Remembering 9/11

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It’s weird how everytime something REALLY bad happens in the world, you tend to not only remember it for a long time, but also where you were/what you were doing when it happened. I still remember it like it was yesterday. 9/11/01 started out like every other day for me as I was chilling at home during the semester break from uni. I got up in the morning, enjoy my breakfast and newspaper and went on to play some XBox later on. Once I turn on the tv, flipping through the channels looking for nothing special, just zapping, I came to channel 23 (which is CNN on my tv) and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

I sat there in shock as the whole thing was evolving in front of the world’s eyes. As soon as the second plane hit, I knew that there was something horribly wrong…I watched the whole day until there was nothing new to report anymore…friends were calling in to talk about it and we all couldn’t believe what was going on. An attack on the USA? With american planes? In the middle of NY City? Wtf is going on? Is the world gone insane…

As I type this, six years later, I still can’t figure out how someone could do something like this and so all that is left for me is to say: my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their friends and families…may something like this NEVER happen again…

remembering 9/11

Do you like Backgammon? How about Blackjack?

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If you like the game of backgammon you might be familiar with Backgammonmasters.com and their all-in-one game software, which not only features the game of backgammon but also other games like perudo and poker.

The software is available in ten different languages, so it really doesn’t matter if you’re speaking english or german, french or greek, chances are that you’ll get a version which will suit your needs just fine and it’s not just that which has made this software one of the industry’s leading softwares. They’ve got a strong following of players and you should be able to find a game of your choice most of the time.

…and now, the software and platform have become even stronger. Why? Because they added one of my favourite games (apart from poker): BlackJack or 21 as it’s sometimes called over here. So, whether you’re interested in just Backgammon, just poker, just perudo, just BlackJack or any combination of the above…check out Backgammonmasters.com…btw if you aren’t familiar with the rules of BlackJack, why don’t you head over to the BlackJack-Article-section and get up to speed?

Want to own a piece of a football team?

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The new season in good ol’ Engerlund has kicked off and for the first time in a few years I didn’t signup for the manger game as someone (you know who you are) either didn’t start a league this year or forgot to invite me. Oh well…I’m mostly busy with my diploma thesis anyway…so maybe it’s best that way.

Speaking of footie…I just came across this site and I gotta say I love the idea of buying a footie team with the help of some thousand ppl…although I’m a little bit sceptical about the whole thing. Is it really a good idea to have that many “voting members”? Maybe, maybe not…I’m going to keep an eye on the site and see how it’ll go…

PayPerPost.com – a nice new revenue stream for me

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It’s been a while since I’ve been looking for new ways to monetize my blogs. To my surprise there is a new, in my humble opinion, cool way to earn some money blogging. The site is called payperpost
 and the concept of it is quite simple.

If you’re a blogger, you signup and register your blog with the site. As soon as your blog has been accepted into the program (which didn’t take longer than a few minutes with Ingoal.info), you can wander around the “open opportunities” section and see who’s willing to spend money on blog posts.

The listings include all the information you need: the requirements you need to fulfill (e.g. minimum PageRank, Alexa Score), the blog categories that the advertiser is willing to accept (e.g. General Entertainment, General Technology, Sports/Outdoor Recreation, etc) and if the advertiser requires disclosure (that your post is payed advertisement). Once you found an offer which is appealing to you (either topic- and/or money-wise), you can take the opportunity and get right to it. Once you’re done writing the post (and pasting the required tracking codes into the post), you submit the title and url of the blog post and wait for approval and you’re done. Easy as 1-2-3.

A beautiful feature is that you can either keep the money or you can donate it to a good cause (e.g. Red Cross) right away, how cool is that. Now, you might ask yourself why I would consider PayPerPost as I experimented with other pay per (blog) post sites. The answer is easy, because they won’t take a huge cut out of your earnings which means more net income for you. So, if you’re looking for another revenue stream for your blog, check out payperpost.com!

Repair and update

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I decided to give repair of my good old Laserjet 5 a shot and it worked out pretty nicely. After getting the new toner cartridge and printing some dozen test prints everything is back to normal. Groovy. To celebrate the “success”, I decided to upgrade the printer…so I fired up ebay and started looking for a duplex-unit, the last available upgrade for my printer. I found one pretty quickly and I’m happy to say: not only is my printer up and running again, no, it’s more than that. It’s a fully equipped printing beast now ;-)

Speaking of updates: As you might have noticed I decided to get a new theme…Ingoal’s Insight is about to hit the three year anniversary…so I thought a new look would be a nice touch…hope you all like it…

To repair or not to repair

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R.I.P. LJ5n?!

Yesterday something ugly happened. My trusty old network printer, a HP Laserjet 5n, bugged out on me. I printed some documents and there was a paperjam. Usually that would be no big deal, but this time it was. The toner cartridge thought it was a good idea to spill loads of toner onto the paper in print. Combine that with the paperjam (in the fuser) and you have the ultimate ugly ugly ugly result. The toner pile on top of the jammed paper melted into the fuser. Did you ever see how some grams of toner look like after they’ve been cooked? Me neither…until yesterday that is :-(

So now the big question for is: should I try to repair the damage or should I buy a new (used) printer to replace the whole thing?

