Transparency checkerboard bookmarklet

Okay, so I haven't actually written a post in a while (i.e. not just had Digg generate one for me.) Well hold your horses! I'm still posting!

Now you know when you edit images in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or (my favorite) Paint.NET, you see that gray and white checkerboard wherever there is transparency? Do you ever wish you had that in your web browser (especially when viewing images as pages?) Have you been looking for something that can add that? Well look no further, as I have bookmarklets (small pieces of code you can bookmark and execute on a whim) that can do that.

Simply drag one of these links onto your Bookmarks toolbar (or your Links bar, dare I say it):

• Checkerboard (gray/white)
• Checkerboard (high-contrast) (black/white)

EDIT: I forgot. The Links bar thing was supposed to be a joke about Firefox being better than Internet Explorer (which it is!) but it turns out these bookmarklets don't work in IE due to their use of the data: URI scheme. IE users, click here. Or, for an alternative solution, click here.

Firefox toolbar removal

For quite a while, I have been wondering how to delete a custom toolbar from Firefox. I finally figured it out, and I am going to tell you just in case you have been wondering as well. It's actually pretty simple, but unintuitive. All that you have to do is remove all of the buttons from it. It won't disappear immediately, but it will after you hit OK. How do you remove buttons, you ask? Simply open the Customize Toolbar dialog (you should know how to open this...after all, how would you have created the toolbar?) and drag the button to the dialog. To remove the toolbar, repeat this for all of the buttons. Wait, do you want an empty toolbar to use as a separator or something? Well simply add a space to it. Yes, you must also remove all spaces/flexispaces/separators to remove the toolbar. Well, that's really all there is to it.

Wii countdown clock

If you've ever been to Gamestop or EBGames shortly before the Wii was released, you have probably seen that big blue clock on the wall. It says "Experience Wii" on it in white text, and counts down to the Wii release date.
Well I was curious who owned it (Gamestop or Nintendo?) so today I called Gamestop. I already have a Wii, so I didn't ask if they had one of those in stock. But I asked who owned the clock. They said they received it from Nintendo, and that Nintendo didn't seem to want it back. So I asked where it was. It was in the back of the store. He then asked me something that I loved hearing: "Do you want it?" I then said yes. He asked me for my name, which I answered. He then said to be there by 4:00 PM. So I went to Gamestop and asked the guy I called for the clock. I told him my name, and he then replied, "You're the one!" He then went into the employees-only section and came out with the clock. I thanked him and went home with it. Now the owner is neither Gamestop nor Nintendo - it's me.

EDIT: I just found on the Internet that someone else got one as well. You can see it at http://revver.com/video/106925/bento-gets-the-wii-countdown-clock/.

Newspaper reference

That concert was featured in the newspaper, and it made reference to me. It didn't reference me by name, but it was definitely referring to me. It errs, however, by saying I am a preteen. I am 13 at the time of writing and at the time of the concert. I can't post the image right here 'cause it's in TIFF format. However, you can download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?02gqdrj00qi.

BTW, I recently dusted off my old UMAX Astra 2100U scanner and my brother gave me the idea to scan the article and post it. So I did! That was from The Washington Post, by the way. The article is also readable from their website at http://tinyurl.com/2u5xrk.

Concert

If you listen to the recording linked to in this post, please keep this in mind: I was 13 then, and I was very excited and nervous at the same time. Some of the things I said may seem out of place; in fact one thing in particular would probably make me come off as some snobbish asshole demanding attention. You'll know what part I mean when you hear it. Just trust me when I say it would make a lot more sense in context. Also, one more thing: my voice isn't nearly as high anymore.

Okay, so yesterday I went to a Nellie McKay concert with my family. I was really enjoying myself. Then my dad asked me if I wanted to request a song. I did, and she attempted to perform that song, but she was having trouble remembering most of the lyrics. By the way, the song was called The Big One, in case anyone is wondering.

Then, she called me up to the stage. I gave out the address to this blog, because hey, free publicity. She asked me to sing the song I requested while she played. I tried, but I couldn't remember all the lyrics either. We eventually just gave up. It was funny. Then she played another song and had me dance with some girl in the audience who was celebrating her birthday. She's not my girlfriend or anything, in fact I didn't even know her, but I figured why not.

That's about all I can remember, but it was fun. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty weird up there, because I just wasn't used to being called up on stage in a concert.

EDIT: I now have an audio file of my part of the concert, courtesy of NPR. Download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?cztmxyrrgzz.

Nellie McKay, if you see this post, which is quite unlikely now considering this was more than 5 years ago, please email me at flarn2006@gmail.com.

Backing Up TI-83 Plus RAM

Have you ever wanted to back up the RAM on your TI-83 Plus without a computer? Well it's possible. This video will explain how.

Dell's 17-inchers packing a jolt?

Dell's 17-inch laptops have been reported to send out 19-65V of energy through its screws!



read more | digg story

Random Characters

Here is a simple program I wrote. It is called Random Characters. It generates random characters. (Surprise surprise!) I have put a screenshot of it in this post.
The program is in the public domain, so you can download it for free. You guessed it: MediaFire. Download it at http://www.mediafire.com/?5m2mgmtizul.

Save MP3s in Sound Recorder

Does Windows XP come with software to create MP3s? The answer is an obvious NO! Or is it? Yes, it does. Sound Recorder actually has a hidden ability to save in MP3 format. Go to http://www.mediafire.com/?1tlinumm2nh and download the MP3 file there. Believe it or not, it originated as a WAV file which was then converted using Sound Recorder. By the way, if it sounds familiar, play the video on the last post! Hmm...that's just about it...oh yeah! I've got to tell you how! I hate it when people don't...

1. Open Sound Recorder.
2. Record or open the sound to save as MP3.
3. Click File>Save.
4. Just saving it with the MP3 extension won't work. We have to save it as an MP3 file. See where it says Format and it has that PCM thing? Click on Change... next to it, and a window will appear.
5. Open the Format list, and click on MPEG Layer-3. This is what MP3 is short for!
6. Click OK and then save it with the MP3 extension. But put the entire filename (including the extension) in quotes so that it will actually be called, say, music.mp3, rather than music.mp3.wav.

You're done!

Sonic Advance gray boxes glitch

At first I wasn't sure which blog to post it to. Then I realized it's not necessarily a test mode so I decided to post it to the main blog. I discovered this in Visual Boy Advance. From the description:

This is a memory hack for Sonic Advance. Open a Sonic Advance ROM in Visual Boy Advance and then go to Tools and Memory Editor. Go to 00000214 and change it from 0002 to 00FF. Then click on the emulator window and it will be black. Go back to the memory editor and change it back to 0002. Click on the emulator window and it might say something like "Unsupported ARM mode 18" and then this will happen when you click OK.

EDIT: I have decided to host the savestate of the gray boxes glitch and link to the rom:

• Get the savestate from: http://www.mediafire.com/upload_complete.php?id=oyomg5zwzqm
• Get the ROM from: http://www.emuv2.com/index.php?page=rom_dl&rid=1575
• Due to legal reasons, I cannot give you a MediaFire link for it.