Archive for July, 2007

Jul200713

Alisha

1

BSOD & NTLDR Is Missing

First off, yes, it’s Friday the 13th. I’m not very superstitious on this date, but I’ve also never had anything horrible happen on this date either. Until today. Note, I didn’t even know today was the 13th until after the following happened:

Last night I backed up Windows. (Lucky me, or subconsciously I knew something would happen.) This morning, I open up my desk, turn on my monitor to find a blue screen, something I don’t see often. I scan it, seeing something about scsiport. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, since I know blue screens happen, but I did figure that scsiport has to do with hard drives. So I restarted the computer to find “NTLDR is missing”!

That’s no big deal I thought, I backed up Windows last night. I load Norton Ghost, clicked on Recover My Computer and I see two hard drives. Two hard drives? Where’s the third? I check the sizes, 160GB and 80GB, but no 250GB. I start panicking even though I have a backup, because that hard drive is only a year or less old! And, I had bought it because my 80GB always had problems when Windows was on it. I don’t even use it for backups, only temporary backups. Looking at the list of backups I have, this is where I notice that it’s Friday the 13th.

My next step was to check the BIOS and find my hard drive. No 250GB hard drive there. Only two hard drives available. So, I e-mail David telling him what happened and he says a cable may have come loose. So, the next thing to do is to check the cable. If that doesn’t work, replace the cable. If that doesn’t work, cry because my hard drive is gone!

I checked the cables of all my hard drives to make sure they aren’t loose. Started up the computer and the hard drive was there again. I was happy! I just didn’t understand how the cable could become loose, but then again, I’ve had a cable on my motherboard come loose before. I may have bumped my case and nothing happened until later I guess.

Anyway, let that be a lesson to everyone who doesn’t make backups. If this happened to you and your drive actually died, what would you do without a backup and all your files are gone? Online backup solutions are available.

Jul200712

Alisha

0

Windows Vista Ultimate in a Virtual Machine

I’m not that fond of Vista just yet. Besides the annoying (are you sure you want to open this, even though you just clicked it?) messages, Vista does have some nice features that XP is just missing.

  • Nicer looking interface
  • Better system tray
  • Clock supports multiple time zones to show more than one time
  • A photo gallery
  • Widgets, gadgets (whatever you want to call them)
  • A calendar
  • Better start menu

Vista Screenshot

Why am I running Vista in a virtual machine rather than dual booting or installing over XP? Although Microsoft’s Vista Upgrade Advisor tells me that I can run Vista and doesn’t seem to indicate that there will be hardware issues, I can’t install Vista. Well, I can install it, it’s after I restart and it starts the loading screen that I get a blank screen instead of a window to move on to the next step to finish the install. Just for lying to me, Microsoft should buy me a computer with Vista pre-loadedicon.

At first, I started to think it was my video card; 256MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200LE. I searched all over forums and websites to figure out if there was a solution to this problem. Some people said that it’s not compatible and others said it is. Another place said that you can use just about any video card, but if you want the Aero Glass look and other nice features, you need the Vista compatible video cards. Well, my video card can more than handle that if only I could load Vista!

Since David had an extra video card laying around, I figured I would try it out. It turns out it was only a 16MB nVIDIA Vanta, and I still had problems trying to get Vista loaded. It kept giving me blue screens.

Next, I started doing some more research, reading forum after forum and found out that nVIDIA stopped support for the nForce2. What!? Supposedly a select few have gotten Vista working with nForce2, but a lot of others can’t seem to. This must be my problem?

So, it’s either buy a cheap computer with Vista pre-loaded, buy new hardware or just stick with a virtual machine. For now, I think I will stick with the virtual machine. Sorry Microsoft, your new OS isn’t worth the money at this time.

If anyone knows of a solution for installing Vista with nForce2, please leave a comment! I would rather not buy new hardware just to play around with Vista. If it only involved buying a new video card, that would be fine, those are cheap and I think the fan on mine is dying anyway.

Jul200708

Alisha

13

AJAX-Enabled Wordpress Themes

AJAX seems to be a very popular feature on websites. I was curious as to how many WordPress themes are AJAX-enabled. Here is a large enough list of themes that have AJAX built-in.

I am not including a preview with these themes, but there will be a link to the demo (if available) and the website for more information and to download the theme.

