Payton’s Random Rants

Over on the left I’ve had my XBOX Live Gamer Card up for a few days now. That’s actually a sidebar widget I wrote as a Wordpress Plugin. Be sure to check out the entry I wrote at ITtoolbox on how to create a Wordpress Plugin.

The prices of LCD monitors have (finally) become reasonable. I was in Sam’s Club tonight and was strongly tempted by a pair of Samsung LCD monitors. One was a 20″ 4:3 with a 1400×1050 resolution, and the other was a 20.4″ 16:9 with a 1688×1050 resolution. The prices were $279 and $299 respectively. I was floored, and more than a little tempted. But to put things in perspective, I’m using a 19″ Dell Trinitron CRT that has a 1600×1200 native resolution, which is what I use for 2D work, and run run games on it at 1280×1024, which is my sweetspot for performance versus eye candy with my nVidia 6600 GT video card.

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The time, creativty, and whack-o-ness necessary to do something like this is unbelievable. I couldn’t imagine being a computer manufacturer and trying to support Linux. Hell, just trying to support a single application on Linux is a nightmare, imagine trying to support everyone trying to use everything!

read more | digg story

I’ve written an entry at ITtoolbox detailing my mis-adventures with Mono and Ubuntu from this weekend. It’s amazing how much of a productivity inhibitor that Linux has become for me.

Link to A Weekend with Ubuntu

I’ve been doing some housekeeping on the old blog here. I’m learning quite a bit about PHP, and particularly about Wordpress. I’ve tweaked the Tuned theme quite a bit, and I’ve also modified some of the plugins to make them more functional (like the Digg-It plugin).

Can anyone recommend a good IDE for PHP that runs on Windows?

Every parent needs to have something special that they do every day (and if not every day, then as often as possible). My daughter has the same love of stories and fantasy and grand adventures that I’ve had all of my life. Her library at four rivals what most people will ever own. A couple of months ago I decided it was time for her to start listening to a book that took more than half an hour to read to her, and since I’ve loved The Hobbit since I was a kid, I figured she’d love it too. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s amazing. Absolutely amazing. Microsoft releases a really nice tool that is still in BETA, and people decide that after five minutes that it’s uninstall city. OK, fine, but the first comment from Ryan is really uncalled for. What in the world does Windows Live Writer have to do with a monopoly? Microsoft is probably the smallest fish in the blog software pond!

Link to Thrashing Stinks / Microsoft Live Writer Beta: WYS is not WYG

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Microsoft has released their new blog authoring software called Windows Live Writer. I’m actually using it to post this entry. It appears to completely support Wordpress. I hope to also use it with ITtoolbox.

You can get the details here.

<UPDATE> We’ve rented the last available apartment. Thanks to everyone who inquired.

I have an apartments for rent near Post in Clarksville, TN located at 137 Hadley Drive. Soldiers and their dependents are encouraged to apply!

• Apartment B2: 2 Bedroom, 1 Bath, $475/mo, $250 deposit. Apartment has central heat and air conditioning, washer/dryer hookups, ground level, and plenty of parking. Approx 750 sq ft.
• Apartment B3: This apartment has been rented.

Both apartments are also available with utilities included for an aditional monthly charge. Please call 1-866-650-9870 and choose extension zero to schedule an appointment.

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Back in February of this year, I purchased a 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid for my commute from Tullahoma, TN to Nashville, TN, which is about 76 miles each way. Although I’ve been please with the performance and gas mileage of the car, I’ve recently began experiencing a very odd problem which first occurred back in June on a mini-vacation in Charleston, SC. On the way back, while driving in the hills of northern Georgia, the car started making a horrible resonating sound. I assumed that the age and wear of the road we were on was causing the car to resonate and thought nothing of it. It was hot that day, probably low to mid 90’s.

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