Messiahs

Why is it that America is so willing to help Haitian victims or Malaysians. Whoever. But we're unwilling to help each other. Like with national health care for instance.

What is this weird save the world, but screw our own mentality?

I don't get it.

Scanning in Vista

That handy camera and scanner wizard from XP was gone when I received my vista pc. That thing was great. That's the problem with microsoft. They tend to take away things people really like and replace them with tedious and frustrating 'innovations'.

Scanning is still possible in vista and 7. the windows photo gallery has a scanner option.

You can also create a shortcut to the scanner manager. it's location in vista is: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\wiaacmgr.exe

it's not as elegant nor as user friendly as the original wizard, but it does get the job done for the most part.

Although incidentally, I was forced to buy a new scanner because there were no 64 bit vista drivers for my old canon scanner. and although the new scanner came with the proper drivers vista still doesn't acknowledge that the flatbed scan area is gerater than 8.5x11. I can find no way to alter these default settings. an updated driver from canon perhpas. I haven't tried that. don't really care much. Really just miss the old XP scanner and camera wizard.

Fix Heroes

Dear Mr. Kring,

I can fix Heroes for you. Licketysplit.

Bring back Sylar.

Stop with all this chit chat. They're supposed to be heroes, not therapistts.

I am a steadfast fan. Read: one of those idiots still watching. But if something interesting doesn't happen soon I'm going to have to slit my wrists.

The problem with serialized television isn't the format... it's the poor writing. Character driven drams require actual characters. Preferably ones the audiences will embraces.

The villain is the cebtal figure. We are all villains. Or wish we were. Without the domiinant villain any story is just self-indulgent.

I'm beginning to regret rooting for the writers during the strike. The ones that work for NBC at least.

A Good Improvement In Vista... No Really!

Windows vista is pretty lame and annoying and all around not very good. But almost immediately after starting to use it I did find one feature I've always coveted and truly appreciate.

If you right click on the volume control in the systray and select open volume mixer you are presented with a menu of any possible sound making applications. You are able to adjust the volume or mute any individual application. Like FireFox for instance. You're listening to music via media player and want to play a game. Said game is noisy. Simply mute FireFox only. Play game to your own personal soundtrack.

No more annoying web advertisements talking at you through your computer. Just mute whichever app applies.

Now I realize as far as innovations in OSes this is pretty freaking lame. But for somehow who listens to music almost constantly and pretty much exclusively via computer this is a happy happy joy joy kinda improvement. One I have been wishing for for years. I guess Microsoft read my mind about that. Now if only they'd read my mind about the million other complaints i have maybe they'd actually have a good product.

I don't believe the hype about windows 7 and you shouldn't either. When the press is that kind to anything it's because they've been lubricated. I got windows 7 upgrade for free from dell, but haven't had the patience to try it yet.

I finally have vista working pretty much how I want it to. Lots of tweaks which I will try to detail in future posts. As a very long time windows user - since 3.1. Remember Program Manager anyone? I know the dangers of toying with a pretty good config.

Windows operating systems are very much like shallow, pretty people. They're not that bright, but they get by on their good looks. And if you want to upgrade it's always going to cost you.

Secondary Harddrive Sleep Problems in Vista

When I recently bought a new pc from dell I was unwilling to pay them twice the price of a second harddrive just for the convenience of having them put it in. Installing harddrives is easy. I had already paid twice the price for extra RAM. Even though that's even easier to install I didn't want to do the parity and RAM type dance. I had enough to do moving all my files. Since new pcs use serial ata cables I couldn't swap my old IDE cable personal data harddrive into the new pc. Thank goodness for external harddrives. Because somewhere along the line I lost my usb to usb transfer cable.

Anyway after I got everything all good on the new pc. I went to amazon and bought a decent sized sata harddrive for the new computer. It was a cinch to install in the existing secondary drive bay. Go into windows drive config, format, wait a bit and bang... second drive at half the price.

Everything was fine until windows chided me to do some updates yet again. All of a sudden my poor 2nd drive was totally schitzophrenic. It would go on and off all kinds of crazy even though harddrive were supposed to go off only after 35 minutes of inactivity.

