Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff, Web Journal @ 7:37 am
I sold cameras for a few years, and always suggested Canon cameras to the customers. I used to think that they were solid, and returned much better results for the customers. I now think that i was so wrong.
A few months ago I bought a SD780 IS 12-mega pixel Canon camera. I bought it because it was super slim, and took great pictures.
Soon after I bought the camera i noticed spots on the pictures. I knew instantly what this was because I had the same problem with a Sanyo camera that i actually replaced with the Canon.
Some how dust gets inside the camera lens, and onto the sensor, which cannot be cleaned yourself, because there is no way to actually take apart the lens to clean the sensor, and if you attempt to you risk ruing the entire camera.
Having spots, and crap all over my digital pictures really ruined the want for me to even take pictures with the camera.
I was actually shocked that something like this could happen to a Canon camera. I wasn’t around dusty or dirty areas with the camera, and i hadn’t been throwing it around or anything. I’ve been protective of my Cameras since I LOVE taking pictures.
The Sanyo camera had it worse. I mean there were about 10 spots on each picture. I just assumed it was because Sanyo is a cheap discount like brand.
Never even thought I’d have any related issues with the Canon.
So, I immediately returned the camera to the store and exchanged it for another one. I should’ve got a whole different brand, but I just figured that i was unlucky and got a bad camera.
Instantly when i started taking pictures with the brand new replacement, I noticed a spot on the left side of the screen. Luckily this one didn’t show up in the pictures. Maybe it was just a screen defect.
A little bit ago i went out to take pictures, and guess what?!? A big huge piece of dirt on top of the image sensor. AH!
I was able to finally get it off the middle of the picture by flicking the side of the expose lens barrel.
I contacted Canon via email, and they said I can mail them the camera, and they’ll attempt to repair it. Which i think I may do. Usually I don’t bother with that sort of stuff, but i spent a couple hundred dollars on this camera, and Canon owes me a perfectly fine working camera that produces beautiful clear pictures. AHH!
Im just so annoyed and let down.
You can kinda see the spot in this picture. imagine trying to take a picture of a bright blue sky, or anything with a solid color. It shows up clearer in those pictures, which is horrible.
I should’ve took more example pictures, but im too annoyed and pissed at Canon to even touch the camera right now.
Here is a picture taken with the first camera i had gotten, which you can clearly see the spots:
Just watch out for these slim compact Canon Cameras. I can’t imagine that i just got unlucky twice.
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff, Web Journal @ 2:48 am
I’ve been working on another site of mine (Qeoz) for the past few days. The site like almost all of my websites is very graphical, meaning its very stylish and graphics make up most of it. So the main layout is basically one Photoshop file.
After spending hour and hours working on the design, I some how managed to flatten the Photoshop file (merge all layers, which removes any ability at all to really edit the design), chop half of the image off, and then save over the original, and closed the image, which removes the ability to undo the history. I didn’t notice any of this happen until i reopened the image seconds later.
So then i went through this hectic stage, and some disbelief that i actually had just done that. I could’ve redesigned the layout, and possibly made it a little better, but i had already spent hours and hours on it, and thought it looked good already, I searched all over for the Photoshop temp folder. Sure it creates a temp folder of everything you had open in Photoshop during that session. I couldn’t find any individual temp files for the files i had opened, but i found one huge file called “Photoshop Temp49707814660”, which was almost 400mb in file size.
I figured it’d have all those temp files within it. So i started searching around the web for ways to extract the contents from that, and found absolutely nothing. I don’t know about everyone else, but I think google is crap and gives me alot of random results most of the time.
So that was a no go. I then decided to find way to scan all of the recently deleted files on my computer. I figured this would find the temp files that Photoshop creates sometimes. SO i downloaded a program called “Recover My Files” and begin scanning the hard drives on my computer.
