Archmaille

Keeping your computer up to date is one of the most important things that you can do in order to keep it running as you would like. Windows releases monthly updates to help you keep your OS in the best shape possible, often enhancing performance, and security with every update. But Windows is not the only one that has updates. Every piece of hardware plugged into your computer is run by drivers, those drivers are updated when security threats are detected, and also when they can improve performance via the software updates are created. The problem with these updates are that these companies don’t always send out the updates to everyone using their product. You may have out of date drivers with both security, and performance issues that you are unaware of!

Companies such as actiontec electronics update their bluetooth drivers often, but if you have a ActionTec bluetooth device you may be unaware of an update to the devices drivers. These sort of software updates are common with just about every piece of computer electronics. If you need to keep up with the latest drivers visit my friends at the driver library, their website www.driver-library.com has a huge listing of windows drivers for you to keep your computer safe, secure, and running as fast as it can.

written by Archmaille

Some of you probably know that the customer is not always right… in fact, rarely are they. I like to think this “the customer is always right” philosophy that has been adopted by so many companies is a huge part of why we don’t see craftsmen, and specialists as often anymore. Well, that an the suing nature of our country. The problem comes in that we’re so programmed to think that the customer is right that most of the time they become insistent and if you don’t let them be “right” you lose their business. But when they are wrong, and they almost always are, they can sue you for them being wrong. You also get the problem of stores lacking in creativity. “Craftsmen” are so used to being told exactly what to do any more that they lack the creativity to have the expertise needed to do their jobs properly. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone to a custom design shop, be it for advertisements, cakes, or car work… if it’s a subject that I don’t know terribly much about I may just release the job to them.

I go into the shop and say “Hey, I want to accomplish this, can you do that for me?” to which I very often get the response any more “Yeah, just tell me exactly what you want done.” and then I reply “Well you’re the expert, I’ll pay whatever you need, I just can’t accomplish that myself.” I generally get a glazed over look in their eyes, and some sort of dumbfounded response from them. People are afraid to be creative, or custom in their work. They’ve either been burned by doing what the customer says, or they’ve been told exactly what to do for so long that they no longer know how to do anything truly custom by themselves.

written by Archmaille

It’s hard to find a good streaming media converter… I mean yeah you can download videos from YouTube in .fla format, and I can watch them on my computer, but that doesn’t help me AT ALL when I want to put something on my Zune. There are a lot of videos that I would love to be able to watch when I’m out at Quintiles, or camping, or just share with friends when I’m out at a party. It’s awesome when I can put them on my Zune and bring them around to be shared with everyone, I do have a few like that. It’s especially annoying when I can’t do that, I know the video is out there, seen in on YouTube but can’t get it for my Zune!!!

That’s why I really like Jaksta Streaming Media Recorder and Converter. For those of you who don’t have a flash video ripping software Jaksta will do that for you! It will also convert the format for you to whatever you need. If you can’t watch .fla files on your computer it’ll convert it to something that you can watch. If you want it to be on your Zune, or Ipod for later use Jaksta will do it for you! Definitely one of my favorite finds of the month!

written by Archmaille

Oh my goodness!В  Okay I have to say that the new Axis team with CoH is total BS.В  They’ve got their little long range rifles that are just about as accurate as sniper rifles and will kill an MG nest in seconds… They don’t even get pinned before the MG is dead.

Actually come to speak of it all of the new stuff is BS.В  Alone you cannot play against a british player, or the new axis if you’ve got the old Company of Heroes game.В  Oh, and speaking of those guys, their “slow” effect, totally awesome since you can’t even retreat when they use it.В  Say sniper is being chased by them, they are getting close so you retreat, they use special slow effect, and he’s now crawling AFTER he’s been retreated prior to being slowed… how is this fair?В  He’s retreating in slow motion and can’t even shoot back or be unretreated.

written by Archmaille

The right tool for the job can make all the difference in the world. Or as the G-Man puts it in Half Life: 2 speaking to Gordon Freeman “The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world….” but seriously, tools are designed for a specific function, and if you’re using them within that function it makes the biggest difference. This goes for drill bits too. Would you try and use a concrete drill, with concrete drill bits on a plank of wood? No, it would just mutilate the wood destroying your project you would use wood drill bits to complete your project. The same goes for when you’re working on plastic you use
plastic drill bits because they bite the plastic correctly making sure to stay cool, less sticking, and burning. These tools are designed for the job they do.

