Saturday, September 26, 2009

Weave Web UI - Passwords Ideas


"The Mozilla Labs Design Challenge is a series of eventsto encourage innovation and experimentation in user interface design for the Web." (link)

Like I've said before Weave is a great Firefox extension that syncs your browser data (that includes, bookmarks, history, cookies, passwords, form auto-completions, tabs, preferences, extensions and more in the future) across all your browsers: On your desktop PC, laptop or mobile.

So anyway, Mozilla set a project for letting the users help out on suggesting ideas for the Weave Web UI. Here's mine.

I'm not that good with UI but I know what I want; The problem with the auto-completion of passwords is that you forget them rather quickly when you don't need to type them anymore! So providing a "forgetful" mode for a login sounds good. If you could mark a password for a reminder every now and then you probably won't have to dig through your mail looking for that activation mail from your website or to reset a password when you're using another computer without Weave installed.




Now for the web UI. I don't know if this will / should be the final design, simply because I don't know what will be comfortable. But still, here's what I had in mind for the Weave Passwords Web UI:




To create these I used Balsamiq Mockups: http://www.balsamiq.com/demos/mockups/Mockups.html

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Transparent Firefox Theme (Windows Aero style)

If you've seen the Firefox 4 mockup theme and thought it was cool, or if you want Firefox to look cool with Windows Aero's cool transparency effect, check out this cool addon. Try it, it's cool.

With the tabs below the menus:


With the tabs above the menus:

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Black Screen at Windows 7 Login

I'm using Windows 7 and set Windows updates to install automatically.
However, one specific update was, after restart, causing Windows to show a bank screen after login. I start up the computer, wait a bit, watch the login sequence and after the "Welcome" fades out to black I get nothing but my mouse pointer.

Using Safe Mode I removed the most recent Windows Update item and my computer got back to normal. The night after it tried to install itself again, so the exact same thing happened. Now it's hidden so it won't cause problems anymore.

The update is called "Security Update for Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (KB973924)". I don't mind not installing that.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Remove Catalyst Menu Item from Windows' Context Menus



I'm used to click the View menu by right-clicking anywhere and clicking straight away to open it. Since ATI's Catalyst Control Center added itself to that menu, it had to go.

This is how you remove that annoying menu item:
  • Open the Registry Editor.
  • Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers.
  • Backup (export) that key in case you mess things up.
  • Remove ACE from that registry item.
The ContextMenuHandlers item should only contain the NEW key. The Catalyst item -should- be removed when you delete the ACE key.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Warning! Your're in danger!

I woke up this morning at 8.10 because I wanted to wash the cars before it got too hot outside. I went downstairs and I find my parents in the living room watching TV. When they saw me they said with a huge smile on their face "Ah, finally you're awake! We need your help!"

So they pulled me to the family computer and what I saw was this: (found the screenshot on the web)



WARNING!
YOUR'RE IN DANGER!
YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH SPYWARE!

ALL YOU DO WITH COMPUTER IS STORED FOREVER IN YOUR HARD DISK.
WHEN YOU VISIT SITES, SEND E-MAILS... ALL YOUR ACTIONS ARE
LOGGED. AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE THEM WITH STANDART TOOLS.
YOUR DATA IS STILL AVAILABLE FOR FORENSICS. AND IN SOME CASES

FOR YOUR BOSS, YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR WIFE, YOUR CHILDREN.
Every sit you or somebody or even something, like spyware, opened in your browsers,
with all images, and all downloaded and maybe later removed movies or mp3 songs -
ARE STILL THERE and could break your life!

SECURE YOURSELF RIGHT NOW!
REMOVE ALL SPYWARE FROM YOUR PC!
Aside from replacing your wallpaper with that horribly written message, this malware disguised itself as Total Security 2009 and kept giving annoying prompts to install their software for an exaggerated fee. It immediately closed any EXE I tried to launch and only allowed IE to run, but didn't let me surf anywhere.

That computer had a fully purchased (and legit) version of the latest ESET installed with its Firewall, Antivirus and Antispyware features enabled. This malware is oldish, and I really didnt understand how that computer got infected. So I asked my dad just that, to which he replied "My ESET wasn't working so I saw this free online scanner but it didn't help."

