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!



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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.
  

Virtual disk images in Windows XP

What you need:

• Windows XP (Either edition will work)
• FileDisk (free, http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/, direct link http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/filedisk.zip)
• A computer (duh)

What to do:

1. Download and install FileDisk from the website above.
2. Open a command prompt (Start>Run>type cmd)
3. Type the following text into the command prompt at C:\

fsutil file createnew example.img 1000000000
filedisk /mount 0 c:\example.img x:

Replace the parameters like this:

• example.img >> Whatever you want the image file to be called
• 1000000000 >> The size of your drive
• 0 >> The filedisk drive ID (starts at 0, must be the lowest integer available)
• c:\example.img >> The name of your image (note: path must be specified even if in current directory)
• x: >> The drive letter (must not be in use) followed by a colon (:)
  

To unmount the drive: filedisk /umount x:

Note that you will need to format the new drive. You can then access it like any other drive until you reboot.

MediaFire: The best file upload service

Now, when I say it's the best, you may think: "Well that's his opinion." Well I'm sure it will be your opinion too!
I quote from the site:

• 100% Free
• Unlimited File Size
• Unlimited Uploads
• No Sign Up Required

Check that out! Sweet...

MediaFire is at http://www.mediafire.com, surprise, surprise. Check it out!

Weird glitch on my camera!

You saw that post about my camera right? Well I just found a weird glitch in it! Take a look!

Yes, that's multiple folders (and a file, IMPOSSIBLE to delete without deleting all the folders as well :-S ) with the same name!
Basically I noticed that every time I turn on my camera a folder is created called DCIM if it doesn't exist. If it does exist, it doesn't create it. So I wondered: What if DCIM does exist...as a file rather than a folder? Well, I created a file called DCIM, and turned on my camera. I then turned it back off and reconnected the USB cable to find that that file was blank (it wasn't before) and there was not one, but TWO folders called DCIM. Opening one gave the following error:

G:\DCIM is not accessible.

The directory name is invalid.

Weird...
Each time I unplug it and plug it back in again it gives me two more folders called DCIM! In case you don't know (you probably do) no two folders or files in the same folder can have the same name, and neither can a file and a folder have the same name. The camera somehow broke that rule

VistaQuest VQ1005

A while back I went to my local Wal*Mart and I saw a shelf of small keychain digital cameras there. Not thinking I could afford one, and purely out of curiosity, I looked at the price tag expecting it to be from $50-$100 or so. However, to my surprise, it read $19.96. I could afford it after all!
I purchased it and went home to try it out. It connects via USB, supports SD memory, and can also take short videos without audio. However, the downside is there is no picture-viewing display, there is no flash, and the battery runs out fairly quickly. Also there is a maximum of 40 seconds for each video clip.
In the long run however it is a pretty good camera, and I suggest you buy one. As you can tell from the title of this post, it's called the VistaQuest VQ1005.

Eval.c mod for dc

Have you ever heard of dc? No, not Washington, DC! I'm talking about the RPN (reverse Polish notation) based calculator program for UNIX. It's open source, so therefore you can mod it. Well, I added a little extra feature into it: a clear-screen function. Whenever you type j as a command, it will clear the screen!


Download it at: http://www.paste-it.net/505/c

To use this mod, replace the contents of dc/eval.c in your bc (another calculator program that dc comes with) source directory with that code. Oh, and then recompile and move the new copy of dc created to your /usr/bin directory.

Route 666

I've had this photo for a while, and finally decided to share it with you. It is of a sign on Monroe St. in Herndon, VA:


Look at the number on the top. Yes, you read correctly, it says 666, the Number of the Beast. I'm neither superstitious nor Christian however, so I don't believe in any of that stuff, but still, it's kind of funny! There's also something ironic about it: there is a church on that street. Oh, the irony! :-) lol

RSS feeds in Excel

Here's a little something for you. It lets you create RSS feeds in Excel. To save an RSS feed, simply go to File->Save As... and then choose XML Data from the type list. Make sure you pick XML Data, and NOT XML Spreadsheet. Enjoy!

xlrss.zip

EDIT: I have switched to MediaFire, the best online file upload service, so if the link wasn't working before, try again!