I didn’t find any temp files, but what i found was an actual solid copy the Photoshop file itself, that was saved hours earlier in the day. I was super shocked, happy, and excited!
click image to view full picture
I didn’t know this, but i guess when Windows saves a file, it must delete the older copy of the file, and replace it. Because i hadn’t ever deleted the original Photoshop file, and yet a whole copy of it was deleted, and the program was able to pick it up. Weird. I’m not too sure how that works, but I’m super excited that i got the file back.
So basically i guess I’m posting this so others will know that there is a way to recover files if you had messed up, and saved over the original. The original un messed up file could still be on your system! of course this will only work if you scan for it soon after its deleted, or accidentally saved over, because of the way Windows writes over the deleted data.
I am still so happy that I was able to recover the file. HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY.
By the way, if you’re into music, check out my new site at
-site deleted – Also if you were a fan of the old design and feel that I had on the old MJ site i used to one, you will love Qeoz. Continuing that style!
** 6/19/2010 9:23am : removed Qeoz links. Decided to use a different domain. Testing the new layout for use at damnidunno
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff @ 6:05 pm
I am trying to rid my life of Google services and products. I mean they are everywhere now – harvesting my personal info and whatever other data that they can get from me, and its just getting too creepy.
Today I was looking for an alternative to Google Analytics, and found Piwik!
For those of you who do not know what Analytics is: It a service ran by google that tracks everything about your websites. Such as user visits, what the users do on your sites, how long they visit, and what they read. All that info is set and stored in Google’s database. It is helpful to webmasters and site owners. But what its really doing is helping google mine more data from users, and meh!
I posted the following on several forums, and decided to go ahead and post it on my site.:
Has anyone here ever heard of Piwik?
Turns out that its an open source alternative to Google Analytics, and works just as good.
I just took google analytics off all of my sites, and installed Piwik, which is basically php and mysql based.
It was actually pretty simple to install and get running. You install it like you would any other php script (forums, etc), then add your sites to it, and insert the tag into the footer of your sites.
I haven’t had much time to play with it since i just installed it, but so far its picking up hits instantly, and working quite well.
The load is actually much faster than Google Analytics. If anyone has ever used Analytics then you know about the random pauses and freezes during page loads while your site connects to google. That is now gone with Piwik! 
The admin UI is similar to Google Analytics. So you’ll easily find your way around.
Even if you don’t use Analytics, and are interested in visitor stats on your site, i’d suggest over the awstats and others that usually come with cpanel and such.
I’m excited to rely on one less google service.
quick download and install here
http://piwik.org/
provide feedback. i’m interested to see if others enjoy this as well.
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff @ 1:57 am
(click thumbnail for larger image)
So this is my desktop now. Ha.
Info:
Windows 7 – Ultimate x64
Wallpaper – Made by me, you can download it here.
Windows 7 Shell Theme – Longhorn Evolution X.
* But the start menu icon is provided in this theme pack. Which you can easily change using this tool: Windows Theme Installer. (I guess it installs themes too? I dunno about that, i jus use it to easily replace the explorer.exe, which used to take forever).
Desktop Gadgets – Okay, so this is where it gets complicated. I’ve got rid of everything.
Last time I posted my desktop I was using a program called Rainlendar. I completely got rid of that program, and now use one called Rainmeter. Rainmeter had a cool weather skin that I wanted to use, which i no longer do, but anyways it has much better and cooler themes.
So here are the Rainmeter skins and gadgets now some of these I heavily modified, so they may not look the same, but mostly will:
Weather Gadget: Large Clean Weather
Time, Date, Folders: Speed theme – I changed several icons, and paths.
Hard Drives: 2nd theme – I changed the icon.
Recycle Bin: GlassBin.
woot hmm.. yea
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff, Web Journal @ 8:58 am
This is going to be a random entry where i just blab about RCT. I just wanna start up discussion on this game. Many people haven’t played it yet, and i think they’d love it if they do. Plus im just bored and tired.
This has got to be one of the greatest games ever! At least for me it is. I don’t think I’ve played any other game as much as i have this one.
