We stayed in Ohio for about a week, visiting my mom. My laptop was previously delivered there (more on that later). My sister was also there, visiting. We didn’t actually do much while there, but we had a good time regardless.

After Ohio, it was a relatively short drive to Maryland.

The teams had a fairly wide variety of designs in use. The most effective was team winnovation, which was capable of launching a ball all the way across the field. It also had a omni drive setup, which allowed it to go around without ever turning.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be at the CO regional again. Moving to Maryland this year. Ah well, thus is life.

It’s a fun game, especially in a party situation. Recommended.

   1:  #sorts the files inside $loc based on aspect ratio

   2:  $loc = "G:\my pics\wallpaper\"

   3:  

   4:  #set the location, and grab the files inside

   5:  Set-Location $loc

   6:  $folder = (New-Object -com ("Shell.Application")).NameSpace($loc)

   7:  

   8:  Get-ChildItem | foreach {

   9:      $item = $folder.ParseName($_)

  10:      #check that it's an image

  11:      if($item.Type -like "*image")

  12:      {

  13:          # get the width and height

  14:          $dim = $folder.GetDetailsOf($item, 31)

  15:          if($dim -match "(?<width>\d*)\sx\s(?<height>\d*)")

  16:          {

  17:              $aspect = [int]$matches.width / [int]$matches.height

  18:              #move based on aspect ratio bands

  19:              if(($aspect -le 1.4) -and ($aspect -ge 1.2))

  20:              {

  21:                  Move-Item -Path .\$_ -Destination .\Full\

  22:              }

  23:              elseif(($aspect -le 1.8) -and ($aspect -ge 1.5))

  24:              {

  25:                  Move-Item -Path .\$_ -Destination .\Wide\

  26:              }

  27:              else

  28:              {

  29:                  Move-Item -Path .\$_ -Destination .\Other\

  30:              }

  31:          }

  32:      }

  33:  }

It’s pretty simple code. It would be a lot harder to write if I had to write it in C#, however. Fear the power!

First step: install the newest Linksys firmware. Then I install the mini generic DD-WRT firmware. From there, it’s on to the the standard firmware. So, I create a virtual wireless interface, which seems to have done so fine. Then I add the following commands:

startup:

fconfig br0:0 down
brctl addbr br1
ifconfig br1 192.168.21.254 netmask 255.255.255.0 promisc up
brctl delif br0 wl0.1
brctl addif br1 wl0.1
killall dnsmasq
dnsmasq --conf-file=/tmp/dnsmasq.conf

dnsmasq:

interface=br1
dhcp-range=br1,192.168.21.1,192.168.21.149,255.255.255.0,1h
dhcp-authoritative
dhcp-option=br1,3,192.168.21.254

firewall:

iptables -I INPUT 9 -i br1 -m state --state NEW -j logaccept
iptables -I FORWARD -i br1 -o vlan1 -j ACCEPT

And the net effect of all this? Nada. Can’t reach the second SSID. Nothing works. Try the RC7 pre-release. Still fail. Trying to get an answer from the forums, but I this isn’t solved by Saturday, I’m sticking Tomato on the box, and just using two routers to get the DS Lite on.

First, I made sure she had the most recent BIOS from Dell installed. Without it, it almost certainly wouldn’t work, thus negating the entire SLP exercise. That done, I just installed it from the DVD (any Retail/OEM DVD works for installing any version). From there, I opened up an elevated command prompt (important that it’s elevated), then ran two commands:

slmgr.vbs -ipk ProductKeyHere

slmgr.vbs -ilc E:OEM.xrm-ms

Obviously, neither of those commands will work as is. After that, the system was activated. So I installed SP1, and just need to have J finish setting up her laptop. Which will likely be a couple weeks from now. Until then, she’ll keep on using her old HDD.

Off to EBay. Found a Dell 360 module, which was listed as compatible with the e1705 laptop she has. Couple days later, it arrives. Unscrew a cover, plug it in, and we’re in business. Well, except for the fact that I needed to download the drivers, and the Nokia software.

Long story short, she has her Mario Bros Ring tone.

Paint.NET is the top of the list. People who know they need high powered graphics programs get Photoshop. However, not everyone can afford Photoshop, or needs the power it provides. Paint.NET is a better featured paint program that MS Paint. Plus, it has plug-in features, allowing third parties to add even more functionality

Switcher is like Expose, but for Windows Vista. It’s extremely useful when you’re a heavy multitasker.

WikidPad is handy whenever you’re thinking about something, and want to write it down, but what you’re expressing is non-linear. It’s a wiki in a can.

PasswordSafe is to store all your passwords. Everyone eventually ends up with 5 billion accounts on different sites, and because you can never remember all the passwords, you end up using the same password everywhere. A better idea is this program. You remember a master password, and after that, the program remembers all your other passwords. Thus, you can have different passwords for each site. You can set it up so it knows which website is associated with an account. It can also automatically type in your username and password, thus making it a simple matter of a couple of key presses to log in to any website you need to.

uTorrent – You pirate stuff. Everyone does. Or maybe you don’t, but in a number of cases, bittorrent is the fastest way to download a file. So, you need a client. uTorrent is that client. It’s well featured, but not bloated, like a number of other clients, such as Azerus.

Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) – So you’ve… acquired video files, but you can’t play them, because you don’t have the codec required. This is the solution.

Media Player Classic – admittedly, this hasn’t been updated in sometime. On the other hand, it’s much better than all version of WMP from 7-10, in my opinion. Additionally, it’s bundled in with CCCP, so if you get that, you also get this. Pretty much the only reason why I don’t use it very often anymore is because I like the glassy eye candy that is WMP11 on Vista.

That said, it’s some excellent mil SF. The descriptions of combat are fairly believable, and well written. He also includes what could be called nothing other than a political tract at the end of each book. It’s definitely not going to be to everyone’s taste. Especially those of highly liberal leanings.

Recommended with reservations.

Amazon links: A Desert Called Peace; Carnifex

• Watched a bunch of anime.
• Went to my sister’s wedding.
• Got married.
• Heard my other sister got engaged.
• Moved to my own apartment.
• Went to Airman Leadership School.
• Started watching Zero Punctuation Reviews.
• Had nothing to do at work. Again.
• Moved to a different building on base.
• Discovered Sabaton (Review later)
• Started playing World in Conflict (Review later, again)
• Lusted over the iPhone more.
• Lusted over the Asus EEE.
• Lost a hard drive
• Gained a hard drive
• Forgotten passwords.

I’ll get better soon. Probably.