Time for links:

File Synchronizer

Asciiconvert

VM Creator

Pixel Fixer

Online Whiteboard

Screen Capture utility

Custom Roadsigns

Track your time using Firefox

Delete All the data on your mobile phone

Voting for undocumented workers(aliens)

Free music from pandora or last.fm

Free File Hosting

Shameless Plug o' The week.

None this week. If you would like your site plugged please email me a valid Link and explanation of your site.

If you work in a terminal services office like I do. It gets a tad annoying when you really need to get some work done and your co-worker/s has a session he is not using. Especially useful when trying to remote desktop into a xp machine.

Use this little command line fun :

mstsc -v:[UrServerNameOrIP] /console

you could possibly even create a shortcut to do this from your desktop.

Or just walk over to your system admin/network admin and coerce them into purchasing more licenses for terminal services.

So I was looking at woot a while back and I got a two for tuesday.I was excited to get the packages. I opened them up with great anticipation.Read the instructions and grabbed the driver cd and lo and behold it was blank?Surely this cant be on both products right? Sure enough both were blank cd's.So I went to adaptec's support site and there was no drivers ugh. So I googled. I could not find these drivers anywhere. I did however find these on a ftp site that I have lost the link to.

Product Description:

Adaptec GameBridge AVC-1410/1510 Loader: With GameBridge there is no lag time. Click the controller and the fast response gets you out of the tightest spots with the enhanced graphical resolution of your computer monitor.
Take snapshots of high scores or levels or record videos of great maneuvers, and save them to your hard disk or external drives, CDs, or DVDs.
GameBridge TV also provides a very affordable way to add an extra TV or to gain the benefits of a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). Schedule recordings. Take snapshots of any scene. The integrated remote control lets you select from up to 125 channels. Even preview a channel before you choose it.

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

• Windows NT 4
• Windows XP
• Windows 2003
• Windows 2000
• Windows ME
• Windows NT
• Windows 98

Additional Requirements:

• Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP/2003

Download Burncdcc for iso burning to a cd.

Download Adaptec Gamebridge Iso

Just a healthy reminder to go through your fridge looking for these condiments and well clean according. **sarcasm**. I saw this and had to spread the love. How bout this one:

Please Insert cd in floppy drive...

Happy New Year!! (2008)

Links Time:

Computers and the Internet According to normal users.

AirTalkr (adobe air IM)

 I recieved a rubiks revenge for christmas (this explains that)

Jam Studio(online music factory)

Unison file synchronizer

Girlfriend software

online dj mix sofware(free)

Use Gmail as a online music streamer

Shameless Plug o' The week:

Wicked cool Wedding and family video developer

So with all the craziness of the new zune software. I have been hanging out at the Zune forums and found this little nugget.

Zune media collection reset info:

Link

Also here is a link for the diagnostics.

Link

Ah the Post Holiday love. So Here once again are some Cool links for you and yours to enjoy.

Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas

Links:

Remote Desktop session Stuck (here's a way to kill a session.)

Spencers gifts on  ____ (acid/steroids) Fill in blank.

Tony B machine. (That's all I have to say about that)

More Bureaucratic stuff.

Get your Boogie Mashup on!

Free Christmas music: Santastic II and  Santastic III(in 3-D)

Mark Vidler(mashup)

Go Elf Yourself!

Elf Bowling (Because you need to slack off at work/home this week)

Shameless plug of the week:

How do I find the installed drivers on a PC?
How to go about Viewing Installed Drivers on your XP(also works on 2003) box.

If you want to see a list of installed drivers, you can run the driverquery program.

  There are a lot of available switches to view different types of information.
  You can also export it to a CSV file for viewing in Excel.

For example: 

Driverquery  /v  /fo  csv  > drivers.csv

Wow.. This was sent to me last week.  So what if I sold out.

Gotta pay the web hosting bills. (defensiveness over)

Had to get that off my chest.

Lets get to the links....

