| What do you do when the Xbox 360 controller keeps disappearing from the giant conference room?
You create a "Hello Kitty" controller, of course..
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| We're trying to encourage people to turn things off they're not using here at Vertigo to save power. To understand what we should be turning off, and what difference it will make, I measured a bunch of our standard equipment with my kill-a-watt device. (thanks to my coworkers James, Will, Mark, and Alex for helping!)
Desk Lamp
Halogen | 38 watts | Fluorescent | 15 watts |
Standard Developer Dell PC
(specs are 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 10k RPM 74 GB main hard drive, 7200 RPM 500 GB data drive, Radeon X1550 video)
Sleep | 1 watt | Idle | 80 watts | One CPU core fully loaded | 108 watts | Both CPU cores fully loaded | 122 watts |
Standard Developer Thinkpad T-60 Laptop
Sleep | 1 watt | Idle | 66 watts | One CPU core fully loaded | 74 watts | Both CPU cores fully loaded | 82 watts |
LCDs
Old Dell 19" | 50 watts | Ancient, giant 21" NEC | 67 watts | New Dell 19" | 28 watts | New Samsung 19" | 28 watts | Apple 23" LCD | 72 watts | Samsung 24" LCD | 54 watts |
Dell 21" CRT
Completely white screen | 122 watts | Completely black screen | 85 watts | Typical desktop | ~105 watts |
It certainly looks like newer equipment is generally more efficient than older equipment. Turning things off is a great way to save power, but be sure to take advantage of that sleep mode, too! |
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I love Vista's new ALT+TAB behavior, which is very close to the excellent TaskSwitchXP utility I used under Windows XP.
However, the default size of the Vista ALT+TAB live thumbnails is far too small on larger monitors.
But it is possible to increase the size of the Vista ALT+TAB live thumbnails -- at least to the width of your primary monitor -- via a small registry edit.
The necessary changes are below. Save this to a text file, rename it with a ".reg" extension, then double-click it to add the changes to your registry. If you don't like it, delete the /AltTab registry key and you'll get the old ALT+TAB behavior back.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AltTab]
"OverlayIconPx"=dword:00000023
"OverlayIconDXPx"=dword:00000000
"OverlayIconDYPx"=dword:00000000
"ThumbSpacingXPx"=dword:00000004
"ThumbSpacingYPx"=dword:00000004
"SideMarginPx"=dword:00000004
"BottomMarginPx"=dword:0000000a
"MinThumbSizePcent"=dword:00000064
"MinWidthPx"=dword:0000012c
"TopMarginPx"=dword:00000020
"MaxThumbSizePx"=dword:000000dc
"MaxIconSizePx"=dword:0000015e
"TextBottomPx"=dword:000001f4
I've also tightened up the borders and margins a bit, to make room for larger thumbnails. However, before importing this into your registry you must edit the MaxThumbSizePx to a size that works on your monitor first! The current value, above, is DC hex or 220 decimal, which works on my 1600 x 1200 primary monitor. The maximum row size is 7, so each row is 7 x 220 = 1540, right under the 1600 width.
I would prefer fewer thumbnails per row, for even larger and easier to see screenshot thumbnails in my ALT+TAB, but I can't find any way to change that, unfortunately. |
| 
Yep. It's a feature. (via the always excellent Global Nerdy Blog) |
| I've always disliked Windows XP's default "Luna" theme, which I personally thought was horribly, hideously ugly.
I always turned it off in favor of the "Classic" Windows 2000 theme.
With Windows Vista I'm actually a big fan of the default "Aero" theme:
But the only downside to Aero is that it takes up an incredible amount of space with its enormous window borders. I think this is to better show off the transparency effects. Fortunately, it is possible to tweak the window borders to slim them down a bit, so the trim around the windows isn't so comically large.
Right-click your desktop, choose Personalize, then Window Color and Appearance, then click the Advanced button. From here, edit the "Border Padding" and "Active Title Bar" settings to put Aero on a diet.
Works for me!
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| Stefano Demiliani addresses one of my biggest complaints about Microsoft's support structure — the way you had to pick up the phone and call Microsoft to get a hotfix. I've never understood Microsoft's reluctance to give out hotfixes to customers who need them, or why they put so many arbitrary barriers in front of them.
But it looks like they've changed their tune; there is now a web form you can use to request a Microsoft hotfix and have it automatically mailed to you.
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix
Stefano has tested the service and it works. Now, all I can say is it's about time, and hallelujah -- can I get an amen? |
| It's not commonly known, but you can use your Windows Mobile phone as a wireless modem to connect to the Internet. I first saw this documented on Omar Shahine's blog in early May. We use the Samsung Blackjack here at Vertigo, but the process should be the same for any recent Windows Mobile smartphone.
