WauloK’s BangRocks Blog

I’ve just received my beta signup account for PMOG. It puts a little toolbar at the bottom of your Firefox screen.

When you visit TLDs (Top level domains. eg BangRocks.com and not Bangrocks.com/12/08/blogpost) you get points. You can use these points to buy weapons or crates or armour, etc.  When you visit a website and drop off a mine, the next PMOG person may sustain damage to their character unless they have their armour enabled.

Another thing is you can create missions. An example mission is where you introduce people to websites you enjoy visiting. PMOG overlays a small HTML box in the bottom right corner of the screen with information about that website.  It seems like this is a lot of fun, but you don’t have to actively participate. Just surf the web and things happen.  That kind of game appeals to me more than a twitch-based FPS.  Check it out!

After listening to Leo Laporte talking about washing keyboards in dishwashers I decided to test out my old Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro.  I let it dry overnight and tested it the next day, but pressing one key would display several characters along with the one I wanted.  I was disappointed, but had wanted a new keyboard anyway due to the dirt and stuff all over the old one.  I bought my new Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and plugged it in. After some time using it I eventually got used to it.  Lisa tested it while she was here recently and loves it more than my old Pro keyboard.

Well, Sienna’s keyboard had stopped working due to her tripping over the cable some weeks ago.  It worked in bits and pieces for a while but eventually stopped working unless I held it at just the right angle in the socket, bit my tongue and tilted my head 31.4159265358979323846264338327950288 degrees to the left.  I gave up on it and advised her we would have to get another.  I waited for the last couple of weeks for Freecycle to have one available but no such dice.

I have been listening to Leo again talking to people about washing keyboards. He said he had similar issues with his keyboard when testing after only about 4 days so he left it for about two weeks.  He then tested it again and Lo and Behold it worked fine.  I thought ‘What have I got to lose?’ and plugged my old Pro keyboard into Sienna’s PC.  I set up the BIOS settings (the battery has died) and logged into Mepis fine.  I launched the text editor “Kate” and tested every key I could. THEY ALL WORK PERFECTLY!  YEEEHHAAAA!!!! How sweet is that? The keyboard actually survived!!

All in all, had I had the time I could have waited and tested again but it would have left me without a usable computer for a couple of weeks.  I can’t last that long. I have my CafePress shop to keep updated as often as possible and I chat to Catherine most nights of the week.  The only downside to my new keyboard is it has no USB ports and no internal hub.  The old one does.  I may have to end up purchasing a cheap USB hub as I have so many devices now to install and have to keep crawling under the table to insert and remove different devices.  I do actually have two extra USB 1.1 ports due to other USB PCI cards and extenders inside the PC but when I plug things into the ports they come up as unrecognised devices.  I do have two devices currently plugged into other ports and they seem to work fine.  I have four USB 1.1 ports, one used in each two-port-set. My mouse is detected and works fine in one of the USB 1.1 ports and my keyboard is in another.  I understand they would be SLOWER than USB 2.0 ports but why would devices not be recognised at all plugged into the USB 1.1 ports? Oh well. No matter.

Hey They named a robot after me

Wall-E final trailer

Reminds me somewhat of Number 5 from Short Circuit meets the magnificent 1-X robot from Futurama hehe. Could be a good movie.

37 years old. No wonder I’m tired all the time

Yesterday morning I picked up Sienna from Bec’s and took her to school. We got her Easter Hat and put it on then I headed out to the quadrangle area and waited with the other relatives. We all had our cameras at the ready. The kids all came out with their Easter Hats on and we took photos like mad. I even filmed some of it with the kids singing easter songs. If I cbf I might upload the movie for you to watch.

Once the main event was completed we went back to the classroom and played some games. The kids sang us songs such as Little Peter Rabbit and It’s a small world. We then played the Hokey Pokey and went outside for an Egg-and-Spoon race. It started sprinkling while we were doing that so we all came back inside again to eat chocolate crackles, popcorn, hot cross buns, lamingtons, etc.