No matter what it is you are trying to accomplish the right tool can make that job go much smoother. Why would someone try and use a butter knife to cut down a tree? It just doesn’t make sense, but essentially that’s what people try to do every day when they use the wrong tool for the job. I get very protective over my jewelry tools when someone asks to use my pliers to work on their car I get offended because my pliers are designed for detailed specific jewelry work… If used properly they last longer, work correctly every time, and will help you complete your task faster.

written by Archmaille

Okay, so I’ve been having some troubles with the whole CakePHP issue with ApplyMyWay, the MySpace Survey, Questionnaire, Application, website I’ve been creating… I’m just about done dealing with the whole issue though. Instead of worrying about the whole issue with proper format and what not with CakePHP I’m thinking that I’ll just set up a standard .php file in the “webroot” section to handle some of the stuff I can’t figure out with CakePHP

See the thing is I can do all of this with PHP, except the pretty URL’s that CakePHP offers by default. I know it’s not terribly hard, but it’s either learn how to do this stuff with CakePHP, or learn how to make the pretty URL’s with PHP… not to mention Cake is a lot faster… so I’m just gonna try to combine forces a bit until I get it all straightened out and learn what I need to!

written by Archmaille

Is your computer acting up? Do you know what it is that is going on with it? If you’re not a computer expert it is still possible to fix your computer yourself! With the Application Error Blog you can figure out what is going on with your computer! They can help you to diagnose and fix any troubles that you are having with your applications or computer without the expensive house calls that are associated with calling someone like the Geek Squad… who are generally just high school graduates barely out of college.

Let’s say your computer is acting up because fssm32.exe cpu usage is high. This may cause it to be hard, or impossible for you to do other tasks. Do you know what this means? Do you know how to check it? Do you know how to fix it? Before you go and spend $300 or more to have your computer repaired by amateurs check out the Application Error Blog! The way you can find out what processes are running high is by hitting “Ctrl+alt+delete” and most computers will automatically go to the task manager from here, if you have it configured in Windows XP to go to a menu you can choose the Task Manager, or Vista by default you’ll have to choose from a list of tasks. Under the Task Manager you can find programs that may be acting up by their CPU or RAM usage. But to find which ones are harmful, which ones are helpful, and what all is going on go to the Application Error Blog and find what they have to say about those programs.

written by Archmaille

Erin at P3 is the biggest pain in my butt I’ve ever had! First off to start things I’ve got Kontera ads on my front page, I’ve also generally don’t display the full paid article. If I’m writing a paid article I don’t let the whole thing display on the front page… just how I do things, I’ve always done them that way, Jordan does too on moneyvsdebt.com, I do them like that on codysortore.com/blog/ it simply ensures that Google doesn’t think your blog should have it’s PR stripped… and it’s not a bad system. And it really doesn’t hurt advertisers at all. With how much I post a day an Advertiser is only on the front page of my blog for a single day anyways, if that. So their link is only on a PR3 page for a short amount of time, this simply makes it to where the advertiser gets what they’ll have in 3 months from now. Usually if you have a lot of blog entries pointing to you, your site will bounce up high in the search engines, then fall over time because the high end links aren’t on the front page any longer. This is a very normal effect. With the way I do it you don’t get that initial bounce though, you’ll move up, but in a more natural, less obviously paid for result so it is unlikely that both you, and the advertiser will get banned from Google… it helps both out in the long run. Unfortunately most of these advertisers aren’t looking at the long run.

Both of those practices are a little bit sketchy though. Since Kontera ads do display “within” a post… sort of at least. They display on the front page, but not on the post pages, so that’s kind of gray area. I’ll let that slide though. Hiding the advertisers links from the front page… well that’s a little bit misunderstood so that is understandable too. I’ll let that slide as well.

Today however, I can’t let this one slide. They’re asking me to replace my “Policies” link with the words “Disclosure Policy” like every other blog at P3… sorry, but not gonna happen. I rather enjoy having a PR3 right now, and would like to keep it that way for a short period of time. People know what a Policies page contains… they don’t know what a Disclosure Policy page contains though… Not to mention I’ve been doing this for over a month and a half on this blog, 56 posts I just counted them, and never before has this “Policies” page become a problem… but now that I fixed my other “problems” they are just looking for something else to complain about. The rules in the TOS about a disclosure policy are very clear too: “that disclosure be made in a meaningful way that makes clear to an ordinary consumer that there is a relationship between the Blogger and the Advertiser.” Er… yup, my Policies page fulfills that completely… even more so than your friggin’ “Disclosure Policy” so I don’t see the problem?

written by Archmaille

Wait, wait, wait… You mean You’ve gone through my blog for this long, most likely read all three urgings from me to get yourself protected, and you’re STILL not using an Anti-Virus software? Why not? I sure hope you’re not connected to the internet… which I can almost certainly say that you ARE since you’re reading this. Unless you’re getting my RSS feed via your mobile phone, and not many people do that for my site right now.

