i don’t know why the vmware registration service is not auto-starting on windows boot. the service is set to automatically start, but it just doesn’t. this causes vmware to fail to connect to its local console management screen which prevents me from starting up the virtual machine.
this link has an executable that will start the service up. annoying hack, but it works.
fantasy sports, that is. ok, folks, it’s time for fantasy football. the preseason has been kicked off and it’s high time to start playing! if anyone is interested in playing, send me an email! wilco@[this domain].
the lamp on my DLP tv has been running kind of dim lately. now, i will be the first to admit that i run my DLP tv in torch mode. i know that some may cringe at what i’m about to say, but brighter is better. my tv is especially high, so the viewing angle isn’t ideal. as such, to compensate, i’ve tilted the tv slightly down, but the extra brightness combats the unfortunate viewing angle.
following the instructions found online on how to change a samsung dlp lamp, i was able to quickly replace the lamp of the tv and get it up and running.
the swap was pretty easy and i was done in no time. now i’ve got a new lamp installed in the tv and it’s as good as new. actually, i’m running in a little less than torch mode now and it is still brighter than before.
now i just have to wait for the projector to come to complete the home theatre experience.
i have been thinking about purchasing a projector for a long time now. it’s been a long time since i first started looking into the buy. naively, i thought that i would be able to quickly decide which projector i wanted to get and just buy it. it turns out that like any major purchase, there is a lot of research that needs to be done to make a smart buy.
originally, i was thinking about getting a 720p projector. it seemed like a good idea. it’s a good value buy as 720p projectors seem to have fallen out of vogue and are at rock bottom prices. would the difference between a 720p projector and a 1080p projector really be noticed? it turns out that for the size screen that i’m getting, and the distance from the screen i am at, you actually CAN make a difference.
this decision was not quite that simple, though. what put me over the top and make the plunge to the 1080p projectors was that my company had decided to close its doors. in doing so, they are letting all of us go and giving us severance packages. it is with this severance package that i decided that once i secure a new job, i can make the plunge.
well, it’s the end of the month, the company is out of business, and the severance package should be on its way. so here i am making the purchase.
the details of the buy are after the jump if you are really so inclined.
today is the last day that i will be employed at my company. the company is shutting down its doors, liquidating its assets (i mean everything!) and disappearing for good. it is time, as they say, for the fat lady to sing.
this will be the first company that i leave where i leave not quite so much on my own terms. every company prior to this company i left because i had tendered my resignation. i left because i couldn’t stand the management, couldn’t stand the people, or couldn’t stand working there anymore. maybe it was that i didn’t believe in the product, maybe it was because i couldn’t stay working there, maybe it was just too far.
whatever the case may be, this is the first time where i haven’t quit. it’s the first time that i will be receiving a severance package (cool!) and it is the first time where a bunch of us are leaving on the same day.
i’m left with some mixed emotions. i’m sad because i really enjoyed the technology that i got to work on while here. i’m sad because i genuinely enjoyed working with the people that i worked with while here. and most of all, i just enjoyed going to work every day. towards the end, things started to feel a little tense. some people felt that we weren’t working quite as hard as we could have, but what motivation do we really have? maybe we weren’t quite as responsive as we could have, but the tone in some of the conversations that were taking place was completely unnecessary and frankly were quite upsetting. but at the end of the day, here we are, closing the doors.
but there are some things that i’m happy about. i’m glad and thankful that i have been able to secure employment elsewhere and that i don’t have to worry about money, making mortgage payments, and the like. i am happy that i am getting a severance package. fantastic. i am happy that i was given the opportunity to work here, to manage a great team, and develop some cool stuff. i’ve had some great experiences here and i will always take those with me.
it’s been a great ride. it’s time to move on to better things!
there is not very good documentation on how to hack the tomtom. it took me a lot longer to understand what i needed to do than it really should of. i’m not sure if this is because it was late at night last night and i was tired or if it was because the documentation i was reading was bad. tomtom runs on am embedded linux platform, so there is all sorts of cool things that you can do.
the easiest thing to do is to have custom menus. the default menus for toimtom are pretty good and i’m used to them now so making a change to the menus can actually be counterproductive to my productivity.
the next obvious thing to do is install a better mp3 player on your tomtom. i’m trying out the tomplayer which seems to be the most mature product so far, but i’m going to take a look at a few others to see what i like the most.
if you are thinking about hacking your tomtom (i’m hacking the tomtom go 720), you can read on after the fold. otherwise, it’s gonna be a boring post for the rest of you.
after fooling around with vista basic and mac os x, i’ve finally settled on 64-bit vista. it might not seem like a big deal, but a 64-bit version of windows makes quite a bit of a difference for me. this, however, is not necessarily a good thing.
pros:
cons:
what this really boils down to is whether or not you can find drivers for your hardware. for me, it’s been a mostly mixed bag. i cannot find 64-bit drivers for the touchpad made by dell. synaptics makes a driver, but there is no support for an emulated middle click. this absolutely kills me.
