7.18.2006

Bad Software!

I installed a program called 'Sound Taxi'- a program that can convert one format of audio files to another (also remove DRM).

It BSOD'ed on isntall; apparently it makes changes to the way Windows uses sound cards/audio drivers by installing a custom sound device to capture all audio...

On reboot, sound card was hosed- along with most USB devices and my DVD-ROM devices. A little experimenting and I got the later two items to work- but ended up doign a re-install of Windows to get my sound back!

Advice: stay the Hell away form any program called 'Sound Taxi'!!!

7.16.2006

Birthdays and Expenses...

Let's see- Tracy's birthday is at the end of the month; I have ordered her a digital camera from digitalfotocllub.com (the Fuji F470)...

Diana's birthday is at the beginning of September; I am probably giving her cash as she is moving and will need furniture...

Tracy's Dad's birthday is this month (and my vehicle is registered in his name so Ad Valorum tax is due this month!)

Dragon*Con is on the weekend the same as Diana's birthday; I am trying to get a Digital Rebel XT camera for that

Bonnie's wedding is the same day as Dragon*Con, Diana's Birthday...

Wow- this is going to be a busy weekend for labor day!

Web Hosting

Well I think my old web hosting provider went down today- I am not sure if it is a permanent thing or not... My email stopped arriving to anything @brooskie.com and it took me a good day to realize this. I have went back to my DNS registrar and setup a blanket *@brooskie.com to forward to my gmail account and messages are finding their way in.


Funny part was that my WebCam XP program was completely hosed as it could not upload via FTP to my site; it just kind of locked up as I guess the DNS name resolves to an IP and there is some form of connectivity still associated with the IP.


Now I must decide who to use for a new web host if LFHosting does not come back up... Go daddy is one option ($48/year) as is directNIC ($15/year)- but I am trying to be as frugal as possible as I am trying to buy a Canon EOS Digital Reble XT DSLR camera for Dragon*Con (under 50 days to go!)

7.05.2006

4th of July Weekend

I had a good 4 day weekend (I took off Monday as a vacation day) and what did I do?

I spent the first two days trying to hack my Nintendo DS Lite (NDS Lite) via WiFiMe and such, only to find that it cannot be done on this firmware... I ended up ordering a M3 SD Lite and Passekey3 from Divieno.cn- should be here by Friday; I will probably end up flashing the BIOS with FlashMe_Lite.

Interesting spots for Info on DS hacking:
http://tobw.net/dswiki/
http://gbatemp.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS
http://www.dspassme.com/FlashMe.shtml

I spent the remainder of the vacation playing New Super Mario Brothers (I bought a mag with lots of info on the secret levels and such, so I had to go back) and rebuilding my PC.

For some reason Windows freaked out and would not talk to my router any more- and it was about time to rebuild anyway... I also ended up re-organizing my MP3 collection (iTunes is gonna completely freak out) and downloading album art (via TagRunner or Album Art Downloader) and fixing the ID3 tags up a bit (via The Godfather and Windows Media Player 10). I need to rebuild my Media Center 2005 PC next as it seems to have freaked out since I upgraded to Windows Media Player 11...

I have been going through and ripping all of my DVDs (via DVD Decryptor) and encoding them to 2GB DivX files (with AC3 5.1 audio) with Gordian Knot; great results so far, but two issues:
  • Gordian goes nuts on multi-angle movies; the beginning of star wars sucks- but I think I can tell Decryptor to pull out the other angles. I tried this on The Goonies and had problems though.

  • Gordian appears to crop video to make it wide screen in some situations- like on the 5th Element and The Goonies; not sure why... Looks Ok, except for the opening credits.


  • I have been getting my Axim working and I finally got TomTom working again! (this program ROCKS for GPS!) Now if I could just find a version of MameCE that works on WM5 and VGA res!

    I did make it to the gym and tanning bed on Sunday- and I died my hair again on Monday (it is pretty damn close to black as it gets now- I think my next step is red streaks so I look like a punk).

    From all of the above I think I have had a pretty complete weekend.