danny’s space

Was making a mini-seminar Powerpoint on my whole honours project, and what did that annoying paperclip say to me? The gall of Microsoft…

Thanks for rubbing it in.

It sounds even better when an HP tech support dude from India says it.

So the HP Photosmart 3110 multifunction printer we got at the end of last year has been screwing up on and off, especially with the paper feed. You need to entice the printer to take up paper by patting it gently and saying kind words to it. So I gave HP support a call a few months ago, and they recommended physically cleaning the paper rollers from the back of the printer with a cloth, and then doing this media sense calibration thing. That fixed the problem, for about 1 print. Then I couldn’t be bothered calling them up again until this week.

Gave them a call, quoted the reference number from before, and they sent me this ‘paper pick pit’, also known as an ‘HP Paper Feed Cleaning Kit’. It’s basically a plastic tray with a rough patch at the end which you slot into the paper tray and it grinds the paper rollers thanks to the attached software. 24 minutes, loud grinding and a burning rubber smell later, the printer now picks up paper properly, hooray! No more error beeps when trying to print or copy. The photo shows the grinding area and the sanded-off bits of paper roller. Funky. Who would have thought they’d make these things. I guess it’s cheaper than replacing the whole printer, which by the way HP was willing to do if this paper pick kit didn’t do anything. HP support rocks. Too bad the calls are rerouted to India.

In the interest of wasting time while writing up my thesis… here are some more Flash games I like.

Unreal Flash - yes, it’s like UT but Flash and 2D. Fun but sometimes laggy.
Chaos Faction - like Super Smash Bros on Nintendo consoles, too bad it’s only single player vs CPU.
Champion Archer - shoot arrows at stick figures.
Weapon Fire - not as corny as it sounds; a side-scrolling shooting game.
Territory War - turn based side-scrolling combat game.
Flash Craft - tower defence based loosely on Warcraft 3.
Clash n Slash - arcade game where you shoot alien spaceships. Yes, fun!
Thing Thing 3 - fast-paced side-scrolling shooter. Also check out 1 and 2, they were easier to beat.

Yes, I should be writing up my thesis, but alas, I wanted a break of sorts. For the whole of Saturday morning to take my mind off how stuffed I truly am.

So looked around on Armor Games and Addicting Games, as you do, and started playing Storm the House 2. Played a few times before but never got too far because always was too greedy and bought all the weapons. Anyway, long story short, got to the end of the game and was ‘awarded’ with the magical weapon Fisty McBeefPunch (see picture). As luck would have it, Firefox crashed shortly after these screenies were taken.

I want to play Diablo II again, but afraid that if I start then absolutely nothing will get done. Hmm, maybe that’s a good idea…

I’m currently taking pictures on the confocal laser scanning microscope in the lab. Going to go shoot some DNA and gold into leek soon. Using the computer that’s hooked up to the microscope to control my laptop via VNC. Using the laptop then to control my mobile via infrared. Why don’t I just have my mobile next to me in the lab? Good point. But that would mean I couldn’t blog about all this remote control business.

Meanwhile the 180FM leaders are having dinner at Pent Thai in Epping, and I’m stuck at uni doing experiments. Argh!

Let’s see if this works…

Warning - do not click if you have a fast internet connection and a weak heart.

Did you click it? It’s called Lightbox - it’s meant to make the parent page go dark but it doesn’t seem to work for me all the time. At least the image loads.

There’s so much good free software for net-based things on the net. Where do these people find the time to progam it all? I’m glad they do though.

And ahh, the reason the thumbnails look pixelated is because of the browser resizing a smaller thumbnail to fit a larger container - if you remove the width and height settings form the img tag then it’s right.

Woo just updated most of the blog photos into ImageManager and Lightbox form. Hooray. Looks semi 1337 now.

Did you know you can check flight arrival/departure information from the Sydney Airport website? Cool.

In other news, I’ve gone through a few plugins for inserting images easily and effectively into posts. I started with Sticky Image a year back when the blog first started, and then moved quickly onto IImage Browser which had an upload feature and was easy to use. I thought I had found the answer.

But unfortunately the upgrade to Wordpress 2 broke IImage, so I switched to Photopress. But after playing around with the wonders of Wordpress Widgets for a bit and struggling with the Wordpress support forum on this, I found out that there was a compatibility issue between Photopress and widgets, so I went looking for a better solution. Most of the plugins listed on plugin sites were awful - they were either missing an upload feature, an insert feature, resizing features, etc.

But finally this morning I came across ImageManager from a comment that someone had posted on the IImage Browser home page, saying that this ImageManager thing was so good and it actually worked with WP2.0. So I decided to check it out and voila, it works! Well, for the time being. And widgets likes it too. It’s got an upload feature, thumbnail creation, doesn’t have an unnecessary gallery element, and it even comes with an explorer-like interface. It’s just a bit tricky to install. Will stick with it for the time being until another issue comes up.

This calls for an image of Jaz to test this plugin out.

Ok well I guess the thumbnail creation isn’t that good - the thumbnails come out all pixelated. Hmm. But it’s got an inbuilt editing feature (which might be useless apart from the crop and resize features) and you can also delete photos without going through FTP. I think I can live with the dodgy thumbnails for the time being. At least it links to the full res shot which is normal quality.

7:15pm - Transferred from Optus internet helpdesk to telephone helpdesk, promised that it was open until 8pm.

7:16pm - Muzak. Your call is important to us. An operator will be with you shortly.

7:20pm - More muzak. We apologise for the delay.

7:25pm - Ditto.

7:30pm - Hang up the phone, ring them again. 133 937. Follow the prompts.

7:32pm - Our telephone helpdesk is open between the hours of 8am and 7pm. Please call back.

7:33pm - Dial tone.

The machine hung up on me! The gall…

Fuel prices are expected to hit $2 by next year, says some dude on the TV. So I went to Smart.com looking for Chrysler Smart cars, those electric/petrol hybrid vehicles that look really funny. And not good funny. They’re not that expensive though, maybe $25,000 for a decent model with decent features. But as with all things car, add-ons cost an arm and a leg. The servicing probably costs the same too.

So anyway, as one does when one surfs randomly while procrastinating, i went to Dumb.com (the ‘opposite’ of smart.com). And came across dumb laws. Unfortunately they’re all American. Or maybe fortunately. Don’t know if they’re real or not, but knowing America, they might actually be! Anyway, here’s a taste:

• In West Virginia it is illegal to snooze on a train
• In Wisconsin, citizens may not murder their enemies
• In Wyoming, you may not take a picture of a rabbit in June
• In Washington, it is illegal to display a hypnotised person in a shop window
• In Utah, it is illegal not to drink milk
• In Texas, it is legal to commit a homicide as long as you tell the person when and how you are going to kill them
• In Tennessee, it is illegal to catch a fish with a lasso
• In South Dakota, if there are more than 5 native Americans on your property you may shoot them
• In South Carolina, horses may not be kept in bathtubs
• In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors
• In Florida, it is illegal to fart in a public place after 6pm on Thursdays
• In Minnesota, a person may not cross state lines with a duck on top of their head
• In Massachusetts, it is illegal to put tomatoes in clam chowder
• In Maine, you may not step out of a plane during a flight
• In Louisiana, you may not tie an alligator to a fire hydrant
• In Kentucky, it is illegal to transport an ice cream cone in your pocket
• In Iowa, horses are fobidden to eat fire hydrants
• In Indiana, the value of Pi is 4, not 3.1416
• In Hawaii, coins are not allowed to be placed in someone’s ears
• In Quitman, Georgia, it is illegal for a chicken to cross the road