I googled for a minute or so until I found an article saying something about that malware and about it being sometimes installed through what seems to be an online scanner. Hmm. Why does that sound familiar...?

I found the solution several seconds after that, but I wanted to see if the tools I have installed on my computer would find it. I have Avast, Ad-Aware and Spybot all running in the background. I couldn't install Avast on the family comp so I could only test the other two. Sadly, they both failed. Spybot found one registry value but that's it.

Several bloggers recommended SpyDoctor, and others said Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware application will solve it. I downloaded the latter seeing how SpyDoctor is not free.

So anyway, the removal process is fairly easy:
  1. If you're already logged in and the wallpaper is there, it means you can't access any applications or the internet so obviously you can't remove the malware right now.
  2. That's why you need to log out and log in again, but this time you must quickly open the Task Manager (ctrl+shift+esc) and kill the malware process using the Processes tab.
    The process name should be a very large number followed by the extension ".exe". e.g. 9999999.exe or something, the number may vary.
  3. Now that you have regained control over your computer, download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware application from their homepage and perform a full scan. It might take a while, but eventually it will find and remove all items related to this malware.
  4. If you don't wanna install anything or wait for it to finish, you'll need to do the following. If they're write-protected, try to start the computer with safe-mode.
    But I strongly recommend shutting down the process yourself and installing Anti-Malware.
    • From the TaskManager, kill the 9999999.exe and the install.exe processes.
    • Remove these registry values:
      Delete registry values:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 displayicon
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 displayname
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 shortcutpath
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall\systemsecurity2009 uninstallstring
    • Delete the 9999999 directory and all of its files from c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\. (The process might be using these)
    • Delete the shortcuts from your desktop and start menu.
The complete guide can be found in this post.

Friday, August 21, 2009

HRESULT E_FAIL PowerPoint Solution

I was looking into developing some Office utilities using their DLLs, and for starters--creating a tool for generating PowerPoint presentations from an image directory using C#.

But when I ran this code:
ApplicationClass powerpoint = new ApplicationClass();
Presentation ppt = powerpoint.Presentations.Add(MsoTriState.msoFalse);
I got this exception:
Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component
I've been looking for an answer for a while (for at least 10 minutes!) when it was finally time to ask it in a forum.

So thanks to this post I found out that you must install the Visual Basic for Applications from the Microsoft Office CD in order to actually use the DLLs Microsoft supplies:



This solution also applies for developing with other Office products such as Word, Outlook and others.

Friday, July 31, 2009

How to open PPS / PPSX file

As you probably know, PPS / PPSX and PPT / PPTX are really the same, but the way PowerPoint handles them is different. PPS / PPSX will be played full-screen on double-click, while PPT / PPTX will open for edit.

On Office 2003 and earlier, to "convert" PPS files to PPT, you just need to change the extension. But on Office 2007 it takes more mouse clicks, but it's still really easy.

Follow these steps to change ppsx to pptx:
  1. Open PowerPoint 2007.
  2. Close the new empty slideshow but leave PowerPoint open.
  3. Drag or open (File > Open...) the PPSX file in PowerPoint.
  4. Save the file as PPTX.
It's as simple as that.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Cursor won't move on scummVM (S60 3rd)

I recently found out about ScummVM: (from the site)
...a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed!
So I downloaded it and installed on my Nokia 6120c and after some desperate attempts I gave up trying to move its the cursor. So I googled for a solution.

What you need to do in order to start controlling ScummVM with your keypad is to type the following keys in this order:
  1. Send
  2. j
  3. 1
  4. Send
Now the cursor will move and all of the other keys will work fine.

Fix Hebrew Encoding

I found this site with an excellent Hebrew encoding tool, just type the weird gibberish string and you'll automatically get the original string!

http://www.pixiesoft.com/flip/

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland Pictures

Check out this image gallery from Tim Burton's 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland" (Click for larger view).








Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Get Rid of the Office Live Workspaces Pop Up

If you use Microsoft Update you probably get these annoying popup every time you open Word / PowerPoint / other Office 2007 applications.



The Office Live Workspaces feature comes with some feature installed by Microsoft Update. I tried logging but the popup is still there every time I open an Office 2007 application.