Next we went to the playground where the teachers had ‘hidden’ cutout eggs with the kids’ names on them. They had to find two of each and when they did, take the eggs to the teacher to trade in for real mini easter eggs. Unfortunately in the meantime other kids had come out to play in the playground and had collected the eggs so the teacher had to hide them again while the little ones covered their eyes. This was actually the third time she had had to do that hehe. I helped Sienna find hers and another girl to find hers since she was concerned at not finding them. We then checked out and came home for a rest.

I went to my regular doctor at a shopping centre where I used to live before I moved to my current home. We got there 15 mins late due to traffic. Everyone decided it was POETS day. Even though technically it was Thursday, but POETF day doesn’t really work. I phoned them to let them know I was going to be late. Once I got there I explained to the Dr I had been sick and coughing up yellow phlegm so started taking some LPV 500 penicillin antibiotics which cleared it up over a few days. He said this was the best thing to do. I’d had a virus which caused wheezing and an allergic reaction. This became Bronchitis and the LPV 500 helped fix that up but I still had the allergy which had become a type of asthma. All I had to do now was get a nasal spray to stop the dripping down the back of my throat and that’d help stop the coughing. He said I should keep taking the antibiotics, but instead of taking them without food I should always take ALL antibiotics WITH food (there’s only one type you don’t have with food). I told him the only drawback with these antibiotics is my stomach churning and a bit of nausea. He said this is because I was following the directions on the box and eating without food. The antibiotics were causing irritation to my stomach and it was eating into the lining. He also said not to worry about alcohol as it’s a myth that antibiotics and alcohol are bad. I’d heard the same thing so didn’t worry about having some wine at Catherine’s Wednesday night while there.

From there we went into the shopping centre. I wanted to get some cheap shoes for Sienna as the new sandals Bec had bought her were scraping the skin off the back of her heels. We went inside and past the cinemas and I saw the kids Dr Seuss movie “Horton hears a Who” had started. I asked them if we’d missed anything and they said it was going to start in about 5 minutes so we had plenty of time. We got our tickets and some popcorn and lemonade and went into cinema 6. We were the first ones there and sat for half an hour with nothing on the screen. A few other people turned up so I thought maybe they weren’t starting until enough people got there. After 10 mins of previews which didn’t seem related to kids shows the movie started. Oh dear! It wasn’t Horton hears a Who at all. It was an action movie or something. We walked out and I saw we had accidentally entered Cinema 8 which was right next to 6. We went to the booth and traded in our tickets for other ones which were for the same show starting in another 15 minutes. We got some more popcorn and a couple of chocolate ice creams and went into the cinema. This time I made sure we were in the right one and other kids turned up. All in all there was about 7 people in the cinema this time. The movie came on and we watched it. It’s the best adaptation of a Dr Seuss movie I have seen. They’ve kept to the style of Dr Seuss very well. I quite enjoyed the show and I think Sienna did too.

We went to get some shoes for Sienna. I didn’t want to spend too much so we went to Crazy Clarks and found a pair of thongs for $2.99. We went to the checkout but there wasn’t a barcode on them so the guy said “I’ll just scan this Kinder Surprise egg and whatever it comes up as I will charge you”. It came up as $1.70! Suweeet! I put the shoes on Sienna and we practically ran to the bottom level down a couple of travelators because the Cadbury’s Easter Bunny show was starting. We watched the show and the kids were given mini Easter Eggs. We went shopping in Coles to get some groceries and on the way out the checkout the girl gave Sienna a mini Easter Egg. Sienna put the egg on the conveyor belt. I told her she didn’t have to do that but Sienna said “She has to scan it first!”. I told the checkout girl and she laughed and said it was free so Sienna could have it. She’s too clever for her own good! Sienna that is… not the checkout girl.. although she could be clever too.. I don’t really know.

