So, all I wanted to do at the end of last week was get Windows 8 Consumer Preview a quick ride around the block. Well, I tried to install it on my work PC with Microsoft’s Virtual PC, no luck. I tried to install it with Oracle’s Virtual Box, no luck.

I don’t want to have to mess around with VMWare Workstation (at home) nor do I want to mess around with dual booting. I guess I’ll have to give it a quick go with one of the aforementioned methods after all, though.

I had the very early version installed on my old work computer under VMWare Workstation, booted into it once and was, “meh”. I wonder if the consumer preview will float my boat a little bit more. I am most curious about the mail app. Is that weak? I kind of wish they’d do with the mail app what Apple did with the iMessage OS X app and let you install a beta version.

Is the installation and testing of new OSes something people look forward to? I guess you can do the same thing with Apple if you’re an Apple Developer ($99). It’s not free, but for the diehard Apple Developer, it’s close enough to being free. Well, maybe not, as Apple only charges $99 for their OS (IIRC).

If I do actually get Windows 8 installed, I’ll write something about it.

UPDATE: I realized I missed my mark of trying to write a post every week. Hell, I didn’t write a single post during the leap year month of February. Shame on me.

I was reading some of my tech sites this morning when I noticed an article that discussed the computer science education we give our youth.

I remember, way back in 1982/83, when math was boring to me (I finished our assignments rather quickly), and my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Luther, was searching for something to keep me busy. She handed me a book on BASIC programming to use on the Commodore PET computers we had in the media center. I think we had the models 4016 and 4032.

A few weeks before this, or maybe the year prior, we were introduced to the PET computers and turtle tracks. Turtle tracks was a simple LOGO-L-based programming language. It taught us logic and directions at a very early age.

I remember using it in this fashion:

FORWARD 100
LEFT 90
FORWARD 100
LEFT 90
FORWARD 100
LEFT 90
FORWARD 100
LEFT 90

Not only did we have a VERY EARLY lesson on programming in the 2nd or 3rd grade (and onwards), but computers were in a pioneering state and a fairly decent part of our education, for those times. We had exposure about once a week, and this raised interest in some households. I wouldn’t say a large percentage of homes had computers in 1982 or 1983, but I’d make a guess that about 15-20% of the homes had one. Those who had them were relegated to playing games on them, and a small percentage of them were using them to do things like “socially network” on bulletin board systems.

If you go back in time and investigate what these systems were, you could easily determine they were VERY EARLY social networks. Online services like CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL expanded on the BBS, and became the definite precursor to social networks of today, like: MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut.

Let’s wrap this up. I’m a proponent of making computer science, even elementary programming (coding) education mandatory. It will teach our youth, our leaders of tomorrow, our future champions of industry, that computers aren’t meant for just hanging out on Facebook, Google+, and playing games. It could actually help to bridge the gap between playing and using a computer.

Should Kids Learn to Code was the original article that led me to Andy Young’s article.

A friend of mine kept asking me how the heck to remove or hide notifications from people who they’re friends with who play lots of Facebook games. I was stumped but also didn’t do much research aside from trial and error within Facebook’s notification settings. No luck. When I Googled it this morning, it led me to a post (will fill in URL later) that showed how do it.

To do it, you go to your notifications page and click the “x” all the way to the right of the notification. From there you edit that app’s settings (even though you don’t even have that app) and choose “Never” for how it notifies you.

Here is the two step process on how to do this:

So, on my way into work today, I was thinking, “Why isn’t there a desktop integration for Google Docs in the same way there is one for Dropbox?”

All it took was a 93ms search and the result was Insync! Not only is Insync the solution I was looking for: A desktop folder that is synced with Google Docs, but it can do this with multiple Google Accounts!

Taken from their site, here is some info about Insync:

Why should I use Insync over Dropbox?

1. Way cheaper storage – Google charges $0.25 per GB/year and Dropbox charges $2.00 per GB/year. That’s 8x difference. Plus you can get 20GB for $5/year.
2. Extensive sharing features…
   • read/write + read-only sharing permissions
   • nested sharing
   • share recipients are not charged against their storage quota
   • re-sharing permissions
   • individual file sharing
3. Multiple Google account support (personal, work, school, org, etc.)
4. You can use Google Docs web to edit docs online

Insync is 100% free. How do you make money?

