Baby on the Way!
March 29th, 2008 eric
Looks like I’m going to be a dad… We’re 13 weeks in, starting on the second trimester. Here’s a pic to get started, I’ll post some more info later.
New Year’s Resolutions
January 19th, 2008 ericSo, has anyone made any big New Year’s resolutions?
I figured I’d write about this now, several weeks after the new year when most people have either given up or started to lose hope. The few ones I’ve been determined to follow are eating breakfast, flossing, taking a multivitamin, and bringing lunch to work. Bringing lunch to work is probably the most important as it’s both a financial and a lifestyle goal.
Through the sites zenhabits.net and downloadsquad.com, I’ve found quite a few ways to track goals and journal food, etc.. For me, those all seemed a bit too extensive and I ended up going with joesgoals.com. The same thing can be accomplished using a spreadsheet, but it gives me a site to visit every day and keeps me from losing sight.
Maybe one of these days I’ll add exercising to the list, but for now I’d like to make my current goals habitual and I won’t have to feel like they’re more crap I have to do during the day.
Install a 2GB Kernel on the Asus EeePC
December 28th, 2007 ericAfter getting my 2GB stick of memory, I quickly realized that not all of the memory is addressed using the stock Xandros kernel. Compliments to eFfeM for compiling a kernel that takes advantage of all that extra memory. The howto is located at the eeeuser.com wiki
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:install2gigkernel
I didn’t follow step 1 since I just used the regular single user mode for the one time I messed with it. For those of you that aren’t comfortable messing with the grub bootloader, it’s probably a good idea as it states in the howto many times over… backup your stuff!
Easier Advanced Mode on Asus Eee PC
November 29th, 2007 ericTurns out there’s an easier way to get into and out of the advanced mode on the Asus Eee PC. Get to the terminal and type
apt-get install kicker ksmserver
This will install those two applications at the same time without the need to run it twice. Once the installation is finished, press the power button, you’ll now have the option of “Full Desktop.”
Here’s a screenshot
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| From Screenshots |
Just press that, reboot, and you’re in full desktop mode.
Now my other article, Advanced Mode on Asus Eee PC is outdated.
Change the Asus Eee PC Clock Format
November 29th, 2007 ericI can read 24 hour time just fine… I just don’t care to. Here’s how you change the Asus Eee PC clock from the 24 hour to the 12 hour format.
First, backup the file /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals by pressing Ctrl - Alt - t to get to a terminal window.
cp /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals.old
Next edit the file and change the following line:
vi /home/user/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals
Now, just add the following two lines to the bottom, save the file and log out, reboot, or restart X.
[Locale]
TimeFormat=%I:%M:%S %p
Restore Asus Eee PC to Factory Defaults
November 29th, 2007 ericI’ve finally broken my Asus Eeee PC :) Not in a bad way, I was messing around using some unsupported repositories and I think a few necessary libraries got overwritten. I keep all my data on my 8GB SDHC card, so there’s no big loss here. The thing comes with all the software already installed, I’ll just have to redo Skype is all.
Anyways, here’s the quick process of restoring your Asus Eee PC to the factory defaults.
- Power on and press f9 during the boot process
- This brings you to a screen where you can select “Restore Factory Settings”
- It tells you “You are about to restore this unit to factory settings. All user data will be lost!”
- Enter ‘yes’ or no:
That’s pretty much it, I think it took less than 2 minutes to do a full restore. This thing is amazing, I’m so glad I bought one.
Download XP Service Pack 3
November 27th, 2007 ericWell, I can’t seem to wait any longer. I’m going to run the registry patch that allows you to update Windows XP to Service Pack 3.
Slight warning.. I don’t endorse doing this, I’m just documenting my ventures. I’m not really a Windows users, I fare Ubuntu, so if something breaks, don’t ask me to fix it.
I’ve created a batchfile called windowsxpsp3hack.cmd using the following lines from dailyapps.net
@echo off
reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\XPSP3 /f 2> NUL
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\XPSP3 /v RCPreview /t REG_SZ /d 1c667073-b87f-4f52-a479-98c85711d869 /f
echo XPSP3 registry key has been set. Please check for updates in Windows Update - Kudos to dailyapps.net
pause
Now, when I go to Windows Update in Internet Explorer, the option for Service Pack 3 shows up. Here’s a screenshot of what it “should” look like.
Once this finishes downloading and installing, hopefully there’s some kind of noticeable speed increase as noted on lots of other blogs/news outlets.
Huge List of Firefox Addons
November 24th, 2007 ericThis is the largest list of actually useful addons for Firefox I’ve ever seen. This post is actually being written from a new addon I’ve installed called Scribefire which lets me write posts from any webpage I’m visiting and creates the link for you. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it, but it looks like there’s quite a few hours of testing new stuff to see what I like.
Ultimate Firefox Addons : 222 Addons For Just About Everything | dailyApps
Technorati Tags: addons, firefox, scribefire
Christmas Spending
November 24th, 2007 ericI saw on TV that the average American will spend $816 on Christmas gifts this year. Does everyone have all their money saved up or will this be shuttled off to the credit card? We made a big mistake quite a few years ago that regretfully we’re still paying on… we put Christmas on a credit card.
Thankfully, all of our families have started up a gift exchange with a $25 limit that helps us budget our money. I think this year we estimate about $450 in purchases which is well under the national average and even though we’ve saved quite a bit more than that, the extra money will either go into savings or pay on existing credit debt.
If you’re looking at reducing your spending this holiday season stick with these tips:
- Figure out who you need to buy for
- Set a specific amount
- Pre-select gifts to avoid “browsing the store”
- Don’t make a day of it, you’ll end up spending more
Lastly, your friends don’t care how much they get for Christmas, if you can’t seem to find something for $25, don’t spend $28 because it was $24.99 plus tax, you’ll end up overspending. I know they’re not very personal, but gift cards are a great way to give the exact amount.
Holiday Movies
November 23rd, 2007 ericIt’s finally here.. the Christmas holidays… here’s a few movies I’ll be rotating through the DVD player for the next month.
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
- The Santa Claus
- A Chrismas Story
- Trading Places
- Home Alone
- Scrooged
- Elf
- Die Hard
- Die Hard 2
Random Photos