I think there’s a chance that I can clean out the fuser…if that was the case I would just need a new toner cartridge and it would be as good as new. But if not…it’s really not worth the effort as the fuser unit is the most expensive part of the whole printer and what’s even worse, you can get one of it’s successors (e.g. the 4050n, sometimes even the 4050dn including the duplex unit) for less than 100 Euros these days…

New laptop arrives, the joy

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So, today the UPS man dropped off my new laptop and I started to play around with it. This is really one fine machine:

1. It looks terrific with the black piano finish on top (I hope that I can keep it from getting majorly scratched by using a tucano second skin, which is like a diver suit, neopren, fitting the laptop like a glove)

2. The display is nice…1280×800…more than enough screen real-estate for my needs

3. It’s light (2.39kg)…

4. It’s fast (I didn’t grab a screenshot of the windows performance ranking, but the lowest score is 3.8 on 3D, everything else is well above 4 (4.6, 4.8, etc)), I like! High-five!

5. Battery life could be better…it ships with a 4 cell battery so the actual runtime is somewhat limited (roughly 3h)…maybe I’ll get the highcapacity battery (double capacity, 8 cells) in the future…for now, I’m fine though as it’s not going to be “on the road” (without a power outlet in reach) for an extended period of time…

So…I’m exited and looking forward to using this bad boy to do some (semi)mobile writing and playing in the months (and/or years) to come :-)

New laptop selected, ordered and shipped

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I finally ordered my new laptop today. I was looking around for months now and it seemed that I just couldn’t find “the” perfect model. My requirements were:

1. max 14.1″ screen…15.4″ screens are fine, but having a 15.4″ screen means that the things is at least 16.x” wide (15.4″ + frame)…usually models sporting a 15.4″ screen are heavy (around 3+ kg)…and due to the big screen the battery runtime is usually low(er) too…

2. decent vga…integrated intel and stuff is cool, but not really…especially as I tend to hold on to laptops for quite some time (I bought my current laptop, an IBM Thinkpad, 6 years ago), so it should be at least up to par now so that’ll still be “okay” in a few years…

3. at least 1GB of ram…better 2GB…dual channel…yadda-yadda…

4. don’t care much about hdd size but 80GB would be fine and a DVD burner would be nice too…

5. shipped with Vista

6. not the most expensive one out there

7. service…at least two-year warranty with at pickup service or better…

8. screen resolution of at least 1024×768…but preferred would be some widescreen format (e.g. 1280×800)…

Given those requirements, it was a real hard task to find a compromise between some of them – 14.1″ models are usually far more expensive than 15.4″ models as 15.4″ is the biggest seller these days, so I guess the panel prices are way cheaper. Some models are still only available with Windows XP. Other models have 14″ screens, but only a 1024×768 resolution. Some models are looking good in pictures, but when you touch them in real life, they feel cheap and not really fit for everyday operation. etc etc

To make a long story short, I finally decided to go with the new Samsung R20-Aura line. There are only two models available in that line, so not much to chose from, but they are exactly what I was looking for. The difference between the models (Deva / Declan)? They’re exactly the same…except for the CPU…so chipset, ram, video card, hdd, dvd burner, software, everything is the same…

Deva – Core 2 Duo T7200 (2x2GHz, 4MB Cache)

Declan – Core Duo T2350 (2×1.86GHz, 2MB Cache)

Now, I always want to go with the newest stuff and all and a Core 2 Duo system would be nice, but I decided to go with the Core Duo model. Why? Let me explain…

Yeah, Core Duo isn’t the current line of Intel mobile processors, but it’s a kickass CPU and probably more CPU power than I’ll ever use (as this notebook will be used as a mobile computer, not as a desktop replacement) and you just can’t beat the price difference. I ordered it with 2GB of ram, 120GB HDD, DVD burner, Vista Home Premium, the whole shebang…and what’s the price difference between the two models (which are exactly the same minus the CPU)? 400 Euro (that’s roughly 545$)…you can keep your 2 between the Core and Duo for that fellows ;)

…the best thing is that I ordered it this afternoon and they called me up five minutes after I had placed my order to confirm everything. The said it would be shipped tonight and earlier on I received a mail with the UPS tracking code…wheee…it really left their shop tonight and now, in the middle of the night, I just rolled into the UPS depot for my area…so…I expect to be playing on and with it tomorrow…the excitement :)

Specs:

T2350 – 1.86GHz Core Duo

2GB Ram

Ati x1250 video card (max 256MB, which will leave me with 1.79GB of ram)

120GB HDD

DVD-Burner

Vista HomePremium

14.1″ Widescreen WXGA screen (1280×800)

Piano-style finish (shiny black)

Hunt for a new notebook

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I’ve been in the hunt for a new notebook for ages now and I’m finally getting tired of it. There are just so many models to chose from and it seems that “the perfect one” just isn’t out there, or at least I can’t find it.