We plan on making money via premium features. Example: secure remote wipe of local GDocs.

What does “Perform these operations when I’m not using the application” mean?

It just means that if you are offline, Insync still has access to your GDocs to perform operations. It doesn’t mean Insync has forever access. By the way, you can revoke access to Insync at any time using your Google accounts page.

Why does Insync need access to my Google contacts?

We use your contacts to faciliate auto-completion when you are sharing.

What’s Insync’s favorite song?

That’s a no brainer.

This site will remain up, but Computerninja.com will be participating in the strike. This site remains up to help spread the word via this post and the previous post.

Don’t let Congress censor the internet. A number of sites are “going dark” today to protest.

Google

Wordpress

Watch this for more information:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

More information is here: SOPA Strike.

Could I have finally found the solution to my problem that has been plaguing me ever since I started messing around with MKV files? It seems that traversing around my filesystem, in folders that have an abundance of MKV files, my explorer.exe would crash, at least 66% of the time. I’ve tried disabling thumbnails for certain folders, and all folders. NO LUCK. I’ve tried installing the K-Lite Codec Pack that others have mentioned would fix this problem. NO LUCK. Today, I stumbled upon ShellExView, after someone mentioned that the DivX Thumbnail Provider was the culprit.

First attempt at opening one of my MKV folders was a success. Let’s hope this persists. Thanks NirSoft!

So, I recently went through an exercise where I archived old mail in my GMail account. My inbox was ENORMOUS, like 80000+ emails. In doing this archiving, it seems that Postbox (an e-mail client based on Thunderbird that costs $29.95. Seems expensive when most e-mail clients are free (come with your OS), or webmail systems do what most people need. I got into Postbox early on, so I stuck with ’em. Anyway, Postbox wouldn’ t get out of a Not Responding state after I did this archive, probably because the inbox was out of sync with what was on the server.

Nevertheless, I butchered my profile on the machine, at which point, Postbox wouldn’t even LAUNCH, saying that Postbox was already running. It seems that you shouldn’t go into your AppData/Roaming folder and delete your profile folder. Rather, you should use the Profile Manager to make these changes. So, I went into Postbox’s Profile Manager (same as Thunderbird) and deleted the default profile and created a new one. Right after that, Postbox didn’t complain about running already and all was well in the world of Peter’s e-mail.

So I was watching the Packers game with my wife, Michelle, and I caught this hilarious sign held up by a fan that said: “My Cheating EX Boyfriend is Watching from Couch Instead”. I thought it was hilarious and I was happy to see it was caught by Yahoo!’s Shutdown Corner!

So, during Ethan Lobes’ baptism yesterday, Christopher says, describing Ethan, in his new baptismal outfit, “He looks like a baker!”. When my cousin, Lilly, asked him how he knew that… he said, “I just know.”

I was looking around the ’net today and found this cool site: www.oldcomputers.net.

Vic-20

I had this computer in the 3rd grade, for about a month. We got sick of it quickly and got a Commodore 64 instead.

Commodore 64

This computer was the base of my entire existence, damn-near, from 1983 - 1986 or 1987, when I got the Amiga 500. I got the Amiga in 7th grade or 8th grade. I know it was at least 7th grade, as it came out in 1987, which ended 7th grade for me. I remember selling people in Jr. High Commodore 64 games, so I must have still had the C64 at least in 7th grade. Anyway, I had my own phone line when I was 9 or 10 years old and ran the Snakepit/Snakepyt BBS and went by the handle Diamond Back. I had the grandest time during this pioneering era of home computing. I repeat, GRAND and PIONEERING at the same time.

