Paint Shop Pro 5.0

I wipe out my main system every 6 months or so ... to clean any viruses, slowdowns, or bad installs. It's a habit I have and it keeps my system running in tip-top order. So I rummaged through some of my archive DVDs of software I bought trying re-install all my old programs.

I came across Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 5.0. What a cool little paint program. This was one of my initial purchases and it has more than paid for itself over and over. I haven't found much of a reason to upgrade to newer versions, as with all the new features come the more complicated menus, slower load times, and just plain annoyances. I know my PSP 5 and I'll stick with it thank you, unless Corel (the new owners) decide to go back to the grass-roots of PSP.

Regardless, now that they have gone through 3 more versions they seem to assume there is no more reason to support the old 5.0 version. And I know there was a 3rd and final patch which fixed some bugs and updated some features.

Anyways, since I could not easily find it on the web I am providing a download link to the update (not the actual program!) for those who find this piece of software to still be useful.

Here is the link psp503up.exe

Enjoy! Hopefully Corel doesn't crap on me for doing this.

Replacing the LCD hinges of a Dell Inspiron 4150

My trusted workhouse, the Dell Inspiron 4150 laptop that I bought about 4 years ago had its right LCD hinge broken. Granted 3 years was beyond the useful life expectancy of a laptop (in my opinion) , which is basically when my factory extended warranty ran out. So everything after I considered "gravy". The laptop did its job and did its job well.

So, about 2 months ago the right-hinge broke (the side with the double-leg hinge, opposite the side with the LCD ribbon cable). Now, where do I find somebody to fix it? I was pretty handy and so I decided to search on the Internet for a company to sell me the replacement part.

Most people are under the understanding that at the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold ... in my experiences, eBay is at the end of my rainbow. If you're looking for some obscure object or part, somebody is bound to have sold it or currently selling it on eBay.

Most objects can be had for a bargain on eBay, but there are a group of people ("group" is used loosely) who insist on selling the item for a bargain-basement price, but charge something ridiculously high for shipping & handling. Hence was my case when I needed an LCD hinge for a Dell Inspiron 4150. Most of the sellers were asking $9.99 for a single buy-it-now price but wanted something in the range of $40USD for shipping. I tend to avoid those people at all cost.

Regardless, I found somebody who would ship the replacement part at a reasonable cost for shipping and the part itself. Although the seller indicated the hinge was sold loose (in my opinion, means sold without the LCD panel) it was actually in a condition where it would not hold the LCD panel up.

Dell Poweredge SC420 XP video card drivers

I'm a Dell nut. I admit it. I've had nothing but horseshoes with Dell machines.

I bought a used Dell Poweredge 2300 with dual P2-300 cpus. It was noisy but it was dual CPU system. It also produced a lot of heat, but that warmed up my basement during the winter months.

I bought my next brand new Inspiron 4150 laptop with the works. I loved that laptop. It has a P4 1.6ghz cpu with 512mb memory and a 30gb hard drive. I am still using it today, aside from a temporary setback of broken LCD hinges which forces me to use a docking station and an external monitor (more on that in another post).

Then came the Dimension 2400, the Poweredge 1550, the set of Poweredge 750s and the Dell Poweredge SC420. My reason for buying Dells? They are cheap and I haven't had a problem with one since that first dual cpu system (granted, the laptop had its fair share of problems but due to its age and the wear and tear that it endured).

Regardless I love my Dells even despite their quirks, and trust me every Dell has a quirk. My Poweredge SC420 I picked up for $499 ($575 w/tax) and is my fastest system. A Pentium 4 3.4ghz initially with 128mb of DDR2 ECC memory.

It's first quirk was the requirement to run DDR2 ECC memory. I don't know why I didn't pay attention when I bought it, but ECC memory was expensive and hard to find, not to mention the fact that it was ECC DDR2 ! I did some digging and it turns out that non-ECC DDR2 worked fine so I ordered 2gb worth on eBay for a decent price. Everything works fine.

Remember, this system was labelled as a "server" and was intended to be used as such. This was my second mistake. There were no drivers for the onboard Intel graphic card. Most of you are probably thinking, well you should be using AGP or PCIe anyways. Granted, for all you gaming deadheads who buy $1500+ systems to play games when you should've bought a Sony Playstation/Microsoft XBox ! This system was to be my primary system ... audio, video and development so I needed XP drivers. Unfortunately there were none. Only for Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.

I won't go into the lengthy discussion of "hacking" the crippled PCIe slot and what some people on the Internet have risked to achive this hack.

So after some digging I ran across a website called PowerEdge Forums which had an active discussion on the Windows XP video drivers issue. Essentially, the solution was to install a software patch to fool Windows into thinking the onboard graphics chip was actually another almost identical Intel chip with Windows XP drivers. Then, install the drivers for that card and off you go! The tip actually worked and I've been using it since, but after a recent re-install of Windows XP I could no longer find an active link to the drivers and patch.

So, here you go:

1. Unzip and right-click the ".inf" file and select install for the software patch : SoftGMA005.zip

2. Reboot the system (if it hasn't asked you already)

3. Install these Windows XP drivers from another Intel video card that actually works in XP : win2k_xp1416.exe

Enjoy!

