahoy! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day! Watch ye the video above, and ye be learn’n thar language!

Check it out. Microsoft’s selling Office 2007 Ultimate, which pretty much is every Office thing you can get, for only $59.95. But you have to be a student, with a current student ID and e-mail address. The site is http://theultimatesteal.com/ — check it out! And then you’ll be as amazed as that guy over there —>

Verizon Wireless wants to sell your personal information to marketers. Make sure they can’t do that, call this number: 1–800–333–9956. I just did it, took about 5 minutes to opt out of both Heather and I’s cell phones, and it was all automated.

As a side note, it really upsets me that so many companies sell your information like that. The law should state that the consumer is by default opted-out..

On October 13th, 2007, I will be marrying Heather Jones. And it will be amazzziiiiing.

She is everything I could’ve hoped for in a mate.. and more. As corny as it sounds, she does complete me! I am the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, and can’t wait to see what the future has in store, good or bad. We will face it together, side by side.

I remember finding this poem years ago, and really liking it. It seems rather poignant now, so I thought I’d share it again:

Storms
By Margie DeMerell

There will be storms, child
There will be storms
And with each tempest
You will seem to stand alone
Against cruel winds

But with time, the rage and fury
Shall subside
And when the sky clears
You will find yourself
Clinging to someone
You would have never known
But for storms.

I’m sorry I rant so much, but these things are really upsetting me lately. Maybe you can relate to some of the topics?

Dell – A friend of mine, Nicole, brought me her Dell laptop to take a look at, since it will no longer boot. I figure it’s a bad hard drive.. the signs point to that, so I order a drive and stick it in, preparing to reinstall Windows. System can’t find the drive.. or wait, it can, oh wait.. it can’t. It randomly just doesn’t see the hard drive. I check online, and find that the world pretty much agrees that the Dell Inspiron 5150 is the crappiest model of laptop to ever roam this earth, plagued with engineering flaws that cause chips to crack, the CPU to overheat (2), and power plugs to short out. This led to Dell getting a class-action lawsuit brought against them, and them losing. As part of the settlement, they must pay for repairs up until Sept. 30th, 2007.

Now, Nicole’s already had the motherboard replaced by a tech once before, sent the laptop in for repair, had yet another motherboard replacement, a power adapter replacement, etc… and it’s still not working right. I had her speak to Dell again and get another motherboard. They say they can’t send one at first, citing some policy that once a motherboard’s been sent out, they can’t send out another (what?!) but the tech eventually agrees to send one out. They receive it the next day, and I examine it. The “new” board is actually refurbished from 2005 and looks terrible. I decide to swap it out anyway, and what do you know? It doesn’t work.

I’ve heard that some people have had luck e-mailing the “Customer Advocate” team at Dell (Customer_Advocate@Dell.com) and I did e-mail them six days ago, but haven’t heard a peep. I’m e-mailing them back tonight and asking for them to at least respond. I’m seriously doubting they’ll bother responding back.

Microsoft/Windows Vista – I had to completely re-install Vista two days ago, because SQL Management Studio stopped connecting to servers. Just straight up would not connect to any server anymore. Just gave me a generic fatal network error message. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cleaning out the registry, deleting files, etc… just couldn’t get it to work. And seeing as SQL Management Studio is pretty much a requirement to do my job, I had to reinstall everything to get it working again. Ugh.

Then, I decided to upgrade my laptop’s hard drive and memory, since I had skimped on it before, but now that I use it for work, I need it to be much faster. Bought a 100 gig 7200 RPM laptop hard drive and two gigabytes of RAM. Put the new hard drive in, and Vista says it’s now deactivated. What?!

Maybe you know that I’ve had problems with Vista’s lame activation in the past. How about the time I put in a soundcard? Or the time I reinstalled Vista (after having it installed for months beforehand?) Now I get it for installing a hard drive. Of course I have to call, read off a number to a guy in India, and then he reads me back another code, and I’m activated again. What a waste of my time.. and there was really no reason to get “deactivated” in the first place.

