June 11, 2009
We have a townhouse available in Eden Prairie that we are trying to sell. the house has wonderful views (the house overlooks a pond, so you do not have to look at your neighbors). The house is also only about 1 mile from the Lake Riley boat launch.
Here is the MLS Link in case you are interested. Please pass it along to anyone you might know that is looking as well.
http://www.edinarealty.com/Listing/ListingDetail.aspx?listing=41350422&Popup=1
Thanks
Filed under: General |
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April 20, 2009
This past week I found out that I had a virus on my machine….Ok, not a big deal I tell myself - I have had viruses before and been able to get rid of them. This was totally different, and caused me to spend the entire weekend to get it cleaned out. Here is a rundown of the events just in case you run into the same thing…Maybe it can save you some time.
I first noticed that something was not right on Wednesday night when I no longer had admin access to my machine, but I was still set up as an admin. A quick virus scan found a bunch of viruses, so I quarantined them and moved on but the virus came back soon after that. A quick discussion with my friend Brian, and he determined that I probably have malware on my machine. Brian gave me some utilities to try including malwarebytes and ccleaner. I went through the reigns and tried all this and was feeling pretty confident in myself. I went to bed and forgot about it. That was until the next morning (Thursday), when I all of the sudden was getting missing windows module messages.
Another chat with Brian and he thought that I had a Master Boot Record (MBR) Virus. What is a master boot record you ask. This is the part of the hard drive that tells the computer where the boot records are. The bad news is that a simple format does not just remove this sector. I found that out the hard way. I ended up doing 3 formats on Thursday night, and another 2 on Friday night. After formatting I would go into windows and almost instantly have pop ups showing up on my screen. This was before I even had the network card installed, so I knew it was something hiding somewhere.
Saturday morning comes and I am frustrated with this thing (thanks alot virus writers…..JERKS!!). I try to get rid of the master boot record on the hard drive. I first installed the XP CD and booted into Recovery mode so that I could get the command line interface. In here I tried to run the command fdisk /mbr. This is supposed to re-write the master boot record, but for some reason it was not a recognized command. A little more looking and I found a command called fixmbr….basically it is the same thing, just a different command. I then did another format. Virus is still there…..Have you ever seen that Seinfeld episode where George’s dad walks around screaming “Serenity now”? Yep…I was just about there.
So I go back to the web and do a search for MBR Virus Removal, and I come across a post where someone says that the best way is to just wipe the drive completely….This is probably a good time to mention that good backups are a must….good thing I had everything backed up! There is a program out there called DBAN (or Darik’s Boot and Nuke). Now this is my type of program….Just go right for the throat. DBAN is a utility that is free to use and it is also included with another utility called the Ultimate Boot CD. the Ultimate Boot CD is also a free utility - you should have it in your arsenal if you do not already.
I burned the ISO image to a CD and made a boot disk from the UBCD files and gave it a run. Using the tutorial I found here, I ran it. OK - so it takes a while to run (6 hours on my 200 GB drive), but it was totally worth it. Everything on that drive was gone. So I reinstall windows for probably the 10th time and I finally have a clean install. I did still find some viruses on my backup hard drive, but Antivirus programs picked those up right away and I was able to get rid of them quickly before they infected anything else.
So a whole weekend wasted and I am finally back up and running. I have since done 6 complete virus scans and it has all been clean (fingers crossed). After the computer was up and running I was able to do what I really was going to do for the weekend. Install my new wireless N router…..All I can say is that it is awesome.
Glad to finally be back online!
Filed under: Global Happenings, Rants |
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March 13, 2009
The Open Media Library team (myself included) is very pleased to announce that we have just released a new version of the Open Media Library plugin for Windows Media Center. This has been a long time in the making, but the product has come a long way since the last beta release.
A fellow team member put together some stats/changes that has happened with the project since the last build:
Some of the changes in Build 1300 since .21b:
-Enhanced Database Editor
-Ability to choose preferred meta data sources.
-Fan Art Support. The ability to use the new DB Editor to download and display Fan Art in the details screen for movies.
-Enhanced UI
-Faster loading times for OML
-Ability to set separate players for HDDVD/BluRay/DVD
-Ability to search for PowerDVD8/TMT players, versus hand typing them.
-Ability to choose your ISO mounting utility, and auto searching for either Daemon Tools or Virtual Clone Drive
-Switch to a Transcoding Service
-More Transcoding support, as well as Transcoding tests
-More logs for transcoding jobs to help in troubleshooting
-Ability to show Trailers of latest hit movies
-Installer Support for Windows 7
-User manual included with the installer
To further put things in perspective here are some stats on the growth of the forum in relation to OML:
Downloads of .21b x86/x64 combined: 8003
Version .1b
Posts 1307
Topics 172
Members 58
Version .3b
Posts 7773
Topics 1163
Members 377
Wanna see more? Head on over to the site and download a copy for yourself! http://code.google.com/p/open-media-library/
Filed under: General |
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February 19, 2009
So I finally got a new phone a couple of days ago. I have been drooling over the new G1 (commonly known as the google phone) since it was first released, and I finally became eligible to get the phone at the reduced cost. I have only played with it for a couple of days, but it is an awesome phone thus far, and I cannot wait to be able to see all of the other cool features that it has once I can really sit down and play with it.
I have downloaded a number of applications for it so far, and right now my favorite is the shopsaavy one which scans barcodes of products and then tells you the prices of that same product online and at stores near you. I have only played with that a little, but it could be a ton of fun in Best Buy or similar stores.
So while I am still playing with it - check out the G1 - it is on the T-Mobile network.
http://www.t-mobileg1.com/
Filed under: Global Happenings |
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February 10, 2009
I have to get this off my chest……What is Wall Street thinking? Seriously - they are not happy because they are not getting more money from the government for the time being. Whatever - get your heads out of your asses would you. You are acting like the 3 year old that did not get what they wanted for Christmas from Santa. If you want to have a temper tantrum go over in the corner and do it, but the fact that the market can swing over news like this is absolutely absurd. The last I looked the market was down 345 points for the day.
The financial market has already been given OVER $350 Billion, and all they did was piss it away. so the fact that you are not getting more of our taxpayer money….Really is not that bad of a thing. If you want to have your lavish vacations and bonuses…Go ahead and do them, but not at my expense.
I say good for the Treasury for doing this - maybe you will finally learn. If you are not happy with it - go quit your job - there are many jobless people partly because of this mess who would love to have your job. Wall Street is really starting to become the laughing stock of the world. You don’t get your way so you stomp your feet and pout until it does go your way. What a Joke!
Filed under: Rants |
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