Archive for the ‘technogeeky’ Category

found: too many unused electronics

Friday, July 11th, 2008

All negotiations for the following junk-tronics must go through the husband.  He reserves the right to not part with any of the following:

  • Firewire card
  • Geforce 7900 Video card
  • 360 watt power supply
  • 16x cd-writer drive
  • Motorola Cable Modem
  • Netgear Wireless (G) Router
  • Kenwood car Stereo [kdc-mp8017, mp3 capable]
  • Alpine car  Stereo with ipod thingie [cda-9851 + kca-420i]
  • Directv receiver [D10-200]
  • 5 old cell phones

All this stuff has been sitting in closets for a year or more - which means we are most likely never going to make any good use of it.  Anything of value will eventually be ebay-ed, while things of no value will be recycled (the cell phones) or thrown away (directv receiver).

Any takers?  [This is meant for locals, specifically, the husband's friends.  Or mine, if I had any ...]

don’t even try to out-nerd me …

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Fire pony, fire pony, I finally got my fire pony!

Years ago, the first time I ever laid eyes one, I had a conversation with the husband that went something like this:

Me: Wow!  How do I get a fire pony?!

The husband:  A what? 

Me:  A fire pony!  I just saw someone run by on a horse that was ON FIRE!

The husband:  Oh.  A felsteed?  You have to be a warlock to get one.

Me:  A warlock?  What’s a warlock?

The husband:  A warlock is one of the classes in wow.  You are a hunter.  You can’t get a felsteed.

Me:  Oh.  But you told me I could pick my mount when I got to 40.

The husband:  Yes …. within reason, though.  You can’t pick a felsteed.

Me:  Oh.  <pout>

But I rolled a warlock awhile back, and I finally got him to 40.  And now, I have my very own fire pony!

works with windows vista

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

I got a new computer a few weeks ago, and up until this evening, it has been nothing but wonderful.  Vista works a little differently than XP, sure, but I was getting the hang of things.

With the advent of tax-return-season, the husband and I have decided to do some work on the basement.  It’s already finished, but we’d like to paint it and get some new furniture.  Which means I need my 3D house software installed on my new laptop, so I can arrange things virtually before we run out and buy desks and bookshelves that we end up hating.

No worries, the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 7 has a sticker on the box:  Works with Windows Vista.  That means I can just insert my installation cd and be good to go, right?

Wrong.

I inserted the disk, and told it to autorun startup.exe when I was prompted.  And then nothing happened.  At all.  So I tried again.  And got the same results.  I opened task manager, and sure enough, there were two startup.exe processes running.  So I end-processed them.  And they didn’t end.  So I end-processed them more furiously than before.  They would not be ended. 

I hollered to the basement at the husband.  He told me to reboot my machine, and then try a little run-as-XP-compatible trick.

Telling Vista to restart yielded no restarting, so I held the power button down until it took me seriously.  Upon restarting, I was happy to see no setup.exes in the task manager.

I inserted the install cd, but this time didn’t let it auto-run.  I opened it in Windows Explorer, found startup.exe, and right-clicked on it.  I selected properties, and found the compatibility tab.  And I checked the run-this-program-in-compatibility-mode-for box.  And then I hit ‘OK.’

And then I ran startup.exe as administrator, and allowed the program to run when Vista tried to save me from myself.

And it installed!

It put a little icon on my desktop, so I clicked it to start the program.  And then it told me I had to be an admin to run the program and to contact my sys admin, k thx.  I am the sys admin on my box.  And my user IS an admin, thank you very much.

So I right-clicked the shortcut icon and made it XP compatible.  And tried again.

It let me start the program.  Finally!

So don’t believe it when you see that little ‘Works with Windows Vista’ sticker. It might just mean ‘Works-with-windows-vista-when-you-install-as-XP-and-then-run-as-XP.

don’t even try to out-nerd me …

Monday, February 4th, 2008

I love my phone.  Or, should I say, my cell phone-pda-camera.