So here's what to do if you don't want this popup:
  1. Open the Windows Registry Editor
  2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft
  3. Create a new key named "OfficeLive"
  4. Close the Registry Editor
Now the the "Do not show me this message again" actually works!

(source: Link)

Friday, June 5, 2009

Bugs Bunny Ball and Screw Sign

You might remember that sign (a screw on one side and a baseball on the other) from the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Calling someone a screwball means he's acting weird, or just being insane, and I quote this page: The literal meaning of a screw ball comes from baseball when a pitcher throws the ball and makes it curve.

I thought it meant being stupid, but I was wrong...

Also, in one of my search I found this: (that's the first result, click for larger view)


While id didn't give me an answer, I found the small search box suggestion funny:

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Microsoft Office 2007 on an Old Computer

My compter, as you probably know already if you read my past posts, is extremely old and out of shape. So now and then I try to see how it handles with different programs. This time I wanted to try running Office 2007.

I won't put screenshots, detailed benchmarks or whatever--because they don't really matter in this case. Office 2003 was OK on my computer, but it seems Office 2007, however sluggish, it holds some new features and performance fixes that makes it worth the upgrade. If my computer can handle it--so can yours.

I don't use Word anymore, and Google Docs gives me a nice alternative to Excel. So the only thing left to compare is PowerPoint.

PowerPoint 2003 | Loading all of those complex drawings and clipart, viewing many slides at once using the layouts and switching between them were a nightmare. Especially when there are many large images and other stuff. And when I actually present a slideshow it's not that great neither.

PowerPoint 2007 | Surprisingly, it performed much better than 2003. I could clearly see that they made many of their basic functions faster, including the creation of slide thumbnails. Even though the UI can take a long time to load, it never once did crash or freeze. It might take a few more seconds to load, but once it's up--PowerPoint feels just as 'fast' as the old version felt.

So if you're not using any online service or OpenOffice.org to edit documents, I strongly recommend upgrading even if your computer is old like mine. The only thing that's worth checking before upgrading is Microsoft Outlook, being one of the heavy applications within this office package.

Also, I've heared complaints about the new interface, mostly because everything's not where it used to be for, like, at least 10 years. Personally I think the change was for the best. Even though most of the features are 2-3 mouse clicks away instead of just one, they're located in a much more intuitive location. You just need to adjust yourself a bit, as with all Microsoft products.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Meebo Desktop Client?

I've been looking for a desktop alternative for Meebo for a while, only to find out that's not how Meebo is supposed to work; It's supposed to be a complete online application and not a desktop one.

So to keep it an online app, I simply use Prism (from Mozilla) to have it running on my system out side the browser. The sound notifications are there, and Prism lets me add a notify icon so it's minimized to the tray. You can tell Prism to run it as a full-size window without any of the Firefox controls, or you can tell it to have everything--the sidebar, location bar, statusbar etc.

Currently there's no option to have the notify icon alert you when the page title changes (e.g. when you get new messages) but Meebo allows you to pop-up the contacts menu. To make all chat windows pop out, just click the pop out button on a chat window and minimize the main Meebo window to the tray. That way all new chat windows, will pop out as well, making it more like a desktop IM program.

These are my settings:


After my start menu shortcut icon appeared, I copied it to my Startup folder so it'll launch automatically at startup, just like an IM app.

Tip: They don't say it in the creation window, but if you want the settings button to appear you have to tick the 'Show status messages and progress' checkbox because the preferences icon is located on the statusbar.

Use Hebrew

Starting today I'll be sharing some nice new Hebrew words found on Dorbanot.com, some of them are already listed there and some are new words I thought of and will be posted in the future in that site.

I'll be tweeting good words I find there (or words I think of) so make sure you follow. It's also being synchronized with my Facebook account so you don't have to open a Twitter account (any tweet I make my Facebook status changes).

Monday, April 27, 2009

This Month on My Phone

Since this is the first post of the series, I’ll post older images too.

These pictures were taking using my trusty Nokia 6120c. The camera is pretty bad but it’s enough as long as you don’t need to take night pictures.

The image dimensions here are much smaller than the originals.


