August 22-25th I’ll be in Iowa (I know, I know) at Gnomedex 2002.
Should be fun, get to meet lots of people, see lots of great tech, and have some fun.
If you’d like to go, its not too late… Head to their website and register now!
Author: patrick
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I’m Going to Gnomedex 2002
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Dude, your getting a Dell…
I recently purchased a new Dell p4 Dimension 8200. All I can say is, boy is this thing fast. So fast that games play great, stable, rock solid…
Except for a couple of glitches to start, its been a great buy. The first problem I ran into was the “stock” install of XP Home for whatever reason disabled the Direct3D and OpenGL tabs in the Geforce4 ti4200 driver.
I called Dell Tech Support (what a joke!), waited on hold for 20 mins, then got someone who could barely speak English, explained the problem. He paused, I walked HIM through the problem. He paused. Said he had to look up something. No hold music, nothing, just sat there on the phone in complete silence. I asked again if he was there, and he responded again, he was looking for something… Couple more minutes go by, and still nothing on the other end.
I finally figured out what the problem was, in the complete silence… For some reason Dell put a registry string in the Nvidia area that was called “NoTabs”. I deleted that, and all was good. Went to tell the guy on the phone, and the phone goes dead, he hung up on me!Round 2.
I go to attach my Sony TVR20 DV Camera. Nothing. Camera not found. I’ve tried everything. Moved the 1394 firewire card around, change IRQ’s, swapped OHCI drivers, but nothing is going to get this camera detected. So I called Dell again. This time, 10 minutes on hold, to find out they are calling this an accessory issue and not a Dell issue. Nothing they can do for me… So I tried the card in another computer, still doesn’t work, tried a different cable, nope…
So I gave up. Can’t get my video camera to connect. Did a search on Google, and it seems this is pretty common, though quite a few people do have it working. I figure I’ll stick to using the Mac G4 to do video edditing.
Anyway, besides the horrible Tech Support, which I knew about well before choosing Dell, this Dimension 8200 is a great system. Just don’t waste the cash on the Firewire option, go with something off the shelf.
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See you at GnomeDex 2002 in Iowa
I’ll be leaving on Thursday for the drive to Des Moines, Iowa for the second Gnomedex.
Should be a fun 2 days of tech and electronics. Lots of good speakers, and events planned.
I’ll be posting reports from the show and whatever else I might find.
See you there!
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Austin Powers Goldmember
All I can say is I laughed so hard…
This movie had jokes within jokes, wrapped around more jokes and frankly if you even laughed you missed several jokes. The first part of the movie was just hysterical, with some great cameos. It does try to develop a storyline around the many jokes, but basically this movie is a series of site gags, skits, and other humorous events. -
Windows XP Home vs. Pro
Anyone know why I can’t see shares on XP Home from an XP Pro laptop?
This has been bugging me for weeks…
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Changing the Layout again.
I’m working on a new site layout, some of which you might start to see…
If you want to see a preview of the new main page, you can check it out here. -
Kicking off the TV Shows Section
I’ve decided to start a new section on Patrickstuart.com called TV Shows…
The purpose of this is to capture my thoughts and reviews of TV Shows.
I’ll be starting with a few of my favorite shows, past and present. Following on with shows for the Fall season I’m waiting for and of course, shows I have no desire to watch.
Agree or disagree, post your thoughts on the comments….
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First Official TV Show Review
Ok, here it is…
My first official TV Show review since kicking off the new area…
WWE RAW – Monday Nights, 9pm – 11pm EST on TNN
I’ve been a casual fan of wrestling since I was a little kid. I grew up watching the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Brutus the Barber Beefcake, Roddy Piper and many others. Then I grew up. Now before you hit send on that email, let me explain. I grew up, went to college, got a degree in theatre, learned about the challenges of acting and staged combat in front of a live audience. So I have a greater appriecation of “sports entertainment” or what I’d call some of the best theatre for the masses.
Ok, now that I’ve probably upset both wrestling fans and classical theatre fans, I can start to explain myself. Theatre has always been a form of entertainment for the masses, since the invention of film and television, classical theatre has found its way to Broadway Elite and the local community theaters. However, they’ve isolated themselves from the majority of people who either have never seen a modern play or think its all about Shakespeare.
Well, lets take WWE for example. At its core, its theatre. A live audience, performers, stories, actors, and the all so important, stage or “ring”. Maybe it’s not just theatre, but theatre televised. Sure 20,000 fans show up, but really they are another part of the show. Which finally brings me to the fact that this is a TV Show. Granted a formula few have been able to successfully pull off year after year… A live show, week in and week out.
Ok, so, here’s where the review starts… The program WWE RAW has had its better days. Right now the WWE is struggling with Talent issues. Mainly the departure of one of their top stars, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rocks Hollywood career. On top of this, they have decided to “split” the WWE rosters into two separate shows, RAW and Smackdown. I realize that this allows alot of the new talent to get more exposure and experience but something is missing.
There is a diacotmy with the WWE, when the ratings were high, and at its height, one of the highest rated shows on cable tv, the WWE spewed rating numbers left and right. Today, they seem to dodge the falling ratings and the departure of fans left and right to several reasons (read, excuses). One, fads like the Osbornes and Anna Nicole Show. Two, they never worried about ratings, but was for the fans (read, rationalization). The reality is they are on a downward spiral and are in desparate need of reinventing themselves…
But can the WWE reinvent RAW and bring the magic back? Time will tell. For now, there’s nothing else on Monday nights, so I’ll continue to tune in and see what they’ll attempt next. Like my History teacher told me, Desparate people do desparate things. Right now, WWE is desparate for ratings, so lets see what they’ll do next…
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Netflix…
All I can say is Netflix Rocks!
If you haven’t signed up already… Do so now! $20 / month gets you 3 DVD’s at a time. No late fees, keep them as long as you want, send them back via prepaid postage as soon as you watch them. Best of all, their website allows you to rate and queue up movies, even ones that aren’t available on DVD yet. I love it!
I incorporated this little plug-in into Movable Type to show my rental queue. Check it out here…
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Dshield.org
Here’s a great resource for all those with broadband…
It will show you the number of attacks on the web and attackers…
Start submitting your firewall / router logs to dshields and help stop these attacks…