John Lamansky

Microsoft has a 4 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer’s Performance article that I found some time ago. The steps are, in summary:

• Free Up Disk Space
• Defragment
• Run the Windows Disk Checker
• Get an Anti-Spyware Program

Pretty basic steps, but it looks like a very good step-by-step guide for someone who’s new to computers.

I’m part of an awesome academic program called the Future Problem Solving Program. I thought I’d better tell you a bit about Future Problem Solving (FPS) first in case I want to talk about it in future posts. However, since I’m the primary author (as of this writing) of the Wikipedia article on the Future Problem Solving Program, I’ll just refer you there for info on FPS instead of spending a lot of time writing a long post about it.

My mom has started a natural health and wellness blog about a month ago called Hyvin. The blog contains lots of nutrition information, including news, tips, and research findings. Please feel free to check it out, leave comments, etcetera.

I am simply thrilled that we were able to get a five-letter domain name, since I’d say it’s quite a rarity to get a domain name that short.

However, I’m starting to feel a teensy-bit jealous of my mom’s WordPress theme. Pretty green sidebar, cool shadow effects, rotating header images, silvery icons…

Ouch. According to a CNet article:

For people who use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to browse the Web, the picture wasn’t good. In 2004, IE was “unsafe” a total of 358 days of the year, meaning that the browser contained a publicly known, remotely exploitable hole for which there was no patch available. That means IE was “safe” only seven days, or 2 percent of the year, according to David Wagner, an assistant professor and well-known cryptography researcher. Wagner’s team compiled the data from Scanit and Secunia.

Quite surprisingly, Opera and Firefox didn’t score much better: Opera and Firefox scored much better:

In contrast, Opera was “safe” 300 days, or 82 percent of 2004. None of the bugs for Opera’s browser went without a patch and it would take 93 days total to fix them.

Firefox scored best. It was “safe” 339 days, or 93 percent of the year. Only two of its bugs went without a patch and it would take 43 days to install its fixes, according to the data summary.

Who knew Wikipedia had free wallpaper? I recently discovered that they have a whole list of wallpaper-worthy images from Wikipedia’s various encyclopedia articles.

Some of the images are georgeous, although I don’t see why they have a close-up drawing of a flea on the list…

According to a Catholic News Service article, employees from Vatican Radio have presented Pope Benedict XVI with a specially-loaded iPod nano to honor the pope’s first visit to the Vatican Radio broadcasting headquarters.

Now that Vatican Radio offers podcasts in eight different languages, the pope has the technological capability to plug in and import the radio’s audio files.

[…]

Though the white iPod nano is tiny, it still made an impression on the pope. When the head of the radio’s technical and computer support department, Mauro Milita, identified himself and handed the pope the boxed iPod, the pope was said to have replied, “Computer technology is the future.”

The pope’s new 2-gigabyte digital audio player already was loaded with a sampling of the radio’s programming in English, Italian and German and musical compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky. The stainless steel back was engraved with the words “To His Holiness, Benedict XVI” in Italian.

Developers using Visual Studio 2005, especially those switching from Visual Studio .NET, will probably know that Visual Studio 2005 hides code produced in Design mode automatically. Although on Microsoft’s site this feature is called “Just My Code,” there is no reference to that phrase anywhere in the UI that I could tell.

I couldn’t find a solution on the Internet that worked, and I finally figured it out on my own. I thought I’d publish it here in case anyone else had the same problem. It’s really simple: just click View, then click Show All Files. In the Solution Explorer pane, a plus sign will appear next to Windows forms. Just click on the plus sign, then double-click on <formname>.Designer.vb (replacing <formname> with the form name, of course).

(FYI: Note that I found conflicting instructions on the Internet that said the option to disable Just My Code was in the Options dialog box. Perhaps that was only applicable to beta versions of Visual Studio 2005, or perhaps my solution only works with the Express Editions.)

Yippee! I received the Sacrament of Confirmation last weekend! Receiving the sacrament was a very wonderful experience. I chose St. John Vianney as my Confirmation saint, for many different reasons:

• We share the same first name.
• He’s the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, in which I live.
• His middle name is Mary.
• He’s the patron saint of priests and confessors.
• He had a very difficult time with Latin while in seminary. I guess that means he would be a good saint to ask for assistance if I’m having trouble with my Latin schoolwork.

I also received many neat spiritual books and many wonderful cards from friends and family. I haven’t had this many interesting books to read for a long time!