Adventures In DIY

In an attempt to get newer posts out quicker I’m trying Windows Live Writer.  So far its pretty straight forward and easy to use.

Windows Live Writer Screenshot

The interface is really easy to use, the Preview tab shows accurate output and I love the fact I can still edit the source code to put my “special tweaks” to the site.

I have a Zune 4 GB media player. Over all I’ve been really happy with it, but when I did this last update the screen went black during the last phase of the update. The Zune was still on because there was a glow to the screen just no menu or image. I tried

• Turning on the Zune by holding down the back button
• Hard restarting the Zune by holding down the two buttons while depressing the navigation pad
• When I called tech support they told me to connect the Zune for 20 minutes, unplug it and plug it immediately back in for 2-3 hours.

None of the above worked for me.

What ended up working was letting the 4GB Zune player completely drain itself, since the screen was on draining the battery.

Once the battery was drained, I plugged it into the USB connector and the player restarted.

My Zune Back Up And Running

I recently had to rebuild my Windows XP machine. These are the top 5 free Windows applications I have to install.

1. AVG antivirus – antivirus software is the first thing I put on after applying all the Microsoft patches. I believe the statistic is that it only takes 15 minutes for a PC to get hacked without antivirus and a firewall.
2. Firefox – I love this web browser even though it uses more resources than Internet Explorer. Here are the add-ons that I install every time now.
   • Delicious Bookmarks
   • Flashblock
   • Web Developer
3. 7-Zip – I receive all kinds of compressed formats from people. This has no problems dealing with formats like RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
4. AVS DVD Player – Nothing is worse than thinking Windows Media Player will play your dvd and coming up with that missing codec error.
   • This little gem plays a dvd from a folder too.
   • During the setup I choose Do not associate for the File Associations. I would suggest this unless you want AVS as your default player for all the formats listed.
   • The only down side to this software is that it installs all the other non-free shareware products. Sometimes there is a price for free.
5. GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) – First off you’ve gotta love the name! This is handy if you need a program similar to photoshop to resize and crop pictures from your digital camera.

I wanted to add a folder link to the Places dropdown menu bar. It took me a little time to find it so I thought I’d share.

1. Open a File Browser
2. Make sure the Side Pane is viewable. If not then select View->Side Pane or hit F9
3. The Places, not Tree, History, …, needs to be selected in the Side Pane.
4. Just drag the folder to the Side Pane where you want it to be added to Places

Removal of an item is done by right clicking on the item and choosing Remove.

I spent a little time trying to find a DVD player for Gutsy Gibson that will support DVD menus and play a ripped DVD from a folder. I tried Totem and gxine before I came across VLC media player.

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Make sure the “universe” repository is activated before using the Synaptic Package Manager or Add/Remove software.

Once installed it’s just a matter of selecting File->Open Directory or Ctrl-E.

Open Folder for VLC