Dana's Mixed Bag

Last week I upgraded Vista to SP1, but found a new problem after the upgrade: no sound. My speaker in the tray had a red “X” through it, but the drivers didn’t seem to have any problems. When I tried to automatically upgrade the sound driver, it told me that I had the most up-to-date driver available. When I went to the Control Panel’s “Sound” applet I was able to select sounds, and had the option of clicking the green play button, something that isn’t available when the driver is wrong.

I’m just using the on-board sound that came with my motherboard. I have an Intel DG33BU, and the Intel site offers no help on the situation. Hopefully the Googlebot will pick this up and help others with Intel SP1 Realtek sound problems.

I was able to get the sound working by disabling the front panel jack detection. The way you do it isn’t intuitive:

• Open Vista’s Control Panel (Window | Control Panel)
• Open the Realtek Audio Manager (not “Sound”)
• In the navigation bar in the far right, there is a little yellow folder icon. It is just below “Device advanced settings” and above “ANALOG”. Click the folder icon.
• Click “Disable front panel jack detection” so that a yellow check mark shows up. Hit “OK”, and close the Realtek HD Audio Manager. That should re-enable the sound.

Tags: Software // 26 Comments »

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It’s a shame that global warming has made it quit snowing these days. Here are some pictures from Watertown, NY which only got 146" in 2 weeks this year.

Tags: Current Events, Photography // 2 Comments »

We laughed at loud at this Will Ferrell commercial as Jackie Moon, for Bud Light. I didn’t see this version until the next day:

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Tonight is essentially the first of three tests to see who gets the NCAA Raleigh seed in March. The Heels enter the game without their first and second string point guards, so it is up to Quentin Thomas to lead the Heels. To add to UNC’s misery, Duke has been playing better than Carolina lately. Of course, we will see a barrage of Hansbrough (pronounced HANS-bro – just two syllables) right baby hooks with a foul to the left shoulder (it’s his go-to move).

The key to the game is Thomas’ ability to handle Duke’s perimeter overplay. Carolina needs to extend their offense far from the paint, and exploit Duke’s overplay by going back-door and setting picks. Duke, on the other hand, needs to pressure Thomas and beat Carolina with their running game.

So, it is the matchup of all of college basketball, but why does the media insist on insulting us with this "Tobacco Road" thing? While the region has a history of major tobacco production, it is a totally outdated concept, and equates the area with the abject poverty portrayed in Erskine Caldwell’s novel. It’s time to dump this moniker for something more accurately portraying the area’s education and healthiness (there are 15 states with higher smoking rates than North Carolina).

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Check out the interesting pictures of the new aquatics center to be used in the upcoming Olympics. This blog entry at DailyDoseofArchitecture has many more images, including some indoor shots.

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Google maps has been around a few years now and has a nice set of hacks out there. My favorite involves hijacking the title of the pushpin marker balloon as shown in the photo below. This is a pretty easy hack, to be honest:

• Zoom-in to the target location on the map (pick any view)
• Right click on “Link to this page” and (left) select “Copy Shortcut or “Copy Link Location”
• Paste the link into the Address Bar (Firefox users click Ctrl-lv) and do not click “Enter”
• Find the coordinates in the long text pasted into the Address Bar (some string like 35.782171,-78.638763)
• Drag-select both coordinates and Copy them.
• Paste the coordinates into the Google Maps Search Bar
• After the string, hit the spacebar, then “(“. Type the title of your balloon, then “)” and click “Search Maps”
• To copy this map as it is, copy the new URL from “Link To This Page” (as in Step 2) and paste it into any application.
• Better yet, paste the URL into tinyurl.com and use the URL they give you!

Pretty easy, huh? You’ll find this as a great way of labeling an exact location for someone.

Tags: Great Sites, Pin, Tech // 2 Comments »

Another great link from the Waxy.org mini blog takes us to an mp3 of David Lee Roth’s vocal track for one of the first Van Halen hits, "Runnin’ With The Devil". This thing sounds like a medley of about 50 great possible ringtones. Yeeehoowww! Aaaaaeccccgggguh!

Tags: Music // 1 Comment »