Predictify

SoundSnap

Spud Server only assuming this is not in Idaho

Google Pirate( Thanks JoeLevi)

Shame Less Plug O' the week!

RileyAdPhoto

So as you all know I purchased a Zune two or three months ago. I love the Zune however since the last great Firmware/Software update the playlist system has become a overly big time waster. I was able to work with the old playlist system fairly quickly(meaning make and distribute playlists with ease).

So after some research(mostly dumb luck) I found that the Zune software will and does respect the m3u playlist structure. Woo hoo or something like that.

So the next adventure was to create m3u playlists. I knew that winamp created these  types of playlists. However being very picky and not liking crapware(unless I have no choice (zune player software ring a bell))

So after hours of googling and trying a way to create m3u's without winamp. I found a simple solution.

@echo off

dir /o:n /b *.mp3 > Playlist.m3u

Open a text file. Copy and paste the two lines above and save as Playlist.bat yes

this will make the file a batch file. 

Go to the folder in which you have the Mp3's you would like in a playlist.

**Of course you probably want to change the "playlist" name in the batch file and the batch file itself.

Other software you can use:

Playlist Creator

Itunes Playlist to M3u converter

So I am looking for the hardest to find game system out there. At least immediatly outside my door. I know I am a hard core Xbox360 fanboy but I need the wii for my family besides it is sooo very cool.

Please email me if you have one for a reasonable price. I would like it before christmas.

my fun with the local redbox machine(BSOD) if you cant see it.

Special shoutout to my wife. Happy B-Day!!!

Lets get to the links:

Lets Start with the END.

More FTP love

Photo On the web

Open Source software for windows

Free File Hosting

Default Router Passwords

Convert bps to KBs

How to exploit PayPal (Not responsible for this one)

PayPal Calculator (making up for the exploit)

Grocery Guide (compare different stores)

Send free text messages through email

Enjoy!

Source:Grocery Guide

So check out this Utah based website. Make sure you check the prices before you go shopping.

Another Great Idea would be a mobile version for those in Beverly Hills.

Just another great .net web site.

So I have been a System Admin and Web Master and Web Developer for well over 10years and I am always looking for a better way of doing things. Mostly it means modding whatever software or hardware to follow my rules. Some of the greater issues especially when you are a windows system admin you run into heavy uses on servers and cleaning up orphaned processes and or memory leaks caused by  buggy code.

I guess what I am getting at is I have been using a little tool that helps me automate those pesky orphaned processes for a while now(at least since windows 2000(I will save the love of windows 2000 for another blog entry))

This little utility once installed basically takes care of the orphaned processes and keeps your processor processing the critical app's it needs to deliver.

Have a look at:http://bednorz.uni2.net/anyland/threadmaster/threadmaster.htm

Download at:

http://bednorz.uni2.net/anyland/threadmaster/download.htm

Thanks for all the responses to my music inquiry.

I know I know the image is old and outdated buy I just have to share it again and again. It means soo much.

Links Time:

•  2for1 flights on Virgin america (diggnation promo)
•  Largest Known Star Demo(Thanks Joe Levi)
•  Digg Filter
• Flickr Browser
• IRC for Firefox
• Blog Matchup

Enjoy!

Source:MSTN

How to Change Windows Vista Boot Screen

Some of you remember how it was possible to change the boot logo screen of Windows 95/98. I'm not sure why anyone would go into the trouble of actually doing it, but it seems that it is possible to do the same for Windows Vista.

By using a freeware 3rd-party tool called Vista Boot Logo Generator (written by Dan Smith), you can easily change the Windows Vista boot screen and use any high resolution image or photo as your boot screen.