All you need is the following:
- Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0 phone
- USB cable or Bluetooth
- ActiveSync (Windows XP) or Windows Mobile Device Center (Windows Vista)
Here's how to set it up:
- Launch Applications\File Explorer
- Navigate to the \Windows folder on your phone
- Scroll down to "Internet Sharing"
- Launch "Internet Sharing"
- Select "PC connection" type (I usually do USB cable)
- Press the "Connect" button
And that's all there is to it. You can see screenshots of the process at Jason Langridge's blog. Unfortunately, the Internet Sharing shortcut is rather hard to find. You can move it to the Start Menu using your PC, though:
- Connect the phone to your PC
- Use Windows Explorer to browse your Smartphone file system
- In the folder options, turn off "Hide protected operating system files" and select "Show hidden files and folders"
- Navigate to the \Windows folder on your phone
- Copy the "Internet Sharing" shortcut to your PC desktop
- Navigate to the \Windows\Start Menu\ folder on your phone
- Copy the "Internet Sharing" shortcut to the \Windows\Start Menu\ folder on your phone
Once you do this, the Internet Sharing app will show up on the Start Menu alongside all your other applications.
One warning: the phone does charge over USB—albeit slowly. But it barely charges at all when you're using the Internet Sharing functionality. So be sure to click "Disconnect" when you're done with internet sharing so the phone can charge! |
| I was reading my ad-sponsored web email when I saw this clever little AdSense ad:
I couldn't help myself. I clicked on it. What next, ads that say "SEX"? I'll probably click those, too. |
| When my wife and I leave on short trips (4 days or less), we let our two cats fend for themselves with an extra litter box and gravity feeders for water and kibble. I'm generally agnostic when it comes to the cat vs. dog debate, but one big advantage of cats over dogs is that you don't have to go through the hassle of boarding them every time you take a short day trip. (But to be fair, you may have the option of taking your dog with you, whereas travelling with a cat is basically a non-option.)
One problem with this approach, though, is that our cats eat themselves silly with unrestricted access to food. Both of our cats were rescued as strays. If a kitten grows up hungry, that behavioral pattern is imprinted on it for life. Even in the face of unlimited food, they'll eat as if it was their last meal on earth, every time. With the gravity feeder, they get extremely fat in a short period of time. And the more they eat… well, I'm sure you get the picture.
On a recent airplane flight I was browsing through the SkyMall catalog, when I saw the Petmate Le Bistro Electronic feeder. This looked great! An automatic unattended feeder could be the solution to our feeding problems. The Amazon user reviews were a little mixed, but most people were very happy with the device and said it works wonderfully.
So I ordered one in anticipation of our next trip, and we installed it over the holiday weekend. Since we have two cats, we picked up another Le Bistro electronic feeder at PetCo locally—that way they don't have to fight over a single bowl; we usually feed them from two individual bowls.
I'm happy to report that the Le Bistro "electronic portion control" feeder is a resounding success! It's a geek's dream: a robotic, programmable feeding assistant that does all the feeding for us. We set up the times for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the LCD, and set the portion size to "1" for each meal. Then we filled it up with kibble and let it go. It has been totally reliable from the first meal, and the LCD shows ten feedings so far.
Unfortunately, one of our cats is very curious and likes "experimenting" with the feeders. The kibble container doesn't secure very tightly to the base and she was able to knock it loose after pawing at it long enough. To prevent this, I duct-taped the kibble container to the base of the feeder.
She is also able to reliably fish out some kibble from the dispensing slot by placing her paw in it and digging around in there. I tried making the dispensing slot smaller with duct tape, and putting a retractable flap over it, but she was still fishing kibble out. Not much kibble, one piece only after a lot of rooting around, but enough to intermittently reinforce the behavior— which is the absolute worst kind of reinforcement! I did some research, and came up with what I think is a very clever and effective solution: I duct-taped small metal soap holders over the dispensing outlet. The metal soap holders are a perfect size, and the metal grid of the holder is large enough to let big kibble pieces come out, while preventing those curious paws from getting in. All I had to do was make sure the bottom of the metal edge was below the dispensing lip, and no kibble gets caught in the grille.
What we ended up with looks a little bit like the Mad Max dystopian future, where kibble is scarce and each cat must fend for itself! It looks a little weird, but it works, and it's 100% Elsie-proof now. Or it will be, once I tape it to the floor before we leave on our trip…
Anyway, if you have pets, I can highly recommend the Petmate Le Bistro electronic feeder. Even if you don't go on trips, many Amazon reviewers pointed out one interesting benefit of automated feeding: your pets no longer think of you as a kibble dispensing machine, and will no longer wake you up every morning to get fed! My wife will definitely enjoy that perk. |
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