Sometimes the icon bars line up and shrink to create some interesting things.

Check out these 2 awesome YouTube videos - both are of a new program for your Nintendo DS called DScratch, which runs under the new Protein engine. Not only does it allow you to use the touchscreen to mess with the audio, it sends MIDI over WiFi, allowing you to connect it up to a larger audio sequencer or control lights and other equipment when you’re VJing.

Interested in it? Download the file and try it out. But you’ll need more then that file and a Nintendo DS, you’ll also need Revolution 4 DS, which is a Slot 1 cartridge with a Micro SD slot builtin. It lets you ‘unlock’ your DS and allows it to run homebrew applications as well as making it oh-so-simple to transfer files to and from the device. I know what I’m getting next - I always wanted to get into it, and here’s a great way to do it!

The next stop? Add midi to the Wii Guitar Hero axe!

Just a reminder, when you’re NT account keeps getting locked out every 20 minutes, and you’ve found the server name that is the culprit, but you’ve looked and looked and have absolutely no idea exactly what is causing it.

If it’s a SQL Reporting Services server, make sure you go to http://<ServerName>/Reports, then click on the “My Subscriptions” in the upper right hand corner. Then see the test report you created, 6 months ago, and set to run every 5 minutes. Then see that the delivery method is Windows File Share, and that you’ve entered you’re own credentials, and not those of a service account.

Then smack your forehead, and wonder why you went through 2 days of hell before an offhand remark from a coworker helped you resolve it. Then, go buy him a Twix (I haven’t done that yet, but I will) as thanks.

ARGH!

Although the pendulum of my career goal in life has swung another direction¹ I still need to keep up with my current career and as such I just dropped $160 on Collection 3386: Implementing Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. Its a self-paced E-learning course from Microsoft - I’ve never taken one of them before, but I really need to get more up to speed with the product - there are huge changes from 2005 and I’m getting lost on what in the old one is what in the new one.

Course is slated to last 10 hours total - I’ll run through it and see what I think, then probably setup a time to take the test for 070-400. I’m a tad nervous - I was an MCSE back in the NT 4.0 days, but never kept current with my certs. Now that I’m a full time IT consultant, I figure it’s in my best interest to re-certify and grab some new certs along the way. The only thing I hate is the $125.00 price of each MS test. But hey, at least it’s all tax-deductible, eh? Normally I wouldn’t care about the certs at all, but if I’m paying for the course I might as well see it through to the end.

I’ll let you know what I think about it.

1. I kinda want to be a truck driver again, it was an insane amount of fun. I loved it - though I didn’t realize until after it was over [↩]

I’ve been using the Firefox browser for several years now. Initially it was due to the heightened security it inherently has, because it doesn’t run ActiveX objects - but soon it became my browser of choice simply because of all the amazing plugins you can download for it.

There are many many lists full of what their authors feel are their ‘essential plugins’ and I will add to that with my own list.

- One of the first plug-ins I install is the amazing Foxmarks. Foxmarks is a bookmark synchronizer that automatically synchs bookmarks between 2 or more copies of Firefox. Since I have, at a minimum, 4 machines with Firefox¹ this is a necessity for keeping things in line. And when I’m not at one of my machines² then I can access all my bookmarks at my.foxmarks.com - which keeps everything organized exactly the way I have on my browsers end. It even includes a neat ‘preview’ feature that lets you see a thumbnail of the site in case you’re not sure it’s the one you want or not.

del.icio.us - Delicious is both similar to, and completely different from, Foxmarks. Billing itself as a ’social bookmarking’ website. When you come across a website you like, you save it to your delicious account and add tags to help you remember what it was about. Even better, you can search for tags to find content similar to something - like dogs, linux, comics, how-to to even stuff like Fauvism, luddites, and anti-consumerism. Best part - go to any commerce site online, find something you like and save it with the tag of ‘wishlist’. Delicious has a special link just for it.

DownloadHelper - Download helper is a small plugin that does what it sounds like - it helps you download media from websites. Anytime you visit a site and DH can help you, an icon next to your address bar lights up - clicking on it takes you to a box letting you know what it can download. Love YouTube? Finally you can download those videos! And more then that, you can download all the images on a web page with a single click of a button.

Exif Viewer - Exif is the EXchangeable Image File metadata that almost all digital cameras and camera phones have today. This data tells you a lot of interesting things about a photo such as what kind of camera took the picture, when and where it was taken, the focal length, shutter speed, and more! If you take pictures, you can learn a lot by looking at the information of photographs that you like. I use this constantly, and am always amazed and just what image files have hidden information in them.

Web Developer - Perhaps this plugin is aimed at the more technical user, Web Developer adds a new toolbar with various web developer tools. With it you can disable/change stylesheets, enable/disable images, disable javascript, cookies, etc and even mess with the information that forms send out. It’s invaluable for troubleshooting your own websites as well as making it easier to peer into the inner workings of websites you like.

Colorzilla - This is one of the neatest plugins out there. Colorzilla is a webpage DOM color analyzer. You activate it, drag the eye dropper to the color you’re curious about and click - voila, the color you seek is displayed before you in all its hex and rgb goodness. It comes in real handy for matching your website with widgets you find on the web.

Adblock Plus - This plugin needs no introduction. It is the defacto standard for blocking obnoxious ads you find online. It’s simple as 1. See obnoxious ad 2. Right click on ad and 3. Click on ‘Adblock Image…’ and boom, you’re set. You can even use wildcards to block a wide number of ads automagically. Make it even more powerful with the Filterset.G Uploader plugin. The uploader will automatically update your Adblock filters every few days with the ones from G. This makes it a no-brainer to block those ads.

AllPeers Beta - If you use BitTorrent at all, you need this plugin! It manages your downloads, automatically handles queuing and source monitoring and even lets you chat with your friends - all from right inside Firefox!

I use more then these, but these are the ones I ensure I install first on a new machine - so try them out and let me know what you think. What plugins do you use on your Firefox? I’d love to hear em!

1. 1. Work laptop 2. Personal laptop 3. Home desktop 4. Home server [↩]
2. Me, not around a computer? HA! [↩]