חמוצים










^ Pickle leftovers from our base-made pickles.


Donut








^ No one wanted a whole sufganiya. Typical.


11022009








^ Can you guess what that is?


16032009(001)










^ Morning light through the trees.


29032009(001)










^ Some field in Gan Yavne, about 5 minutes from my house.


29032009(003)








^ Different area of that same field, from a different angle.


20042009-001










^ A tree near a bus stop at 5.40 AM. (hence the semi-sunrise)


26042009








^ Hamstery love in Shiv'ata.


26042009(006)








^ At the train station.


27042009(005)










^ The Star of David roundabout at the entrance of Gan Yavne, today on my way home.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

No Keyboard at Boot (Windows 7 Leftover)

The Windows 7 installation messed up my computer. Aside from the boot-menu issue, my keyboard was suddenly unavailable from the second Windows started booting to the second it finally got loaded. So I couldn’t do a thing once I passed the normal boot and started the HD.

That was a USB keyboard, but I got a new PS/2 one and the computer seems to like it; I can send keyboard events at boot time just like before, even after booting into the HD. Weird.

Edit: I’m pretty sure it messed things up because my computer is REALLY, REALLY OLD and its hardware is terrible. Any computer manufactured in the last 4 years will be better than what I have now. :(

Moving TFS Databases

Recently we had to move a complete Team System Foundation database environment from one storage to another; Not much of a surprise since the databases are growing all the time, and the original hard drive had about 20gb.

So we connected a LUN to the TFS server and I had to move the database files. Here's how you do it:

Before You Start

  • It's highly recommended that you backup all of your databases.
  • The TFS services will not be available (obviously) so you should tell everyone to stop working until you're done even though it won’t hurt the process if they don’t.
  • Names of services and other stuff may appear differently on your machine, so be creative when finding the proper services and application pools.

Step 1: Stopping Services and Application Pools

Go to the Services Console and stop the following services:

  • TFSServerScheduler
  • SharePoint Timer Service
  • SQL Server Reporting services

To get there, open the Run Command window (WinKey-R), type “Services.msc” and hit Enter.

Stop the TFS-related Application Pools:

  • ReportServer
  • TFS AppPool
  • TFSWSS
  • TFSWSSADMIN.

As an alternative to stopping the application pools, you may simply shut down IIS altogether if it isn’t being used for anything else on the system.

To get there, go to Computer Management, then Services and Applications > Internet Information Services > Application Pools.

Step 2: Detaching the Databases

Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the Database Engine for your Team Foundation Server.

To get there, go to Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2005 > SQL Server Management Studio.

Under the Databases node, locate and Detach the TFS databases.

To do this, right-click on the database and select Tasks > Detach. After making sure there are no active connections to the database, click OK to detach it.

This is the common database list needed to be detached. If this SQL Server instance is only used for TFS, just detach everything.

  • ReportServer
  • ReportServerTempDB
  • STS_Config_TFS
  • STS_Content_TFS
  • TfsActivityLogging
  • TfsBuild
  • TfsIntegration
  • TfsVersionControl
  • TFSWarehouse
  • TfsWorkItemTracking
  • TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachements

Step 3: Moving the Databases

Locate the database data files and transaction logs that were detached.

By default they are in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data.

Continuing the example database list above, these files are probably the ones we need to move to the new location:

  • ReportServer.mdf and ReportServer_log.LDF
  • ReportServerTempDB.mdf and ReportServerTempDB_log.LDF
  • STS_Config_TFS.mdf and STS_Config_TFS_log.LDF
  • STS_Content_TFS.mdf and STS_Content_TFS_log.LDF
  • TfsActivityLogging.mdf and TfsActivityLogging_log.LDF
  • TfsBuild.mdf and TfsBuild_log.LDF
  • TfsIntegration.mdf and TfsIntegration_log.LDF
  • TfsVersionControl.mdf and TfsVersionControl_log.LDF
  • TFSWarehouse.mdf and TFSWarehouse_log.LDF
  • TfsWorkItemTracking.mdf and TfsWorkItemTracking_log.LDF
  • TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachments.mdf and TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachments_log.LDF

Step 4: Re-Attaching the Databases

Return to Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and reattach the database files in their new locations. How?