Microsoft/XBox 360 – My XBox 360 recently started getting the red rings of death. It wasn’t so bad at first, but then it got ridiculous, locking up like 20 minutes into a DVD, etc… so I decided to send it in. The first call, I spent about an hour waiting and talking to a tech, leading me through troubleshooting steps (which obviously aren’t going to fix the red rings problem.) Of course I get disconnected in the middle of this, so I give up for that night and try again a short while later. This time, the tech tells me that their computer systems are down, and I need to call back in 30 minutes. Ok.. so I do call back, and the automated voice prompts tell me that I can just do a service request online. Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?

So I file a request, they send me a little box to package up my XBox 360, and I send it back (to somewhere in Texas.) You can check the status of your repair via their http://service.xbox.com/ site.. at first it said my unit had not yet been received, then it changed to received.. and now it says “No Repair”, and that my warranty is invalid. Obviously I freaked a little, and snooped around online for “no pending repair”. Looks like this means they swapped it out for a refurbished console. Okay, that makes sense, but why should the service status be so misleading? Why can’t it say “swapped out” or “replaced” or “replacement shipped”? Instead, I have no way of even knowing if the accepted my repair, shipped it, etc.. talk about lame.

I guess I’ll wait a few more days and see if an XBox 360 comes to my door via UPS. If not, I’ll have to call and deal with a guy in India.. (gee doesn’t that sound familiar?)

Nissan – I love my car. No really, I do. The navigation system needs work, but other than that, gravy. Except I keep having a problem where my driver’s seat has it’s leather “unhooked” from the seat itself, near where the seat touches the center console. I attribute it to me being a bigger guy, but still, it shouldn’t be coming undone. I’ve had Nissan fix this twice now, and it still keeps popping off. So I e-mailed corporate and they e-mailed me back days later, asking for my mileage and where I last had it serviced. I send them back the information, and they say a “specialist” will be in touch with me by the following business day. It’s been two days, and nothing. I’m not that upset yet, but when you say following business day, you probably should mean it.

But even if they do contact me.. say, tomorrow.. what is this “specialist” going to do for me? Just tell me to bring it in to get fixed? It obviously keeps happening.. it seems like an engineering problem to me. I don’t sit in my car funny, aka slamming your butt onto the seat as you jump in. And I always try to be “centered” in my seat, so I just don’t get it.

 

Anyways, I’m sorry for such a long rant. But maybe you can relate to some of these. I don’t think I’m expecting too much from these companies, and it just goes to show how little they care for their customers in general.

(from the opening of The IT Crowd, series 2, episode 3)

All the internet's memes in one video.. it’s amazing!

Yes, I twitter now. That’s how cool I am:

http://twitter.com/iransofaraway

Add me!

Apple announced all new iPods today, and whoopty-do, they manage to screw it up pretty bad.

1. Ringtones cost extra — Yeah, I really want to spend .99 cents more to take a PIECE of a song I already paid .99 for and make it into a ringtone. I also DO NOT WANT the ability to use tracks I ripped myself and convert them to ringtones. Bind my hands, please.
2. iPhone is now $200 cheaper — All you suckers who paid top dollar for the privilage of having an iPhone right away.. I am pointing and laughing at you. I still don’t want an iPhone, even with the cheaper price point.
3. The new Nano looks terrible — I know some people will disagree with me and say it’s beautiful, but I’m sorry, you’re wrong. It’s like a hobbit made love to one of the new “classic” iPods. Rumors of terrible performance (coverflow is jerky, etc.) and the small video screen don’t help my desire to get one at all.
4. The new iPod “touch”, oh wait, don’t you mean IPHONE? — Jeez, you might as well buy an iPhone. Or wait for iPhone v2, where they finally put WiFi into the iPhone. Shouldn’t they also have changed the form factor just a tad? I mean, it’s skinnier, sure, but what about making the screen bigger? Or changing up the face.. just anything to make it stand out against an iPhone. And don’t just disable things, either, *cough*e-mail*cough* on the iPod Touch to make it not compete with the iPhone.
5. Starbucks integration; who cares? — So, your iPod Touch will light up like Christmas every time you walk past a Starbucks? And you’ll get to see what artist/song is currently playing? And be able to buy it?!? It sounds like you want to force advertising in my face. And for all that, I don’t even get free WiFi internet access? Boohoo, Starbucks. Hopefully you can turn this “feature” off. I’m sure Starbucks and Apple will make gakillions of dollars, though. Whatever.
6. No WiFi syncing — Isn’t this obvious? You’ve got an iPod now with WiFi capabilities.. why can’t someone sync it when they get home automatically through the power of WiFi?

