For all of those with problems gaining access to the internet on your old Laptops with PCI to CardBus slots (where the Ethernet card just so happens to be parked), and were lucky enough to not know that MicroXP DOESN'T come with the PCMCIA driver for old PCI/CardBUs adaptors...I have Great news.
It's extremely hard to find these old drivers, but I found 1 place for the TE drivers (texas Instruments), and I had to figure it out myself for the Toshiba toPCI100 PCI to CardBus adaptor which I just so happen to have as well....
If you have the Texas Instruments CardBus, please Go here.
For those in my situation (with an old Toshiba Satellite) you will need a Copy of the XP SP3 CD, or a copy of the XP SP2 CD. These both contain the precious PCMCIA driver for your CardBus (Please Note: the Vista driver doen't support this old hardware, and thus the reason you need XP's Version of the driver).
Once you install, disable the use of the CardBus adaptor in the Device Manager, then restart your computer...once restarted, insert your Disk, so the Automatic Hardware discovery sees the disk.
You will likely need to Browse manually to the i386 folder and select it, since it for some reason might not on it's own. Do this for both existences of the PCMCIA CardBus, and restart Again. Shazam, you've got a working CardBus, make sure to install the appropriate drivers for your Ethernet card before hand as well. Just like that, internet is born.
Today the big sale is over. All the signs come down, and all is back to normal... Well back to normal prices at least.
A lot changed at a lot of stores over the last 3 months, managers leaving, promotions, stores closing, new stock in the stores, information of reptiles being sold, and a wider range of current products in the store.
Lets hope Dan Urbani can stay ahead and make the right decisions now...
We finally have a root, trusted certificate for our web server, provided by StartSSL.
With this certificate, I'm going to get the highest level of verification for Tensioncore's main site, and add regular ones to other Tensioncore Sites.
Something that is very interesting to me as well is the CA's WoT program, which sees Notary's to the Online presence of StartSSl, meaning People can issue Certificates, as well as verify users/site owners in person rather than online.
First on the list was to take the Start SSL Test, verifying that I know the rules of the program...Passed 10 out of 10.
The next step is to provide "Class 2 Identification", meaning I will need to provide 2 pieces of Photo Identification to StartSSL over Fax, email etc, or to meet with a Notary.
After this, I will need to meet with 2 notary's to prove my existence, and then become a notary myself.
So Niki and I just rode the Central Valley Greenway for the first time, and it was Great! (I'm going to refer to it as the CVG)
The Greenway doesn't officially open until the end of the month (27th), and it's very clear where some parts aren't finished, but it was still a complete course and a great ride!
This is a new walk/ride/etc trail which goes across the Vancouver Lower Mainland (25km).
The trail is about 60 to 70% paved, with some trails (fine gravel, not very rough). This being said, I did actually see 2 riders on Road bikes rather than Mountain Bikes.
It starts near New Westminster skytrain station, going east on Columbia, all the way to the Brunette River park, where it goes through towards Costco/Lougheed Mall, and up Government/Winston Street for a few miles until it gets to Sperling Burnaby Lake Skytrain station, and the new pedestrian overpass (part of the CVG), which then leads to a new pathway through the wooded area below the Millenium Line, for another mile or 2, until it reaches the industrial area south of Brentwood where it goes onto the road and leads to Gilmore Skytrain station. Once you're here, it actually starts a paved path that follows the Millenium Skytrain (underneath) right North Grandview Highway starts, following that to it's end at Clark Drive, where you go up to and then down East 6th/Great Northern Way... This is almost the end, then you take a turn down to eventually reach the end at Science World (Sorry Telus, I don't like your new name).
Anyways... Here's a route map from Translink's website (They developed and put the entire Central Valley Greenway together)
Overall, it took about an hour and 40 minutes to complete the trail from New West to Science World. Next time our goal is an hour and 15 minutes (the amount of time it takes me to go from new west to Granville street taking Kingsway)... so that will be a good challenge.
This is the newest development model I've developed for Tensioncore as a whole. I use C#, VB.net, PHP and MySQL to rapidly deploy new applications.
Using these languages and coding models together with MySQL connectors, intranet websites (secured) and Visual Studio, I've been able to produce single, ready-to-use applications in less than a work day (full production-use applications).
I might develop this story more later, I only just finished the minor tweaks over the last few days, just thought I'd share...
-Added Note:
I just realized that I've accomplished one of my goals in life; create a computer-related acronym! I always loved how Microsoft could repeatedly come up with new acronyms all the time and for years I've wanted to make my own, and now I have!! RCLAD
It was almost 3 weeks round trip. It is a "Certified Microsoft Xbox 360 Replacement Console", meaning (and explained in the included letter) that it is a factroy refurbished console, with a new serial number (technically the original of this particular console) as well as a free 1 month Xbox Live Gold subscription!
It's got the new firmware (dashboard), and a new Intercooler Fan which we bought from EB Games, which by the way works great!
A nice freebie in case anything else decides to strike us with bad luck, is that the new (refurbished) console comes with a full 3 month Warranty, and the continuation of it's original extended warranty.
...and only hours after getting it home, Niki has been playing her new Game on it for 2 of those hours--lol.
As an MSDN Plus subscriber, I really enjoy getting the fresh out-of-the-box Operating systems when they are posted, Windows 7 was no exception.