I used to play RCT (RollerCoaster Tycoon) for hours and hours, and really never got bored of it like i do with most games.
It’s very awesome how you can build a realistic theme park, and the little peeps can ride your rides, and seem to have fun.
I’ve always been into the games where you can build and create stuff. Um, for some reason i’ve never been in to the sims. dunno why. I just hate it and get so bored playing it. But games like SimCity, and RCT i love!
So, i played the original RCT, and bought the expansions and everything for it, and it seemed really cool. Then i remember when RCT2 came out. I think it was around 2002 or 03. I think i got it on release day, or at least the same week, and it was even better than the originals because i baiscally play in a sandbox mode, where you start out with a blank map, and do whatever you want. In the original RCT you had to use third party tools that would hack RCT and the current map, and let you control everything. But there were problems with that such as tons of bugs and errors. Well the first RCT would crash all the time anyways.
Thankfully RCT2 came with a sandbox mode, which basically lets you design your own map, and create a scenario out of it, which i do.
The stupid thing about RCT2 is the ride limit. You can only have so many rides and scenery in the park. Which is so lame.
Now, i know RCT2 is a pretty old game now. Almost 10 years old, and the graphics aren’t the best. But the game play is amazing! and that alone makes it awesome and worth it. I love it. And so far there hasnt been any other game like it.
I wish the guy who made the game (Chris Saywer)would make another one, WITH THE ORIGINAL GAMEPLAY, just with smarter peeps, staff, and rides. He did help make RCT3, which is bascially a whole different game, and was 3d, but i couldnt get into it. I tried it again a few months ago and it was so buggy, and just wasn’t as fun as the original. So he just needs come out with a new improved RCT game with the classic game play.
I actually haven’t really played RCT2 in years. I just couldn’t get it to work right with 64bit vista or windows 7, so i didn’t even bother. But, i’ve been bored lately so i decided to give it ago, and finally got it to work with 64bit windows 7! WOOT. I basically had to run it as administrator, and it works okay. Crashes alot, but works ha.
For the past few days i’ve been playing RCT2 again. Just like the old days, and loving it.
I still have my park from a few years ago that I’ve been building on, and was going to continue, but the map on there is full, and it wouldn’t have been too much fun, so i decided to start fresh.
I named my new park ‘Joy World’, ha it came to my mind first, so i just went with it, lol. I thought of Joy Land, but that’s been so over used.
I basically start with a blank map, and start making a path way, and build some rides, and open the park up. Then I just build as i go, and add areas and rides whenever.
This is what my park started like:
(click thumbnail for full picture!
these are zoomed out over head shots, so the quality isnt the best)
Then as i went i added mountains, water, and some more rides:
And as of now, this is what my park looks like:
So you can see how much has changed, and how much you can do with the game.
ITS REALLY FUN!
I created several custom rollercoasters for this park. Here they are:
The ‘Spitting Cobra’ – haha came to my mind first, so i used it. dunno where it came from though.
it all wont fit in the screen shot without zooming too far out and making it look crappy, but you kinda get the idea. And they love it
And the miner:
As you can see in the pictures, i do have alot of money. I use a few different cheats:
Money – The Money part of the game has never interested me. Im into the building gameplay. So i use a money cheat.
Handyman – Cleans paths, fixes benches, and mows grass.
Mechanic – Renews rides, and makes them reliable (or else they break down all the time, which ruins some fun ha).
Those 3 cheats are in this trainer, along with alot of other cool cheats, which i never use.
This is the best trainer/cheat program i ever found for RCT, and it works great.
The creators site no longer exists, and i doubt he’s updating it anymore. But it works as it is, so its cool.
I uploaded it here so you all could get it, and have some fun!
Download:
8 Cars Per Trainer: http://www.joshx.com/stuff/8cars.zip
Screenshot:
So, even though this is an old game, you should still get it! Especially if you’re into the sim type games, and love building stuff.
The graphics might not be the best anymore, but you’ll get used to it, and love it anyways.
