Minneapolis

Alright, I was under the impression that only a few people read this, and that I personally know all off them.  But I was just looking at my Google Analytics page, and there have been over a hundred views in the last few weeks from Minneapolis…. I don’t know anyone in Minneapolis.  So, if whoever is reading this, from Minneapolis (or anywhere north of Milwaukee for that matter), could just write a little comment (click the link that says No Comments) and say how you know me or how you found this site, or something; that would be cool.

This is Doctor…

My dad is a doctor, and when someone from the hospital need to talk to him, the have the hospital paging service send him a page so he can call back. My dad often has trouble when calling the paging service back. Here’s the latest conversation my sister and I overheard. We were laughing our heads off. I put “………” where the other persons dialog was which of course I couldn’t hear.

This is Dr. Hardin, somebody paged

………

This is Dr. Hardin

………

Dr. Hardin

………

Then why don’t you use a different phone cause I’m not gonna yell

………

THIS IS DOCTOR HARDIN!!!!!!

Laptop Power Saving Tips

The battery on the laptop that I use has been dead for couple years now, and just the other day I got a new one. I did some reading and testing to try and figure out the best ways to conserver the short and long term life of the battery.

1. Turn the screen brightness all the way down or at least as far down so you can still read the screen.
2. Unplug any external devices, headphones, wireless cards (if you’re laptop has a built in Wi-Fi connection, use that), mice, etc.
3. Have the screen shut off after one minute (the minimum).
4. Set it so that it goes into standby fairly quickly (a few minutes).
5. It makes sense to have the computer go into hibernate mode after it goes into standby. I can’t give any firsthand experience about hibernate mode because my computer does weird stuff when I put it in hibernate.
6. If you don’t need to be looking at the screen, don’t have it open. For example if you are listening to music and aren’t doing anything else, close the screen so it shuts off. The screen sucks a lot of juice.
7. Don’t have any superfluous applications running while you are on the battery. IMing is great, but when you really need to try to conserve the battery, I’d recommend closing everything that you don’t absolutely need.
8. Don’t leave the laptop plugged in when you aren’t using it. I don’t know all the science of batteries, but I have read that leaving it plugged in will drain it faster by keeping it in a constant charge/discharge state. When you go to sleep or aren’t going to be using the laptop for a while, shut it down and unplug it.
9. Calibrate (look around in your Control Panel to find this tool) your battery regularly. I have read that it should be done every few weeks, and I have also read that it should be done every couple months. I will be doing it every few weeks on my new battery.

Those seemed like the best ones I found on the web. If you search for “laptop battery tips” in Google, you’ll get tons of pages, but these seemed like all the best ones out there. If you have any questions, leave a comment. Oh and I’m going to write a post on the difference between standby and hibernate in a little bit.

Break

Well I haven’t written anything here in quite some time now, due to a seeming lack of anything interesting going on… but I think I just don’t pay enough attention to the little things that I like or laugh at.  I think I’ll be writing a bit more on here now.  And maybe even taking the Christmas stuff down.  I don’t know though, I do really like the silly little traditions of Christmas.  Less is more though.

The new battery for my laptop just came today, which is sweet cause the other one was totally drained and I always had to be plugged in.  So now I can roam free, at least for a while.  I actually don’t know if I’ll like “roaming free” as much as I’ll like having the power (no pun intended) to roam free.  Whatever.

Progress on the sweet computer program that I’m writing is coming along pretty good.  I just had an idea the other day  though, so I am going to have to rewrite a little bit of it.  But that will make future development easier and ad the capability for a few more features.

Night at the Museum

We saw “Night at the Museum” today. For the second time actually. Most people probably blow it off as a kiddie movie, but it’s very good. Ben Stiller is funny, and Owen Wilson, and whoever the guy is that plays Octavius. I like movies that you always find yourself quoting after seeing it (“Johnny English”). This is definitely one of those. Don’t listen to the critics, the nearly full theater was laughing throughout.

2007

‘Course 2007 is here. 2006 went by faster than movements after corn on the cob.  But it was a great year: I got to captain a soccer team under a Marine coach, got to know the lady one year better, went on some very fun trips with my family, and got my bench up to 220 (I’ve actually never “tested” my max bench, but 220 is what I do at the peak).  Today I was putting some home videos onto the computer, and as I was doing that I saw some clips from a few years ago.  I just realized how fast time flies.

Have a great new year and don’t forget your family and real friends.