Smiths on Guitar is a great resource for those wanting to play like guitar hero Johnny Marr.
February 5, 2012
October 16, 2010
Things I am enjoying right now
Been a while since I saw fit to update this thing. I find standard blogging pretty boring – most blogs being along the lines of “look at this, isn’t it cool.” Hence the lack of updates. But I do want to point to one consistently excellent arts and culture blog that I’ve been digging a lot, Dangerous Minds. It’s a scintillating mix of heroes, villains, and associated ephemera.
January 10, 2010
The benefits of graduate school
You might want to think twice about getting a law degree. The extent of the bimodality of legal salaries is quite stark.
November 27, 2009
Fuck Black Friday
It started innocently enough – many years ago with the media reporting that the day after Thanksgiving was the busiest shopping day of the year. No news at all really, just a conspiracy of a day off, forced time with family, and boredom; this ‘busiest shopping day’ is now dubbed ‘Black Friday.’ The only thing black about it is that each year, the day fails to deliver on its promise of stemming the decline of our bankrupt society. Well, that and how depressing it is to here the same shit year after year. Expect to hear post-Friday news stories of how disappointing the day was to retailers, because ‘the economy’ and ‘the unemployment.’
Well, I say ‘fuck off, you cunts’ to the whole ritual of boredom. We may be a nation of consumers, but that’s nothing to fucking celebrate, nothing to be proud of.
November 14, 2009
E-MU 0404 USB Interface Latency
Recently I’ve experienced some serious issues with playback and record with Cubase through my E-MU 0404. As I used the device, the sound would become progressively more distorted and drop out entirely. Resetting the device (using a power cycle) resolved the issue, but only temporarily. After some research I learned that these types of problems are is often due to other devices on your system misbehaving. Using the DPC Latency Checker tool, I was able to single out the culprit, my wireless network card. Updating the driver on the card resolved the issue. If you can’t find an updated driver, you might have to disable the device (at least while recording.)
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October 29, 2009
In place upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional
I have no idea why Microsoft insists on a clean install when upgrading from Microsoft Vista Home Premium to Microsoft Windows 7 Professional. In fact, I don’t really care. I want to do an in-place upgrade. I’m a busy person and don’t have time to dick around for 8-12 hours installing, moving files, moving settings, and reinstalling all my applications. Using a little ingeniuity – i.e. hacking – I was able to do:
- an in-place upgrade to Ultimate,
- a downgrade to Professional,
- and an activation for Professional
If you are like me, you purchased the Windows 7 Professional ‘upgrade,’ so you have media and a product key. Here’s what you need to do:
- Hack your install media. It turns out that every edition is included on every installer disk. So no matter what edition you have, you have a full install Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. To unlock the capability, create an ISO image of your Windows 7 Professional disk. There are multiple utilities for doing this, most of them are free, use Google to find one. Once you have made the image, convert it to an Ultimate Installer disk using the Windows ISO Image Edition Switcher utility.
- Now mount the ISO image and begin the install. Again, there are lot of free utilities for mounting ISO images. Use whatever works for you. (Google)
- When you have the option, choose to do an upgrade install. Window 7 Ultimate allows you to upgrade in-place from just about any other edition.
- After a few hours, you will have a working version of Windows 7 Ultimate. The problem is, it isn’t activated and you have a Windows 7 Professional product key. You cannot activate Ultimate using this key. You need to take the next step – downgrade it.
- Use regedit.exe and go to \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version hive.
- Change the key ‘EditionID’ key from ‘Ultimate’ to ‘Professional’
- Change the ‘Product Name’ key from ‘Windows 7 Ultimate’ to ‘Windows 7 Professional’
- Now, using your upgrade media (not the ISO) run another install and choose to upgrade.
- Several hours later you will have Window 7 Professional.
- Now, activate it using your product key. ALL DONE!
Update: an alternative to the above that can save a lot of time: Chris writes (in comments below:)
I had Vista Home Premium (32bit), I made a 7 Home premium disk (from my 7 Pro) and made an in place upgrade. After install, I did not enter a key but went to desktop and did the Anytime Upgrade. I chose that I already had a key, as I have a 7 Pro key already. I entered the key and within 15 minutes, I had a fully activated 7 Pro without losing my settings, programs, etc., etc.
You should do this instead, it will save you several hours!
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October 25, 2009
September 11, 2009
iTunes gets a watched folder
At last with the new version of iTunes 9.0 contains a special watched folder. On the PC, navigate to your iTunes Music folder and look for the folder titled “Automatically add to iTunes.” Music you place in this folder will be added to your library instantly. Bravo!
August 16, 2009
July 13, 2009
Bernard Sumner Acoustic
Bernard Sumner does four songs on acoustic guitar, includes links to mp3s.