We drove home and Sienna had something to eat then I got her off to bed.

Today I’ve been reading my birthday greetings on Facebook and the auto-generated ones from various forums I’ve joined over the year. Oh the sincerity hehe

Run Windows Apps Seamlessly Inside Linux

You love working inside your Linux desktop, but at the most inconvenient times you’ve got to reboot into Windows—whether to open a tricky Office file, try out a Windows application, or even just play a quick game. However, with some free tools and a Windows installation disk, you can have Windows apps running right on your Linux desktop and sharing the same desktop files. It’s relatively painless, it takes only a little bit longer than a Windows XP install, and it works just like virtualizing Windows on a Mac with Parallels Coherence—except it’s free. Here’s how to set up Windows inside VirtualBox, and then get Windows apps running seamlessly inside your desktop.

Before getting started, make sure you have enough space on a hard drive for a Windows XP installation (meaning at least 5 GB) and enough memory to make two systems worthwhile.You can follow most of these steps if you want to try running Vista inside Linux, but your mileage might vary, of course (and check out this tip on making Vista’s networking work).

Handy to know!

St. Patrick’s Day is usually celebrated March 17, but Ireland’s bishops have shifted the feast day, in honor of the national saint, to Saturday, March 15, reported The Associated Press.

Church authorities reportedly spent weeks debating where to move the feast day because March 17, 2008, falls on the second day of Holy Week next year.

The liturgical norms would require the feast day to be moved to the earliest available date after Easter, which would be April 1. But church officials said the Vatican approved the March 15 date in order to minimize conflict with the scheduled civic events.

While religious celebrations honoring St. Patrick are affected, religious and secular authorities stressed this would not change secular festivities. The St. Patrick’s Festival Committee in Dublin confirmed that next year’s parade would be March 17 as usual. In addition, Monday, March 17, will remain an official day off of work in Ireland.

This marks the first time the date has been changed since 1940. The next conflict with Holy Week is not expected until 2160.

I’ve made another sale on my CafePress shop “Aquotik” last night. This is turning out to be a great idea

As you can see above I have quite a good number of designs but have many more in mind.

Today I didn’t go to work again because I still have a cold.  I had Tuesday, Wednesday and today off.

I picked up Sienna from school early so as to not get caught in traffic and to get more time to see her. It looks like she’s a lot better now so we might go to swimming tomorrow morning. Well.. she will. I won’t swim this weekend.

The last couple of days I’ve been sick at home so I did some updating to my CafePress shop “Aquotik”.  I’ve officially made two sales! Both of them are “Buttons” or in other words badges.  The profit isn’t huge cos how much can you really charge for a badge? But at least they are sales so I’m happy it is worth it.

The first was a button for a 30 yo’s birthday and the second is in honour of the late Gary Gygax.

CONSUMERS will be encouraged to cut power usage after the State Government announced a special day for unplugging all appliances.

Queensland Unplugged Day will be held on April 3, just days after Queenslanders are urged to turn off their lights for one hour for Earth Hour on March 29.

Household appliances cost Queensland millions of dollars in wasted power by using standby mode.

‘‘Standby power accounts for 4 per cent of the typical power bill,’’ Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara said today.

‘‘That might not sound like much, but if every household in Queensland turned off unnecessary standby power it would be a total saving in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking more than 130,000 cars off the road, showing how small changes can make a world of difference.

‘‘In dollar terms, that represents a saving of more than $74 million a year,’’ McNamara said.

Queensland Unplugged Day is part of the ClimateSmart Living campaign.

Three previous promotions in the Climatesmart campaign saw 77,054 people offer support.

Sign up for Unplugged Day at climatesmart.qld.gov.au.

What a great idea! Wish I had thought about that a week ago.. OH WAIT!!

I’m currently watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. I think I missed some of Season 2 because the flashbacks in the teaser didn’t remind me of anything I’d seen.