  • Right-click on the Databases folder and select Attach.
  • Click the Add button.
  • Browse to the new location and select the first MDF that you’ve moved and click OK.
  • Repeat the last two steps for all of the database files that you moved.
  • Once all of your databases are selected, click OK in the Attach Databases dialog.

Verify that all of the original databases shown in step 5 above are displayed under the Databases folder in SQL Server Management Studio, and close SQL Server Management Studio when you’re done.

Step 5: Restarting Services and Application Pools

Restart the application pools that were shutdown in step 1. Simply go through the same procedure, only start the services instead of stopping them. Restarting the IIS afterwards might be a good idea, too.

To do this, open the Run Command window (WinKey-R), type ‘iisreset’ and hit Enter.

Then start the services that were shut down in the same step.

Success

You’re done. Bring up Team Explorer and verify that everything works. Make sure everything looks good.

It’s also recommended to take a peek at the Application and System event logs and make sure that nothing unusual happened during your testing of the new environment.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Renaming a Post

Since a URL of a post is generated by using the post title, I wanted to see what happens if you change its name. So I renamed the Windows 7 post and went to the same address it had before.
The post's URL didn't change, it stayed the same. No redirection etc, it just changed the title.

So choose your titles carefully, looks like it's permanent.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Guys, come on.


I know that you people, the people who write those tv monstrosities (הישרדות הישראלי in particular) are dumb, but can't you even write proper Hebrew? Guys, come on.

And, for the record, it was my sister who saw this. I never watch this show.

In case the image is missing, it says:
"עידן מדבר על הכל, מיד אחורי הישרדות"

Friday, April 3, 2009

This time, it's not personal

Well, I signed up for Facebook again. And they actually *did* delete my old account so that's good news for those who won't come back.

But this time, I plan to use it just like any other site or IM account: My name and email address is all you're gonna get. I don't have to include my personal life in it too much or use all of its features; Just the IM and statuses.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Going Back to Facebook?

I’ve been toying with the idea to go back to Facebook.

I deleted my Facebook profile a bit more than a month ago, and started using Twitter instead. I can’t say it was a successful transition for me.

Many people said this before, but Facebook became something that everybody knows and takes part of. Most of my friends hold a Facebook profile and got no Twitter login, so that’s a problem. Also, Facebook’s IM is an excellent way to talk to people who are travelling or just don’t use an IM application regularly. You can throw a line on the status input and you get comments from your friends and have a good laugh, or watch as your friend travel the world and taking pictures. It has become such a social place that you’re missing out stuff if you’re not there. It’s like a bad bus company: All people use it to get to places, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to travel. In fact, it blows. (ehm Connex)

Keeping a blog is a different story; Like this post and several others I wrote, a blog is a good place for personal articles about anything and is a good way to keep track of things you’ll want to remember in the future.

I need to think this through, mostly because I quit Facebook saying “Bah, who needs this shit? I quit.” when I should’ve just said “Bah, who needs this shit? I’ll join a group about it and stay.” :) And if I open a new account it’ll be a nice fresh start without all the ‘Wow, this is cool!’ phase people go through in that stupid Facebook.

Edit: Hmm. Looking back at the post I mentioned earlier, it looks weird. I said that I’m quitting Facebook, starting to use Twitter, moving to Linux and opening a blog. If I return to Facebook, it’ll be the third thing in that list for me to undo! Weird.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Running Windows 7 on an Old Computer

Before I explain anything, here are my computer specs:

  • Processor: Mobile AMD Duron 4 1.30GHz
  • RAM: 1024MB, ddr2 400mhz
  • Graphics: SiS 650 (On-Board)

And hard drive states:

  • HD1: 40GB, running Windows XP SP3
  • HD2: 75GB, downloads, music, and future HD of Windows 7
  • HD3: 20GB, running #! Crunchbang Linux

Can you imagine running the Windows 7 RC on a computer like that? I went for it, just for laughs and maybe—just maybe—to use it instead of Windows XP. Who knows, maybe it’ll all be just fine?

(0) What you say !!

You can have your doubts, but I like testing stuff. Running Windows 7, who’s supposed to be able to run on even old systems, on an actual old system? I just wanted to see how it’ll go.

