Ch-ch-changes!

I'm messing around with the template and some synchronization tools so the site might look different day to day and it will probably look a little weird, links poking out from behind widgets and whathaveyou. Like you see those 2 little blue marks just to the left of the search box? Yea, that is the link to view older posts. Don't see it? I must have fixed it then. Anyways, I know it looks stupid, I'm workin on it!


PS. all those navigation links up top are nothing. Default in the template I found. Those are lower on my priority I guess.

I'm sorry. I have neglected you.

Been busy lately and haven't seen a whole lot that I'd want to post up, or that I wanted to put the effort into posting the more drawn out stories I come across. However, my activity WILL be picking up due to my decision to shun Facebook. Maybe I'll get into why I did and why you might think about it yourself.

Anyways, Blogger will now be picking up the slack of my " Look at this cool shit" portion of my former Facebook account.





Don't worry, I won't making blog posts with the single line reading, "Mac n Cheese is better with Sriracha".

Google Tablet? Enter the "Goopad".

Sites are reporting that Google could be introducing it's device into the tablet race as early as this summer. Rumors are that LG will be manufacturing the "Goopad" and will run Android Honeycomb 3.0

My hopes with this tablet will be the specs to match or exceed the curent Apple iPad2 specs including dual-core processor and dual cameras. Another main hope is that they will continue the larger screen rather than promote a new 7" tablet. I like the size of the iPads, but the 7"ers are just a bit too small for me.

Here is a link to one of the sites with some reading material.

"GOOPAD"

Golden iPad Tickets

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Enable Telnet in Windows 7

The Telnet command is featured in Windows 7 but is disabled by default. I just happened upon this after upgrading my work machine to Windows 7 and immediately had to telnet into a switch. I thought it was pretty ridiculous when cmd prompt told me telnet was not a recognized command lol. Anyways here is how to enable Telnet on your W7 machine

Start >
     Control Panel >
             Programs and Features >
                      Turns Windows Features On or Off >
                                   Select Telnet Client to connect to others.
                                   Select Telnet Server to allow others to telnet to your machine.

The World's Smallest Computer

This little thing was developed at the University of Michigan to help glaucoma patients.

"The newest system wakes every 15 minutes to take measurements and consumes an average of 5.3 nanowatts. 

To keep the battery charged, it requires exposure to ten hours of indoor light each day or 1.5 hours of sunlight. It can store up to a week's worth of information."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1360339/Scientists-unveil-worlds-smallest-just-1-MILLIMETRE-square.html#ixzz1EyvDE1M1

Sorry, We can overlap a sidebar if we want!

Google Chrome Automatic Updates

     This is just one of the features I love about just one of the many great products Google offers to the public free of charge. Google's browser, Chrome, features automatic installation for new versions of the programs. These new browser versions mostly include new features and more importantly security fixes. Most of you reading my blog are probably already aware of this but if you are still one of those few STILL using Internet Explorer, maybe this can give you the nudge you need to upgrade to a decent browser.

(Installing New Version...)

     Anyways, continuing on with why I started this post, as I always open Lifehacker first thing in the morning when I get to work ( as well as 7 other tabs lol), I noticed an article talking ab out a new feature within Chrome Version 10. So I went to the tools menu and clicked the "About Google Chrome" to see which version I was on or if it had already updated. Turns out it was updating right at the same time as I was finding out about Chrome 10:    
                                                                                                                                                                  


It will ask you to reboot once it's done and saves all your currently open tabs and brings them right back up. Youll probably just have to re-sign into any accounts you had open ( social sites, etc...)

(Showing newly updated version)

You can download Chrome at http://chrome.google.com

Apple event March 2nd 2011 - iPad 2?

yep, more than likely.

Gizmodo brought to our attention that Apple released news of an event they are hosting on March 2nd. As you can see formt he picture below. We are pretty damn sure the iPad 2 will be officially announced. And for anyone that even remotely follows Apple, we've been expecting it any day now.

Read some more junk about it at http://gizmodo.com/#!5768272/apple-confirms-march-2-ipad-event

Cisco's ASR 9000

Update on the new Facebook photo viewer

Was just stoppin by Lifehacker a second ago and they brought to attention that you can get rid of that blasted new photo viewer that i dislike simply by refreshing the page. Works like a charm.

