Wednesday, April 18, 2012

My Peek Score

Wow! I have a peek score of 3.42 out of 10.

Check it out: http://www.peekyou.com/craig_terrian/359168964

PeekYou.comhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Teacher's Best Lesson

In September of 2005, a social studies school teacher from Arkansas did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal, and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom. The kids came into first period, they walked in; there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, "Where's our desks?"

The teacher said, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them."

They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."

"No," she said.

"Maybe it's our behavior."

And she told them, "No, it's not even your behavior."

And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in the class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom. The last period of the day, the instructor gathered her class.

They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. She said, "Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily. Now I'm going to tell
you."

She went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they had finished placing the desks, those kids for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Their teacher said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit here responsibly, to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Remove ISP branding in IE

It's easy for companies to put their own "branding" on the IE title bar. Removing it is easy, as long as you're comfortable with editing the registry. As always, backup the registry before you make changes. Then navigate in your registry editor to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Main . In the right pane and you should see a value named Windows Title. In the Data column, you'll see the branding text (ie, ISP's name). You can delete this value to get rid of the branding entirely, or you can double click the value and change it to whatever you like (like your own name). After you make the changes, close the registry editor. Restart IE to see the changes.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Change Shutdown Timers In XP

Make XP shut down more quickly

Are you annoyed at the amount of time it takes Windows XP to shut down? If so, it may be that it's waiting on a hung program. You can edit the registry to change the amount of time that XP waits for a program to close. When editing the registry, you should back it up first. Follow these steps to change timers:
Open your registry editor, by clicking "Start" and then choose "Run", type regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
In the right pane, find HungAppTimeout and double click it
In the value data box, change the default value (5000) to a lower number (example, 1000). Click OK.
Next, find the WaitToKillAppTimeout and double click it
Change the default value from 20000 to 1000. Click OK.
Navigate to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Control
In the right pane, find WaitToKillServiceTimeout and double click it.
Change the default value to 1000 and click OK.
Navigate to:HKEY_USERS \ DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Desktop
Find HungAppTimeout and doubleclick it.
Change the default value to 2000 and click OK.
In the same key, find WaitToKillAppTimeout and double click it.
Change the value to 1000 and click OK.
If you do not want the timeout to be short, change these values to something higher (example, 5000). Just make sure the value is the same for each.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Start System Restore in XP

If you're having problems that prevent you from booting, you can still use the System Restore tool to a previous state, and fix the problem.
Follow on:
- Restart the computer and press and hold F8 during startup to bring up the options menu
Select "Safe mode with a command prompt".

- If you have multiple operating systems installed, select the correct instance of XP
Log on with an administrative account.

- At the command prompt, type %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe and press ENTER

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Metamark - Free URL redirector

When TinyURL fails, as it does more and more, try Metamark. Works great!
The only time it hasn't worked is on Facebook. They won't allow any URL's with an "X". How messed up is that? I've emailed them, but they never responded. WTF!?
Metamark provides a shortcut you can drag to your toolbar, or bookmarks. When your on a site that you would like to shorten the URL, simply click on the shortcut.

http://metamark.net

Monday, March 30, 2009

Add wireless access point

If you have an extra wireless router, (the old "B" ones are plentyful and cheap!) you can increase your access by connecting it as follows:

In this example, the DLink (on the right) was added. The Linksys is the acting router. (see below)



They need to be set in the same range address:
The Dlink-514, 802.11b wireless router by default was 192.168.0.1
Using Computer 4, I changed it to a static address within the range of the Linksys, “192.168.1.200”, Subnet, “255.255.255.0”
This address should be outside the DHCP assignments used by the Linksys. I have the Linksys using DHCP assignments; 192.168.0.100 ~ 192.168.0.150
I deactivated the DHCP in the Dlink router. You don't want it assigning addresses.

You can use the same SSID for both routers. ( I chose not to. I called one Linksys and the other Dlink) You must use a different channel for both router to avoid collision. Linksys is channel 6, Dlink is channel 11. I live in a remote area, so I didn't use 64 or 128-bit WEP encryption, although you can.

I connected the Linksys to the the Dlink to normal ports (NOT THE WAN). Old routers can require a crossover cable if one router doesn't support MDI/MDIX. Most routers do.

Now the Dlink router is set as an access point and all connections to this access point is routed to the Linksys router which will do the rest. (assign IP)
In your laptops wireless configuration utility, you should see the two access points. You can have windows choose for you. If you would like to keep locked on just one, just turn off WZC.
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/2000.html

I like to be able to turn Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC) on and off, so I've created icons on my laptop.