This post is for me to show you how I got Windows 7 running, so in case you have similar issues, maybe you’ll find solutions here.

Note: I couldn’t have done this without having another computer with Internet access on it, whether I needed it for finding answers to problems or to download drivers for my internet-lacking computer.

(1) Running the Setup

Booting from the DVD wasn’t possible so I had to install the OS from my existing Windows XP installation. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a solution for that problem, but having a working Windows to install 7 from might have made me less eager to look for a real solution.

The setup was easy, and I didn’t have to sit staring at the screen in case some setup questions come up. And I was really surprised how the setup took about 30 minutes. I was sure it’ll take more than that, having an old computer and all.

So I came back after 20-30 minutes and saw the setup was at its end, as it was marking the last “Finalizing Installation” step as complete. The computer restarted itself, and suddenly my monitor told me something odd.

(2) Analog out of Range

That’s what my monitor stated. So I posted my question on three different forums and waited for a solution. I am happy to say that once again the Internet didn’t fail me.

On one of the two posts that actually got replies, I was told that I should hit the F8 key after the screen goes blank and run 7 in Safe Mode using a menu of some sort that should appear. So I did that, and I saw the red led on my comp flashing rapidly, then nothing, again. Apparently the safe mode wasn’t displayed for the same reason nothing was displayed until now.

I printed the Windows 7 menu screenshot (using the link above) and blindly pressed the DOWN key three times and hit ENTER. That made 7 boot to Safe Mode with Networking.

EDIT: Remember that before you get to the boot menu, you might have other OSs on your computer. So before getting to the actual boot menu, you might need to hit DOWN and ENTER to get to the Windows 7 stuff. I found the following options most relevant:

  • Earlier version of Windows
  • Windows 7
  • ...and others

(3) Safe Mode with Networking without Networking

As OS installations go, I was missing a few critical drivers: The video, the audio and the networking drivers were all missing. So I had to figure out what my Network card was, look for drivers online and copy them to my 7 computer.

Once I got my driver installed, I tried creating a new network several times. Each time I got a message saying general stuff about not being able to connect, and I assumed the problem was 7’s.

That’s a mistake I won’t repeat. Once I gave up and went to the other computer to look for an answer yet again, I noticed that the Internet connection was acting funny and when I tried to disconnect an reconnect, it failed just like 7.

Then I saw some TV and tried to connect again and succeeded. Now that I was sure my ISP wasn’t to blame, I went back to my 7 computer and tried connecting again. It worked! I was ONLINE!

(4) Windows Update

Windows Update successfully found both drivers I mentioned in the previous section, plus a better version of the network driver and several more to devices I didn’t know even existed on my computer. Finally, I could change to a more reasonable screen resolution and hear those sweet, sweet Windows 7 sound effects.

(5) Working with 7

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel that much of a different in performance between this version of Windows and my old XP installation. My computer is slow and XP is old, but my applications aren’t. I feel they run the same on both OSs, but then again—slow is slow and slower might look like regular slow sometimes.

For those of you who care, here’s my Windows Experience Index scores:

Grade

Needless to say I can’t use Aero, and removing many effects might be a good idea. 7 said my system can handle it, but I prefer enabling only the “visual styles on windows and buttons” option so my system won’t look like crap. Really, Vista and 7 make the Windows 2000 ‘Redmond’ style look awful.

(6) Finalizing Postallation

I still can’t see any of the boot menus, so I suppose I’ll install a different one using Linux or whatever; My computer is still sluggish and heavy, but that won’t be solved until I buy a new one.

So my advice to you is only to install this system if you want to test your software and have no faster comp to do that on, unless you want to test your software on old computers and see how it works. Unless you got nothing to lose, I say buy a new computer already or stick to Linux and XP, preferably a lightweight Linux distribution like the one i used. (#!)

(7) One Last Thing

I think I’ll post something about how to get Windows 7 to look like the old OS, with a normal taskbar etc. Stay tuned.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Bye bye Heysan!

I've been using Heysan! for quite some time, and for those who I chatted with when I was on the road I'm sorry for all the spam it sent you during.