I struggled for a long time with this. Vista sporadically shutting down and spinning up my 2nd harddrive. I never wanted vista. I didn't really have a choice though. Unless I wanted to pay $170 for dell to give me xp on my new computer. Um... No. I will figure it out. I will make it work for me.

My initial emergency fix for the drive was simply to play songs from that drive via media player. The drive being in constant use could not be shut off or on by windows.

I scoured google for answers. An intel fix suggested to delete the entire parameters folder inside the registry key located at hkey_local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\services\istorv

i first exported the entire key by right clicking, selecting export and choosing a place and name to save it by. I then deleted the parameter folder and by proxy all reg entries within it. I rebooted and waited. Listening carefully for the sound of the harddrive cycling on or off.

While this fix did increase the time between cycles it did not fix the problem. It did make it possible to set harddrives off to never in advanced power setting and actually have it behave that way. Where prior to this that setting was completely useless.

I then read that someone else with a similar issue had gone into hkey_local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\service\istor\parameter and altered the values for lpmdstate and lpm from 1 to 0.

Exported the entry again and then edtitted the existing. Rebooted. Waited. Longer time between cycles, but still nonsensical and annoying.

Then made up my own solution. Just a guess. deleted the whole istorv parameter folder just as I had done for istor without the v. Saving a copy first. Rinse. repeat. Still not clean. Actually this seemed to send the problem back to its worst state. Constant on and off only on second harddrive.

During all my searching I read some things about certain harddrives behave this way on vista. Something about their firmwave. Something else about a bug in a few vista updates that treat secondary harddrives as if they are laptop drive even though they are in desktops. But these were ancient updates now bundled in service pack. Not undoable at this stage of the game.

Went to western digital. No firmware updates for this drive. No firmware updates for most of their drives.

Went to dell. Clicked support. Was already logged in. They had my machine info stored in there. Looked for update downloads. Found one for my Dimension 435MT that related to the Intel chipset on the motherboard. Downloaded. Debated for a while whether to try installing. Didn't want to make things worse. Sometimes driver updates only exacerbate the problem. Though often they do fix it. Vista just had me all paranoid really.

Finally decided - fuck it. Installed the new driver.

Rebooted. Listened. Waited.

Yay! Normal harddrive function on the secondary drive. Obeying windows sleep settings.

I win!

Now if only I could figure out how to make my main monitor display the boot screen (instead of my secondary tv monitor) I'd be all set.

Oh well. I still won. And vista is back to being my bitch. Sorta.

Spiked Heels

Why wear clothes when you can just strut around in high heels. Princesses don't wear dirty lingerie. They don't wear anything at all. Except their shoes. The gods of feet create the ocassional miracle. Like metal stilettos. And thigh high boots. You can't imagine what she's got on. Because it's nothing.

Just toes peeking out from tight stitches in patent leather. And thighs trembling in tall shafts of calf skin.

She booted the bouncer and took the bartender to bed with her instead. A cunning manipulation. She wanted neither of them. So many choices. None correct.

She fantasized about demi bras adorned with fretting lace. And boxer shorts pulled snug on erect penises.

She had always worn platform heels. Or else crazy fetish boots. But when she put on the understated pump it was obvious. She had overlooked something quite seductive.

So many men. So many choices. Who likes womens in high heeled boots?

According to her experience. All of them.

Party Dresses

Braggart faction consulting with the soul. Manipulate the aristocracy of skin. She walks in high heels. She walks in leather boots. That chafe her thighs as she orders wanders. In and out of her various skins.

Small dresses make her tall. When she bends over to grab the coins I have tossed into the fountain. Palsy wishes on the cusp of enlightenment. Cry the pause in time. As her heel catches deep in the chewing gum.

The braids in her hair thick with ribbons. No bows to speak of. As the knots come undone. The pills in her hand. Light with freedom. Heavy with habit.

She sees the window. Broad and transparent. And wants to try on every gown. But the shop is closed. And party is over.