the finger-keyboard synapse - May 2005 Archives

May 2005

Successes and (mostly) good news (21:57) - A smattering of good news tidbits:Still so far so good with not locking up in Windows since Friday's driver update. Knock on wood. It is wonderful to be able to log in to Windows in 10 seconds instead of 15-20 minutes. (This is after Windows boots and shows the login window.) I got the rear speakers working in Linux. Took me long enough to find the "New DSP (EXPERIMENTAL)" support in the kernel configuration. It seems even more odd that... | 2 Comments

Back up and running... maybe.... (16:26) - What a week! Between the now-finished book proofreading, the computer rebuild, and some personal matters, the BitWise 1.0.5 Beta release obviously didn't happen this week. However, I'm now motivated to get it out on May 31st, so that's the new plan. The newest wrinkle in the computer rebuild that may or may not yet be resolved is the semi-frequent random lockups in Windows. :( I'm hoping that my latest effort, locating a newer driver for the onboard Highpoint controller (which... | 1 Comments

My love/hate relationship with Linux (22:55) - Procrastinating is so much fun. Although in this case, extremely frustrating as well. In the midst of proofreading, I've been tinkering around with my new Linux install (and the new Windows install, too, but that's not so much tinkering as it is setting up). Speaking of proofreading, this last round of proofreading is finally done, and the next stop is the printer! Anyway, let me give you the extremes of my love/hate relationship with Linux. Love: I found this great... | 2 Comments

A weekend vacation into being a nerd (21:14) - How touching that some people were concerned enough to inquire as to why I was offline the entire weekend. :) I actually took the weekend and dived into being a nerd. In the interest of averting a disaster, I'm replacing my 5 year old hard drive with a newer one, a shiny new 250GB Seagate 7200.8 SATA NCQ. Really great deal at newegg, it was only $137! The nice part about getting a new drive is that you can work... | 2 Comments

Connect with the originals, it does (22:53) - There are no spoilers in this post. Unless you either live under a rock or have pretty much no interest in any pop culture, you probably are aware that the final Star Wars movie was released today. Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith lives up to the original trilogy much better than Episodes 1 or 2. I had been looking forward to its release for months and this afternoon I saw it. The acting is better, the pacing is better,... | 1 Comments

They look even purdier in a real window! (16:57) - So rather than show just a jumbled bunch of icons, here's what the new toolbars look like on Linux: Contact List: Conversation Window: In other news, 1.0.5 features the ability to be able to paste text as well as images to the whiteboard. It can be very, very convenient. Also in other news, a public service announcement: the conversion process from wxImage to wxBitmap does not work on wxMac, leading 24 x 24 toolbar icons to have a black background...

Wow, they're so purty! (11:01) - Here are the new BitWise icons: One of the biggest changes is that there are more file transfer icons, used to help differentiate better among all the different file transfer windows. Also, special thanks to Lyrion for assisting with the lightbulbs icons! With these icons, the client is not only getting a significant visual upgrade, but it will also match the look and feel of the web site. Surely everyone agrees that both of these are nothing short of wonderful!... | 3 Comments

Bury the tower, give me a break-out box! (20:01) - I was helping someone with their computer recently, and we found something very interesting about an older IBM Aptiva they still had: the original receipt. This computer was purchased just prior to Christmas 1996, and had a 166mhz Pentium, 16 MB of RAM, a 2.5 GB hard drive, 2 MB video RAM, 8X CD-ROM, 33.6k modem (I think), sound, etc. A 17" matching CRT monitor and HP printer were purchased at the same time. A staggering 5 year warranty was... | 2 Comments

Extreme Makeover: BitWise Icons (16:56) - In my April 23rd post, I talked about some of the changes for 1.0.5, centering mostly around the icons used in BitWise. A recent comment in the user surveys said something to the effect of, "The icons look like Windows 3.1 and need to be updated." Sadly, it is true, but everything is about to change. After releasing 1.0.4 last week, I was eager to see what kind of difference some newer icons could make for BitWise, and I am...

BitWise 1.0.4 released (16:30) - At long last, BitWise 1.0.4 is available to download from the download page. I'm sure that many users will be seeing the new web site for the first time when they go to download the new version. :) Now it's time for me to take a breather after a new web site and new client in the same week. In other news, it seems that my previous post may not be accurate inasmuch that the list of blocked file types... | 4 Comments

No, really, that txt file is dangerous! (20:20) - I got an email today from a friend with some links to some interesting stories (link #1, link #2) about some changes in the recent versions of MSN Messenger regarding file transfers. Microsoft has started blocking a lot of file extensions in order to help prevent viruses from spreading through their network. This is understandable, given the rash of virus problems that they've had lately, but let me paste here the list of blocked extensions: .exe; .bat; .com; .cmd; .reg;... | 3 Comments

Tigers are pink! (21:16) - We're about 48 hours out from the launch of the new BitWise web site, and things seem to be pretty smooth overall. There were a few broken links found early on, but they were quickly fixed. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out the page X doesn't render correctly on browser Y, but maybe my coding skills really are that stellar. ;) So the crisis du jour was learning that BitWise for Mac OS X... | 1 Comments