The Windows desktop may stop updating correctly after a Windows Vista-based computer has been running for an extended period of time: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932406

I started having this problem a LOT lately. Not quite sure why. I’m installing this hotfix, maybe it’ll do the trick. I’m sharing the info. in case it helps others out..

With the ongoing BioShock saga…

On a whim, I stopped using my onboard RealTek 7.1 HD audio device, and put my Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeMusic back into my machine. I really hate Creative, and have had nothing but problems with their Vista drivers, but figured I might as well give this a shot. Setup the drivers, setup the new Creative ALchemy (to give EAX support under Vista), and fired up BioShock. Wow. 5.1 audio actually works, and sounds pretty decent.

I’m guessing that 2K Games never extensively tested the game with onboard audio devices. This doesn’t make much sense, seeing as over 50% of the users out there use onboard sound for their games. At least according to the last Valve hardware survey. And it also doesn’t make sense to me that every other game I often play (Counter Strike: Source, Oblivion, Command and Conquer 3, etc.) works fine in 5.1 mode with my onboard controller.

I’ve written before how I believe Creative/etc. are a dying breed, with their custom audio APIs and effects layers. This just proves my point a bit more.

Since I can now semi-play the game, I’ll give it a go and write my review a bit later on.

Update: After disabling my onboard sound card, and installing the X-Fi, Vista once again is forcing me to re-activate. What the f—k? I’m getting so tired of this crap.

From a post by 2k Elizabeth, a person who works for 2k Games:

hey guys,

first, let me say this. you DO NOT NEED TO USE THE INTERNET EVERY TIME YOU PLAY THIS GAME. it is only the first time.

second, you can uninstall and reinstall this game, and if, by chance, you have 2 computers you want to simultaneously play this game on, you also can do that.

if by some chance you are reinstalling this game without uninstalling it first, a lot, there is a chance you may have to call securom and get a key, or deactivate some older installations.

but if you upgrade your hardware next week, you'll still be able to play the game. if you revamp your system and need to reinstall bioshock, just uninstall it before you go through the overhaul, and then do your reinstall.

calling it "hardware fingerprinting" is a bit alarmist. we do not transmit any of your data to any companies.

really, the only people who will be concerned about any of these security measures are those who are rapidly putting bioshock on many pcs... if you use the game as you normally do, you won't notice this at all.

AWESOME!

I feel sorry for people who bought the game and don’t have an always-on internet connection. This protection means that the first time they go to play it, they’ll have to connect to the internet.

And I’ll now have to remember to uninstall the game next time I buy a new PC or rebuild my current one. And let’s hope the activation doesn’t fail randomly, because we know that never happens, especially on Windows Vista. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to call a third party (SecuROM) and plead my case. Wonderful!

And guess who doesn’t have to worry about any of these things? The people who pirated the game in the first place.

To top it off, she ends with basically saying if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. Riiight. Since when is it up to game manufacturers to determine how many PCs I can install a game on?

You win, 2k Games! Truly you have conquered all video game pirating!

Update: Since people are wondering, here are my computer’s specs:

MSI P6N SLI Platinum Motherboard
Intel Q6600 Core2 Quad, 2.4GHz CPU
2 gigabytes of Muskin eXtreme Performance DDR2 1066 RAM
ATI Radeon X1900 XTX PCI-E 512mb video card
On-board RealTek (7.1 capable) Audio, analog mode

Bioshock was released today for PC and XBox 360, receiving a 97 out of 100 over at Metacritic. That’s a pretty excellent score. So of course I decided to purchase the game via Steam. When I went to play the game, that’s when things fell apart.