This is the regular Windows Vista boot screen:

All you need is two images at 800x600 and 1024x768 saved as 24-bit Windows bitmaps:

Next, follow these steps:

1. Download Dan Smiths Vista Boot Logo Generator.
2. Install and run from the link in the Start Menu.
3. Hit Browse for image and select both the 800x600 and 1024x768 resolution bitmap files for your boot screen.
4. Click on File and select Save Boot Screen File As to save your file.
5. Next, you will need to replace the winload.exe.mui file in C:\Windows\System32\en-us with the one you just created. Before you copy in your new file, make a backup of the original. You will need to take ownership of all files in the en-us directory, and also give your account file permissions to replace the files in order to overwrite the original file with the new winload.exe.mui file.
   To do so, log on as an administrator (if you have not done it by now). Open Windows Explorer and go to the C:\Windows\System32\ folder. Right click on the winload.exe.mui file and select Properties.
   • Next, click on Security tab and click Advanced.
   • Click on the Owner tab, and click Edit.
   • If you are prompted with the User Account Control Box, click Continue.
   • Click to select the Administrator account, or better, the user that you're currently using and which has Administrative capabilities, in my case, horstl. Click OK.
   • Back in the Security tab, click Edit to add your user account.
   • If you are prompted with the User Account Control Box, click Continue.
   • Click Add, select the desired user account (in my case - horstl), and click OK.
   • After it is shown in the list, select it and click the Full Control checkbox. Click OK all the way out.
6. Now you can save the modified logon file in the C:\Windows\System32\en-us directory. You will be prompted to overwrite the existing file, click OK.
7. Next, you'll be prompted to change the boot setting in the MSCONFIG tool. Click OK.
8. Now, click on the Start button and type in "MSCONFIG" in the textbox.
9. If you are prompted with the User Account Control Box, click Continue.
10. Once the System Configuration tool loads, click on the Boot tab.
11. Under Boot Options check "No GUI Boot".
12. You will be prompted to reboot. If you want to, press Restart to see the new screen.

Access your Zune30 as a extra hd.

Source: Phaleux.com

I highly recommend backing up these registry values before modifying anything. If you don’t know how to do that, I don’t recommend that you even attempt this right now =)

   1. Make sure your Zune is not plugged in and your Zune software isn’t running
   2. open up regedit by going to the start menu and selecting “run”. Type regedt32 and hit “OK”
   3. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Enum\USB\
   4. Search for “PortableDeviceNameSpace”. This should be contained in the Vid_####&Pid_####\########_-_########_-_########_-_########\Device Parameters within the above …\USB\ The ##’s listed here will be numbers and letters specific to your Zune
   5. Change the following values:
          * EnableLegacySupport to 1
          * PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell to 0
          * ShowInShell to 1
   6. Plug in your Zune, and make sure the Zune Software starts up.
   7. Hopefully at this point you can open up “My Computer” and browse your device, though it does NOT show up as a drive letter.

Right now I can access it both as a harddrive and sync through the Zune Software.

Sorry Just had to show off my new(refurbished(woot.com 'd)) Zune.

With the 2.0 firmware no less.

Ipod versus Zune(refurbished(woot.com 'd))

CTRL+ALT+END
Displays Task Manager (Equivalent to CTRL+ALT+DEL)

ALT+PAGE UP
Switch between programs from left to right

ALT+PAGE DOWN
Switch between programs from right to left

ALT+INSERT
Cycle through the programs in most recently used order

ALT+HOME
Display the Start menu. When you are in full screen mode, the Windows button works too.

CTRL+ALT+BREAK
Switch the client computer between a window and a full screen. (Hint: The Break button is to the right of the function Keys and is shared by the Pause key)

CTRL + ALT + MINUS (–)
Places a snapshot of the active window in the Remote Desktop session on the clipboard. Basically a print screen that gets transferred. (Equivalent to ALT+PRINT SCREEN)

CTRL + ALT + PLUS (+)
Places a snapshot of the entire Remote Desktop session window on the clipboard. (Equivalent to PRINT SCREEN)

ALT+HOME
Displays the Start menu. Only works when not in Full Screen mode.

I typically run fast and far away from any Wallpaperish type site or spyware laden application that says it will do this *FREE*.

However I have got to spread the word about this killer little "one click" .NET wallpaper generator.

Have a look..

Wallpaper Generator

Things I need to constantly work on.....