So far, my experience is far better than the first time around with the new OS. For starters it installed in like 20 minutes flat...compared to Vista which took nearly 3 hours the first time I installed it.
Secondly, an important thing for me since I test using Virtual Server 2005, is that the Virtual Machine Additions work like a charm from the moment I turned the virtual machine on. With Windows 7's Beta release the VPC (virtual PC) crashed whenever I attempted to load the VMAdditions, and not to mention BARELY WORKED. The performance is still an issue with RC1, but overall about 25 times better, faster and responsive.
The first thing to go to my black list is the UAC still being very intrusive with its entire screen overlay. Second...well I haven't got to a second yet.
Out of the box, it handles the enterprise-level networking like a walk to the grocery store (which for me is literally right around the corner). I have my virtual machines set up on a Virtual Network interface which is connected physically into my LAN so it has optimal performance. Oddly I usually have to do some network settings tweaks when I start a new VPC, but with Windows 7 I simply connected it to the network with Automatic Configuration, and everything was ready to go.
You can skip reading this parenthesis section if you only care about Windows 7 and not my network.
(You might be thinking: "well duh? what else would you do?", right? Well, with my network I've tailored most of it to require the manual configuration sort of as a security safe-gaurd, also mostly because I had no way to accomplish automatic governing before on my Windows Network other than the basic DHCP-Which I don't use for security reasons as well, rather I have a Domain Controller which has Group and Network Policy rules for joining computers)
...Back to the topic; I'm writing this post from Windows 7 on Firefox which seems faster than normal (on WS2008), a good plus. More importantly I DID NOT need to go into and configure my hosts file in order to view this website! (read it "DID NOT") (since the website is on the local intranet, 99 times out of 100 you need to add the website into your hosts file in order to view it in a browser at its domain name address).
Many applications I use have had 0 problem on Windows 7, although there are 2 apps originally designed for XP which don't work oddly enough, which sends me to my next plus point; Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode.
A new feature is available as a download for Windows 7 that essentially adds a Windows XP Pro Virtual Machine into your system. What this does is allows you to install programs to your Windows 7 machine that are meant for Windows XP, and run them IN Windows 7, while the program is being rendered and in fact run out of the "Windows XP Mode" virtual machine (seamless, fast, 100% virtual-made-compatibility with Windows 7).
The only downside to Windows XP Mode/Windows Virtual PC, is it requires Hardware Level Virtualization, and 2 gigs of ram.
I was very surprised and happy to see the Hostable Web Core added into Windows, since I've used this a couple times as a Great base for Mobile Websites.
As for the UI of '7 it's a nice clean update to the Vista interface which seems a little bland after using it now for 3 years. The taskbar is an incredible improvement to the sublte changes in the explorer add just enough touch for this OS to be a refreshing new look for 2009 (hopefully).
I guess Niki and I are the newest on a massively, indescribably, stupidly LOOOONG list of Xbox owners who have had to submit to the Big Man with our Xbox 360 and it's Red Ring of Death.
I can't believe how many thousands, or should I say Hundreds of Thousands (yes I paused while typing to Google) of search results come up on Google when I typed in 3 red lights flashing on xbox 360. Not only am I shocked at the amount of results, but the degree of which Microsoft KNOWS ABOUT THIS PROBLEM!
OH MY GOD! Everywhere you read and look, and glance, they have known about this since day 1!
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, there is a malfunction with Xbox 360's (that I thought to be rare, since when it happened I had no idea)...in which the of the 4 lights of the "ring" light up and flash red when you try to turn the system on. This I learn, is bad.
To correct it, unplug the system, plug it back in. It still doesn't work. Send in box to Microsoft for repair.
It's that blatantly stupid. Microsoft's terms and conditions, as well as Warranty have explicit information regarding your Xbox and it's 3 red flashing lights.
I'll repeat: Microsoft has known since day 1! And all you can do is send it in a box to get repaired (and pay if your 3 years have passed already), then get it back 3 weeks later.
I'm utterly shocked that it's so plastered everywhere about this problem, which apparently has effected thousands of Xbox 360 owners, and has dedicated websites, Youtube videos, DIY fixes and MANY Microsoft knowledge Base articles (all of which basically tell you to un plug it then plug it back in, and if that doesn't work then you gotta send it to get fixed).
I've finally finished my commenting system, so anyone can comment on my posts (well almost anyone... I do have some safe gaurds in place to prevent that thing we all hate...You know what I'm talking about haha)
Anywhoo. Some little finishing work and the website will be nearly complete, I think the only thing left to do is to fix the calendar thing on the side "Past Posts" and maybe some other minor things I can't think of at this very moment.
It seems a lot of people have one. Of MY name...but then again if you search Nick Dodd on Google, you might be searching for one of the many Professor Nick Dodd's that are out there...or maybe you just heard about me from someone or have one of my business cards randomly... (Funny becaue I've only given about 3 out since I made them last week)
Anyhoo, I have been browsing my hitlog...Yes my website has a hitlog, it doesn't collect any personal information though, just where the hit came from and the previous page visited)... and anyways, I have found a serious amount of google searches who's subject was none other than my name; Nick Dodd.
Another neat thing I have learned about my website from the hitlog, is that promoting works, also that frequent updates also work!! Google has a "Feedreader" crawler which I would presume is a crawler for sites such as this one, ones with frequent updates to content.... :)
Nickness