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Monthly Archives: January 2008
Product Key Game
Here is a fun little game we play around here. This is ideal for IT shops or generally places where you have bunch of geeks installing crappy software on windows boxen. It’s called the PK Master. The goal of the … Continue reading
Your First Steps with Linux
Over the years I think I helped to influence few people here and there to actually start experimenting with linux. I count that as a personal success. I’m sure I was not the primary influence in most cases, but I’m … Continue reading
Symmetric Encryption: The Password Problem
Folks at Wachovia recently decided that all the confidential information they exchange with contractors and field examiners via email and the internet must be encrypted using at least 128 bit AES. Good for them! I applaud this move but then … Continue reading
Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) on Dell Inspiron 600m
Last week I said that I will try Gutsy on Dell Inspiron 600m that is sitting here in the office. When I booted it with Kubuntu Dapper I was really impressed that almost everything worked out of the box. I … Continue reading
Lucky Number Slevin
How come so many Hollywood movies start out great and then fizz out in the final act ruining everything? I already complained about this odd phenomena when I reviewed I am Legend. No I stumbled onto another example of the … Continue reading
The Clicker
I never thought that I will need one of those, but I bought myself a clicker. To be frank, I have no clue what is the proper name for these things but I call it a clicker. What does it … Continue reading
Posted in school and teaching
3 Comments
Kubuntu Dapper on Inspiron 600m
I have a spare Dell Inspiron 600m laptop sitting in the office here. It is quite a decent machine with 1.4 GHz and 2GB of RAM. Not top of the line or anything, but actually much better than my shoddy … Continue reading
PC Gaming is Dead!
Do people actually still play on the PC? Have you been to a store lately? The PC games don’t even have a isle at most gaming outlets these days. Games for current generation consoles line the walls, last gen console … Continue reading
Posted in video games
21 Comments
Novell Netdrive at MSU acts Flaky
Since I’m teaching again this semester, so over the holiday break I set up a little website where I could post links, resources and various interactive things that don’t really work well with blackboard. I used my Novell Netdrive account … Continue reading
Posted in school and teaching
8 Comments
Installing LaTex on Windows
The other day I finally got around to installing LaTex on my Windows box after the last major reinstall. There are several different LaTex releases that will run on Windows. They all do pretty much the same thing, but now … Continue reading
Beyond the Red Line
I’m usually skeptical of total conversion mods. Most of them set very ambitious goals for themselves but never quite reach them. What you usually end up with is a half-assed, buggy mod with sub-par graphics and degraded game play. On … Continue reading
DRM Software Industry Must be a Cash Cow
I realized something today – we are in the wrong industry guys! We should all be writing DRM software! I mean, at least in theory. I would never do it because I find the idea of DRM morally reprehensible and … Continue reading
Starting a Rails 2.0 Project
Since Rails 2.0 fucked up just about every single online tutorial out there by removing the scaffold method, I decided to document a step by step process of starting a brand new project. I think it’s important because the approach … Continue reading
What happened to scaffold in Rails 2.x?
Rant time! This one may or may not ruffle some feathers, but frankly I don’t care. I’m probably late to this party and missed out on all the big flame wars seeing how 2.0 was released at the beginning of … Continue reading
Simple Metaprogramming With Javascript
The more I’m messing around with Rhino the more I like it and in the process I’m learning more nifty Javascript tricks to use on my web based projects. For example, did you know that Javascript has features that facilitate … Continue reading
Which OS is more User Friendly and Intuitive?
The widely accepted majority opinion about operating systems is that for some unspeakable reason Windows is the pinnacle and a shining beacon of usability. Every single time someone brings up making Linux available for the masses (for example when discussing … Continue reading
Long Path Madness
Most people never run into the MAX_PATH issue when using windows. I run into it every other week. Windows has thins funky little quirk about long file paths. The fully qualified path of any file on your NTFS file system … Continue reading
WoW Trial: Final Thoughts
I was planning to write about something else today (something, anything but WoW) but I’m all out of stuff to write. I usually avoid doing technology posts on Saturdays (it’s a personal rule) but that’s really all I can think … Continue reading
WoW Trial: Days 7, 8 and 9
Here are some more of my notes on WoW. These are more of general points of interest rather than more detailed blow by blow, because I already wrote so much about this game. One thing that has to be said … Continue reading
I Am Legend (The Book)
Note: this post contains spoilers. I wrote the revealing and spoilish parts in white font, so you will need to highlight them to read. If you do not highlight your text you probably won’t get spoiled, but proceed with caution … Continue reading
WoW Trial: Days 4, 5 and 6
Sigh… Guess how many hours I was able to commit to my WoW experiment over the weekend? Zero. This is what happens when you sleep till 3pm and then waste most of the day on stupid real life stuff. Sigh… … Continue reading
Rhino – Scripting Java with Javascript
After reading Steve Yegge’s Code’s Worst Enemy post I finally decided to give Rhino a whirl. I heard it mentioned here and there for a while now – mostly by Steve actually, but also by others. Actually others were mostly … Continue reading
WoW Trial: Day 3
It’s day 3 of my WoW run and I’m currently a Lv. 10 Tauren Warrior. Since I’m queuing these posts up, I can already tell you that nothing fun has happened to me on the 4th day so next WoW … Continue reading
I Am Legend (The 2007 Movie)
I just saw I Am Legend – the 2007 movie adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel under the same title. I haven’t read the book yet, but I hear it is much better than this movie. This usually doesn’t happen to … Continue reading