Commodore Amiga 500

Can we say “game changer” here? Amazing computer. Amazing possibilities. True multitasking operating system. Separate chips for Audio, Video, and I think memory controlling. Even swapped out the Motorola 68000 for a 68010 for a slight bump in performance. I remember buying the Commodore A590 hard drive for this thing. About $1000 and came with a 52MB Quantum SCSI hard drive. I can’t believe I spent this kind of money. I also spent about $500 on a US Robotics Couriest HST modem that got around 14000 baud when connected to another Courier HST modem. Man, those were the days. I could go on and on about this. The people I hung out with. The activities I thought about doing, day in, and day out.

So, my transition from Comcast Digital Voice to Google Voice is complete. Here are the steps I took (mostly in this order):

1. Signed up for a Google Voice account, got a number to use in the 586 area code.
2. Bought an ObiTalk 110 from Amazon.com for $50.
3. Bought an AT&T GoPhone from Best Buy last week for $5, on sale from $10.
4. Bought a $15 card from 7-Eleven as the phone needs to have minutes on it to be able to be truly active and forward calls temporarily to my Google Voice Account.
5. Configured ObiTalk 110 to connect to my Google Voice account.
6. Unplugged phones from Comcast modem and plugged them into ObiTalk 110.
7. Initiated a number porting of my home number to AT&T (on the Go Phone).
8. A few days later, the port was complete and my Go Phone had my home phone number.
9. I enabled call forwarding on the Go Phone to ring my Google Voice number (which is tied into my home phones).
10. I initiated a number porting from AT&T > Google Voice. Google only ports from mobile numbers.
11. 24 hours later, Google Voice has my home phone number.
12. I called Comcast to verify my phone service was canceled, and it was, automagically via the number porting that occurred with AT&T.
13. Asked Comcast to give me a good rate on Double Play (from Triple Play). My new rate is $35/mo. less.
14. Investment: ObiTalk 110, $50. Go Phone: $5. Minutes: $15. Number porting: $20. TOTAL: $90. 12 month savings is $420. Not a bad deal here, and, I have a “burn” phone I can use once I get it a new number. ;) In my research, I found this great review over at michigantelephoneblog.com: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Part 3 covers how to get 911 service, which you don’t get with Google Voice. That’ll be my next step in this process, more like an addendum. And here’s another article about using ObiTalk 110 and Google Voice.

Great news. Wordpress updated to version 3.3. Lots of changes, mostly helpful for folks who run multiple sites. I’m pleased. Here are the highlights of Wordpress 3.3:

Highlights

• Easier Uploading

  • File Type Detection - A single upload button
  • Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader

• Dashboard Design

  • New Toolbar in the dashboard, combining the Admin Bar and admin header
  • Responsive design for some screens, including iPad/tablet support
  • Flyout menus, providing single-click access to any screen

• New User Experience

  • New feature pointers, helping users navigate new features
  • Post-update About screen
  • Dashboard welcome area for new installs

• Content Tools

  • Better co-editing that releases post locks immediately
  • Don’t lose widgets when switching themes
  • Tumblr Importer

• Under the Hood improvements

  • Use the postname permalink structure without a performance penalty
  • Improved Editor API
  • is_main_query() function and WP_Query method
  • Remove a number of funky characters from post slugs
  • jQuery 1.7.1 and jQuery UI 1.8.16
  • A new Screen API for adding help documentation and adapting to screen contexts
  • Improved metadata API

• Performance improvements and hundreds of bug fixes

I’m loving the new toolbar. I’m loving that they moved Network Admin right under the My Sites menu item. LOVE THAT!

So, I wanted to test something at work using IE7 as a standalone app since you can’t have multiple versions of it running in Windows (we’ll get to this later). I had previously been using IE7 Standalone on Windows XP and loved it. I had no idea it would hose some file registrations in Windows 7.

Luckily for me, there was an exact post/article that led me to a fix. Thanks pyrocam.com!

I did run into a few hangups while running through the registration batch file, having to kill regsvr32.exe a few times, but who cares. I can now go back into explorer.exe and right-click Computer.

Hell, for under $10, Amazon.com has some great titles, even some new releases. For example, who wouldn’t want Point Break or Inception or Pulp Fiction or Goonies or Gremlins or Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands for this price?

Blu-rays under $10 at Amazon.com (too bad I don’t have an affiliate account set up).