I’ve had a cell phone of some sort for the last 6 years.  Flip phones.  Camera phones.  Clunky phones.  Phones with difficult interfaces.  Phones that tried to do too much - and ended up not doing much of anything at all.

But the phone I have now is heaven.  It does so many things - and it does them well.  I was really wary of purchasing a smart phone, but the husband talked me into it.  He got the beefier Palm Treo, while I stuck with the entry model Palm Centro.

And I love it!  I got the black one, but it has a fun glitter in it.  It’s not so much that people think you have a child’s phone - but it’s enough to keep it from being a boring black. 

I love the size of it - it fits nicely in my hand when I’m using it as a phone.  It doesn’t look like I’m just holding a pda to your head - it’s a reasonable phone size.  It is the most adorably tiny pda you will ever see.  Granted, it’s probably too small for power-pda users - but for someone like me who uses a phone to a) make phone calls, b) send the occasional text message, and c) kill time while waiting in lines, it is perfect. 

I love that it runs the Palm OS.  There are so many Palm applications out there - Quicken, Office, games galore.  If I can imagine something I need, it’s there.  Also, since Palm has been around awhile, they have had time to polish their OS for hand-held devices.  They know what works, and how to keep things responsive on a mini-computer.

I love that it has a touch screen!  Whether surfing the internet, playing sudoku, or entering contact information, the touch screen adds an intuitive way to let you do it all faster.  I did replace the tiny little plastic stylus with a slightly more sturdy metal and plastic one, but the upgrade only set me back $7, so I’m not complaining.

I love the tiny little keyboard!  Most grown adults would probably find it too small, but it works for me.  I was blessed with wonderfully strong thumbnails, and I find that the corners of my nails work perfectly for it.  When I want to send a text message or write a note to myself, I have a little keyboard which is wayyyyy faster than phone-typing.  I’m not 14, so that whole phone-typing thing is beyond my ability.  I haven’t had a chance yet to IM on my phone, but it’s got all the different IM clients on it - and with a full keyboard, I could actually keep up with a conversation.

I don’t really use the camera much, but it’s actually pretty impressive for a phone-camera.  There’s no flash, only a 2x zoom, but the pictures aren’t half-bad.  It’d certainly do in a pinch, to capture pics of a wreck in case the other guy tries to change his story later, or an unexpected celebrity sighting.

The thing I like the most, though, is that every time I see it, I think, “oh, I LOVE my phone!”  I’ve never felt that way about a phone - there was only one other phone that I thought was cute, but cute isn’t enough to make a great phone.  I love the way it looks, the way it feels - and most importantly - the way it works.

hey, he’s MY friend!

Friday, February 1st, 2008

So, I made myself a facebook account.  Cuz all the cool kids were doin’ it.  I even made myself some friends, people I knew from the neighborhood, people I knew cuz they were my husband’s friends, a college roommate, even a few people from way back in high school.

It’s kinda neat, connecting with all these people.  And doing quizzes, super-poking, playing games with them all.  I’ve made it to my first stop on Oregon Trail, I lost a Scrabulous game that I sooo totally cheated on (how LAME am I??), I’ve sent strawberries to people, accepted their karma, and updated my status.  I’ve written on people’s walls, and invited them to play silly games with me.  Oh, and begged them to read my blog …

I logged on the other day, and in my news feed, saw that my neighbor was playing poker with a guy I went to high school with.  How DARE he??  I had dibs on that guy!  I dunno if I was the link that brought them together, or if they managed to find each other on facebook through some other route.  Either way, it was a strange feeling to see those two worlds collide.  I mean, really - he was my friend first …

everybody wants to be an x-man!

Monday, January 21st, 2008

The husband and I caught part of X-Men 3 on tv this weekend, and I was surprised to recognize some of the mutants.  Before they were Juno, Maya, and McSteamy, they were Shadowcat, Callisto, and Multiple Man.  (And I have to say, good call on the beard, McSteamy.) 