I’m getting used to this keyboard now. I guess it all just takes time.

Today I gave away a bunch of computer bits to people on Freecycle.org  I had some network cards, a PCI PCTV card, RAM, CD Burner, sound cards, etc.  Some were picked up today and another bunch going tomorrow. Some other bits and pieces are on offer but no bites yet.

This week Sienna has picked up the flu from school and has been coughing quite a bit and has a raspy throat so we didn’t go swimming at all today. We just stayed home for the day.  I had some medicine and Panadol liquid but they ran out earlier today.  I might have to get some more soon.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time the last couple of days trying to practice drawing Manga style cartoon characters. I think they might make a nice addition to my CafePress website. Don’t forget to keep checking my blog on Aquotik.BangRocks.com. I update it quite regularly at the moment.  I have many more ideas.. just have to get the time to do them all.

Sienna’s keyboard and mouse have stopped working properly on the Linux box.  She tripped over the keyboard cable the other week and I think it broke either the socket or the plug so I’ve loaned her my Logitech MX510 mouse and reinstalled my old Evoluent Vertical mouse.  The darn thing isn’t letting me adjust the accelerating and motion though. I hope that’s fixed once I reboot.  People keep advertising keyboards on Freecycle but when I ask about them I get no response and nobody else picks them up (or at least there’s no “TAKEN” post) so I have to keep trying. I thought I could get a PS2 to USB adapter plug but I only have 3 plugs the opposite way around.

Last weekend I had Sienna Friday night and we went swimming Saturday morning.  On Saturday afternoon I dropped her home and went to dinner with guys from work after picking up Catherine. They had not met her so it was something new.  One of the guys at work was celebrating 30 years of loyalty so the company actually paid for the dinner. It was a nice meal and the food was quite good. Catherine says she wants to go back at some stage.  We bought a $32 bottle of bubbly and it was quite nice, hwoever I was driving home so Catherine had more of it than I had.. so she was happy at least

One of the guys at work was telling me the $35 Lexmark X3470 Multifunction device he bought for his daughter wasn’t working properly. She had jammed up the printer part of it so he was going to throw it out.  I managed to convince him to give it to me since I could do with a scanner. I hope to use it for scanning in my Manga drawings.  I already tested it today on a draft version of an Easter rabbit I drew.  It worked nicely and I put another layer on the image and traced around it using Paint.Net.  It came out well and I shaded the image as well, but won’t be using it as it doesn’t look quite right.  I need lots more practice with my drawing but at least I’m getting something creative done.  I’m really enjoying it and like drawing Manga and creating music also appeals to my creative side so at some stage I might do some more of that.  I just hope my programming doesn’t suffer in the meantime, but these are really stimulating my brain.

Is there anyone who reads this blog whom is great at Graphic Design?

I’d love to get a really nice logo design for my Aquotik Designs CafePress store.

I can do it myself, but thought if anyone would like to have a go to let me know.

It’d have to be about 400×200 at least (more is better - I can resize) to go on: http://www.cafepress.com/aquotik

D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax Has Passed Away Zonk — Today 4:22 AM

Mearlus writes “In the recent past co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons Gary Gygax has worked with Troll Lord Games, a small tabletop RPG publisher. Their forums have up a post noting that Mr. Gygax has apparently passed away. Gygax was known, along with Dave Arneson, as the Father of Roleplaying.” Saddened reactions from well-known designers have already begun to appear online. Consider this is an in-memoriam Ask Slashdot question: How has D&D (and tabletop roleplaying) touched/improved your life?

Posted today in Slashdot.

Since last Saturday I’ve been busy setting up my own CafePress online shop.

If you are interested, take a look at my new site for it and link from there to the actual shop. My new site is a subdomain of this one and will be used to promote the actual shop since there’s no way to integrate the CafePress shop with another website, which is a bit of a pity.

Check out the new Aquotik Apparel website blog!