If it got everything I want (nice screen, at least 1GB ram, DVD burner, 80GB HDD, Windows Vista), it’s battery life sucks – how come that a NEW super-duper notebook with kickass technology has a battery life of 2 hours?! Are you serious…my 6 year old notebook used to run that long…sigh.

Then again, if the battery life is awesome, something else just doesn’t seem right. Sigh.

This is really getting annoying and I think I finally settled on a model. 14.1″ WXGA (1280×800) seems the perfect match for me as I don’t like the cloggy 15,4″+ screen models…either I want a notebook or a desktop-replacement…and I don’t see myself hauling a 15,4″ notebook around. Downside: 14.1″ WXGA screens are not the norm (which would be 15,4″ these days) and so those models are usually quite expensive. Sigh. So I had a long look around all the different models and I ended up with the Samsung R20-Aura line. Now the only question left is…go with the highend (2x2GHz Core 2 Duo) or subtract a little cpu power and 1GB of ram (same chipset, same mobo, same DVD, same hdd, but 2×1.83GHz Core Duo) and save 500 Euro…decisions, decisions. I’m leaning toward the Core Duo model though…yes, it’s not the latest cpu, but hey, it’s more computing power than imagine myself using on the road anyway and saving 500 Euro, seems like a good thing to do…

Now I only need to wait for the Samsung people to get back to me as the specs are screwed up on their sites and flyers…one is saying that the CPU is 2×2.16GHz, which can’t be right, but no shame in asking, same goes for the battery…there’s a normal battery (38,48Wh) and a longlife battery (76,96Wh)…but there’s no mention about which battery is included? The normal one, the highcapacity one, both? I guess I’ll find out soon enough if their email-support get’s their behinds into gear…

Vista upgrade done

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Well, it’s not really an upgrade, it’s more like a switch as the upgrade process didn’t work (see here). So, I did a complete backup of my system partition and fire up the install. Surprisingly enough, it worked like a charm and the system was up and running in less than two hours. The only bad thing with this “clean install” is that I had to reinstall all the programs. Oh well…now that it’s done, it’s done and it feels good to have this whole thing up and running – probably a better idea than to hop around hoping for the upgrade to work and spending hour after hour with it.

The only thing that’s bothering me: Why does a clean install work like a charm when the upgrade process doesn’t? I mean, I didn’t install anything different or anything, no hardware or software change (as I installed exactly the same stuff that was on it before with Windows XP Pro)…weird…

So…my initial review of Windows Vista Business:

  1. Look and feel: sweet…although it’s a matter of taste…do you really need all the transparency and stuff? The answer is quite simple: not really. But if you’ve got the resources (e.g. CPU, ram, video card) anyway, why not…
  2. Performance: Everything is running smoothly, although Vista gave my video card (nvidia onboard model) only a 2.5 (which is rather low end on the performance scale). Everything else is way up there though (X2 3800+, 2GB ram, SATA HDD, …), especially since I added another gig of ram today gotta love that the price of DDR2 ram dropped by a third since december (back then around 90 Euro/GB, now 60 Euro/GB).
  3. Sidebar: I love it and the widgets errm gadgets are sweet…I especially like the multi-meter and the weather gadget so far…
  4. Compatibility: Well, after installing program after program I gotta say that most of the stuff I usually have on my pc is running fine. The only downside so far was that I couldn’t install divx as it doesn’t support Vista (yet), that’s a bummer.
  5. Sure? Sure? Sure? Click! Click! Click! This is one of the most annoying things I’ve ever seen. Why oh why do you ask me again and again if I want to do x? Hello, I’m an admin here, I told you to do so…so get off my back – I guess I need to search around a little to figure out if there’s a way to circumvent and/or disable this whole question/answer thing…
  6. Startup time: A little slower than Windows XP Pro, but not all that much (I would say around 10-20% slower).

Screenshot

Windows Vista upgrade nightmare

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So…as you already know I received my (upgrade) copy of Windows Vista (Business) this week…today, I tried to do the upgrade…so…backup all important files and do the upgrade boogy…

1.5h later…almost done….BSOD….reboot…options: Restore XP…errm?! Okay….

1h later…rollback done…check dump file…ntfs stop message…hmm…

0.5h later…search and search and search….nothing to be found about the particular stop code in relation to Win XP or Vista or an upgrade to Vista…nice, not!

1h later…do the whole checkdisk shebang and all…uninstall some software and stuff…try again….

1.5h later…upgrade almost done….BSOD…reboot… options: Restore XP…errm?! Okay….

1h later…rollback done…check dump file…ntfs stop message…hmm…

Curse, curse, explicit, curse, curse…

Who the hell designed that upgrade process? If there’s an error during the upgrade, why the hell is the only option a rollback? Why can’t I select, please try again using setting x, y or z? No, I need to do the whole rollback and I’m back at square one…what a joke.

So…all that’s left to try is:

1. Do an image of the current install…

2. Do a clean install of Vista…

3. Pray and hope…

4.* Install the whole software shebang again, because the stupid upgrade didn’t work…

5.* Enjoy Vista…

* – if 3. helps and the setup works this time…so sick…