I’m sure there were more recognizable mutants in the mix - X-Men 3 pulls out all the stops, there’s a billion characters in the movie - but we didn’t watch the whole thing.  I’ll have to keep my eyes open next time I watch it!

even more pics

Monday, January 7th, 2008

I’ve put up several more pics, and tried to organize the gallery a little better.  There are still some more pics I haven’t put up yet, the husband is holding them hostage on his laptop.  Ok, so maybe not really hostage, but they aren’t on any of my machines, so I’ve put them off till last.

None of these new pics have descriptions yet, but someday I’ll get to that.  :-)

labeled gallery pics

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Ok, so I haven’t gotten around to actually adding any more pics to my gallery - but I did go back and label the pics that are already there.  I also tried to trim the galleries, but I don’t think I was very successful at it.

And, for the husband’s family, I do know your names.  I made a conscious effort to not put names in, I instead used relationships.  (i.e., ‘the niece,’ ‘the mother-in-law,’ etc.)  I made this decision because while I don’t have a problem with my name being ‘out there’ on the ‘internet,’ I realize that not all people feel the same way.  I don’t want to make anyone feel exposed.

Using relationships in lieu of names also serves a double purpose: for people who don’t know the people in the pictures, relationships serve as a better description.  The husband’s coworkers, for example, have no idea who ‘mildred’ is or how she might connected to me - but they do understand step-great-aunt-in-law.  Er, well, maybe not that relationship, I’m not entirely sure what that one means …

happy new year!

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

I rang in last year with my lego batmobile. This year, it’s lego star wars for the ps3.

Now, I am not a serious gamer - I prefer mah jong and solitaire to the generally more reflex-testing console games. But the lego star wars game is just plain fun - and no serious skill needed. If you die, no biggie, you lose some coins and come back to life. Have no coins? Whatever, come back to life anyway! It’s all good.

The cut scenes are truly a delight - they tell the star wars story, but with lego characters. Someone lose a head? Off pops the lego head. Someone lose a hand? Off pops the lego appendage. No gore, just pure silly lego fun.

And the two player functionality is awesome - a second person can just join and leave whenever they want - no commitment required. This has actually come in handy on some of the more difficult maneuvers - while chasing darth maul up and across and over platforms (lots of jumping required), the husband and I just couldn’t seem to get it together and both make all the jumps. Sometimes I’d miss, and end up dragging him down with me. Rarely, it was he who would miss, and we’d both go plummeting back down to the beginning. So what to do? I dropped out until he made it all the way to the top, then joined back in. My qui-gonn, as the computer, had managed all the jumps just fine.

We’ve made it to episode III fairly quickly, which is a plus. Games that drag on for too long get frustrating, and then I never finish them. Once we make it to the end, the game isn’t over - you can replay the levels with any characters you choose. Last night, the husband and I replayed one of our beaten levels as qui-gonn and darth maul. It did make getting to the end of the level a little difficult however, as we kept feeling the need to kill each other …

tiny sony speakers

Saturday, December 15th, 2007

Woohoo!  If you google ‘tiny sony speakers’, guess what the first hit is?  You guessed it, akaemi.com!

A few weeks ago, ‘tiny sony speakers’ showed up on my google analytics as search terms that somebody used to get to my site.  I laughed, as I realized they must be getting to my post about the Tysons Corner Mall.  What a disappointment that must have been - someone was looking for, well, tiny sony speakers, and instead found an ode to my favorite shopping establishment.

Well, those search terms have risen to the top of my search terms list, with 4 whole people.  That’s right, there are 4 people who were sadly disappointed with my mall raves instead of a tech review or perhaps an online merchant.  Looking further down the list, there are 3 people who discovered how much I love my ‘cowgirl pants,’ and one person who has discovered my love for the ‘choco cherry love blizzard dairy queen.’

I can’t imagine that anybody who has found my site through googling has really, truly, found what they were looking for.  (Well, except maybe the 3 people who googled ‘akaemi.’)  But, hey, I don’t care - I’ll take visitors any way I can get them.  :-)