Monthly Archives: February 2007


Rant

CompUSA: Exit Stage Left

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Word on the street is that CompUSA is closing over half their stores, starting tomorrow. I went over to their locations page: if it’s accurate, the only store staying in WA is the one in Spokane.

The only surprising thing to me is that it took this long. Most computer stores have a half life of five years… it’s pricy to keep all that stock in stock. It’s what killed CompuAdd. And Gateway. And whoever else was in the field, it seems. For CompUSA to hang on for over 15 years?

Impressive, in a way but even so: rest in pieces.

Rant

Odd Yet Meaningless

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MSNBC: Report: Family ties Al Sharpton to Thurmond

Paper: Civil rights activist descended from slaves held by late senator’s kin […] NEW YORK – Genealogists have found that civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, a newspaper reported Sunday.

I dunno how I’d take this news, if it was me – I dunno how I’d react. After all it took place at least 150 years ago – if not 200. Does it really matter? “The sins of the father” stuff – biblical in origen, but does it really have a place in today’s world, not matter how despicable your great-great-great-great-great grandfather was? I dunno – I only looked back on my tree to my great grandparents… It might even explain why Al’s pissed off all the time and such a rabble rouser. I just hope that he keeps perspective: just because this is in his history, it doesn’t mean that all white people that he sees are guilty of it in this life or in their ancestry.

After all, while the Civil War was going on, all my ancestors were sipping espresso on the shores of Italy – I had nothing to do with any of this mess!

digital pity

I Am… Insulted.

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Subject: Hello Friend, lets be friends because friends are like clothe without them one is naked

Oh my friend,

Hoping you are fine and living good. ice having your address, I wanna be your friend, for first friendship cannot be seen or even be touched, it must be felt within the heart.Hoping you feel just the way i do.Wow, friends are like clothes, without them you feel naked!I guess am right.

Am Omonye Ojojie, from Rwanda in Africa presently residing in the refugee camp here in Dakar Senegal due to the civil war going on in my country. Am 25 years female. I will tell you more about myself, my family and all that maybe necessary in this relationship when you reply to this mail.If this interest you, get back to me on my email : [removed because who wants to help a spammer].

The language, man, the language! And how wonderful – there’s towns in Connecticut that don’t have ‘net access, yet they’ve got broadband in an African civil war zone. Honestly, does spam ever work?

Someday I’m going to go off the grid and click on every link I see, just to see what happens.

GeekStuff

Crackdown

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Can I talk about this one yet? It seems that CompUSA has been selling it early and Major Nelson is talking about it so I’ll take some liberty since I also got my copy a couple of days early. And while there’s been a lot of hoopla about the invite to the Halo 3 beta via the game, something needs to be said about the game itself…

Wait, lemme put on my flame proof suit…

I like Crackdown better than Gears of War.
Continue reading Crackdown →

GeekStuff

Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive: A First Look

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A first look? Months after the initial release? Fine. My first look. I held off buying one because I was on the fence over it – a special offer for MGS employees sucked me right in. I picked up the drive earlier this week, but I didn’t get around to getting a HD-DVD movie until today.

What are my thoughts?
Continue reading Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive: A First Look →

Windows

Vista Tip: VirtualStore

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Note to self: when working with older applications on Vista – or applications that keep trying to write settings to Program Files – remember to check \UserName\Documents\AppData\Local\VirtualStore for redirected INI files. Uninstalling and reinstalling the application will not clean out these files.

Long story short, I wanted to see what Clockz did on Vista, since it was originally written in 1997 for Windows 95. Not bad, really: it shows the time correctly, still docks like a proper AppBar, but the new width of borders in Aero causes some painting problems. And yes: because it was written ten years ago it uses an INI file that lives next to the EXE… which is now “off limits” to users. After seeing that the original INI file wasn’t changing, I went digging to see what was up:

When Vista sees an application trying to do this – that is, modify a config file where the EXE lives – it looks like they make a copy in a user-writable location and then uses that copy. Did the same thing for CuteFTP (from 1997) and CRT (from 1996), so it’s pretty aware of archaic software.

Pretty neat, actually, once ya know about it.

GeekStuff

Whoo! Finally!

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QJ.net: Halo-style Matchmaking for ALL 360 games recommended – If you ask Phil Spencer, Microsoft Game Studios’ head of game development, he’ll tell you that he wants every new Xbox 360 game to have Matchmaking. So 1UP asked him, and they also asked him why, of all the games on the Xbox, Halo 2’s Matchmaking service outclassed them all. Spencer gave a sensible answer: Bungie spent a lot of time on their Matchmaking code, and it works like a dream. Lucky them.

Heaven knows that I’ve suggested this for ages.

Rant

Lo! I Am He Who Is Without Pets!

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Ah, well… Baka suffered The Big Flush last night. Something about seeing a fish lying on the bottom of a bowl like a sleeping pup for 12+ hours and no missing food tells me his race has been run.

And so I’m pet-less again… which reminds me: my rabbit turned six this past January – that is if he’s still alive. But I can’t confirm that: his new owner went completely off the grid when the MSN Chat Rooms went paid-for in late 2004… totally out of touch.

I’ll get a Roomba as a pet this time.

GeekStuff

Rare Comment

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Yahoo! Messenger: Built from the ground up specifically for Microsoft Windows Vista, this all-new version combines the reliable and easy-to-use features you’ve always loved from Yahoo! Messenger with the cutting-edge experience of this new operating system.

Holy crap – it looks like it might not suck!
Continue reading Rare Comment →

Rant

What Would You Do?

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Say you were standing behind a younger woman[1] while in a long line at a coffee shop and you noticed a nickel-sized hole in the back of her jeans, up in the corner where the back pocket is sewn. A skin colored hole – meaning that she was either wearing high rise underwear or most likely a thong – in her work clothes.

Would you say something? Should you say something? She’s was on her way to her job – does that factor in? I just ignored it…

[1] Yes, pointing out “younger woman” is key to the argument. Man, of any age? Wouldn’t care and certainly wouldn’t be embarrassed 99% of the time. Older woman? Thicker skin, IMHO. Younger woman? That spot would have turned red from the blush. Unless she knew about it already and didn’t care, in which case the whole question is moot.