Today I found two extensions that can give you some more space on your bookmarks bar in Firefox.

First, the Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar, which gives you more rows as you need them. If your bookmarks overflow when you size down the window, it catches it then, as well as just a plain overflowing bookmarks bar.

Second, the Smart Bookmarks Bar. It removes the text on the bookmarks and leaves the icons, but shows you the text when you mouse over the icon, like so:

 

There are some options: you can choose not to show bookmark names on mouseover, to unhide the names of folders on the bookmarks bar, and to unhide bookmark names that don't have a favicon, and vice versa for all those. Also, you can adjust spacing and autohide the bookmarks bar (which I haven't tried out yet. sounds like it could be handy).

Cheerio!

Today I came across a link to a web page that purported to make available various wallpapers included in the Windows 7 releases to date. That page is located here. More specifically, the downloads referenced are located here.

However, if you were to open that link, you would likely find yourself confronted by an unsightly window requiring you to complete an online survey prerequisite to access of the wallpapers. I hate online surveys. The corrupted, beastly things are laden with bloated spam offers. Never, NEVER sacrifice your personal email address to these bloodsucking devices (if the need should arise, I suggest a disposable email such as offered by mailinator.com). And, after a cursory review of the comments at the bottom of the page, I see an attempted justification of the survey requirement... to avoid server shutdown. LAME!!!

Ha. Allow me to provide anyone interested with the direct download links to the zip packages containing the wallpapers (with the exception of the RC1 wallpaper download, which appears to be MIA). Actually, even if you have no interest in the wallpapers, I would suggest pure spite as a motivation to avail yourself of the downloads. A protest of the sick and juvenile institution of an online survey.

So, to get down to business. There are a few methods available to circumvent the undesirable restrictions. Being the rookie operation this apparently is, you can simply view the source of the page, and pick out at your leisure the download URLs which they carelessly leave lying around. Alternatively, you can copy the source, edit the scripts out, and reload the then uninhibited page. Furthermore, I imagine the use of NoScript or some such apparatus would effectively render the script nugatory.

For your convenience, though, I will post the links here:

http://windows7-wallpaper.com/wallpapers/windows7wallpaper.zip
http://windows7-wallpaper.com/wallpapers/rc1wallpaper.zip
http://windows7-wallpaper.com/wallpapers/win7build7000.zip

Note: I include the RC1 link in the event it should be restored to functionality, for which we may certainly hope if we wish to experience such content as referenced here.

Enjoy.

Update: the RC1 link appears to be working now.

Just a quick post to expand on my comment in a previous post on switching to AHCI mode (to enable full SATA functionality) after installation (in IDE emulation mode) of the operating system. See this for further information. This is particularly useful if, for whatever reason, an F6 floppy install of the SATA drivers proves futile.

Here is the thread I found. I basically followed those instructions, except it's an MSI-specific forum, so I believe the IATA621_CD.EXE file specified may be such. I also believe the IATA88CD.exe file I found on my driver disk from Gigabyte is the corresponding file. Nevertheless, to be safe, I downloaded the Intel Matrix Storage Manager executable directly from Intel, to be sure I had the real goods.

I then followed the instructions, but I used the text found here. It was a bit of a long shot, perhaps, but mine is a ICH10R-based board, and that was supposed to work... and it did! I did have a couple devices (IDE primary and secondary controllers, to be precise) show the infamous yellow question marks by them for a few reboots while I installed other drivers, and then they resolved themselves.

So, there you have it: an ex post facto method to enable SATA mode.

NB: Only tested with 32-bit Windows XP Professional and the specified Intel chipset.

So, three things:

I had been wishing for a sort of label management tool for Blogger. Finally, I just did a Google search (doh!) and found that Blogger itself has a sort of label mangement. So, it looks like I can edit labels fairly easily and delete rarely used ones. Sweet. Check out this Blogger help page and this blog post at BloggerStop.net for a guide to a few common actions.

Second thing: Windows Live Writer. I had been using a beta version for a while, and a few weeks ago updated it to a 2009 version. It's not the snappiest in performance, but I think the updated version improved that. I'm happy with it; it works well for what I do. I can save drafts, link up a storm, and pull up cached copies of posts. I know there are other blogging applications out there, I haven't tried any yet, but maybe I will in the future.

And finally: feed widgets. I have been checking out a few recently to use for a feed from the CaringBridge journal for Isaiah. WidgetEasy is quick and, well… easy, except it broke somewhat on that feed. Arg. Also no customization. Feed Informer I found via a Wild Apricot Blog post; it requires registration but is pretty customizable. You make digests: they can contain more than one feed if you want and you can set some options relating to filtering incoming items, sorting, and such. One thing I like is that it seems to (at least with some templates… I shall have to investigate what exactly causes it), you can truncate the post content; for the Isaiah feed on PAN, I used a template that had a read more.. link. Nice. And finally, from a comment on that post, Feed2JS. It's quick, it needs no registration, you can plug in CSS styling.

Edit : April 24, 2009:
Some more info: you can truncate post content with Feed2JS also, if you turn off HTML display from the feed. Also, you can run it from your own server. And finally, the Feed2JS server caches feeds for an hour; seems to be faster than Feed Informer, which is nice; it was getting behind the feed on the Providence blog. 60 minutes is much more acceptable.

Last Friday (4.10.09), Nathaniel, Hugh, Elliot, and I gathered to build the computer I had researched and purchased the parts for. It was my first build, and quite educational and satisfying, even if it did thwart our purposes until the early hours of the morning.

Specs:

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W
ATI HIS Radeon HD 4850 512MB DDR3
Crucial 4GB PC2-8500/DDR2-1066
Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB SATA 7200rpm
LG 22X DVD±R Black SATA GH22NS30
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW
LG 19" Flatron W1952TQ-TF

The log of events:

5:13:00pm Watches synchronized.

