...woo hoo. A small part of it anyway. Windows Vista allows you to do a full system backup, like you would get on a restore CD when you buy a computer, except this has all of your shit in it. My DVD burner is in the HTPC, so I save this one to it's own hard drive, figuring that if my system goes down, at least one of the hard drives will continue to function. It doesn't let you exclude stuff (like my 50 gigs of music) so it's pretty damn big anyway. It would probably take about 25 DVDs to back up. I really need to get some of the 8 gig DVDs to start backing my system up to.

As often as I do something stupid to my system, it will be nice to just restore it without having to go through the reinstall of all of my apps.

Still feel like shit today. I have a nasty cough and my lungs burn. Damn I wish I could stay in bed, but no, I have to go to work where I can potentially infect several hundred people with the Creeping Crud.

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Damn. Charter must be having DNS issues again. Almost every site I try to hit tonight, I have to refresh at least once before it will show up. I solved that problem with Mediaone (later AT&T) by running my own DNS server, but I don't currently have the equipment. I may have to put together and old 486 if I have any left in the basement and put NT4 or Linux on it if I keep having problems.

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My current desktop. I like it, but it is very bright. I don't see using it but for a couple more days.

Technorati : Windowblinds

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My son turns 18 in January. Knowing how broke I am this year he has asked for a PC game, Alien Shooter: Vengeance, except that when he told me the name he said "Alien Shooter Colon Vengeance". I about lost my cookies thinking about the alien ass munchers and where exactly they sell this game. Perhaps this is the sequel to Ass Fucking Zombies?

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Maybe I am just behind the times, but I figured out how to sync my LG VX8100 with WMP 11 yesterday. I tried the Verizon application, and it pretty much sucks, at least under Windows Vista. It won't even recognize my phone, but WMP 11 does great, and it's even faster than syncing with my iPaq. Very cool. I will post a how-to on my day off for those interested.

Technorati : LG VX8100, Verizon, Windows Media Player 11, Windows Vista

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Back in the late 90's I was a pretty big Linux advocate. I ran the strain known as Debian. It's pretty cool, but as far as actually doing any gaming and retaining compatibility with other business users, I went back with Windows.

I am currently installing Debian again under VMWare so that I can play around with it a bit. If I had several dedicated machines to use I might be willing to operate my main machine with Linux on it, but right now this is about the best I will get.

Technorati : Linux.Debian

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Updated - I tried the Vista Easy Transfer tool (migwiz) and it works great. Transferred all of my music and email settings over without having to fool with importing and exporting from five or six different damn programs. Very cool. I still have to reinstall a few programs, but it seems to have kept the settings for the few I have messed with so far.

Originally Posted at 3:18pm on 12/14/2006

I managed to get Vista back up and running on here, but on a separate partition so that I could dual boot. I will end up slowly moving all of my apps over to it, but will probably cut out all of the extras from XP (what I am running now) and continue to use it for gaming. Most of the games that I play seem to have issues under Vista, at least right now.

It's still the last RC release, I think it time bombs next summer at some point. By then I will either have upgraded or bought a new PC (I can wish anyway) that will be faster than what I have now. I am having some problems with the hardware that I am using for my HTPC so really need to put mine back over there, which is where it was in the first place. I had to completely do away with my home automation software and am basically just using it to watch TV and DVDs and listen to music.

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Apparently starting today we are supposed to have very strong geomagnetic storming (solar flares). Sometimes it will knock out Satellites, Cable, even power grids. Since my network connection is still up, I suppose I am OK right now, but with the crappy level of service that I get from Charter, I expect an outage anytime now. Then they can blame it on Solar Flares. That was always a good excuse when I was in tech support and couldn't think of any other reason why.

space.com

Technorati : Cable, Internet, Solar Flares

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Now this thing looks pretty cool. It's a homing device that lets you track where you have lost stuff, keys, etc...up to 600 feet away. I am so absent minded that something like this is pretty attractive to me.

The big problem with something like this is that I would tend to lose the main unit first. Back in the 80's my aunt gave me a key finder thing as a gift. You pushed the button and the tag on the other end would emit beeps so that you could find it. The first thing I lost was the main unit, then a few months later I lost my keys. Now if I could surgically implant a homing device in my skull that would lead me to my keys, wallet, phone, PDA, THAT would be an innovation.

Technorati : Keyfinders, Loc8ter, Shiny Shiny

Here is what I am wanting for Christmas, although NEXT Christmas is more like it, once my contract is up for renewal and I can get a good deal on it. I have looked at Crackberrys and other offerings using the Palm OS, and although there are some drawbacks to the Treo 700w, it offers most of what I want.

Built-in camera and multimedia capabilities, as well as a slot for an SD Card. My current phone uses mini-SD cards, so I don't really have any use for it. I am not in range of of Verizon's EvDO network, so that doesn't matter either. It doesn't offer Wi-Fi which is irritating, but Palm sells a Wi-Fi card that fits in the SD slot, so that is another $100 to add to the already hefty price tag of this phone.

Currently I carry my cell phone (an LG VX8100) and an HP iPaq rx3315. It would be nice to get down to one piece of equipment and still retain compatibility with Microsoft's applications and Activesync.

The bluetooth doesn't really impress me much, as I sync my PDA using the cradle, and I have a nice Jabra bluetooth ear piece that I got with this phone that I don't use. I suppose that if I started using it on a regular basis I mike grow to like it, but cell phones are intrusive enough without walking around looking like I am talking to myself all the time.

Technorati : Cell Phones, Pal Treo, Verizon

Damn it. I can't get past my router tonight. Not a DNS issue this time either, just can't get out. This sucks. That's OK, I have a couple of Cd's to burn. I think I am going to put Vista back on this thing, but on a separate partition, so that I don't lose everything if it crashes.

My brother sent me a link to this video and I KNEW that Yabu would greatly appreciate it, along with a few other bloggers.

One of the things that I am into (you know if you have read the blog for awhile) is nice desktop eye candy (on my PC damn it). I came across a link today to Otaku Software's TopDesk, which can replace the generic Windows alt-tab with something much better. Any of you that are familiar with Windows Vista Flip3D will find this screenshot very familiar:

No, I'm not currently running Windows Vista. I went back to XP a couple of weeks ago. This is TopDesk. I have not had much time to play around with it's other features or let it run for awhile to see what kind of resources it takes up, but I have it running right now in conjunction with Windowblinds, DesktopX, IconX and a few other widgets and programs, so I will update this post later to let you know what kind of resources it uses.

From the TopDesk web site:

Find windows, fast. TopDesk is a quick and easy way to switch between applications. With a single key press, you can instantly view thumbnails of all open windows, display thumbnails of windows belonging to the current application, or hide all windows to quickly access the desktop.

Features

So far I like it and will continue to play with it.

...The game. Damn. This is pretty cool. Obviously from the lack of posting (as if I need an excuse) I have been spending most evenings this week playing. I think I may be getting near the end, but not sure yet.

Technorati : Skinning, Stardock, Windowblinds