Firstly, the game’s SecuROM protection would not let the game start. It claimed the activation servers could not be found. Huh? You’re telling me SecuROM is dialing home to make sure my copy is legit? That’s a bit scary.

So I check the forums, and find that if you retry running the game three times, it eventually works (who knows why three is the magic number.) Whaddya know, I’m in! The Bioshock logo appears, my screen goes to black, appearing to load the game, then bam, back to my desktop. Huh? I check my taskbar— yep, the game’s still running. But why did it kick me back to the desktop? On a whim, I exit out of Vista’s sidebar, and I’m able to bring the game fullscreen again without a problem.

Okay, finally.. I’ll be able to play! I see the intro movies. First one shows a list of copyright mumbo jumbo for about 15 seconds. Can’t be skipped. Ugh. Second video is a short Unreal technology logo. Third one is an nVidia logo, also can’t be skipped. Finally, we’re shown a 2k games video, and we’re able to hit escape to skip it. Totally lame.

At the main menu, I go into options to fix my resolution (the game started up at 1024x768, my monitor is natively 1680x1050.) I change the resolution and apply the settings. I go into the sound settings, and change it from stereo to 5.1 audio. Says I’ll have to restart the game. No biggie, I guess. But that means sitting through those logos again.. so I bite the bullet and restart the game anyhow.

Back to the main menu, I finally choose new game. It starts to load, and I’m forced to watch a cutscene rendered by the engine. No hitting escape (can’t even get a button to go back to the main menu!), etc. The cutscene looks decent, but has a “fake” antialiased blur to it. This isn’t spoiling anything for you, but the main character (you) gets into a plane crash in this video. You wake up rising to the surface, surrounded by burning plane wreckage. Guess what problem I run into now?

There’s no surround sound. At all. And the sound coming out of my two front speakers is way out of wack with where I’m at in relation to the sound sources (the fire burning, the ocean, etc.) Huh? I double check my options. Yep, 5.1 sound is set. What gives?

I decide to keep on trucking, walking into a building in the middle of the ocean. Staircases lead me down in front of a bathysphere. There is some “art” on the walls, and banners and such, and they look great. The textures on the bathysphere and the rest of the walls, however, is absolute garbage. It’s like I’ve gone back in time to Quake III-era textures. I suspect that 2k Games made Bioshock to look/work best on the XBox 360 console, and not the PC.. Huh?

I give up and save my game, bailing out to Windows, and hopping on Steam’s forums as well as 2k Game’s forums, to search for solutions. There are none to be found, but plenty of other people having loads of problems. The last time I saw a game launch with this many technical problems, it was called Enter The Matrix. It was a total joke, and nearly unplayable. That’s just about how I feel about Bioshock right now.

I learn nothing from the forums, so I jump back in the game and load my save game. I wait for it to finish loading. La la la. When the save game is fully loaded, I see the screen come up, but all the textures are very very blurry. After a few seconds, they clear themselves up. What the heck? I’m not on a console! I’m on a PC more than capable of handling the game.

I should also chime in that I’m getting tired of Unreal engine based games completely sucking on the PC. They all suffer from the “mouse lag” problem, or 3d audio problems, or 3d video problems, etc… more than any other games I’ve had to install and run. They usually require you to get down to .INI hacking just to play the basic game. Dumb.

I recommend that everyone learn from my mistake: stay away from this stinker, unless 2k Games releases a major update to fix ALL of the problems.

A perfect example of just why I don’t care is his latest post, an insane rambling about how difficult it was to open the Office 2007 packaging. Come on, Joel. You really couldn’t figure it out? Of course Chris Pirillo jumps in with his two cents, basically rehashing what Joel says, and also point out how bad it is for one of the “world’s leading software developers states this” information. Gimme a break.