Average User tip of the day: Use the quicker keyboard shortcuts "Ctrl+R" or "F5" to refresh the page.

Trackpad "Gestures" for your Ubuntu Linux machine!

How-To geek featured an article showing us Linux fans how to take advantage of one of the few things I think Apple got right. Gestures. I NEED a scroll bar. I can't be bothered to click and drag the side bar to view a long page! So since a trackpad by itself sucks, Gestures are what make it functional and feel right. I am quite excited about being able to use this on my Netbuntu :)

So as to not steal traffic from the good group of people at HTG, click the picture below to learn how to use "gestures" on your own linux machine.

Google Earth Building Maker!

Like Google Earth? Wish there was more 3D? Google is now allowing users to create and submit #D designs of buildings. If it is up to there standards of what the building really looks like, they will approve it and allow it to be shown in the Google Earth map.

I am hoping this is the turning point in implementing Google Earth into full-earth maps for video games. GTA-10 - YourCity.

Defend your own house from a horde of zombies or aliens... think about it. Now go construct your house and some building in google earth!

New Facebook picture view

Well, Facebook continues to make layout changes to keep it's user's short attention span. The latest of these features, of which I noticed yesterday, is a new "pop-out" photo viewer. It's not pop-out in the sense that you can move it around, but if you are familiar with Lightbox, it is similar to that and frankly doesn't pull it off nearly as well. To me this is useless and just another needless function that has to load. Leave it to Facebook to fix what isn't broke. I'm sure they will continue to tweak until it looks more sleek, but right now it looks chunky and over-the-top. What was wrong with the old photo-viewer style?!

Death To Humans Venn Diagram

Windows 7 Service Pack 1

Today Windows announced that Windows 7 and Server 2008 Service Pack 1 will be available to the public on February 22md. If you happen to be a TechNet or MSDN subscriber OR a volume licence customer, you'll be able to get your hands on it on the 16th.

This SP will include 2 new virtualization features for Server '08 and Remote FX and Dynamic Memory for W7 which you can read all about on the Windows Server Team blog page. Can't wait to test out some of these new features. Let us know what you think!

W7 SP1 build #: 7601.17514.101119-1850

Also see here to read more about the Service Pack on Microsoft's support pages: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976932

USB Mouse only working in Safe Mode

Had this problem on an employees windows machine a while back and just ran into it myself. While I'm not sure what caused it in the first place. I can tell you how to fix it. It is as easy as finding and reinstalling the chipset drivers for your computer's specific Make and Model ( ie: Dell - Vostro or Acer - Power 2000). So reboot your computer and keep hitting F8 while it's booting to get into safe mode, your mouse should be functional ins afe mode and allow you to find the correct drivers and reinstall. Once you've done this, reboot and let it load standard windows and your mouse should be work good as new!

Repair a flash drive that isnt displaying full capacity

For whatever reason, your 4GB flash drive is only showing that it is a 1 GB drive. Well this just won't do. In my case it is because I want to test chromium out, so I created a bootable flash drive with chromium. SO of course when i was done with it and reformatted it to use for files again, It gave me just under a 1GB of capacity to work with. here is how to fix this problem.

You will want to enter Disk Management. If you don't know where this is located, right-click "My Computer" and click "Manage". A new window will pop up and towards the boot of the list on the left hand side you will see "Disk Management". This will show you all the disks connected to your computer be they an internal HDD, an external solid state hard drive, or a flash drive.

Find the drive letter that was given to your hard drive ( probably going to be E:, F: or G:, could be different depending on how many storage units you are using. Regardless, you can find out which drive letter your flash drive has within "My Computer").

Now that you have found your flash drive within Disk Management, you will probably see a box with a blue line and one or more boxes with black lines. Those boxes that have black lines are partitions that aren't being used or accessed. Right click on one of the unused partitions and click "Delete Partition". This should remove all partitions into one single unformatted drive. Then all you have to do is right-click the drive, select "Create Partition" and the defaults wizard will walk you through setting up flash drive up again to a working condition. Feel free to comment or message me at err298@gmail.com with any questions!