These spam messages were sent to you whenever you opened a conversation with me, or whenever I did. Also, it had too many ads for a small mobile phone screen.

But it wasn't always like that--the service started really well, but as time passed they added ads, some lame point buy-and-sell system and made their spam messages more annoying than ever (it started with a simple 'I'm using Heysan!' but now it's some long message you get every now and then).

I quit looking for a real application for my phone long ago (Nokia 6120 Symbian 60 - 3rd edition) for IM, because most software I installed used some ports that my service provider (Orange) blocked.

But when I had enough for the second time, I looked for other WAP IM and I found eBuddy. It has a web browser client, WAP and mobile phone software. I successfully connected to my IM protocols and chatted, succeeding where other Symbian software failed.

So if you're after one IM client, which is available in either the desktop web, WAP or Symbian--eBuddy is your answer. I just hope it won't go bad like Heysan! did.

Though, I'll always use Meebo.com on desktop computers. It holds my history, and is the best web application for IM I've seen.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

My Linux Post ...Finally

As I previously stated, I moved to a computer which is terribly low on resources and therefore is really slow and heavy. Thinking Windows XP was just too heavy, I installed #! Crunchbang Linux to try and see how different it is performance-wise.

So now I have two operating systems on my computer: Crunchbang Linux and Windows XP SP3. Working with Crunchbang was easy and simple, as much as Linux can be. I will not try going into details, for I went back to Windows XP because its Firefox had miscellaneous bugs and glitches, and currently I have no choice but to use several Windows-only software on my machine. On the other hand, my DVD burner can not fully operate on Windows and to burn DVDs I must use Linux. Again, both systems have their pros and cons for me right now.

So, I went back to mainly using Windows. Both operating systems were about the same in matters of performance and memory, while in matters of software Linux is still the right way to go; I use web services anyway, like Meebo and Gmail, and I also use Firefox so no matter what operating system I'll end up using--I'll work the exact same way I always do.

And that's an excellent time to mention Weave! This Firefox extension syncs your data with Mozilla's servers (or your own server, it's configurable) that wherever you go, your entire web history, favorites, tabs and much more go with you. The feature I'm more excited about is being able to open a tab in computer A and go to it on computer B. Also, Mozilla's Fennec uses Weave and when Firefox goes fully mobile for Symbian phones, I'll be happy to have all my information really anywhere!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Shredder the Heavy

So I started using Thunderbird (to be exact, I use its 3.0 nightly build called 'Shredder'). After using it for a day I'm not going to use it again.

My computer is really, really sluggish and old. Shredder was quite heavy on my machine (Mobile AMD Duron 4, 1.30GHz 992mb RAM) so I've decided to try it again when I get a new computer--in the extremely far future. Meanwhile I downloaded my entire Inbox with Shredder so at least I have an offline copy of my emails.

Monday, March 2, 2009

No More Mr. Web Mailer

That Google Account incident made me download Thunderbird and use it to download my entire Gmail inbox to my computer using Gmail's IMAP service.

That's a lot of messages to download, but I think it'll be worth it. Plus--it's only once.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Sorry, your account has been disabled.

On Saturday when I got back from a bar in Gan Darom, I tried to check my email when I discovered that Google disabled my account!


I tried googling for an answer for to find out that's just another major bug, but it wasn't. They just disabled it without any explanation, so I had to use my hotmail account instead. It was awful.


So I sent them a couple of emails complaining about it: The first the moment it happened, and another the next day.


Finally I got an email to my hotmail account:

We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The issue you described should now be resolved. If you continue to experience difficulties, please respond to this message, and we'll investigate further.

Sincerely,

The Google Team


I replied to the email, asking what the hell happened. I hope to get a decent response.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Inglourious Basterds

There's a new Quentin Tarantino movie coming up, starring Brad Pitt.
This movie is a WWII movie through Quentin's eyes. Looks great!

Inglourious Basterds - TRAILER LINK

p.s. I.O.U some linux posts

Friday, February 20, 2009

Welcome

I quit Facebook yesterday, started using Twitter and switched to Linux. If this ain't the time for a new blog, I don't know when is.

I removed my other tryout blogs because they're rubbish. But this blog--this is the one I'm going to keep!

Some interesting stuff coming soon.