Windows Live finally free on PC-platform

Well, it seems Microsoft finally got the idea… Windows Live, the gaming platform similar to XBOX Live (well actually – the PC-version of it) has gone completely free. The Silver Membership was free before, but a tad-bit neutered of a membership that was. Then there was Gold, but that had a monthly fee.

If you compare that to say Steam, InstantAction and the likes, Windows Live really wasn’t even remotely competing. Shame though, because it has a lot of potential.

Well that has now been rectified and from what I understood and heard – they will also start to offer games and content on Windows Live – just like XBOX Live. Finally… :mrgreen:

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Reworking your site with WordPress plugins

Once in a while you will want to rework your site or blog in one way or another. Today was one of those days for me.

I modified the 404 page to automatically give you a Google search pending on what you were looking for, amongst other things.

You can try the 404 plugin by typing in whatever you want after my URL; http://www.majoraap.com/. For example, you can add monkey-style and the 404 page kicks in and shows you my standard page with the Google Search results for monkey-style on my site.

Read more, including links to 20 highly recommended WordPress plugins after the break
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Mac keyboard on Windows – and working as well

Well I went ahead and bought a MAC aluminum keyboard. And I must admit, it’s a beauty. It also types really nice once you are used to it. However, Apple in it’s infinite wisdom has not released a seperate driver for Windows machines. The only way you can get it is via Torrents or via Google (applekeyboardinstaller.exe – and be sure to get it from a Bootcamp 2.0 version)

I think that it’s kind of ridiculous for a hardware vendor to do this. Oh well.

Other then that everything is going OK at the moment. I am still in the middle of a ‘Getting Things Organized (again)’ mood so I remodelled the room a bit as well as the desk. Nothing too major. I think the biggest change is starting to use Synergy (http://synergy2.sf.net) for my 2 PC’s. I can now literally move my mouse around 3 monitors (2x 19″ widescreens and 1x 17″) It’s amazing and very convenient.

Additionally I hope to be able to start looking for a new living space soon… If I can get that sorted out I’m a happy camper :mrgreen:

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“Drop Down”, Quake-style command prompt for Windows – Instructables – DIY, How To, tech

I just had to sharea this one very cool thing:

“Drop Down”, Quake-style command prompt for Windows – Instructables – DIY, How To, tech.

It’s a Quake-style console for use in Windows. Now you might think why would you want that? Well it autohides as soon as you click anywhere or ALT+TAB to another program, but keeps running in the background. It also gives you the console the moment you press WIN+~ (tilde)

I personally grabbed the file from: http://www.mediafire.com/?0e3kxld19qd

Works great, and I highly recommend it to people who, such as myself, frequently use the DOS-prompt… err I mean the Quake-console ;)

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Network Monitoring, reporting and charting

Pff… if you ever want to give yourself a headache – try setting up your own network monitoring/reporting/charting stuff. First off, finding anything that runs on Win32 is a challenge – and if you can find a freeware version, you almost found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so to speak.

Now sure you can use for example PRTG Network Monitor (freeware version is limited to 10 sensors, available at: http://www.paessler.com/prtg) or The Dude (available at http://www.mikrotik.com/thedude.php) but well… you still miss out a bit.

So far I haven’t really found my end-all solution that does everything that I want, which is SNMP monitoring, Syslog, and PING-ing. Now keep in mind that I have a fairly simple network. (2 routers set up as access points, 3 wifi-networks, 2 Ethernet over Power Adapters, 1 security device, 2 PC’s, 1 server, 2 notebooks, and 1 network-disk) so it shouldn’t be too hard.

For the time being I am using Kiwi Syslog Daemon (available at http://www.kiwisyslog.com/kiwi-syslog-daemon-overview/) for Syslog functionality – and PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring / PING.

Let’s hope I find something a bit more workable in the future. Untill then, if you are looking for a simple and free solution, you got 2 that you can use :)

Both are a breeze to setup and configure and well, they do work. Tips, comments and/or suggestions? Let me know!

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