I told my wife this weekend that as an IT professional, I knew that I should dust my Windows XP install every six months and start over due to something termed “bit rot“. But as an IT professional, I was also lazy to do it on my own system because even with my back ups, it would still take me hours to bring my system back to it’s original (but clean) state. Well, Saturday the Lord gave me the final push I needed with some funky domain network problem (I couldn’t browse the domain because I didn’t have permission…yet I’m the domain admin!), so I did the evil deed and formated my hard drive and re-installed Windows XP Professional with SP2 and the 50 other critical updates.

As an IT professional, I know to keep my data files on a separate hard drive and that alone saved me hours when I started re-installing software such as Office. Within about 20 minutes, my bare essentials was back up and running, but six hours later, I still look at my laundry list and see it’s got some way to go. Ugh. Now, if this had happened to one of my Macs, I wouldn’t be having this issue. In fact, this has happened to one of my Macs and my PowerBook was up and running again (minus the hiccups) in two hours. That’s it!

Since OS X is *NIX operating system, just running Disk Utility’s Repair Disk Permissions will fix most peoples issues, but when my Mac still had issues, it was time to do the deed…but unlike the Windows way. As any good IT professional would do (do I keep using that title? ), I first backed up my entire hard drive. I then renamed the System folder to System Bad and then re-installed OS X. Basically it just put a new System and Library folder in and that was pretty much it. No need to re-install my many applications and all, they were all there already. I had also dusted my /User_Name/Library/Preferences folder, too, since those settings could be another reason of issue. Due note, by removing this folder, all your personal settings for every program will be lost. You’ll have to reset them upon first use of each application. A small price to pay for a regained healthy system.

In either situation, I did lose my preferences (to a point, on both Windows and OS X, I did back those up and the applications that I knew would be fine to restore preferences, I did by hand) but re-installing all the applications in Windows is what is so time consuming. Since Microsoft thinks having vendors put files in the Windows directory and the System directory and the Common Files directory and a bunch of other directories is a necessary thing, it makes system restores timely. Apple on the other hand designed its OS, all the way back to the Macintosh 128k, to self-contain all the files in one package. When you double click that iTunes icon in OS X, it’s got everything it needs right there. In Windows, it’s just a single icon that needs tons of other icons (files) to make it work. Joy.

I tell you, even as I sit here typing on my stupid Windows box this very post, I keep thinking, “Thank God I have my Mac.” It’s my hope that in just a few more months, my remaining four applications that I can only use on my PC will be Mac usable and then Windows restores won’t matter any more.

I did some minor noticeable updates and not so noticeable updates to the site.

First, to finally rid myself of the Svenrox.com domain, I hacked the server to send all non-svenontech.com requests to svenontech.com. This now means any old lingering links will automatically forward to svenontech.com. It also means some old sub-domains will simply forward to this top level. I also have to fix my moblog section, too. No biggy.

Second, I fixed the stupid roll-over for the table of contents. For some reason, the CSS was ignoring my calls on the visited attribute, so I just redid the entire class. While I was at it, I redid the coloring which I think is much better now. You might have to refresh your browser to grab the updated CSS file.

With the first change, I think I can now officially yank all old references to Svenrox now such as graphics and includes. I’ll do that later, though. Right now I have other stuff that needs my attention.

I live on a street that people find is just perfect to open up the pistons and waste some more gas at speeds excessive of the posted 25 MPH. I fear my kids will run out into it to get a bouncing ball only to be met by one of these speeders. Constant complaints for years to the Manteca Police Department go unanswered without enforcement. Maybe when someones kid, maybe mine, is killed, the law suit against the City of Manteca will be the wake up call it needs. I hope not.

Soon we will move where this won’t be a problem, but it’s not just my street that has this problem. I use to be the same stupid person behind the speeding wheel but I’ve changed my practices. Surface streets see my supercharged Grand Prix obey the posted limits.

For those that think 5 MPH or 10 MPH over the limit in a neighborhood isn’t a big deal, then read the following below. Hopefully you won’t be like Jack.

Jack took a long look at his speedometer before slowing down: 73 in a 55 zone. Fourth time in as many months. How could a guy get caught so often?

Bob? Bob from Church? Jack sunk farther into his trench coat. This was worse than the coming ticket. A cop catching a guy from his own church. A guy who happened to be a little eager to get home after a long day at the office. A guy he was about to play golf with tomorrow. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, hoping you are all having a great Resurrection Day. He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

The Torch is one the best stations I’ve ever heard and it was the main reason I purchased XM Radio over five years ago. But now, due to lower listener ratings than other stations, it’s being pulled from the XM frequency and bumped to DirectTV and AOL Radio. It will remain on XM Online.

Don’t let this happen, people! You can let VP of Music Programming, Jon Zellner, know you want your Torch to still burn. Fill out the petition and let your voice be heard!

Hey, ain’t nothing like parking in front of the Apple Store in Burlingame and enjoying the free Internet connection while drinking some coffee from Copenhagen Bakery in my warm car. Why would I be in my car? Well the store doesn’t open until 10:00 a.m., so why not start surfing now? Man, I get a pretty good signal, too.

To get or not to get an iSight for my wife. Mmm, that’ll be a tough one in about twenty minutes. Okay, let’s take a look at the news of the day.

Yes, for the first time in seven years, I was in a place that had no Internet. Well, it had dial-up, but I just couldn’t muster up the strength to sit in front of the terminal and painfully weed through the web on it. Since it was a weekend, E-mail wasn’t a must to check. So this makes it the first time in seven years that I have not checked my e-mail in 24 hours and I must say, it felt nice.

Ever thought lazily from your couch while watching the Pittsburgh Steelers kickin’ bootay on some poor AFC playoff team, “Man, I wish I could open the door from here without getting up.” I’m sure you’ve got a cell phone, lazy-bones. All you need is two bottles of water and a Lego Mindstorm motor and you’re on your way to making that reality! zerocool60544 has posted the whole nine yards of instructions and code needed to make this happen. Heck, there’s even pictures, BIG pictures showing how it’s all done. So if you’re looking for an easy way out to get someone in, check out the hack and get cracking.

[Via Hack a Day]

Sure, most of the press has been at CES all week, but hey, I have a day job, too.

I’m on the way to Vegas and will be there just for the day. I have a couple of meetings that I hope to come out of with some great news and bits for you. I’ll be working the floor to gather more contacts that hopefully will translate into some great future reviews and breaking news.

Man, I love Southwest. I’m not even near the airport yet and already have my boarding pass for Section A to and from Vegas! Ain’t the Internet a great tool?

Okay, got the Contact, Advertise, and Testimony sections done. I was going to put the old Svenrox About in but opted to yank it and write a completely new About section that pertains just to this site. Once I build out my personal site, I’ll use Svenrox’s about there.

So I need to finish the About and Games section and then maybe the Accident page. Still haven’t figured out if I want that on the personal site only or here as well.

Oh ya, RSS feeds and such. Ugh, keep forget that. It’ll come… (If you’re using the Svenrox feeds, those still work. Just change svenrox.com to svenontech.com as I’ll be dumping svenrox.com next year. You know, if you don’t do it now, you’ll never do it all.)