When I bought Office 2007 a month ago to install for a friend, opening the box was easy peezy. You just follow the little sticker’s instructions and you’re off. The instructions consist of basically peeling off a sticker and then pivoting open the box. Maybe Joel didn’t get a package with the sticker. I don’t know. But even the most basic student of engineering would figure out that it “pivots open” after one removes the sticker.

While I’m at it, I should point out this genius as well, who claims it took 30 minutes to open the box and took the time to document it on Flickr (no doubt that’s where the 30 minutes came from?) This seal, which they’re implying can only be opened with scissors or a sharp knife, easily tore for me when I pivoted open the box. It was already slightly perforated. Come on, guys. You’re telling me you’ve never encountered computer software packaging with TAPE or PLASTIC?

He also goes on to recommend that people get XP on newer computers, and suggests that Vista should not be used as someone’s primary operating system, due to compatibility headaches. Huh? Care you cite some examples? I can understand a company hesitating to upgrade, since they might need to test some custom software, etc. before doing the push.. but your typical family user(s) are not going to run into troubles. I have no problems recommending Vista to users purchasing a new Dell, Gateway, etc. today.

If you want something to rant about packaging-wise.. why not complain about the way CDs and DVDs are packaged, with the super-tight plastic wrap on the outside, and the one to three stickers found underneath that plastic wrap, which always seems to be stuck on with glue that is not meant for peeling, leaving a yucky substance all over your brand new cover? That’s really lame. If you’re a thief, you’re probably just using a EZ-CD opener or something to quickly rip the cover off and take the disc out.

I’m going to write up a full review of 300 soon enough, but in the meantime, here’s an awesome mockery of one of the film’s early scenes:

Can’t wait for this to come out! I had my misgivings about Heath Ledger playing The Joker, but looks like he’s pulling it off well. And of course Christian Bale fits perfectly as Batman.

These packs were leaked in beta a few weeks ago, but today Microsoft released the full final versions. You can find more information (and download it) at Microsoft’s website, under KB 938979 and KB 938194.

The fixes? Check it out:

• You experience a long delay when you try to exit the Photos screen saver.
• A memory leak occurs when you use the Windows Energy screen saver.
• If User Account Control is disabled on the computer, you cannot install a network printer successfully. This problem occurs if the network printer is hosted by a Windows XP-based or a Windows Server 2003-based computer.
• When you write data to an AVI file by using the AVIStreamWrite function, the file header of the AVI file is corrupted.
• When you copy or move a large file, the "estimated time remaining" takes a long time to be calculated and displayed.
• After you resume the computer from hibernation, it takes a long time to display the logon screen.
• When you synchronize an offline file to a server, the offline file is corrupted.
• If you edit an image file that uses the RAW image format, data loss occurs in the image file. This problem occurs if the RAW image is from any of the following digital SLR camera models:
• Canon EOS 1D
• Canon EOS 1DS
For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
932988 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932988/) Files from a Canon EOD 1D or 1DS camera may be corrupted after you use Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, or Windows Explorer to edit the file metadata in Windows Vista or in Windows XP Service Pack 2
• After you resume the computer from hibernation, the computer loses its default gateway address.
• Poor memory management performance occurs.

• The screen may go blank when you try to upgrade the video driver. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
932539 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932539/) The screen may go blank when you try to upgrade the video driver on a Windows Vista-based computer
• The computer stops responding, and you receive a "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error message. You can restart the computer only by pressing the computer's power button.
• The computer stops responding or restarts unexpectedly when you play video games or perform desktop operations.
• The Diagnostic Policy Service (DPS) stops responding when the computer is under heavy load or when very little memory is available. This problem prevents diagnostics from working.
• The screen goes blank after an external display device that is connected to the computer is turned off. For example, this problem may occur when a projector is turned off during a presentation.
• A computer that has NVIDIA G80 series graphic drivers installed stops responding.
• Visual appearance issues occur when you play graphics-intensive games.
• You experience poor playback quality when you play HD DVD disks or Blu-ray disks on a large monitor.
• Applications that load the Netcfgx.dll component exit unexpectedly.
• Windows Calendar exits unexpectedly after you create a new appointment, create a new task, and then restart the computer.
• Internet Connection Sharing stops responding after you upgrade a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP to Windows Vista and then restart the computer.
• The Printer Spooler service stops unexpectedly.
• You receive a "Stop 0x0000009F" error when you put the computer to sleep while a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) connection is active. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
931671 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931671/) Error message when you put a Windows Vista-based computer to sleep while a PPP connection is active: "STOP 0x0000009F"

