I’m So Excited

A coworker’s dad got a new laptop and they can’t get it to print on their home network. They have pretty much same set up as I do: broadband modem, wireless router for the laptop, desktop PC wired to router with attached printer. The big difference is dad’s laptop has Vista. I tried to talk her through a few things to check, but no progress was made. She’s no dummy, except, like me, in matters of Vista.

On Thursday, I printed out a bunch of stuff I found on the net about Vista and network printing and after work we headed over to visit dad. I thought I asked, but maybe not in a way that was clear, but the two PCs were not networked at all. The laptop did have access to the interweb through the router though. The domain names were the same on both PCs, we turned off the firewalls, I ran the networking wizard on the XP desktop and I think I got everything right on the Vista laptop, but there was no connection made.

I came home and hit the back alleys of the net to find a copy of Vista so I could try loading it on my laptop and see if I could network it. It took until late last night get the full torrent downloaded (I guess there is not a lot of folks out there that want a copy.)

Today I installed Vista onto the recently vacated partition where the Windows 7 Beta resided. I connected to the wireless router, changed a few networking settings on Vista and I was in. My only snafu was setting up the printer, but only because Vista didn’t have a native driver for it. A simple download later and I could print.

I wonder what it would take to start over with the whole networking thing on Dad’s machine?

I’m so excited about this coming week, but I’m not sure what about more:

  1. A new episode of House on Monday,
  2. the swearing in of 44,
  3. season five of LOST on Wednesday,
  4. or Friday afternoon off.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

DVD Fun

Thanks Mark.

  1. Take the William & Mary Region 2 DVD in PAL format and run it through DVD Decrypter to copy it to your hard drive.
  2. Run it through VobBlanker to change it to from PAL to NTSC and save it to a new directory.
  3. Run those files through DVD Shrink 3.2, squishing the files (so they will fit on a single layer DVD) and save those to another directory.
  4. Finally burn this last directory to a blank DVD +r using ImageBurn.

Two hours in front of the computer and the DVD doesn’t play in the living room, the Region Code is still intact. I’ve got to delve into the process and find out where I strip the region code…tomorrow.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

Martin Clunes

We have been watching Doc Martin, a British TV show, about a stuck up surgeon from London who gives up his practice because of a phobia of blood to become a GP in a small village in Cornwall. Most of the humor comes from the fact that the doctor has zero interpersonal skills and is entirely incapable of telling anything but the truth and usually in a scientific/doctorly way which is usually unpleasant to the listener. Nearly all the remaining laughs are generated by some of the totally odd inhabitants of the smal seaside village, with just a few left over for the budding romance between the Doc (with which he has no experience at) and the school’s headmistress.

They have filmed 3 Series of the show consisting of 6, 8 and 7 episodes each. The first Series we rented from Netflix, but numbers 2 & 3 haven’t been released in the US as of yet, so we had to turn to Nigel who had copies available in the boot of his Vauxhall Vectra saloon that he could sell us. We are now down to the last two episodes of Series 3 and we will be finished. For now, they are working on a Series 4 that is supposed to start filming in May of this year, so maybe by the end of 2009 we will be able to watch those shows too.

Doc Martin stars Martin Clunes who is proof positive that acting matters more than looks to the English. While not what you would call ugly, more like eccentric, he won’t be making the leap to leading man in Hollywood soon. We have seen him a couple of times before, in William & Mary, a romantic comedy TV show and in Saving Grace, which ended up inspiring the Doc Martin TV show.

William & Mary ran for 3 Series and of course only the first two were released in Region 1 (the US and others). We ran through those 12 shows thanks to Netflix, but the last Series wasn’t available, even from Nigel, so we ended up buying the DVDs from Amazon in the UK. I was going to buy just Series 3, but a box set with all three Series were available for only a couple quid more, so I went for the set. Now I have to do some digital magic and rip the DVDs to my computer and stripping the region code. Then I have to burn them back to some recordable DVDs while converting them from PAL to NTSC. Wish me luck.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100

Seperated At Birth?

Every time I watch LOST and I see Miles Straum I think he looks like that guy with all the kids. Every time I catch a few glimpses of Jon & Kate Plus 8 I think how much he looks like that weird psychic guy on LOST. (I’m not the only one) But as I went searching for photos with them in similar poses, I now see that they really don’t look much alike at all.

Windows 7 is gone. Booted into it, downloaded a copy of EasyBCD and used it to remove the Vista-like bootloader, booted back into XP and formatted the partition it resided on.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 100