Grab a copy of it, ha lets start building some parks!
only $9 at amazon!
http://www.amazon.com/RollerCoaster-Tycoon-2-Pc/dp/B0000695GX
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff @ 7:17 am
I was looking through my digital picture collection earlier, and I was reminded by something I have noticed before, which is some of the first digital pictures I’ve taken (way back in like 2000) have some major distortion caused by the camera lens. Back then I was new to digital photography, and i had a cheap digital camera that was bought from our ISP at the time which was EarthLink.
Here is a photo of me from may 2001, in which you can see the distortion:
Ha, i dunno what i was doing in the picture. striking a pose i guess? ha
You can see how the mirrors in the background are kinda round at the top, and also the side of the door is kinda bent. Has a bubble effect kinda.
So i easily fixed the distortion by going to: Filter > Lens Correction
And you should get a window that looks like this:
(click thumbnail to see larger image)
If you have earlier version of photoshop you can access the lens correction by: Filter > Distort > Lens Correction.
So, there are pre defined settings, and it works pretty good on certain model of cameras and lens, which will allow you to use predefined fixes.
The camera i used though is a old cheap one, so they wouldn’t have that setting saved. I just messed with the first setting, and moved it up. I think for most users this will be the only setting that you need to mess with, but for more advanced cases you may need to adjust the horizontal, or vertical tilt.
It’s actually super easy because it shows the correction in real time. It also helps to enable the grid, which helps you be aware of how straight the lines are in the image. That option is the third button on the top left of the window.
So here is the corrected picture:
Ha, oh yeah, the door was actually broken and just sitting there, so its not a part of the distortion 
Anyways, its a cool feature that will come in very handy if you noticed any type of distortion in your photos.
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff @ 12:17 am
So here is my desktop for now. ha
Details:
Windows 7 Ultimate
Wallpaper:
http://3xhumed.deviantart.com/art/Chillout-Room-without-2of10-163163741
Album Artwork:
Super awesome program. I love it, and its FREE!
XDeskCover – http://www.xwidget.com/xdeskcover/
I’m using the ‘NewAge_Dock’ skin. It wont let me link to it, but its very easy to find on their ‘skin gallery’ page.
the song im listening to is “Running To the Edge Of The World” by Marilyn Manson. I love this song! you can check it out here:
And as before im using Rainlendar for the time/date/weather gadgets.
You can download the skin im using for them here:
http://customize.org/rainlendar/skins/63524/download
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff @ 6:19 pm
So I’m a member of a large tech forum, and we post on screenshots of our desktops. Basically so we can show each other our wallpapers and how we have it all set up. Geeky i know, ha but I decided to go ahead and start posting these on here. might be interesting.
Click the thumbnail to see the larger picture.
Edit: April 25th 2010:
I thought maybe i should provide more info, ha. Some people on the tech forum asked questions about the wallpaper and weather program, and such, which made me think i should just include it here as well.
You can get the wallpaper here:
http://hipanda1.deviantart.com/art/Sunrise-139015936
time, weather, calendar app is Rainlendar. I’m not too sure where to get the actual skin that im using. It’s always hard for me to find, but as soon as i find it again i’ll post. Alot of people are using it right now so it shouldnt be too hard to find.
edit:
may 6th 2010 – Found it! ha reformated my computer, so i had to search for the skin again. here it is
http://customize.org/rainlendar/skins/63524/download
enjoy
OS is Windows 7. I LOVE IT!
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff, Web Journal @ 2:53 am
I am so in love with this game right now! Has to probably be the coolest shooter game that i have played since Perfect Dark 64 on the Nintendo 64.
I have alot of shooter games, such as Modern Warfare 1 and 2, TF2, unreal tournament 3, and so on. But none of those pulled me in the way BC2 does.
I think the reason that i loved Perfect Dark 64, besides the graphics were all the weapons, simulants, and all the people that could play (only 4 actual people, but the simulants had decent AI, and it was fun). So it was more than just a basic boring game. I also loved weapons such as the Slayer. In BC2, they have a UAV Drone which reminds me of the slayer. Both let you go remote and find a target without actually being there.