  1. BloxPress
    • Demo
    • Website
    • Feature(s): Customize layout by dragging blocks.
  2. Ubiquitous
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX-enabled search.
  3. Giraffe2
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX comments.
  4. Commodore, Splat, CLI2 and IAK
  5. Unnamed
    • Demo
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX shelf, live comments and preview.
  6. AjaxBerlee
  7. Binary Blue
  8. Lush
  9. Lush Greenz
  10. Durable
  11. IntraBlog
  12. iScattered
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX style switcher.
  13. Simplus
  14. ajaxBosa
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX comments.
  15. ajaxEmire
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX comments.
  16. Balance
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): Unknown.
  17. ajaxQwilm
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX comments.
  18. ajaxSubtle
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX comments.
  19. Ernest
    • Demo (Unavailable)
    • Website
    • Feature(s): AJAX effects.
  20. Web 2.0
  21. Reflect

This list probably doesn’t include every AJAX enabled theme available, but it is all I could find right now. Also, the themes that begin with ‘ajax’ are modifications of the original themes.

Jul200705

Alisha

0

Get Windows Vista Ultimate

Just about everyone would love to get their hands on a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, considering how much it costs if one was to buy it. Even I would like to have one, two or three copies. I would sell them and probably keep one for myself just for testing.

Getting a free copy can be very time consuming, but could be worth it. Live Search Club gives you a chance to play for tickets. These tickets allow you to purchase prizes. Currently, Windows Vista Ultimate is worth 6,000 tickets.

The easiest game I know of is Chicktionary, because all you do is unscramble letters to form words. Use an online unscrambler if you are stuck. It’s a really fun game. There are other games, but for me, this one goes much faster than the others, earning 20 tickets in every puzzle.

Go play to get your copy of Windows Vista Ultimate! Or you could always buy it.

UPDATE: I just used 6,000 of my tickets to get Windows Vista Ultimate. Says to expect it in six to eight weeks.

Jul200704

Alisha

2

The Best WordPress Themes

I know there are a lot of blogs that discuss the best WordPress themes, but sometimes I see themes in their lists that I don’t really think should be considered the best.

Here is a collection of the best, in my opinion, WordPress themes not in any particular order. Included for each theme is a preview of the theme along with a link to the theme’s demo (if available) and website, and a reason why I think it is the best.

Cleaker

This one is a beautiful three-column theme. It was my first experience with three columns. After a while, I just needed something different. All the colors go well together. I also liked this one because I could edit the CSS file very easily as it is well organized.

Merdeka

I absolutely love the hidden navigation in this one as well; similar to the one in Foliage Mod (#9 in the list). The colors in this theme go beautifully together.

Subtle

I like the transparency for the menu. This theme looks really good. There are also a few styles available for this one. The Apart style is my favorite (similar to the A List Apart website).

Gridlock

Gridlock offers quick access to RSS, integrated del.icio.us functionality, plus a place to link to Flickr or another photo system. Gridlock has Mike Davidson’s sIFR Rich Typography system built directly into the theme as well, offering a powerful Flash-based typography tool for typophiles and other design-types alike.

I used Gridlock for a very short amount of time. I liked it because it had that web-zine style to it. Also, as stated above, it has some nice features included.

FFF

This is a very green theme. One nice looking feature is when you hover over the previous posts; give it a try on the demo. I’m not really fond of left aligned themes, but this one looks great being left aligned, because the main content isn’t on the left, it’s more towards the center.

Squible

This is one of those non-blog-like themes that are becoming more popular. My favorite feature in this theme is the bottom where the previous posts and asides are listed. They are organized in a nice format.

Emire

Calm and aesthetically pleasing, Emire exudes an air of professionalism.

I agree with the above statement. This is a great theme for personal and business blogs. I don’t normally like black themes, being that usually the safest color for text can only be white, which is very boring. But this theme looks really good and isn’t hard on the eyes. I think the shade of green chosen helps with this.

JS Theme

I love how the categories are at the top of the page, rather than on the side, where usually you don’t see them if they are underneath other content.

Foliage Mod

I really like the pull tag at the top of this one. It keeps the navigation out of the way, separating it from the content. Again, with the black, it doesn’t look too bad with the nice shade of green on the bottom.

U4 Style

U4 Style looks really good. I like how the date blocks and the comments pop out, so they are easily seen. The green menu bar at the top is bright, but not blinding.

Fresh

This theme is fresh with the blue and green color scheme. It has that Web 2.0 look to it that most people want now. It’s very pretty!

If you think there is a theme missing that should be included here, leave a comment with your reason for liking it and the website for the theme so I can look and decide if it should be added.

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