Upgrade
I kept my old tower and PSU which are still pretty nifty, and just updated the following:

• MSI P55-CD53, Socket-1156 Motherboard
• Intel i5 Quad Processor i5-760 2.8 ghz
• 8 GB RAM
• 120 GB Corsair Force Series SSD
• Gainward GeForce GTX 460

Damn you Samsung!
After doing this, I found to my dismay that the stupid Samsung Syncmaster 225bw started to act up, with the error message “Not Optimum mode” blinking.

That’s not to say that the monitor did not work, it worked perfectly 55% of the time, and not at all the remaining 45%.

I would boot up into windows, and the screen would be black with the “Not Optimum Mode” message flashing extremely quickly, even though the resolution and update frequency was set to the monitors native values. The problem even presented itself when Installing Windows 7 (64 bit).

I found an interesting “fix”, after waiting 10 minutes without using the computer (win 7 default), the screen would go to sleep mode. If I then clicked a button or moved the mouse, there was a 55% chance the monitor would work normally, otherwise it would just continue with the error message. This was the oddest part, that it sometimes worked even though no settings or any changes were made in the display settings on the computer.

After some googling I found that lots of other people have been getting the same error, and tried several solutions everything from creating custom refresh rates (60.001 hz) and using powerstrip. But nothing worked. So I decided to call Samsung support, who kept claiming there was nothing wrong with the monitor since it worked on another computer, an obviously fallacious statement, as I pointed out “there is nothing wrong with the computer since other monitors works great on it”, and by this logic neither the monitor or computer is to blame for the error.

I could have sent it in for testing, but that would likely just be a waste of money seeing that the monitor works nicely on other computers and my old computer. So they would just have charged me for testing it. Instead I got myself a BenQ XL2410T 120 hz monitor bundled with Nvidia 3d Vision. And I don’t regret that for a second, I was getting sick of that horrible bleeding on the top and bottom of the Samsung screen, so this new one with greater resolution (full hd), better response time, better contrast, etc.. is MUCH more comfortable. I’ll probably write up a review of the 3D part soon, but so far it’s pretty awesome on some games =)

Now this wordpress is running on the new server (Serenity) and it’s alot faster, and I’ll be moving 4-5 other wordpress installs over to this new server in the next couple of days.

That way I can do complete wordpress backups automatically for all wordpress installations and a full mysql dump automatically

Who can’t remember that godawful piece of crap video format/player called Real Player?

Seeing that format and player failed miserably, RealNetworks inc had to invent another way to push crappy malware infested junk on people, and voila: RealArcade is born.

RealArcade.com is a site which has lots of small games you can buy and download (It’s a really crappy version of Steam).

Here are the effects that have manifested themselves so far while trying to install a Demo of tropix 2:

• It first nags you to install a browser toolbar (always a good indicator of crappy unprofessional software)
• You get to select a install directory, but it places a xml file in the parent directory just for fun
• It installs lots of files directly on your C: drive (RealArcade.exe, lots of DRM crap, and some directories).
• Uninstalling  does NOT remove all the files this shitty software leaves around your computer
• It seems to mess with the Windows firewall, which now tries to block everything (including Firefox).

So my advice to anyone who is contemplating getting a real arcade account or downloading anything from it:

DON’T!

I really like it, and it makes flying (civilian) aircrafts very fun =)

It’s a bit large and bulky to place on the desktop, but it works very well and has a nice authentic feeling.

Let there be USB

As my computer is located in another room, 5 meters away from my desktop, I had to do some changes to the setup when I got this joystick.

I managed to replace 5 five meter long cables going from my computer to my desktop with 2 five meter USB cables (with repeaters). Before I had 2 audio cables (for microphone + headset) and 1 audio cable for the speakers, 2 PS/2 cables for mouse/keyboard, I also removed a s-video cable I was no longer using.