Wireless networks are becoming more and more common. It's not unusual to be within range of several wireless access points. If your connection stutters, WZC maybe trying to hook you up to another connection. I've found that if WZC is off at start-up, the system may not connect at all. Open Services.msc (click Start/Run type Services.msc). Scroll to the bottom, double-click on Wireless Zero Configuration, and click on the Stop / Start button. Or... you can create shortcuts to do this for you.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System32 (or C:\Winnt\System32 if you're running Windows 2000). Locate the file "net.exe". Right click and hold, and drag it onto the desktop and release. Then choose Create shortcut here. Rename the shortcut to "Stop WZC". Right-click on the shortcut, choose Properties, and click on the Shortcut tab. The Target field will probably show C:\WINDOWS\system32\net.exe. Add a space followed by [color=yellow]stop wzcsvc[/color] (don't forget the space before stop). Repeat these steps and create another shortcut to start the service; just replace stop with start.
Pretty Sweet!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Gateway MT6451 XP Driver CD


Great for us MT6451 users who down graded (really an upgrade) from Vista to XP.

Click Here

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Modify System Restore Time

The three registry keys, to make changes to XP's System Restore feature are here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ WindowsNT \ CurrentVersion \ SystemRestore

Here, you can set the maximum time that a restore point exists before it gets deleted. The setting is specified in seconds, and the default is 7776000, which translates to 90 days. If you want to extend the time for the restore points, do this:
  1. In the right pane, double click or create the DWORD value RPLifeInterval
  2. In the value data field, enter a number in seconds that you want restore points to remain on the system before being deleted (for example, to specify a time to live of 60 days, enter the value 5184000).Close the registry editor.

  3. To find out more, see KB article 295659 at
    http://www.wxpnews.com/NW6G7Q/090310-Microsoft-Support

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Registry Edits for XP

Here's a site with a lot of neat tweaks and tips. I like #148, removes items from the msconfig startup list.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Perfume was created to cloak body odor. I can't stand people who splash themselves (w/gas) everyday. (blah/cough)http://ping.fm/rgq1a

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Evernote





Pretty good for remembering all sorts of stuff. You can also share will your mobile device,
and your friends. Check it out at http://www.evernote.com

Stop Security Warnings

Shut down the Windows XP Security Center by going to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services. On the right side panel, scroll down to Security Center and double click to open. In the "Startup type" field, choose "Disabled". Click OK, and exit Services.

Now, to stop these annoying Security warnings every time you run a file, just open Group Policy. (Start / Run / gpedit.msc) Then go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components >
Attachment Manager- then set -Inclusion list for low file types- to
Enabled and enter the file types you don't want to be warned about in
the box (for example:
.zip;.rar;.nfo;.txt;.exe;.bat; .com;.cmd;.reg;.msi;.htm;.html;.gif;.bmp;.jpg;.avi ;.mpg;.mpeg;.mov;.mp3;.m3u;.wav; ).

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Irfanview

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

Click here for homepage.

Add detailed information to Device Manager

When you are solving problems with various devices and components, you would like to see information such as the hardware ID of the device or its firmware revision or other information that is not available in Device Manager. This is how configure Device Manager to display more detailed information than is displayed by default:
  1. Click Start | Run.
  2. Type cmd.exe and press Enter.
  3. Type set DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS=1 and press Enter.
  4. Type start devmgmt.msc and press Enter to open the Device Manager console.
A Details tab will appear in the properties for each device. This tab contains the additional information that you may need.

Resize using Photoshop

Use PhotoShop to Resize, Crop, Flip, Mirror, Rotate, and Resample Multiple Images.
Click here for tutorial.

Monday, September 22, 2008

How to find Windows XP system folders

It can be difficult to navigate through files to find specific system folders. For example, the one where your cookies are stored, or the one that holds the items in the "Send To" menu. Instead of trying to slog through directory, you can use the command line and find them quickly (if you know the names) with the run command. Here's how:
  • Click Start | Run
  • In the Run box, type shell:<folder name>

Here are some of the commonly used shell folders:

shell:Cookies - display the cookies folder
shell:Cache - displays temporary Internet files
shell:Favorites - displays the IE Favorites folder
shell:SendTo - displays the Send To folder
shell:MyMusic - displays the My Music folder
shell:MyPictures - displays the My Pictures folder

Click Here for the names of more shell folders in XP and Vista

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Convert written words to audio files

Have you ever received an email, or found an article your interested in, but don't have the time to read it? Now you can listen to it.

HearWho is a free service that converts text to MP3 files. Just copy and paste the text in the box. Then, make a few selections and click "Start Conversion".

You will soon have an MP3 file of your document. It could take a few seconds or a few minutes. It depends on the size of the document and how busy the server is.

You can load your MP3 file onto any music player. Or, burn it to a CD for listening in the car or on the plane.

http://www.hearwho.com

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Remove old entries from the boot menu in XP

If you don't like having all those old choices cluttering up their boot menus, here's how you can get rid of them. You don't even have to manually edit the boot.ini file.
  1. Click Start | Run.
  2. Type msconfig and click OK.
  3. In the System Configuration tool, click the BOOT.INI tab.
  4. Click the Check All Boot Paths button.
  5. The system will scan the entries to determine whether they're valid installations. You'll be shown the ones that aren't.
  6. Confirm that you want to remove the invalid entries. Click Apply and OK.
When you reboot, the old useless choices will be removed.