Windows 7 x64 Ultimate - Taking the plunge

I’m just about finished backing everything up off of my main machine (Windows 7 32-bit Ultimate). I’ve heard alot of good things about Windows 7 (read quite a bit too) - and even decent things about the install process. What’s tying me to Windows is Fallout 3 and the random Windows-only game…sorry Ubuntu, I love ya' but we just can’t go steady yet. I’ll update this post as I install and use this new OS.
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Fixing a jumpy cusor/pointer on your optical/laser mouse

? Minutes ago, I started to use my Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 (v2.0)…and the pointer was jumpy…kinda jittery…whenever I moved it left to right. Up and down was fine though. I resynced the mouse, replace the batteries, and even restarted…still it was jumpy. I’ve long since lost the receipt to this mouse (which I really like…would hate to replace it) - so did some searching for others who may have had this issue.
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Jon can cook...

Tonight I tried my hand at making one of my favorite eat-out foods. This is my second try…the first ended up in the trash can. And which roll did I make? The classic Americanized sushi - the California Roll. Where did I get my inspiration? Youtube videos. Search for “how to sushi rice” and “how to california roll” and enough instructions will appear that even the slowest of cooks…ahem…can figure it out.
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Lenovo T61 Speakers popping

I was fortunate to get a new laptop at work recently. I took my time on a long weekend configuring it to my satisfaction, but was annoyed by an annoying “pop” noise coming from the speakers after every sound. A little further testing showed that this was only when the machine was on battery power. This post on notebookreview and this post on the OpenSuse forums point to incorrect power management settings for the sound hardware.
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Code Memories?

Every once in a while I’ll start thinking of long-past written code. Lately I’ve been thinking of C/C++… This isn’t a language I wish to make a living coding. In fact - many parts of my C/C++ education were /very/ lacking. However, there are times when I think back to things that I could have done better, things I really enjoyed coding (Blackjack console app with ASCII cards..heh), and things I just plain didn’t understand or care to.
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Active Directory homeDrive (Home Folder)

If you’re using an automated tool to create your user accounts and assign a Home Folder (a mapped drive pointing to shared location on a server) - make certain that the property has a colon after the drive letter (e.g. Z: not Z). Without the colon, the drive will not be mapped on user log on. How do you know if this property is set correctly? Active Directory Users and Computers won’t show you.
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Boxes of Orden

I just finished reading Chainfire, by Terry Goodkind. I had taken a 2 year hiatus from reading the series and finally returned to it. If you’re looking to pick up recreational reading, I highly recommend the series. It starts with “Wizard’s First Rule”. Truly one of the best series of our time.

eeePC - not for the masses

I managed to purchase one of these little gems in late April. I’ve been a longtime fan of Linux and Asus in general, so the thought of a little laptop running the free OS was enough to keep me dreaming until I broke down and ordered one. I bought a 7" model with the4 gig hard drive and an extra 2 gigs of ram. I did the ram install myself and setup the Advanced Desktop to my liking.
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Finding the last login date for all profiles

By day I am but an humble IT worker - currently tasked with maintaining and improving scripts and tools that keep our enterprise workstations humming. My largest project thus far has been an ever growing inventory script (now a .NET 2 app) that reports information back to a SQL database. This app is run on a schedule by a service I wrote. The script collects great pieces of information - everything from the screen resolution being used to information on SQL Server instances on the device (yep - inventories servers too!
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Laptop BIOS/CMOS reset = pain

This post is for those individuals looking to see if this is possible… I just reset the BIOS on an HP Pavilion ZE4900 (laptop) by removing and replacing the CMOS battery. The online manual doesn’t show its location - but you need to complete disassemble the laptop down to removing the main board. The CMOS battery is located on the underside of the board toward the front of the laptop. Needless to say - the last four hours are hours I’ll never get back :-/