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I’ve been talking about doing this for a while and people are probably sick to death of hearing about it, but I finally upgraded the RAM in my laptop.

It has gone from a dog under vista to a speedy machine. The difference was instantly noticeable.

What surprised me, was how easy it was to upgrade the ram. I was inititally worried that I might break the laptop. I’ve never taken the bottom off a laptop, ever. The only ever time the rear of my laptop has been off is when IT was getting the data off my Read more »

I tried and failed to shake the shackles of the Bill Gates empire. I had my laptop dual booting Ubuntu and Windows Vista. Today is struck me that I never really use my Ubuntu partition, prefering the flexibility of having all my apps in Vista.

Its not easy to dispose of an unloved linux/ubuntu partition. Simply formating the partition from Vista leads down a nasty path with GRUBB not found, Error 22. I know, I went there. I had to reload Linux onto the 20gb partition and start again.

Once there, I found a nifty little app on the net, EasyBCD. Using that, you can put Vista back in charge of the booting process, eliminating the GRUBB.

Using the write MBR and reinstall vista bootloader, I was able to eliminate the GRUBB and put Vista back in charge. This had the effect of that familiar dual boot screen you get when you have two windows partitions sharing a computer, yet you can select Linux as well, with a few additional settings.

Once I put Vista back in charge, a reboot and yes, it was showing me the windows vista and linux partitions. Once in Vista, I deleted the linux partition and remove the linux entries from the EasyBCD, saved settings and rebooted.

Now my system reboots just like a factory vista install.

And whats the reason for all this extended nonsense? See my post tomorrow for more details.

Today we were quite industrious. There were no shops open, and the documentary channels were debating Christianity. So how did I spend my Good Friday public holiday? Moving furniture!

Given the recent purchase of my television and its connection to the Satellite STB being in a different room to my computer, I made the decision that regardless of the house being on the market, I want my computer to be near my new television.

After talking to the husband, and dragging him away from the reglious debates happening on the History Channel, he helped me move everything down here to the back bedroom.

So here I am with my Laptop, connected to a Hyundai 19″ LCD and my desktop connected to my sexy AOC 17″ DVI monitor I got for Christmas one year.

What does one do when they have a collection of LCD screens? Try and do something different on each! One thing I wanted to do was sort out the wallpaper on my Laptop, which is connected to the 19″ LCD. Now my laptop is a 16:9 and the Hyundai monitor is 4:3 so everything looks a little odd.

After a quick google, I came across a really awesome utility called DisplayFusion. This handy piece of freeware allows you to have different wallpapers on each monitor while still connected to the one computer. You can also adjust the opacity of your task bar in Vista (assuming you pay for the pro version)

The bit I like about DisplayFusion is there is flexibility. With Windows 7 you have the ability to have changing wallpapers and this can be done in Vista with DisplayFusion, not just from your hard drive, but it can retrieve images from Flickr or vladstudio.com

Other options include changing the desktop to greyscale or sepia tones as well. So how do I rate this nifty software – I give it full marks!

Ok. Its been a wee while since my last post, but I thought this would be something worth blogging about. I haven’t ceased in my quest of geekdom, instead, I have been more involved in it than ever. And I can blame certain people, but they won’t be named here.

1. Twitter

Fantastic time waster. Brilliant. But I found out how really handy it can be today. I was having some trouble signing up to Vodafone Broadband Lite (more on that further down) and getting no where with customer services. So I twittered a tweet to @vodafoneNZ and the lovely man there asked me for a DM (Direct Message) with my mobile number and within 5 minutes, I was sorted. This is verses the 20 minutes I had ripping my hair out with their customer services desk the old fashioned way.

2. Dandy Warhols

Dear Vodafone, please change your hold music. They were a one hit wonder and 10 minutes of the same song, Bohemian Like You, is too much and drove me near suicidal. Thank you.

3. Vodafone Broadband Lite

I have noticed an increase in my mobile broadband data useage. I am lucky enough to have a nice Nokia 6121, while not the coolest phone, and lacking QWERTY sophistication, it does the few things I want. Lately I have noticed more and more, I rely on Mobile Broadband. Be it accessing my facebook page while I’m at the racetrack, using IRC while travelling to Hamilton (NOT while driving… ), or uploading funny photos to Flickr. Yes. I have become so internet addicted that I can get it all on my mobile.

Now until Vodafone brought along this nifty new plan of 100mb of Data for $10 a month, I was using their casual useage plan of $1 / Day, limited to 10mb. This was all good, but I rarely use 10mb a day, but I use my mobile interwebs most days a month, resulting in bills of around $20/month for mobile data. At least now I have the added bonus of not having to pay for expensive hotel data when on the road as well. Doubly awesome!

So from now until eternity, or whenever I buy a laptop with bluetooth, I will have to ensure I travel with my Nokia Data Cable!

4. Firefox

How I lived so long without this browser, I have no idea. I have a fantastic add on called ‘Yoono‘ which sits on the left hand side of my browser window and updates me with new tweets and facebook happenings like pokes and status changes. I can also use MSN Messenger on it, check and read my gmail and it also gives me my RSS feeds – something I was looking at useing to keep up with the play. I haven’t had a look at any other Firefox addons, but I will soon.

5. Ubuntu on the Acer Laptop

I took the plunge and gave Ubuntu its own 10gb partition on my Vista “powered” laptop. I put powered in quotes as running vista, it is a complete dog. Its very slow and painful and whilst I disable most of the pretty vista features, it was not designed for Vista. But just for booting up for an internet surf, quick internet check, Ubuntu serves me just fine. I’m still attached to MS Office tho. Read No. 6

6. Kudos to Warehouse Stationery

I got a flier in my local paper last week from the Papakura Warehouse Stationery. $49.00 to buy a copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition. Limited to 15 copies only. So I was there before the store opened. I got one of those 15 copies and am now very chuffed to finally own a legit copy of Office. I will save up now to buy a legit copy of Outlook.