Bad Company 2 has all the features Modern Warfare 2 has, but more!
The maps are so huge in BC2. sometimes when i get killed i get kinda annoyed because i have to run a long distance just to get back to the battle. Luckily they have tanks, and helicopters that you can get on and get back super quickly.
I’ve tried going back to Modern Warfare 2, but i cant enjoy it anymore. When an enemy runs into a building, my instinct now (after having played BC2), so to try to blow the building up, or at least the wall so i can see him, and nothing happens. You can’t do that in MW2. MW just seems so limited now, and the game play that’s in mw2 is just a little bit of the game play that’s in BC2. There is just so much more added.
So I’m probably going to go ahead and uninstall MW2. Which was a let down from the beginning anyways. I doubt it’ll even play it now. I got many hours out of it, so its cool. I still don’t think that it was worth the $59 though!!
Bad Company 2 is the first “Battlefield” game i played, and i must admit at first i was weary about buying it. I felt let down by Modern warfare 2, and as i said, i didn’t think that it was worth the money. So i was very weary about purchasing another game. Also i read that there was no lean or prone positions in BC2. The no lean wasn’t really anything major because MW2 didn’t even have that, and i didn’t miss it. But No PRONE? Prone position is a part of war!
I went ahead and just bought the game, and instantly fell inlove with it! The sounds were so awesome. So much going on in that game compared to MW2. Tanks all over the place, soldiers running, was just crazy! And i haven’t even missed the prone. I’d love to have it, but its not missed.
I’m not much of a video game player though. I mean, i guess i am, i dunno. I’m not one of those addicted people. I just like to play and have fun, and video games seem to be that open door for me. I do get very bored quickly from games though. Always have. so the simulation games are my favorite because you can build and create (Sim city, Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2, etc) and these first person shooters, especially Bad Company 2, are so realistic, it’s like you’re really there in the battle, and i love that! So, i just like to have fun, I’m not one of those people who can play a game 24/7. Although i did check and it says that I’ve played BC2 for over70 hours since i got it. which was a few weeks ago, which shocks me.
So my level in BC2 is 24, which is a “Warrant Officer III”, I have almost all the unlocks, but the Engineer class. I have all the Recon (sniper) rifles, and tools unlocked, along with the assault shoulder, and medic. Which actually kinda sucks because i have nothing else really to unlock. I don’t care about engineer, i think its lame. I hope they add more unlocks to the game. Was so easy to unlock stuff.
here is my BC2 signature that shows my rank, kills, deaths (i always die more in these games, ha), and other random stuff. I think it gets updated every 6 hours? dunno
My name in the game is “damnidunno”, so you might be able to find me.
If you’re into war games, or even First Person Shooters, YOU MUST CHECK THIS GAME OUT! If you love Modern Warfare 2, you’ll forget about it once you play BC2. It’s that awesome!
Posted by
Josh in Tech Stuff @ 12:02 am
I was really inlove with the IE8 beta 2 (internet explorer) when it was released, and it was actually quite fast. Also i loved how the tabs, and smart URL bar worked within it. I randomly used it during beta, but still kept using firefox 3 as my main browser.
So i waited a while for ie8 final to be released, and as soon as it was I switched over to it full time. I’ve actually uninstalled firefox completely. Mostly due to randomly files/links on my machines continuing to open in firefox although ie8 was my default browser. (I know there are ways to resolve this, but i was lazy and figured I’d only be using ie8 anyways).
IE8 was the first, and only time ever that I’ve actually wanted to use IE. Even back in my first net days in 1998, i still chose Netscape over Ie, so to me this was something huge. I was hoping and it seemed that Microsoft finally got it right with IE8.
