Two Guys Tech

I pulled this week's desktop from the BattleStar Galactica  Downloads page on SciFi.com.

If you haven't guessed it by now, BattleStar Galactica comes back on the 16th. I'm a fan of the series, even though it's almost too much of a drama and not enough of a Sci-Fi show. Still, I'm waiting to see what happens with the series.

I may be a few days late with this post, but I think I’ll do it anyway.

With a new year comes new calendars, and here are a bunch of resources to find the one to fit your needs:

First there is Compact Calendar from David Seah. This one comes as an Excel spreadsheet ready to print and if all you need is a simple calendar to tick off the days, then this is a good one. It’s great for simply marking off how many days until your anniversary, or how long you’ve been without smoking, or whatever else you need to mark off.  It comes with American holidays already marked, but international versions are available. As you can see, there’s plenty of room in the margin for notes.

Next we have the DIY Dynamic Templates program from the wonderful diyplanner.com. You’ve been able to download PDF files of calendars on many different formats and sizes, but this program will let you customize your own. You can print single and double daily, single and double weekly, single and double monthly, and single and double yearly pages. You can also print to a variety of paper sizes in portrait and landscape mode, and can start and end your calendar on any date you wish. There are a ton of other configuration options to get your calendar just the way you want it.

In the future other templates will be added, such as notes, checklists, and charts pages, along with some additional visual styles as well.

This program will take your final design and build a PDF from it, ready for printing.

I don’t use Outlook 2007, but the Outlook 2007 Calendar Printing Assistant looks sweet. It looks to be very customizable and produces professional results. I see on their web site that many formats are available, including a wall calendar. You can of course change the fonts, colors, size, layout, and images to your liking.

This is perhaps the coolest thing you could put in your pocket. It’s the Thumb Calendar from Adam Sporka and you can get it from his web site. There are six months per side, but the cool thing about these cards is how they’re designed. They’re not like other business card sized calendars with hard to read microscopic print. These are pretty easy on the eyes. Print some up and laminate them, then stick one in your wallet and give some to your friends.

Sometimes the easiest things can be so difficult. I was just trying to install a simple update package, "Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1" to be exact. The installer returns the error "The Installer has insufficient privileges to modify this file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\RelNotes.htm".

If you've been using Vista for a bit, then you probably know about the good old "right click and choose Run as Adminsitrator" trick. Well, it doesn't work that way with MSI packages.

The way I got around this is by right clicking on a command prompt, and choosing run as administrator. Then changing directory to folder where I saved the MSI, and running it from the command prompt.

…you might frighten them.

Oh Yea! The moment you’ve been waiting for, or at least I’ve been waiting for. Contagious is now available for purchase. You can click here to order it.

Back on the 19th, I posted a whole slew of reasons why you should pre-order it, and if you forgot, it’s still not too late to help. Purchases today, December 30th, will still count. Heck, I would think purchases any time soon after the 30th would help, and if you’re reading sometime in the future, I bet buying the book still helps Scott.

Now, I’m a fan, and I want to see more of Scott’s work. I won’t rehash all of the reasons why you should buy this book, but if you want to support the American dream, and free Podcast fiction, then pick up a copy. You get a good story, and some good Karma.

Back in November I posted a wallpaper from Fallout 3, and mentioned how I was going to have to wait a bit to get it. Well, evidently I’ve been a good boy, because Santa gave it to me for Christmas.

So toady, I have another Fallout 3 Wallpaper. No title on this one, just a guy in Power Armor standing in front of some version of the American Flag, with the Washington Monument in the background. You can find it on the Official Fallout 3 Wallpapers page, currently on the top left.

I played this all weekend, and even my wife is semi-addicted. She went and bought fallout 2 for herself, so that she can play something while I’m playing this. I think as soon as I stop playing it, she’s going to grab it, although I’m trying to talk her into installing it on her computer so she can play when I’m not playing.

Fallout 3 is kind if a RPG meets 3d Shooter. I’m a sucker for apocalypse games, and this one takes place after a nuclear apocalypse, a very long time after. I’m not sure how I’m going to get the time to play, but I do have a 4 day weekend coming up…

Steam is selling lots of great games at some pretty sweet discounts. So if Santa didn’t bring you what you wanted, then check out this sale.

One thing I really like about Steam is that you don’t need a CD for the games that you buy, and you can install from the internet.

So it’s pretty easy to have a game installed on several computers, and not have to move a disc back and forth to play. Of course you can only be logged onto Steam on one computer at a time.

Just a few Higlights:

Left 4 Dead - $37.49 for 1 copy, or $134.99 for 4 Copies

Portal - $4.99

Civilization 4 (Civ 4) – $14.99 The Complete pack is only $24.99

Call of Duty 4 is $37.49

Call of Duty Warchest is $29.99

I'm going to get a little old school on you here today. Remember those crazy modem init strings? I bet you thought we were all done with those. Well, with Smart Phones that act like blue tooth modems, everything old is new again.

The problem that I ran into was that I had to specify my access point in the init string. Looking at the properties of the modem, the box where you enter the init string isn't available. Well, here's how you change it.

Step 1:

Click on Start > Control Panel > Phone and Modem Options (If you don't see Phone and Modem Options, click on "Classic View" on the left task pane first).

Step 2:

In Phone and Modem options, Click on the "Modems Tab", and then double click on the modem you want to change.

Step 3:

Now, here's the part that's tripping everyone up. If you go to the Advanced tab, all of your options are unavailable. Before you try to change these, what you have to do is click on the "Change Settings" button on the general tab.

After you do that, you'll be able to click on the advanced tab, and change the init string to your heart's content.

If you’re still an owner of a VCR (Remember those?), you may soon find it difficult to find anything new to play on it.

The last movie to be released on VHS was “A History of Violence” back in 2006, but you’ve been able to find older movies on the ancient format in places like dollar stores and your local grocery for a few dollars.

That’s about to come to an end as the last distributor of the titles shipped out their final truckload back in October from their warehouse in Palm Harbor, Florida.

VHS served us well for many years, and it’s kind of sad to think it won’t be around any longer. So, in a fit of nostalgia, I’d like to hear about your favorite VHS movie memories in the comments!

One of my favorites is when the original three episodes of Star Wars were released for the first time as a boxed set. I ran right out and bought the set, then rushed home to watch them. I’ll never forget hearing the Star Wars theme and watching the famous scrolling “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” on a television right there in my own living room. Wow!