5:16:26pm Pictures of components.

5:18:28pm Case removed from box.

5:19:35pm Side panel removed.

5:23:19pm Pictures of heart throbbing loot.

5:28:00pm Preinstall SATA drivers downloaded from Asia.

5:31:23pm Front panel removed.

5:33:41pm Motherboard drivers transfered to floppy disc via USB floppy drive.

5:47:27pm Moved to kitchen in order to circumvent electro-static discharge risk.

5:51:52pm Removed motherboard from box and anti-static bag.

6:03:54pm I/O panel busted out after much difficulty.

6:04:09pm Installed I/O panel.

6:14:49pm Standoffs installed.

6:17:47pm Motherboard mounted.

6:33:31pm Began testing screws due to irregularity in tightness.

6:35:54pm Standoff discrepancy diagnosed and motherboard removed.

6:49:39pm Discovered we had no less than FOUR faulty standoffs.

7:05:59pm Dinner break.

8:15:21pm Motherboard installed.

8:21:14pm Power supply installed.

8:38:51pm Front panel connections established.

8:50:45pm Prepared heatsink for installation.

8:53:34pm CPU installed!!!

8:57:03pm Checked motherboard screw tightness.

8:03:52pm Arctic Silver thermal compound applied to CPU.

9:08:12pm Heatsink installed.

9:12:27pm After much deliberation decided to install HDD in the top slot.

9:14:49pm HDD installed.

9:23:41pm Memory modules installed.

9:34:33pm GPU installed

9:42:27pm Optical drive installed.

9:56:08pm Double checked everything.

10:09:07pm POST!!!

10:14:36pm The zip-tie attack begins.

10:59:07pm Windows XP installed.

11:14:01pm BSOD due to incorrectly configured AHCI BIOS options.

11:26:07pm Began reinstalling Windows XP, having floppy problems.

12:20:00pm Tried enabling Mode 3 Floppy support.

3:24:17pm Must.... have..... sleeep.

[Next day]

2:07:14pm Successfully switched to AHCI mode after Windows XP installation.

[Also known as (for the Google's sake): How to fix far right links with Subtlebeauty Blogger template or How to fix Subtlebeauty Blogger template sidebar poking into posts]

We noticed a while back that links on the far right of a post using this template were at least partially unclickable - you know, the little link hand cursor disappears. The beam cursor also disappeared when mousing over unlinked text there… made it harder to select such text. I did a little code tweaking and found something that solved the issue: changing the width of the sidebar-wrapper div in the template CSS. It is by default at 35% ("of the parent element's width"); I think I had it at 27% in the last couple days, just did some experimenting, and I think 28% percent is the highest you can go without having the sidebar wrapper bleed into the posts. You might need to do some expermenting, maybe set it lower, if you have lots of buttons on the top navigation bar (the links just above the posts). I haven't noticed any squishing of the sidebar, or any breaking of it otherwise because of the tweak; it seems to work fine.

So, if you haven't done it before, here are the editing instructions: go to your blog Layout settings (accessible from your Dashboard) and click to the Edit HTML sub-tab. Now, use your browsers search function (Ctrl+F, probably, or Edit menu > Find) if you wish, or just find it manually; look for #sidebar-wrapper (it won't be italicized). Find the width property under #sidebar-wrapper and change it from 35% to 28% (or whatever other width you decide; that's just what I am recommending).

I don't know if this is an issue with the WordPress version of the Subtlebeauty template, but I know it certainly is with the Blogger version. But… issue fixed.

--Nat

Last Tuesday, one of my friends tumbled off a road and down a hill in a crew cab pickup truck. We got news of a rollover on Tuesday night, and not too much later we heard that Isaiah Buck had been life flighted out.

He is in a Lewiston hospital now, and has been in a coma for over a week. The amount of prayers going out really has been explosive. The word went out, and the saints hit their knees. All over the world, really; Sweden, Hong Kong, Africa, US, etc. Really it has been amazing… it has gone out through church networks, prayer chains, word of mouth, many emails.

If you want the story and aftermath of the rollover, this Chieftan story does a fairly good job; I don't feel like fully recounting it here.

We Providence people (and then some) had a prayer meeting in the school chapel this morning at nine. It was good to have another group prayer; there was a more general gathering (less school specific) at the Hurleys' place last Wednesday. I think it would be good to have a prayer meeting every Wednesday somewhere until the end of the matter, which we do not know when that will be.

We shall not stop praying, but we have many things to thank God for already; that there was only one fatality, that the rest of the young men are doing relatively well (broken bones and Jaymz has a fever), that there is the means to care for them, especially Isaiah, that the Lord has been upholding Mr. and Mrs. Buck in an amazing way, that we can come together freely and pray, that we are never alone, that Isaiah is alive (it was iffy that first night… shallow breathing and that stuff), and many more praises. But do not stop praying, in the faces of either good or bad news. The woods are thick yet.

I'm compiling a list of public stuff on the internet concerning Isaiah. It's under the tag isaiahbuck in my Delicious bookmarks. Feel free to comment about stuff that's now on there and I will probably add it. I am adding Mrs. Bakker's blog posts about Isaiah to the list as they come… she is a pretty active blogger, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more to come.

This truly is a new experience to me; never before have I been in danger of losing a friend, never before have I had one in a coma like this. It's something new, and it's something that's stretching us. And that is good. Good things already are coming out of this, praise God for that. And I pray that more may yet come; we are connected here in this little county, and this is rocking the boat a bit, I should think. Well, let's walk on water.

The Changing of Times by UnderOATH, by the way.