New sound card
Now I have a Creative SB X-FI go! USB sound card on my desk. This is much better than the integrated sound on my motherboard, and I can actually use my microphone to scream out stuff when I play Left 4 dead. I also bought a new headset to replace my old busted one. I got the Creative Fatal1ty gamer headset, which is awesome.

New mouse
I also bought a new USB mouse, as I was SICK of my wireless mouse and it’s appetite for batteries, and often I forgot to charge my spare batteries, so I had to steal the wii-controller batteries from Stacy which always pissed her off. I bought a pretty simple mouse, a Logitech MX518. Which I used before at work. It’s nice to have some extra buttons to bind as “push to talk” button for Ventrilo.

With USB on my desktop, I can now use my bamboo drawing tablet on my main pc, and not just the laptop.

Chuck is a action comedy (more comedy than action) series about a computer nerd who gets a big database of government secrets uploaded into his brain. He works at Nerd Herd (the support department) of a local electronics retailer who has lots of interesting and weird characters.

After getting the database put in his head, he invoulentarily becomes a “spy” working with two operatives from the NSA and CIA.

The series is filled with humor, interesting situations and is really fun to watch. The series started in 2007, and season 2 just finished. Have only watched the first season yet.

I love all of the nerd humor in the show

• Chuck speaks klingon
• Chuck has a sandworm costume (from Dune)
• A ninja tries to steal Chuck’s computer
• Chuck needs bandages after playing to much Call of Duty
• Chuck installs Linux
• etc..

And I cant wait for the episode called “Chuck Versus the Delorean”

Here are some crappy images I made with the pencil and paintbrush tool:

This is a tool that allows you to view information about the java programs currently running on your computer (or a remote computer). It does not seem to provide as much information as JConsole or JManage, but it still gives the most essential information. Besides the tool is still pretty new (version 1.0), so I’m sure we will see lots of improvement in the near future.

Monitoring provides basic information about uptime, memory usage, threads and some other stuff:

The application also has a rudimentary profiler which allows you to see which methods are using cpu cycles, and which objects are hogging all the memory,

The program can also do a heap dump, allowing you to see the size and number of instances of each class. You can also inspect each and every object to view it’s variables and references:

The profiling part was pretty simple and would benefit from more work, but overall I’m pretty sure this tool(even though a bit low on features/information in it’s current state)  will be a big hit, and a good entry to profiling and application management to many people.

A very nice feature I did not take a screenshot of is a visual timeline view of all the threads and which state they are in, very smooth   The software is also suppose to let you view core dumps, but did not get a chance to test this feature tonight.

So I finally connected a keyboard and screen and set everything up the way they was, which meant I could commit the changes I did to the Trekwar game to the server, and get them on this computer and grab some screen shots.

Friday
It is now possible to move your fleets around the map, Client allows you to press the tile the fleet should move to and then tells the server to move the ships.

Saturyday

Fixed a bug where the local copy of the move orders where not updated properly, implemented the starsystem controll window:

Sunday
Implemented build orders, now possible to build structures on planets. Queue not implemented yet.

Airplane
On the airplane back home I implemented the asteroid belts (high-altitude programming is fun).
Notice the beautiful asteroids drawn in mspaint on my laptop’s touch pad

I had to connect my Samsung Syncmaster 225bw to the server so that I could change the ssh port back to normal (had changed ssh port, but did not change the firewall, so I was locked out from connecting to it).

The monitor has been connected to my desktop computer using DVI, but I had to connect it to the server using VGA. However when connecting the screen back to the desktop the screen would NOT work using DVI, it only worked in safemode.. I tried lots of crap, searched lots of forums but nothing there worked. In the end I had to boot in VGA mode (640×480) and remove and reinstall the nvidia drivers..

Now everything seems to work fine again, except I lost 1-2 hours of my life (and maybe a week indirectly by the stress, anguish and hatred towards monitors the event caused me).

SERENITY NOW!!!!