Apple iHand

Convert .MOV files to .AVI

So you need to convert your .mov files into a .avi file, eh? Well Pazera Free Mov to AVI converter 1.2 will do just that. You can grab this free software HERE

Add your files via button near the top left, then when you have your settings where you like them, hit "Convert" ( which is 2 buttons to the right of Add Files)

LG asking that the Playstation 3 be banned from import to United States.

According to LG electronics, Sony's PlayStation 3 BluRay players violates several of LG's patents. A private law firm posted a PDF to their blog (The ITC 337) HERE. Of course this followed a complaint filed by Sony towards LG concerning patent violations with their mobile phones. LG is hoping to launch an immediate investigation into Sony's PS3 blu-ray player and hoping the ITC will bar Sony from importing the Game console as well as ceasing any marketing or repair efforts.

You can read the full article on CNET.

Google Art Project Q&A

As you may have noticed, I bumped the Google Art Project that was released last week. Now you can read a little Q&A with the executive Vice-President of Schematic, the company that collaborated with Google to complete this Project. Read the full article here: The Art of Making the Google Art Project

"I was awestruck by the idea itself, which the Googlers with whom we collaborated on the project had invented. It was a project that really reflects the full potential of what the Web can achieve, and is the sort of concept that got me interested in new media to begin with. I could just imagine a child at a public library, somewhere in the world, who might never be able to afford airfare to travel to these museums, and who might not even have access to high-quality reproductions in books, being able to wander the halls of the great museums that the site brings together."

Use Error298 as your personal FREE tech support!

As I am always looking for new content for the blog, I thought it would be a good idea to ask you readers to send me your generic and/or complex tech support questions. If you need help with connectivity issues, how to do something within Microsoft office suite or really anything related to computers, just send me an email at Err298@Gmail.com. Once I have an answer for you, I'll post it up here. Have a good one!

-Beard

Lifehacker changed their website layout

I saw a little while back that IO9 had changed their site's template and didn't really like it too much. Now I wake up this morning to see that Lifehacker has followed suit. I liked that old layout better but I guess it is something to get used to. Click the picture to check it out yourself.

This cracks me up.

Hey, I'm cool with biking, but I do see this all the time.

Turn your Caps Lock button into a "Search" button.

So you know those highly sought after Google CR-48 notebooks being distributed to and tested by lucky recipients? Well if you do, you probably heard that they axed the Caps Lock key because, well how often do you use the Caps Lock key? ( unless you have a point to prove to that asshole on your message board). Here is how to follow suit and turn your Caps Lock key into a "Search" button like Google did with their beta-notebook. ( This will open chrome for you, if not open already, open a new tab and highlight the address bar so you can immediately begin searching.)

If you are using a Windows machine, you can add this code to your main AutoHotKey script:

**********************************************
Capslock::
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
If WinExist("ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_0")
{
WinActivate
WinWaitActive
Send ^t
Send ^l
}
else
{
Run "C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
sleep 100
Send ^t
Send ^l
}
return
+Capslock::Capslock
**************************************

* Be sure to enter your user profile name where it says "YOURUSERNAME" in the code.


You can also do this with your Apple machine, but for that you'll have to visit Lifehacker

If you don't know what an AutoHotKey script is. There is a Google for that too :) I'm not your dad.

Chibuntu

Not that it is called Chibuntu, but you can now get your very own Chinese Ubuntu from there website ( www.ubuntu.com)

I don't know about you but I like Ubuntu Linux. It's great! Now if i could only read Chinese...

Can someone help me out here? Is that Cantonese or Mandarin?

We have run out of IPs! No more internet...

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has handed out it's last batches of IPv4 addresses. ( the #s that look like this : 192.168.1.0) This doesn't mean that we will have to take turns sharing IP addresses though. ISPs still have more IP address then they know what to do with to give to their customers and IPv6 is becoming more prominent but not quite yet the norm.
IPv$, the version we "all" currently use hosted just above 4 billion different addresses where as the new IPv6 will be able to deliver trillions. The switch to IPv6 won't be on us as users, but on the shoulders of ISPs, and the cost of developing and implementing this has kept them from switching over already.

