Archive for June, 2010

After owning the Scion XB (Jack) for a good 6 months, I finally had to change the oil.  Luckily in November I picked up a good Mityvac 7201 Oil extractor and a hydraulic jack which made everything super easy.  I was able to setup the extractor to extract the oil from the dispstick in a matter a minutes.  The extraction process to take out 4+ Liters took a good 20 mins or so, but I did not get dirty doing so.

After it was done, jack up the car and replace the oil filter.  That took only 10 mins or so including jacking up the car, putting supports under the car, and getting a tarp underneath the car to change the filter.

The cool thing about the extractor is it has a mode to dispense too.  I was able to discard all the dirty oil back into the oil containers without much of a mess…

Overall, it’s TOTALLY worth it to go this route as it is cleaner and much easier than the traditional drain plug route.

On the BMW it will be even easier as the oil filter is reachable from the top of the engine bay!

Most people have Microsoft Office installed either through school or through work as we can not get away from it.  It’s actually one of the few products that Microsoft makes that is absolutely necessary even in a Microsoft free environment (that’s why you absolutely NEED alternatives like Open Office or even Office for Mac).  Everyone is of course familiar with MS Word, MS Excel (god how I dread thee sometimes), and of course Power Point.  The one application that secretly got snuck in that NO ONE knows about is Microsoft OneNote.  It is perhaps one of the greatest applications created in recent memory that I can not believe people do not use.

The application is very simplistic in nature, you have a virtual notebook with sections in it (remember your 5-Star notebooks in school with subject separation?).  Each of these sections can have as many pages as you wish and everything is searchable.  When I say everything I mean EVERYTHING.  Any text on an image will get OCR’d internally and become searchable.  Hand written notes (provided you have a wacom tablet or a tablet pc) are also searchable as internally they get converted to text.  The best part about this is the pages are non-bounded.  You can literally write, copy and paste, insert, etc any where into the page.  OneNote also has hooks into Windows where a Windows Key+S will provide snag-it like functionality.  You can also write/type over anything you can import (which pretty much everything is either in PDF, Word, or can be “printed” into OneNote with a virtual printer).  In essence this is literally the notebook we use and write in everyday when we take notes during meetings, classes, or “todo” lists.

For a tablet pc this of course is indispensible, most of us write notes everyday.  Heck, it’s much easier to write short hand than type generally and god forbid you have to quickly scribble a quick graph or algorithm/formula.  Having all of that inside in a searchable format is truly heaven.  If any of you are like me, you’ve likely saved your college notes somewhere and wouldn’t it be nice to have them in virtual format as well?

As far as I know, other than EverNote there is no comparison to OneNote.  Sadly, OneNote is likely the only program that would keep me from switching over to any other operating system as it is THAT good.  There are other programs LIKE OneNote, but nothing remotely compares.   When Open Office one day creates an alternative I’ll be the first one to test it out, but that will be unlikely as sadly Microsoft is the only company that offers complete support of tablets.

Having purchased my first home recently, I’ve finally realized how resource intensive full size desktops can be (not to mention how HOT they make my office).  My main computer is a water cooled custom-built Q6700 while I have an older AMD x2 4800 (Optimus) running downstairs as my server.  The main computer (Behemoth) is used mostly for VM images and running Skype, Netbeans, etc for my day to day job and my entertainment.

Since the x2 is always on yet often underpowered, it doesn’t make sense to have to power two server grade computers up to do something 1 computer can do.  I’ve decided to gut out Optimus and replace it with Behemoth.  Up the ram, and Behemoth can run my coding desktop (VM) allowing me to code/test/compile from anywhere in the world.

Doing so will of course leave me “desktop less” and my netbook can only do so much as it is severely underpowered.  I’ve since decided to purchase a Thinkpad x201T with the dock.  This will allow me to keep my dual 1900×1200 monitors when I’m willing to work at my desk, yet I have the freedom to bring my work anywhere with me.  I’m sure the Thinkpad will be great, having used them exclusively for the previous 4 years at my company I know they are nearly indestructible.  My current work T60 has been with me for 3 years and has been through hell and back.  That bad boy has been through multiple drops, airport security, multiple airlines (traveled 100+k miles with this thing), and still keeps on ticking.

Having said that, my NC10 which has been with me for the previous 2 years has served me good as well…but it’s time for some consolidation.

So long Samsung, you were the best traveling partner I had, even better than the Macbook Air and UMPC.

I will review the x201T as soon as I receive it.  I’ve been longing to go back to a tablet since my UMPC days, but performance/lag has always held me back.  Now Lenovo is actually putting some fast enough processors in these things along with having an excellent battery life.  I’m actually excited and can see this as my desktop replacement for the next 3-4 years.