Archive for June, 2008
Blogger adds import and export features to its arsenal in draft.
Jun 30th
This has been a long time coming… We had old school workarounds here and here. And we have been tortured with Intense Debate’s lack of being able to either import back into Blogger or export all of our comments in a standard form. I’m sure you remember all the hooplah here.
Now with the announcement of some AWESOME blogger features like importing and exporting blogs including comments… In line commenting and some other goodies we are going to attempt to piece back together our Frankenstein commenting system and merge it all into one place! Wish us luck.While checking out the new features I noticed Blogger’s new editing system which is a HUGE jump from the old one. I like it a lot! It adds features like resizing images within the editor at the click of a button and easier image uploads among the visual overhaul it got! Link validation, entering email links got easier and I’m sure there is a bunch more stuff I have not found yet. Me likey!
If you want to get your new Blogger features on check it out at draft.blogger.com. If you want to lend us a helping hand with our comment system piece together project email me or shout us out in the comments!
Want to download from YouTube? You will need to kiss them first!
Jun 29th
Strange post title?
You bet! But it will make more sense in a minute. Millions of videos have been uploaded to YouTube and people watch them on a daily basis. But if you want to download those same videos to your local machine you had to jump through hoops… But Abhijeet Mukherjee, a fellow makeUseOf author put me on to a little secret. A very easy solution to get you downloading YouTube videos with a quickness.
Check out the full post here for a bunch of ways to download from youTube. But this one stuck out for me. All you need to do is append Kiss in front of the domain name and you will be sent to a page AUTOMAGICALLY to download the video. For example:
Say you were watching this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEiJ3QA4kKs
Now change that link to be 
http://www.kissyoutube.com/watch?v=oEiJ3QA4kKs
And you will be taken to a page that looks like this:
Go ahead stock up on your favorite YouTube video’s to watch off-line. Great find!
BTW: Have you guys seen the new Futurama movie yet?
See the magic behind Photoshop CS2: The easter egg.
Jun 28th
Here is a little easter egg for your Friday morning…
(Disclaimer: Note this is not an actually egg nor does it have ANYTHING to do with easter…)
- If you open up Adobe Photoshop CS2 and hold down the Control and Alt keys on your keyboard
- (Keep on holding them…)
- Then click on the arrow on your palette window as seen below (keep holding those keys down)
- Now click on palette options still holding down those keys and NOT releasing the mouse until you are hovered over palette options… Then witness the magic…
Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Did you miss our Google Reader Ninja Easter Egg? Check it out!
Yet another device to drive people crazy. Great geek gift!
Jun 27th
I just got pinged from our geeky friends that there is a new gadget on the block. This is a follow up article to our Annoy-o-Tron Prank… Here is the Phantom Keystroker (Sounds perverted but it is AWESOME!)
We love us some ThinkGeek stuff and now they bring us this new High-Tech Office-Based Prank Device. Perfect for your prankster Admin or lonely mad scientist type…
Or how about you??!?
Before we start, let me tell you I just ordered one and have the perfect person in mind for this! This do-hickey attaches to any available usb port on a PC or Mac and that is all the work you will need to do.
It costs $25 and is well worth the hours of entertainment you can get from watching your Marks, End Losers Co-Workers go crazy, pulling their hair out of their geeky heads because their computer is fighting back. This little guy emulates a keyboard and mouse and intermittently moves or types.
HOW GREAT IS THAT?
No drivers needed for the easy fix! Check out this information from their website. And remember if you buy one of these via any link on this page we will get some money towards AskTheAdmin’s pending upgrades! So help us by helping yourself to hours of fun!
With the advent of the incessantly beeping and easily concealable Annoy-a-tron, ThinkGeek has ushered in a new era of sophisticated office pranks sure to drive your co-workers bonkers while you snicker silently at your desk. Now the next advanced level in stealthy office-joke electronics is ready for your enjoyment. The Phantom Keystroker may look like a harmless circuit board, but it’s actually a devious contraption of unlimited office-based torture.
Simply discreetly attach the Phantom Keystroker to any extra USB port on your victim’s computer, no drivers needed. The Keystroker emulates a keyboard and mouse and periodically makes random mouse movements and types out odd garbage text and phrases. Your hapless co-worker pal will think his computer has been possessed or infected by a destructive virus. As he writhes in anger and furiously dials tech support you can rest easy with a job well done.
Plus if you spend over $25 bucks they will throw in a Ninja Remote for FREE!
Check out our Ninja Remote Review.
And of course if you have been living under a rock here is our Annoy-o-tron review as well.
Plugged in not charging 0% remaining
Jun 27th
No seriously… WTF???I saw this for the first time today… TWICE! Two almost brand new laptops one HP and one ACER had the same symptoms. They were both plugged in and NOT charging! On $2000 toys office resources this is serious!
I looked on-line and could not find an answer anywhere. It seemed lots of people were complaining of the same issue. Some of them did bios updates, uninstalled Microsoft power drivers, went out and bought new batteries, chargers or sent their machine in for servicing.
I tried the not charging batteries on other machines and they were charging!
I popped them back one back into the Vista machine and it still was not charging. The other laptop was XP. But the machine was not even charging when it was shut down. So how could that be possible?
I have NO IDEA! But all I know is how I finally fixed the problem on one of the machines and then on the second. Is it some voo-do shit? Did I wish them better somehow?
I was convinced that it was not a hardware problem after reading people having the problem on their Mac Book Pro’s running Boot Camp.
I really don’t know what I did fixed it. All I did was this:
- Shut down the laptop with the battery in and plugged in.
- Remove the battery.
- Reboot the machine.
- I waited for Vista to come up and show the power icon.
- I then reinstalled the battery.
It still said Plugged in Not charging. Then I turned away to my desktop for a second to hit up Google a little more and I saw it change out of the corner of my eye…
Plugged in. Charging 1%
SWEET! I then replicated my steps for the other machine and just like that I was back in business. Anyone care to explain this Technology Voo-Do? Does this make sense to you? Am I missing something? No really hit me up in the comments because I am flabbergasted!
Update: Just back from a meeting and my laptop is reporting that the battery is at 100%! Woo-Hoo!
Can I uninstall MSN Messenger from my XP install?
Jun 25th
A lot of users don’t use MSN Messenger but it comes pre-installed and runing on most new machines. It can annoy the hell out of people who want to have control over their machine.
GO figure – you own the machine, the software and everything else but M$ dictates how everything is supposed to work!
Here is a quick way to get MSN Messenger to show up in Add/Remove programs. But note before you do this – if you use Outlook or Outlook Express it will slow down their load times as they try to start up MSN Messenger. (Maybe we can find a fix for this as well!) (Edit See below for the fix!)
- Locate SYSOC.INF in the \Windows\INF folder (hidden file and folder)
- Open it in Notepad
- Locate the line: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7
- Remove the word “hide” from the line and save the file.
Now if you check your Add/Remove Windows components inside Add/Remove programs under your control panel.
MSN Messenger will now appear as two objects and allow you to remove them ! As always editing your registry or system files can do permanent harm to your machine. Back up before doing anything and Don’t make other changes just to make changes :)
(Edit: After removing it here is the registry key to prevent the outlook express or outlook delay:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express
Right click in the right pane and select New, Dword value. Give it the name Hide Messenger Double click this new entry and set the value to 2.)
_TheHatesMsnAdmiN_