I love Snapstream BeyondTV

I was wandering the software aisle of Best Buy just before my trip to Vail, Colorado. I came across a piece of software called BeyondTV by a company called Snapstream. I had years before purchased a Hauppauge tv tuner card, then later a Hauppauge tv tuner with FM radio, and then later an MSI TV @nywhere. I thought the whole concept of recording tv was a cool idea.

Nothing ever really became of those hardware purchases. The software for the Hauppauge cards were unexciting and just plain "blah". The MSI card was a bit better as it came with some scheduling software but somehow never got used much (besides the fact that the box advertised MPEG4 encoding but it never did...). It too turned out to be a dud because of the bundled software. And because I was never a Linux nut I never tried any of the UNIX tv pacakges available.


So anyways, I installed the Snapstream software and to my amazement this was one piece of slick software! The software was truly marvelous. The user-interface was easy and simple to work with. I started out with a 40gb hard drive. Then it moved to an 80gb. Now I've got a 250gb hard drive in the machine, and am thinking of putting in another 250gb because I only have 10hrs of space left.

Let me first explain. Beyond TV is a software package than when coupled with a compatible tv tuner card on your PC will allow you to record tv programs from your tv cable without any intervention. Do you want to catch every episdoe of Lost, House or Reba without having to stay at home? This can do it. Set it up to record a single episode or every single episode that airs from today forward? This can do it.

This essentially bundles the features of a TIVO (which isn't available in Canada) and a Rogers PVR (the local cable company offering) but without the rental fee. Sure it might be overkill, but I've got extra PCs lying around with all these tv tuner cards. Great!

Now, all I need to do is find time to watch all these recorded shows.

The Summer of George

It's funny how ahead of its time the show was, Seinfeld was really an impressionable tv show. Too many times in life have I thought that my life runs a course too parallel to the episodes of Seinfeld.

Over the last week with the warm summer-like weather gripping the Ontario, Canada region never have I felt so thrilled and eager to enjoy summer. Partly because my winter was so dismal (I wish it would snow 365 days a year - because I love skiing). I began to start thinking that great things were to happen to me this summer - the summer of George - well, the summer of Ted.

Although the similarities end there - I am not short, stalky or balding. And I'm kinda iffy-iffy on the whole velour concept.

eBay is an addiction

eBay is an addiction. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that can admit to that fact. There are just too many nostalgic items on eBay too easy to get a hold of. I started out small, but now I'm practically buying at least 1 item every week.

I grew up watching my father tap his fingers and hands on the steering wheel of his 1975 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. It was a brown-bronze colour. Don't ask me why he picked that colour, I just accepted it. We were always out with the family on a Sunday (back in the good old days when stores when everything was closed on Sundays except for churches and the Ali Baba buffet breakfast in Brampton). Anyways, my father would tap his fingers and hands on his steering wheel to the beat of the Macedonian songs ... and sometimes Croatian and Serbian.

He also had a record player in the house that he would always play Macedonian 33rpm LP records on. I guess that is where I got keen on music. Back to the topic.

So, I started perusing the eBay listings for among other things, Macedonian 33rpm LPs. The first LP i ever bought was Angelo's Florineon Band. I had a copy but it was in such poor shape it was just slightly enjoyable. I found not one, but two sealed originals! What were the chances? I was in heaven. My favourite record sealed and ready for me to play!

Anyways, I started to purchase Macedonian records on a regular basis and it's become quite the hobby. CDs are nice for new music, but nothing beats the memories that playing a scratchy / skippy 33rpm record gives me of driving to Ali Baba to buffet breakfast with my family.

Use CSS in favour of tables? Maybe.

I've been building a couple of websites lately, including this one and I've always used tables for the layout and positioning. I've been using it since the good 'ol days and have been completely happy with it. Now the move is towards table-less designs and CSS boxes.

Let me first give a piece of advice to those thinking of making the switch. Don't! Let me explain why. I have to admit that the whole concept of CSS is a fabulous idea and I am all in favour of using it 100%, but at the present time there are just too many damn hacks to get versions of your CSS to work with IE, Safari, Firefox, Netscape, etc.

I'm an IE user not because it is better than anything out there, just because it works for me. I've found Firefox and Netscape just a little un-refined for my tastes (granted, Netscape is great for testing with it's dual IE and Firefox engine).



So my development goes along until I get a fairly stable site when I decide to test in Netscape. That's where the headaches start. Nothing looks write. After countless of modifications I could never get it to look like my original IE design, and then it's too late because I've made so many changes and modifications that nothing looks the same.

At this point you figure somebody else has had similar problems so you do a search on the Net. Guess what? People have all these fixes and hacks for different versions, you give it a shot. Nothing works 100%.

What is the point of using an IE hack to get it to work with Internet Explorer? Just stick to a mix of tables for your top-level site layout, then use CSS boxes for the sections. All fine and dandy.

Until Microsoft actually adheres to the CSS standards will I forever banish the table tag to the garbage.