Joe and Jamie’s Blog

While at work today I had to change the serial key on one of the computers. I took the computer from an old building in Vermont and moved it to their new location.

When I started it up It was getting this nice error message:

Since it’s a three and a half hour drive home and it’s already 7PM, I didn’t want to waste time formatting and reinstalling. The old company used a volume license key but I just wanted to blow that out and use the OEM key that was on the side of the case. It’s the legal key that came with the computer, everything still factory built, not just some spare case.

Here is what you do to change the serial key:

Download the following file from here. Just select your OS (Vista or XP), agree to the terms and hit download.

What is good about this new way of updating the serial number is that it will check the system files for anything that is out of order. This is important because many cracked versions of XP will have hacked system files that will keep important updates from being applied. The old way was a script file that could be run to change the key. The old scripting way can be found here.

Once it is finished it will ask you for the new key.

Enter the key click finish and it will make the change and reboot. Now that the serial number is updated you will no longer receive the warnings from Microsoft, and updates will be properly applied.

Source: www.intelliadmin.com

Today is day four of no smoking. Jamie and I haven’t touched one since after diner on Sunday. Like they say, the first three days after you quit are tough, then it’s just breaking the habit after that. I would have to agree with this. The first day was horrible. My body wanted one so bad, but my mind was strong enough to remember I was trying to quit. The first night was even worse. I couldn’t sleep or get comfortable at all. Everything irritated the crap out of me. Jamie and I have been fighting a lot over absolutely nothing at all, lovely side affects. Good thing we have been dating for almost four years and can get past this.

I believe this is all a mind game. If you can just push aside your habits and think before you act you won’t pick one back up. You don’t need any of those smoking cessation drugs/patches/gum. Jamie tried to use those last time, but I feel the issue is that you are satisfying the craving by either chewing some gum or the patch. To me, you want to get rid of those urges, not satisfy them, that is what makes it harder and takes longer to quit because you aren’t getting the nicotine out of your system. Granted yes if you have no self control then by all means a patch or gum is much better than the actual smoke. I told Jamie to not get them this time and see if she can do it. So far she has, and I think it’s because she didn’t use that stuff that she is doing so well this time.

Anywho, figured I’de just fill everyone in on how we are doing. I have been in Vermont for work for the past two days so nothing exciting going on at all. Later.

Jamie and I quit as of today.
[claps, applause, cheering, other supportive noise]

Sunday night was our last one, sometime around 6:00 pm or so. No this wasn’t a mother’s day gift, we decided awhile ago that the weekend that school ended we would stop. I am stopping mostly for the wrong reason, but hey the important thing is that I am stopping. I basically can’t afford the $150 a month per person. Yup that’s right $300+ a month down the drain, well more like down my lungs. With the recent gas prices it’s just stupid to continue on such an expensive habit. Also come June 3rd, New York State is increasing the cigarette tax $1.25, bringing it to $2.75 of tax per pack. Right now I pay on average $5 a pack depending on where I get them. That extra $1.25 (if it isn’t more at the store level) is an extra $75 I would have to shell out each month for the both of us. Let’s put this in perspective again. $375….that’s my car payment!! I could pay it off twice as fast when I quit if I wanted. See more here on the cigarette tax increase for New York State.

I’ve quit before cold-turkey so it won’t be an issue for me, but Jamie may need some assistance breaking the urges. I won’t ever pick it back up as long as Jamie doesn’t go back to smoking like last time we attempted to quit. She kept sneaking them in there claiming she had to cut down first (which I will admit she did, but still).

I came across the NextGEN Workpress Plugin tonight. I was looking for something to do a nice gallery or slide show for pictures on the blog. The plugin can be found here. So far I am having an issue getting the thumbnail pagination to work, but if I leave it showing all the images in the post you can click on it and the pagination works for the full image size. It’s pretty cool. To see what it can do/looks like, go to the link above and click on FAQ.

These are some of the features:

• Sortable Albums : Create your own sets of images
• Upload a Zip-File with pictures : Upload pictures in a zip-file (Not in Safe-mode)
• Watermark function : You can add a watermark image or text
• JavaScript Effect : Use any available popular image effect : Thickbox, Lightbox or Highslide
• Multiple CSS Stylesheet : Use a nice shadow effect for your thumbnails with your own CSS file
• Slideshow : Full integrated flash slideshow
• TinyMCE : Button integration for easy adding the gallery tags
• Sidebar Widget : Show a slideshow, random or recent picture at your sidebar
• Language support : Translated in more than 15 languages
• Upload tab integration : You have access to all pictures via the upload tab
• Tag support for images : Append related images to your post
• Meta data support : Import EXIF, IPTC or XMP meta data
• Sort images feature

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there. Today we planted some new annuals outside to spruce up the backyard for spring. It’s what we do every year for mother’s day weekend, it’s what my mother considers her present. I have some pictures below of all the nice flowers.

On top of that, Jamie and I painted some more in the attic (finally did more with that project) and also my father and I ran the electric from the basement to the attic so we could splice in the line up there and add a second breaker. We first had to drill the hole between the walls and get it downstairs, following a CAT-5e wire we ran a few years ago as a guide. We miscalculated the first hole by half and inch and put a hole in the corner of my sister’s ceiling, but we patched that with some Plaster of Paris and re-painted it.

We used Romex SimPull 600VA wire to a 20 amp breaker, pretty standard for a bedroom load. Apparently the idiots that wired this house put 1/2 of two rooms on the second floor and the entire third floor all on the same circuit breaker. You’re talking 3 air conditioners over 5,00 BTU’s, 2 TV’s 3 computers/laptops, clocks, lamps, monitors, laser printers, etc, etc all on the same breaker. PRETTY darn silly, but not our fault. We discovered this last summer when my sister got her air conditioner. She never had one before so once she had hers on, plus the addition of my laser printer and it’s spooling, the breaker tripped whenever you tried to print a page. We had to remember to turn off the lights or the a/c before printing. But this is all rectified now. Oh and while we were at it we pulled a backup CAT-5e line just in case I ever need it if I remodel the house network or put some storage servers in the basement.

I decided to come up with a name to place all the sites under. If I ever start to make some profit off of these websites I will actually register the company, but for now it’s fun to just pretend I am one. I’ll eventually get my butt down to the proper place to officially make it a registered business.

I started to create a simple site to just put links to all my other sites on as well as explain a bit about the company and why I started all this, as well as some contact info. I need a good logo made, but I don’t want to ask Jay because he will probably charge me $100 a pixel, and that’s the friend price! =P

www.hanniganwebcompany.com

Today I took my last final of this semester. I am glad it’s finally over and I can get back to my normal life and have time to myself. No more bull crap essays and assignments where I learn nothing until the end of August.

Since I am going for two degrees I have to take two more bogus classes in Science and what they call a transfer class. To take the easy road out, I took intro to Chemistry which I already took in 9th grade and passed with flying colors, and for the transfer class I chose General Algebra. Yes, read it again algebra. Not advanced but regular old x+2=4 what is x? kind of stuff. I can’t believe it’s a college level class. How can you get to college and not know algebra??? Not to show off but I was doing calculus in 11th grade and was doing pre-algebra in 4th grade. I can’t wait to see how dumb everyone else in class is, it’s my only enjoyment out of taking bull crap classes.

I am highly considering changing the name of the blog to Joe blog…..Jamie NEVER posts. She says she doesn’t have the time, but I think she needs motivation and all of you wonderful bloggers to tell her how much fun it is. She doesn’t know what she is missing.