I bought Windows 7 from ITCS a few weeks ago because it was only $18, and I needed to be able to run Office in order to format our 622 reports nicely.

I kind of like it a lot so far.

tags: navi, windows

I’ve been trying to get out of the house more on weekends to do homework, but I’m starting to find that that ambient noise at coffee shops drives me crazy. Either I can hear individual conversations too easily (yesterday I was sitting near two people who appeared to be on a first date), or the refrigerator/background music/coffee grinder is too loud.

Also, the right side of the palm rest on my laptop has reached new levels of flex-y squeakiness. I think I am going to have to try to add some padding to the bottom of it to make it stop. I can’t believe how much Thinkpad build quality has degraded.

tags: navi

Sixth months later, I am stilling missing the 1400×1050 Flexview IPS panel on my old Thinkpad. The Thinkpad T500 TN panel blows. Also, I never thought I would care about palm rest and keyboard flex, but every time I switch between the T42 and the T500 it is really noticeable.

tags: navi

It is surprisingly easy to set your monitor contrast 0 and consequently black out your entire monitor using the ATI Catalyst Control Center for Linux.

It happened to me this morning while I was in the middle of finishing an assignment at the last minute.

press Alt+F2 (brings up the Run Application dialog)
type “gnome-terminal”
type “aticonfig –set-dispattrib=lvds,contrast:100″
press Enter.

If nothing happens, you probably made some typos. Try it again.

Alternatively, try a different display type. “lvds” is default for LCD screens; other possibilities are crt1, tv, cv, tmds1, crt2, tmds2, tmds2i, dfp3, dfp4, dfp5, dfp6.

tags: navi, ubuntu

Been having major writer’s block/anxiety, and I really wish that Ommwriter, or something like it, existed for Linux or Windows:

Ommwriter from Herraiz Soto on Vimeo.

Now that I use Google Document for everything in the world — i.e. my job and 3/4 of my classes — it has become a distraction when I have to write anything of significant length. And Open Office is intimidating. For now I am coping with Dark Copy, although the saving method makes me really nervous.

On a related note, I have been using the Compiz Addhelper plugin for awhile now, and I have gotten used to easily collapsing (not just auto-hiding) gnome-panels. Also, LeechBlock.

tags: navi, software, writing

• I successfully used Hamachi LogMeIn to create a VPN between my old computer running Windows and my new computer running Ubuntu, and shared files both ways!

• I discovered Project Hamster, a gnome-panel applet for tracking time that is so cool it almost makes time tracking fun.

• I upgraded to Karmic a few weeks ago and noticed that once again maximizing and minimizing windows was painfully slow. A few days ago I remembered the solution: xserver-nobackfill (for karmic). It works great for my Thinkpad T500 with an ATI HD 3650 video card.

• After trying out a gazillion different types of non-antiperspirant deodorant because of the cysts I started getting junior year of college, I think I might have actually found something that works well enough to wear a shirt for more than one day between washing: zinc oxide. The past few days I have been experimenting with using my zinc oxide sunscreen and it has worked well so far. I am almost a little suspicious – does it work because zinc oxide is anti-microbial, or because it also plugs sweat glands? I will report back soon…

In other news, only 7 days until I go home for Thanksgiving!!!

tags: experiment, navi, ubuntu