The exciting life of a software developer and nerd
How many times have you tried to open a file in Windows, only to see it is already in use by some another program? Thus begins the witch hunt of process destruction, until you can open the file.
Process Explorer gets rid of this problem. Just search for a file name, and it tells you which process has a hold of it. This is only a small piece of its functionality, but a huge piece of my sanity. Why doesn’t Windows Ship with all the SysInternals stuff?
Yesterday I found this gem of an article on Amazon’s website. I wish I had known about it sooner.
I got home, and immediately tried it out. After about 1 minute, I was watching an on-demand video on my TV, through my XBox. Before, I thought I had to go through a VGA cable directly from my laptop, which is a pain. This is much better.
The quality isn’t HD; it looks to be about DVD quality. Even still, I think it is enough for me to cancel my satellite subscription and be completely on-demand. I only watch 2 TV shows, and the rest just waste my time. If only Discovery and History channels streamed over the internet, I wouldn’t miss satellite at all.
Also, I think this is the catalyst to get me to ditch my Ubuntu desktop for a Windows machine. Being able to easily have on-demand video is a perk like none other. At long last, I have given up what I so fell in love with a few years ago. I am sure this isn’t are last meeting, goodbye Ubuntu.
Update: Scroll wheel broken in 3 weeks time.
Today, on an impulse, I bought the Arc mouse. I needed a cordless mouse for my notebook, since unwinding my current mouse cord was losing nerd points for me. After walking through Best Buy, I saw the Arc. A beautiful, simplistic mouse that was the size of a regular mouse, yet small enough to be a notebook mouse at the same time.
It doesn’t have bells and whistles, but it works. It is exactly what I was looking for.
Like any new mouse, it took some time getting used to. It is very sensitive and can be frustrating for the first few minutes.
Inspired by Hanslemann’s tool list, and realizing that if my hard drive fails I want to have links to all the tools I need, I have started my own tool list. Check it out..
I had the need to compare two different directories on a Windows box and I came across KDiff. It integrates with Explorer and does exactly what I need. Try it.