New Years Resolutions

  Every year, we come up with resolutions to improve ourselves, to make ourselves fitter, and to increase the quality of our lives... but we rarely come up with resolutions just to increase the shear entertainment value of our days on this planet. So, in homage to the flippant, here's my new years resolutions for 2007:

1. I will make more snide comments!


2. I will censor less of what I think!


3. I will drink more alcohol!


4. I will spend more time playing Civ IV!


5. I will take more pictures of people, whether they know it or not!


6. I will do something every day that OTHER people are afraid of me doing!


7. I will have no shame!


8. I will not be afraid of telling people I've forgotten their names. for the 3rd time!


9. I will not be afraid of offending other people's sensibilities!

  All in all, I think 2007 will be a fun year. Lets face the new year, head on!

You get what you pay for...

  It really is true that you get what you pay for. In general, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. I don't usually get suckered into these things, but it happens.

  About a month ago, I went to buy combs at SuperStore, figuring I'd just get the cheapest comb I could - after all, it's not a high tech device, or anything. When I got there, by far the cheapest set of combs was a pack of 12 combs for $1. There is no way you could get cheaper combs - and a pack of 12 should last forever. I could even give combs for Christmas/Hanukkah presents! (Not that I'm going to, for those of you who are on my gift giving list, this year.) With that good of a deal, I had to buy the 12 pack.

  I finally got around to using one of them, the other day. Wouldn't you know it, the quality is so poor that each of the teeth on the comb is pointy and sharp.. It's like running a rake through my hair! Talk about a lack of quality control - the teeth are definitely canines on that thing! (Yes, bad dentistry and comb jokes shouldn't mix. I won't do it again.)

  Anyhow, had I spent the extra 25 cents, and bought the one comb for $1.25, I probably wouldn't have had to comb my hair with a weapon of mass hair follicle destruction. And now, I've got a lifetime supply of torture devices... er.. combs.

Mplayer Full Screen Tip

  This is one of those silly little annoyances in Linux: if you install mplayer from repository, it won't play movies in full screen mode. When you tell it to go to full screen (by pressing "f"), it just makes the background black on the full screen, and leaves the movie the same size. Utterly useless.

  However, there's a very simple fix: simply edit your mplayer configuration file. In Ubuntu, it looks like this:

username@computer:~$ cd .mplayer
username@computer:~/.mplayer$ sudo gedit mplayer.conf

To the end of the file, add the line:

zoom=yes

All done. Once you start mplayer the next time, it'll go to full screen mode.

xorg.conf

  I've been doing some serious computer re-installs over the past couple of days. I was very unhappy with my computer - which all started when I discovered I couldn't play Yahoo games in Firefox. Ironically, I still can't. The Java Runtime plugin just isn't working.

  Anyhow, The biggest hassle is always rebuilding my xorg.conf file, which is somewhat complex - I use a dual head video card (Evga Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT) with two different monitors (CRT Panasonic S17 at 1024x768, and an LCD ViewSonic VX924 at 1280x1024), along with the closed source Nvidia drivers, but not in Twinview. In any case, for posterity sake, here's my configured xorg.conf -I hope someone else finds this useful.

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Default Layout"
    Screen         0 "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen         1 "Screen1" leftof "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
    InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Files"

 # path to defoma fonts
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
    FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "i2c"
    Load           "bitmap"
    Load           "ddc"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "int10"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
    Option         "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Configured Mouse"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "CorePointer"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection


Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Panasonic"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 69.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 160.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "ViewSonic"
    HorizSync      30.0-82.0
    VertRefresh    50.0-75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Head0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen         0

EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Head1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen         1
EndSection


Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Head0"
    Monitor        "Panasonic"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       1
        Modes      "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       4
        Modes      "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       15
        Modes      "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection


Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA Head1"
    Monitor        "ViewSonic"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       1
        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       4
        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" 
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       15
        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" 
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" 
    EndSubSection
EndSection