Read more of the article at: Internet address warehouse empty



EDIT: Let me rephrase what I said about IPv6's quantity capabilities. It can deliver enough addresses for a trillion people to be assigned trillions of addresses.

Ever seen what "340 undecillion" looks like?

340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000


Yep, I think we're set.

Snowmageddon!

It's friday and How-To Geek wants you to battle Frosty the Snowman's evil snowman army to get your mind ready for your weekend break from thinking.

Play Snowmageddon here.

And don't forget to check out the source at HowToGeek.com if you like this blog and aren't already a visitor of HTG.

Microsoft offering a *SNEAK PEAK* of new homepage

oooOOOOOoooo, fancy Microsoft... whatever. Nothing special looking to me. But there it is.Now you know, you can't un-know it.

Change the VLAN of a port on a Cisco Switch

Recently I had to hook up a new network printer in our organization. To do this i had to configure the port on the switch to be on our printer VLAN. I decided this could be useful to something trying to accomplish something similar. For this I will assume that you know the IP address of your Cisco switch.

To change the VLAN of a particular port on your switch:

Open a command prompt
The fastest way to do this is to hit the "Windows Key + R" ( this will open up your "Run" prompt) and type "CMD". Hit Enter.

At your command prompt, telnet into the switch: C:\telnet ***.***.***.*** (replace with your switch's IP address)

If your switch is secured, which it should be, it will prompt you for a password. The Cisco default password is "cisco".

Once you have logged in successfully, it will give you your cisco prompt. Type "enable" and hit enter. This will give you heightened priviledges in the switch.

Once you access enabled mode, You will get the same prompt as before followed by a "#".

To view a quick overview of all the ports on the switch, type "Show Run". This will give you the ports on the switch, what VLAN they are currently on and some other information that you can look into if you are feeling ambitious.

So lets say the port your device is connected to is Port 24. To work with just this specific port, type in "Show run int fastethernet0/24. ( You may have to use "gigabitethernet" instead of "fastethernet". you can find which to use when looking at the ports that the command "Show Run" gives you)

Now that you have it narrowed down to Port 24, you can enter configuration mode to alter the port.

Type "Config t" at your command prompt, this will allow you to configure the port.

You can now enter these configuration commands, one per line.

- int gigabitethernet0/10
- switchport access vlan # ( substitute the # sign for the VLAN # you want your port to be added to)
- switchport mode access <-- use this command if the port isn't already in access mode
- spanning-tree portfast <-- use this command if the port is going to be connected to a pc
( In my case, I was setting up a printer so I did not use the spanning-tree portfast command since it is not a PC)

- end

- write mem
Building configuration...
[OK]

- exit


Congratulations! You have now added your port to the new VLAN and your terminal has brought you back to your windows command prompt. You may exit out of this now if you wish. Test that your device is working properly and relax.


If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email or send it in a comment to this post. I would be happy to answer any questions I can. Then again, so would Google :)

Who remembers this ad?

Google TiSP: Free wireless internet in your home!

Google is at it again! Offering a new FREE in-home wireless access system!

TiSP in-home wireless broadband is:

• Free, fast and highly reliable
• Easy to install -- takes just minutes
• Vacuum-sealed to prevent water damage

Information taken from http://www.google.com/tisp/




"24-hour, on-site technical support in the event of backup problems, brownouts and data wipes"


: )

A little closer to invisibilty.

Researchers at MIT and the University of Birmingham have altered calcite, a crystal form of calcium carbonate usually found in seashells to make small objects ( such as a paperclip) invisible. While it is currently only in a 2D stage, they have their theories on how 3-dimensional cloaking will work.

Read the story here :http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/using-special-crystals-researchers-achieve-true-invisibility-visual-spectrum


and here is the paper clip:

Google Art Project

I just happened upon this cool little project Google has been working on Called the Google Art Project. It brings Google's "Street Map" view inside famous museums around the world. take a virtual tour around the museums or just view the art being displayed there via slideshow.