Alright, listen, you are at risk! I don’t care what you think, your computer is at risk of being infected. There’s more than just virus’ out there on the net, ad-ware, spy-ware, trojans, you name it! And they are coming to get you. Some are harmless little gimmicks, others just want to share some lovely spam with you so they can make a quick buck. The rest… oh it’s the rest of them that you’ve really got to look out for. There are people out there hunting for your credit card information, they’re just waiting for you to log into your PayPal account with their software installed on your computer so that they can record your keystrokes and log into your account! You do realize that this would give them full control over your bank account, AND credit cards right?

So what are you waiting for get yourself some Antivirus Software and get protected today! Stop waiting around, you may not have been struck yet, or maybe you have and just don’t know it. Either way, everybody gets hit with a nasty computer virus eventually if you spend enough time online.

written by Archmaille

Wahoo! I’m so excited The $7,200 study at Quintiles that I was rejected from was because I had a UTI… yeah, not fun, found out a little while later when it came full swing. Anyways, been to the doctor and will be going again! I better make it on… seriously, that kind of money could be amazing for all sorts of reasons.

First off, I’ll pay someone to help me with ApplyMyWay.com already been looking at eLance for some freelancers that could help. Then I’ll put about $2,000 into an advertising budget, starting with P3 I’ll get about 45 people on the site from there to create surveys, then I’ll spend about $2.50 per post and get some people to their sites with StumbleUpon, then another $2.50 per survey to get people to the surveys. I’ll do a $120 4 week campaign on the IcanHasCheezburger.com network with their site GraphJam.com just to test that market, if it’s successful I’ll do other ICHC network sites. I don’t know all the stuff, but it’ll be about $2,000 for advertising, not paying over $1,000 to get the site running, $1,800 to pay off my credit card, $800 for RAID 5EE, and the rest goes into savings, or towards the wedding.

Alright, now, I’ve also been having some questions since my first article why I’m doing RAID 5EE instead of just regular RAID 5, what’s the difference, what’s the advantage, and what is the disadvantage? I’ll explain with 4 hard drives because that’s how I’ll be doing things, but you can do both with as little as 4 hdd’s. Raid 5 is an array where you have three hard drives running all the time: HDD 1 has information bits AB and parody, HDD 2 BC Parody, HDD 3 CA Parody, HDD 4 Storage offline no information stored. If any one of these three running hard drives crashes it is replaced by HDD 4 and the rest of the information is taken from the other HDD’s in the array to complete the array again. In a RAID 5EE array all 4 hard drives are running the whole time: HDD 1 ABC Parody Storage, HDD 2 BCD Parody Storage, HDD 3 CDA Parody Storage, HDD 4 DAB Parody Storage. Really the only difference is that instead of having a seperate “storage” drive which is what RAID 5 does the storage places is left blank on all drives and can then be shifted later. RAID 5EE is faster because you get information from 4 sources instead of 3, but it takes longer to rebuild an array if a drive fails, and it is more likely to have a second drive fail because more hard drives are on all the time. RAID 5 is safer because there is a drive that is turned off and therefore not taking any abuse, it is also faster to rebuild an array because the information does not have to be shifted around from multiple hard drives to rebuild the array it is simply dumped on the “storage” or offline drive.

I hope that helps the people who’ve asked me what RAID 5 vs. RAID 5EE will do for their computer. Personally this is going on my home computer, it is safer than running a single drive like I normally do so my information is protected, but ultimately I’m going for speed here! Not that I ever want a drive to fail, but I don’t trust RAID 0 enough to take that chance either. With a separate RAID controller that has a built in 500mhz processor for the hard drives, and 256MB of RAM I’m not too worried about the slow downs of write times for RAID 5 either, with a dual core processor, dedicated hard drive processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and 256MB dedicated to my Hard Drives… well… I can’t see that as being a bottleneck either. That is a concern of RAID 5 vs. RAID 0 but I think we’re good in this case.

written by Archmaille