1. Keeping stress to yourself.
Children shouldn’t have to be burdened with adult problems.
They have enough to deal with just being kids; growing, learning, exploring, and evolving.
Instead of sharing your difficulties with them, keep your time with them about them.
Try to keep your stress to yourself and don’t let it affect your attitude when you’re around your kids.
In order to do this, find a different outlet for your stress that you can use before you see them.
Go to the local gym on the way home and let it out on a punching bag or stop
at your favorite coffee shop and spend a few minutes unwinding with a good book.
Whatever it takes, your kids will appreciate seeing a fresh face and a
positive attitude when you get home.

2. Leading by example.
A successful father is above the old “do as I say, not as I do” credo.
He’s not smoking if he doesn’t want his kids to do it, and definitely not drinking heavily.
He teaches them to deal with conflict with a family member and with others
by being firm but reasonable at the same time. A good father also illustrates
how significant is affection by professing his love for their mother in front of them.
And he won’t fight with her in their presence. In all, he adheres to the
values he’d like his kids to follow.

3. Being consistent.
Ensure that what you say is actually what you do.
Every child needs to believe he has a dependable father, so if you promise
you’ll make it to that basketball game or take him to the zoo or make his favorite dinner,
it’s important to follow through no matter what comes up in the meantime.
If your child believes your word, trust will soon follow.
Another important point about consistency is structure in discipline.
Remember that your kids aren’t perfect — despite what you may think — and they need guidance.
It can be hard to discipline your children because you’re ready to
stand at their defense no matter what. But remember that rules and
structure are important in life and the earlier they learn that,
the easier their lives will be. Rules are there for a reason and
you need to make sure your children understand this.

4. Staying involved.
Being involved with your kids is often twisted to mean that you ought
to do the morning carpool and attend sports games.
Although this is true, there is much more to involvement with your
kids than just being a personal driver and cheerleader to them. Watch the soccer game,
but also listen to school stories. Hear what your kids have to say,
know their interests and their friends. Being involved seems
like a no-brainer when it comes to parenthood, but it’s so easy to forget.
If your kids feel important enough to garner your interest, this will
raise their confidence, their trust in you and their willingness to
share the details of their own lives with you. All these things will
give you more opportunities to guide your children and keep them out of trouble.
 

5. Scheduling family recreation.
I know how all-important it is to work hard all week,
but you also have to schedule some fun activities for downtime and stick to them.
It is far too easy to just assume that family time will
come naturally when the weekend arrives. Unfortunately, work spillover,
visits from family members or home improvement projects — just to
name a few scenarios — can easily take that time away.
Not to mention that as your children develop their own social schedules,
they’ll quickly let quality time with their families slip away. For this reason,
planning ahead is decisive in maintaining this important aspect of your family life.
Just like you’ll keep New Year’s resolutions more often if you write them down as a promise,making appointments with your family will make time with them a priority — for both you and them.

6. Teaching.
There’s something especially touching about learning.
Learning something new boosts self-assurance and is a lot of fun.
For the teacher, there is a unique feeling of pride in seeing how you helped create ability.
If you show your children how to do things you will develop a unique bond between the two of you. You may assume you don’t know that much, but whatever tidbits
you can pass along will be highly valued by your kids. Do you play guitar?
Are you a chess master? Your children may learn this stuff in life anyway, but if you’re the teacher,
they’ll not only remember the skill, they’ll remember the great master who gave them that knowledge.

7. Creating family rituals.
Because kids are so impressionable, structure can be
very important to how they learn and grow. It can also instill a sense of significance
in what goes on in the home. Establish a firm supper time
(when the whole family gathers around the table),
a time for a story before bed, game night or even an evening where the entire
family watches a TV show together. Doing this will ensure that the event will
be known as “family time” and that it will stick out as something sacred for your children.
The value of a great father is often overlooked. But there are few things as
priceless as a father who will do everything he can, and provide all the tools he has
so that his children can become better than him.
 

-I dedicate this to my dad.