Tricky, tricky!

I just found a really cool prank that you can play on your friends just in time for Halloween. Digg had a post from a guy who created a perl script that you can use for some office fun. You add the message of your choice to your script, complete with the IP address of the affected HP printer you want to use, and your message will appear on the LCD! Can you imagine the looks on your co-workers faces as they approach the printer to make a few copies and see the message "Get Me Out Of This Printer" Ha!! Of course, the size message you should send depends on the size of the printer LCD.

The post is here complete with instructions on a useful installation to use if you want to run perl on Windows.

Why is IE still in existence?

Now that we have Firefox, I just don't understand what good Internet Explorer does anyone. I'm sure that my problem is that I'm looking at things strictly from the perspective of a developer. But a new Gmail Notifier bug related to IE has been brought to my attention and I'm particularly annoyed about it.

If you have Gmail notifier installed on your PC, you probably are a Firefox, Opera, or Safari user. Well if someone asks you if they can check their email account on your computer, be sure to ask a couple of questions first: 1) Are you using free web-based email, and if so is it Gmail? 2) If the answer is yes, which browser are you planning to use?

These questions are important. There is apparently an existing Gmail notifier bug where if a person checks their Gmail account via Internet Explorer and instead of logging out of IE they simply close the browser, whatever gmail username and password they use for their Gmail account are captured and stored in your Gmail notifier from that time forward. It doesn't matter that you're using your own username and password you use to login to Gmail notifier, dude. The other person's messages will continue to display from now until kingdom come.

The way to get around this is to access Gmail via Internet Explorer (*shudder*) and signoff the other person's account. Afterward you should be able to access your own email via gmail notifier once you login with your username and password. Just annoying.

Source: ["On a path: technology archives"]

Never Learn...

Update (7/10/07)

I got to work this morning, and had just enough time to connect my laptop to the network to see if it would boot up. I was able to log into Windows with no problem. I immediately uploaded ALL of my photos and videos to one of the network servers!! That will buy me sometime until I am able to get everything downloaded to CDs and online photo sites. How awesome is that?? I'm completely ecstatic!

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I just never learn. I don't like to talk about this because I am still partially in denial, but a little over a year ago I lost something very valuable. When I quit my previous job, I went into the office on the last day and turned in my laptop. Before doing so, I had the network engineer place all of my pictures from the hard drive onto CDs. I kept the CDs safely tucked away in my bedroom bookcase. A year later (2006), our bedroom became full of clutter due to my packrat tendencies, and my hubby couldn't take anymore. He began cleaning out every item on the shelf and either putting it in it's proper place, or completely throwing it away if it was useless.

Somewhere between the beginning of his cleaning spree and a few subsequent months, the CDs went missing. To be completely honest, they may have been missing even before his cleaning spree...there was so much clutter that I just can't be sure. But over the past few years, I have not seen these valuable CDs that contain pictures from my son's birth, his first birthday party, my daughter's birth and all of the cute little moments in between. We got a new digital camera by the time my daughter turned one, so every picture on my current laptop is from that point forward. We're talking about a year worth of precious moments (including videos) captured on my current laptop. At least I have those, right?

So here we are two years later. I went to open Firefox on my laptop about an hour ago...nothing. The mousepad wasn't responding. I attempt to use the appropriate keystrokes but the keyboard isn't working either. ??? After ensuring that scroll-lock isn't activated, I turn off the computer. I attempt to turn it back on...NOTHING. I cannot get the blasted thing to turn on. I remove the battery pack and plug in the AC power supply. VOILA!! It turns on!! As soon as I start doing my happy dance, my desktop appears, all of my desktop icons appear, and I click Firefox to immediately subscribe to a Yahoo group and get my pictures OFF of my laptop and online somewhere. NOTHING. The mouse and keyboard don't work. I hear the fan inside of the laptop churning, but I can't actually DO anything.

It's dying. SOMETHING is dying. Either the harddrive is fried, or the motherboard. I'm going with the motherboard, because the desktop wouldn't be appearing if the harddrive was dead or dying. Plus, I've had a similar scare with this same laptop a year ago...I was so sure that my laptop was dead and that I had lost all of my memories (albeit only a months worth at the time). I had the harddrive removed while the motherboard was replaced and everything was hunky dory. I've been so lackadaisical about these precious memories, and this recurring event is proof of that. If I get one more chance to grab these pictures, I'm placing them all online so that I can access them from my home computer (which has a CD/DVD burner, unlike my laptop) and going to load all of these pictures onto CD. I'm so exhausted even thinking about this anymore; I can't do anything about it until Monday morning when I get back to work and around some hardware experts.

.:Sigh:.