I’d suggest running out and installing them ASAP. I was mainly having the “slow wake from hibernation” problem, and I believe everyone was having the estimated time remaining problem… but updated performance and reliability can only be a good thing!

Just about sums up how I feel right now.

If so, you need to throw it out immediately, as well as any contact lenses or cases that came in contact with it. The solution has been recalled because the C.D.C. has found that the solution does not protect you against a infectious microbe called acanthamoeba, which can lead to permanent damage to your eye, usually requiring corneal transplants.

Ugh.

I didn’t even know about this, and apparently most of the world didn’t either. This recall started in May! And supposedly all product is supposed to be pulled from shelves, etc.. but the other day I found it on my K-Mart shelf.

I dunno what I’m going to do, as the other contact lens solutions make my eyes burn like heck. And just last year, Bausch & Lomb’s “ReNu” solution was found to cause/allow fungal eye infections. Joy!

So, in conclusion, if you wear contact lenses, you’re going to die. That’s all there is to it. You’re doomed. Just put on some specs, will ya?

I usually think this sort of stuff is a bit over the top, but this brake-light conversion/mod is great. I’d totally get it on my Altima, and use the “cylon scanning” mode all the way home…

Enjoy! I didn’t like it at first, but it’s growing on me. I guess I was just expecting something a little more “large budget”. But some shots stand out, such as the hands grabbing her underwater, and the very large dress at the end. Yay Eisley!

[Queue 2001: A Space Odyssey Music]

It’s allliiiive! All the parts arrived and were assembled. The most nerve-racking part of the build was actually putting the CPU cooler on. The instructions are mostly what some would call “English”, but the diagrams leave something to be desired. There are arrows on top of four posts that go into the motherboard to secure the cooler, and you’d think they’d be pointing the direction you’re supposed to twist to secure the cooler. You’d be wrong. They’re actually indictating how to remove the cooler. Go figure.

Anyway, I’m very happy with the results, the machine screams. The only real bummer thing I just discovered is that this motherboard only supports up to 800MHz memory. I have 1066 MHz memory. That’s 266MHz the board can’t use, and paid more for. Oh well, I guess. Maybe MSI, the motherboard manufacturer, will come out with a BIOS update to increase the speed? Really doubtful. I wonder if it’s a BIOS limitation or an actual hardware limitation? Hrm.

 

This has had me stuck for the past hour. Give me a break. I really hope this is just a bug in the “beta” of Safari.. because it’s extremely dumb.

This Javascript method takes a passed in SELECT element (via ID) and the value you want selected, and will loop through all of the SELECTs options, and select the one whose value matches:

function selectOptionListValue(psElementId, psValue) {
    var OptionList = document.getElementById(psElementId).options;
    
    for (var i = 0; i < OptionList.length; i++) {    
        if (OptionList[i].value.toLowerCase().trim() == psValue.toLowerCase().trim()) {
            OptionList[i].selected = true;
            break;
        }
    }    

                        
    return;
}

Looks simple, right? It kinda is. Works great in Opera, IE, FireFox, etc… but in Safari, nothing happens. Your SELECT gets nothing selected. It turns out, you need to specify the SELECT’s selectedIndex in order to get it to work properly— adding this line before the “return;” fixes it on Safari:

OptionList.selectedIndex = i;

Talk about retarded. Any “Safari developers” out there want to throw in their two cents?