I ran into this over the weekend, but the drive works fine as an internal drive. From searching through forum threads, this is pretty common to LG optical drives.

JujuEdit is a free tool that not only handles text files up to 2GB, it handles code highlighting for dozens of different languages. It added a context menu entry to my right-button click that allowed me to open the large log file in less than a second.

Yes, it’s that fast. Normally, if I had a large log/text file, Textpad would open it, but take a few moments to read the file. JujuEdit had it open and usable in less than a second. Searching the document was simple, with a status bar message letting me know the progress. While searching the 1.25GB file, the program was using less than 15MB of RAM as well, so it has a small footprint.

Additional features include font anti-aliasing and hex view. If you need a text editor, JujuEdit may be just the thing you need.

I recently received a call from a lady whose son had purchased a computer on eBay for her and had it shipped to her house. He lives on the other coast and never saw the computer, other than the pictures in the auction. The seller contacted him after the sale and said the case had been tipped over and the plastic on the front cracked and he had to remove the innards, and put it in another case. (hint #1 there was a problem)

The computer arrived at the lady’s door and appeared in good shape, however a couple days later, it wouldn’t turn on. They had me look at it and it appeared the power supply had failed, but upon closer examination, there were several problems. First, the chassis was a very cheap case made of about the thinnest sheet metal I have ever seen. Second, because of this, the case had torqued enough to prevent the motherboard from aligning correctly with the external panel on the back. The video card couldn’t seat completely causing the back edge to pop out randomly. Evidently, the power supply failure had messed up the motherboard and it was no longer trustworthy. Faults included mouse/keyboard issues.

As it turned out, the motherboard was from an e-machine, and the power supply wasn’t worth its weight in gravel. It was very, VERY light which is a good indication of a less-than-worthy power source. Additionally, the seller had also used the power supply prior, and had literally cut the motherboard connector to get it to work with a different motherboard. He had also removed the Windows XP seal with the validation key and glued it to the back of the “new” case, and it was obvious.

Unfortunately, the lady ended up having to mail it back to the seller for an exchange. Just a suggestion, but if you purchase something on eBay and are later informed that the deal has been altered, refuse it and demand your money back.

I have a relatively small garden, probably 30′x20′ or so and was an easy target for deer in the area. My granddad told me to try caution tape. He told me to drive a stake in each corner of the garden, and put a “fence” of caution tape around the edge of my plants. I thought it might keep some things away, but deer are persistent. I tried it anyway. This is the third year I’ll be ceremonially banding my garden with it.

The past two years I have used it and haven’t had a single hoof-print in my garden. Last year I had one tomato plant with a branch hanging outside the tape and it was nibbled back almost to the tape. Nothing inside the “fence” was touched. Evidently, the ribbon flips enough in the breeze to make the deer uncomfortable with jumping or going under it. It seems to catch a little light during the day and I guess the noise of it at night helps.

Give it a try and let me know what you find. Let me know if there are other simple ways to keep animals from harvesting your crops.

I don’t believe the guy presenting had ever actually been through the set of slides before, since he was constantly correcting himself on what the slides depicted. As an engineer, he may have known how it worked very well, but he couldn’t describe it clearly. I bailed on the presentation after listening to the first thirty minutes of “uh”s and “om”s.

The lesson to learn from this is to be sure the people selling your product are actual salespeople, not the people who designed or manufactured the product. High-level presentations are meant to simply clarify what the product is and why the client needs it. Oh, and make sure the people selling your product aren’t just reading the presentation, the prospective client can do that on their own.

A bug exists in XP SP3 that causes endless rebooting after SP3 is installed if you are using an AMD CPU and the Intel PPM driver is loaded. Johansson’s tool should be run prior to installing SP3 and it will detect and offer to fix the driver problem if it is found.

In his blog MSInfluentials, Johansson described his utility and how to resolve the reboot problems if you found out about it too late. In addition to causing problems with some AMD systems, HP systems are also affected.

Whether accidental or not, this doesn’t help the case of DRM. Just wait until someone manages to inject a broadcast flag of their choice into programming. On a a completely unrelated note, ever wonder why television shows are called “programs”? What is being programmed? :O)

source: Ars Technica

The cardboard core is cheap…. but the tissue refills…

PC World has an article with the news of the release, and a photo of the new unit.

“Equipped with support for tri-band HSDPA and quad-band EDGE (which means that it will support the highest-speed GSM-family data networks wherever they are available worldwide), 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, and both assisted and autonomous GPS, the Bold could prove a formidable challenger to Apple’s next-gen iPhone on connectivity alone. ” (emphasis mine)

With features like that, I wouldn’t mind trying one of those out. I’ve used several models in Blackberry’s line, and found the full QWERTY layout keyboard to be the easiest for me to use. The predictive typing AI never could understand me and always me dread having to send an email with any type of technology lingo in it.

A sensor inside your body could detect the problem and call for help before you even knew anything was amiss.

The Times Online is carrying an article describing the uses for the advancements and what will have to be debated prior to releasing the wireless devices to the public. I can imagine the privacy concerns already. With the internal devices having access to all of your vital signs, anyone with the right equipment could get a snapshot of your health without you knowing about it.

This would make health insurance screenings much quicker, though for better or worse.