vmware server does not support a 64-bit OS. their paid product vmware workstation does, but man, server doesn’t. this was almost enough for me to give up 64-bit vista. but i really wanted to make use of all of the memory that i bought. paul told me to use virtual pc which does work…for the most part. video support for X doesn’t work out of the box, but it does install an OS.
trying to find 64-bit software is pretty difficult. firewall was one of the bigger challenges for me at first. my firewall of choice, zonealarm, does not produce a 64-bit version of their software. comodo firewall pro however does work and works fine for me. it’s better than the windows firewall, so i guess it’ll have to do.
antivirus support is still handled by avast, thankfully. it looks like avast uses a hybrid approach to scan for viruses, so a big part of the engine is still run in 32-bit mode. how much of a performance impact this is, i’m not sure. i haven’t noticed anything.
the bulk of the rest of my applications are still 32-bit though. everything seems to work for the most part. video drivers were manually updated from laptopvideo2go. that definitely made things more stable on the video front, but still the drivers are a little buggy from time to time. when vista first came out, i read an article that nvidia was responsible for nearly 25% of all vista crashes. crazy, huh?
it’s been several years now and with all of the heavy tv watching that i’ve done, i decided to go into the service menu and see how many hours of tv i have watched. it turns out that i’ve watched over 3800 hours of tv with this bulb. they say that the average lamp life of a samsung dlp tv is between 2000-4000 hours. kind of a big range there, eh? well, the brightness of the lamp has significantly decreased and it looks like it’s time to replace the bulb. i’m going to try to do the lamp install myself, it doesn’t look like it is that complicated. pictures to follow when i do it! i found the lamp for sale on ebay for considerably cheaper than other stores online. if you need to buy a DLP lamp, try ebay!1
this brings up the big question about whether or not i should buy a new tv or just get the lamp replaced. the problem is that i have a tv cubby the exact size of my current 46″ TV. the cubby makes it difficult to put a flat screen tv on the wall, so i think that it makes the most sense to just replace the bulb for $120 instead of buying a new $900 tv. besides, i should save my money towards the projector that i’m going to get. ah, yes, the joys of the projector will soon be realized. i can’t wait!
i haven’t made the projector order yet, i wasn’t able to place the order before i went on the camping trip and now i just don’t know why i’m shy about pulling the trigger. i think that i’ve done all of the research that i need to do and i’m pretty confident about my decision. i’m excited.
this is the last work week of the company that i’m working it. in just a couple of days, it will be shut down, never to be seen again. needless to say that there is actually very little work that needs to be done around here because we’ve pretty much closed shop.
i have committed to be around to help train someone who will stick around and babysit servers and shut things down gracefully. my employment ends at the end of the month as well as pretty much everyone except one busdev person and the hired gun to close up shop.
i anticipate that my training session won’t last very long and once i’m done with that, that will be the last thing that i’m responsible to do. luckily, there are only three days left of work including today, so i suspect that there are not many people who are going to be showing up.
in fact, we have been asked to submit our laptops already earlier this week. once i submit my laptop, i don’t know what i am going to do with myself at the office. it’s not like i can do ANYTHING without my laptop. i can’t even kill time effectively.
i start my next job next week, so no rest inbetween. kind of a bummer, but oh well. it’s not like i’m working very hard right now… =P
this weekend a bunch of us went to emerald bay state park for a camping weekend. there was good food, good times, and some good photography. on this trip, i packed with me two lenses. originally, i wanted to only shoot with the wide angle lens, but i was afraid that i wouldn’t be able to deal with the distortion on the 17-40mm, so i also brought along the trusty 24-70mm.
i had forgotten how much i loved the 17-40mm. just how wide is 17mm? well, let’s just say that it is not so wide that i got my feet in any of my shots, but i did struggle to make sure that my shadow wasn’t in the shot…especially the shadow that my camera cast on the subject when i tried to get really close to it.
i used to think that the canon 17-40mm f/4L was fantastically sharp. i also used to think that the 17-40mm didn’t have a lot of distortion. this is the first time that i’ve taken pictures with the 17-40mm on the 5D. on a full frame camera, this puppy is WIDE. it isn’t horribly soft, but it’s not as tack sharp as the 24-70mm. yes, there is tons of distortion and i really need to mind what i’m shooting or else it’s going to look horribly distorted.
all that said, MAN, this lens is fantastically contrasty. great contrast, great coverage, and it’s just hard to take a picture out of focus with this thing. i found a dust spot on my camera, so i’m going to need to clean the sensor soon. i think i’ll take a before and after photo when i do it.
it is really, REALLY hard to take macro pictures with this lens. it involves a lot of aggressive cropping. =P
it was a lot of fun to force myself to shoot the weekend wide, though.