As soon as i started using it, i noticed that they still have NOT incorporated a real time spell check into the browser, which makes no sense at all. All standard browsers have this anymore. With blogs, forums, and email being one of the top reasons people get online, you’d think they’d have this built into ie8 as well. It’s a pretty standard feature. However IE8 lacked this feature in any form.
I tried getting the Windows Live Toolbar, thinking it would bring some spell check features to IE, but again it failed. At least i couldn’t find this features anywhere in the options, buttons, and on the toolbar itself.
I remember back in the firefox 1.5 days and before that i would use the google toolbar for its spellchecking, and it worked well. Of course i quit as soon as firefox came with this feature (years ago). SO i tried it with Ie, and it actually kinda sucked. It wasn’t real time and i had to manually push the “check spelling” button.
This lacking of a very important feature to me was enough to mark the browser as unusable. I use many forums, and type many emails. I can spell alright, but usually I do it in such as peed and i hate proof reading anything i type ( as you may have noticed ), so i really needed this feature.
I read that IE7Pro, works with IE8, and that it came with a spell checker. So I downloaded it. And disabled all of its options BUT the spell check, and wallah! i had a pretty good real time spellchecker. It had some bugs, but pretty much it worked over all, and i was happy with IE8.
A very annoying bug i found with IE8 is that if anything happens to your computer, or the instance of IE8 running, and it shuts down, you will lose all of your cookies, and other memory type items, which made things very annoying. I hate having to re-login to sites over and over again. Especially sites that I use so often.
Another annoyance I’ve noticed with IE8 may not even be its fault. It could be a lacking another feature type thing, but mostly due to lame webmasters who feel that its okay to spam their members and make it almost impossible to navigate, or visit the webmasters sites. I am talking about ads. Using Firefox3 with adblock, i forgot all about this annoyance, and never worried about it ever. However with ie8 it happens all the time, even on sites that i visited regularly on firefox, and never noticed that they even had these types of ads.
So is it the lame ass webmasters? Or IE8 lacking a usable ad blocker similar to what you can get with firefox 3 as a addon FOR FREE (There is a adblock for IE, but you have to pay for it.).
I do love alot of things about IE8 though. Such as how lightweight and fast it seems. It takes less than a half second to load up after i click the icon. Firefox takes a few seconds to ever load up for me.
I love the way the tabs work. If you open multiple taps from one sit,e they’ll automatically be grouped in a certain color. Also the loading colors are pretty cool. Which is a new feature with buttons on the taskbar in windows 7.
I also love how each tab seems to have its own process. So if something crashes you can close that tab only, and not lose all the other tabs.
I also liked reliving some of the special effects that only work in Internet Explorer. such as cool mouse and other dhtml,java effects.
So after using IE8 for the past month, and wanting to love it, i fear that its just not right for me yet. It hasn’t reached its time again. It’s far better than IE7, and way better than IE6, but its just not there yet.
I find that my time using firefox is easier, and involves less stress. I have many features that i need that are built into the browser. And others i can easily get an extension for.
I know you can get addons for ie8, but I’m not even 25% sure how they work, and if you can even do major things with them as you can with extensions for firefox, but i do know that its been really hard for me to find any usable ones. if you can do incredible things like addon new components to ie using its addons, then I’m sure users will create them and in a few months I’ll have all the tools i need to be comfortable with using IE8.
I really hope Microsoft beings to listen to its user base and give us features that we need, and want. Maybe they think we should use their live mail desktop application, and live writer, so we don’t need these tools built into the browser, but we do. It’s a spell check!
I’ll check in again in a few months, but tonight I’m switching back to firefox.
**
By the way , I’m not a firefox fan. I choose it over IE, but i actually dislike the firefox management, and the entire thing they pulled against Microsoft at the recent EU Commission thing. I think it was wrong and very childish. I actually didn’t even dislike firefox until they pulled this stunt.
I use roboform to manage all my passwords and logins. It seems to only work with these two browsers. Or else i would’ve stopped using both Firefox, and Ie, and started using Opera.
So right now, firefox is really my only choice since i do not want to give up my roboform.
