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So I just started testing out Adobe Photoshop CS4. I ran into a little problem to start with. Every new image I made would be solid black and  I could not see anything I was trying to do. When I first started using  the new version of Photoshop it gave me a message about implementing GPU processing. This was enough of a clue to get me started.

Steps to take to fix the black canvas:

Adobe recommends that you try to update your video drivers to support GPU processing, and if this works I would take this route as it will make Photoshop more powerful.

If that does not work try the following:

  1. Open  Photoshop go to Edit > Prefrences > Proformance.
  2. Then under GPU Settings uncheck Enabled OpenGL Drawing.
  3. A restart may be required, but I do not remember for sure.

Well that is what worked for me. I hope this helps others, because at the time when I Googled for a solution there was nothing.

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Open In Firefox

As a web developer, I am constantly testing my websites in many browsers. Particularly Firefox and Internet Explorer. Firefox was built around the idea of extensibility. There are many add-ons that allow you to customize Firefox the way you want. One great add-on is IEView this little tool allows you to right-click on any web page in Firefox and select View this page in IE, and as the name suggests it opens the page in Internet Explorer.

Now, what if I wanted to do the opposite?  The closest solution I could find involved manually modifying the registry, but it was this post that inspired me to write a one-click installation to install this capability.

Download Open In Firefox here.

Please leave me your comments and let me know if you have any troubles. This was tested with Vista IE7 and XP IE6 as well as 32bit and 64bit systems.

Requirements:
Mozilla Firefox
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package (Only if the program will not launch).

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WARNING: THIS PROJECT IS OUTDATED AND NOT MAINTAINED.  

Download:

Click here to download Jango Desktop from: https://samuelhaddad.com/jangodesktop/

Contribute:

As of 10/19/2009, Jango Desktop is going open source. Please check out the project at http://code.google.com/p/jango-desktop/ and jump right in.  Programmers, graphic designers, or just your ideas, whatever your skills may be you are welcome to join the fun.

Current Features:

  • Media Key support
  • Keyboard shortcuts
    • Ctrl + up rates the current song great
    • Ctrl + down rates the current song bad
    • Ctrl + right arrow rates the song ok
    • Ctrl + ? (no shift so really ctrl + /) shows the current song playing
  • Lyrics
  • Run from system tray only (Minimize to tray, double click icon to bring the window back).
  • Auto updater for new features

Screenshots:

Requirements:

  • .NET 2.0
  • A Jango.com account
  • Enjoy listening to music

Why Did I make this?:

I am a big fan of both Pandora, Jango, and streaming music in general. I think they are great. However, I also feel that being a web-based application they lack features that exist in a desktop media player.  For example, keyboard shortcuts and notifications are features I cannot live without. I found that there is a desktop application for pandora that tries to remedy some of Pandora’s flaws.  It is called  Pandora’s Box developed by Daniel Mackey from http://cdfan.com for Jango there has been nothing until now.

Update History:

You can read all about updates and bug fixes here if you are interested.

Donate:

coffee_128x128Do you like my work? How about buying me a coffee?



Special Thanks:

I want to give a special thanks to the following people:

for testing and finding bugs in the application.

Disclaimer:

Jango Desktop is in no way affiliated with www.jango.com. By downloading Jango Desktop you claim full responsibility for the use of this application.

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So Digsby has been around for quite some time now. For those of you have not heard about Digsby or tried it, let me fill you in. Digsby is an instant messaging client that combines, emails, and social networking. This means you can have your AIM, GMail, and Facebook all in the same place. Until recently Digsby has been running great, however it would utilize a lot of memory. In it’s recent builds the developers have spent a lot of time optimizing the memory, and for that I am thankful and this is why I am writing this post, as a tribute to Digsby I am releasing some quick tips and tricks.

Skinning Digsby:

Digsby has some ultra cool skins and emoticons by default, however if you are looking for more. You can visit http://digsbies.org/ at this website you will find an assortment of downloads. Here you can find new skins, converstation themes, emoticons, and sounds.

Digsby Widget:

Digsby wants everyone to be able to communicate with you, even if they do not have an Instant message client themselves. Digsby has created a flash widget that can be embedded in just about any webpage. This will allow users to talk to you from a webpage such as facebook if you are online.

Digsby Log Converter:

Not from the developers of Digsby but, rather a man who calls himself UFGrayMatter, is a log converter. It allows you to convert your logs from other instant messaging clients such as Pidgin. It can be downloaded at http://www.logconverter.com

Shortcut Keys:

CTRL + TAB- Allows you to easily switch between tabs.
CTRL + ALT + TAB – allows you to scroll through the tabs in the reverse direction.
CTRL + UP ARROW – Recalls your last message typed, much like command prompt and unix based command line.

Please e-mail more I live by shortcut keys and will just keep a running thread here.

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So you my have noticed that if you upgraded to Vista or have Vista that it took Netgear over 6 months to release drivers for there Zetera SC101 NAS.

 The Problem:

When installing the latest SCM utility and drivers you receive an error “Failed to install the Z-SAN SCSI miniport driver”  or similar.

 The Resolution:
If your installation already failed and the setup software tells you to restart, you must do so.

Next restart the installation. Select Customchange the default installation directory to anything but the default and then continue. The software should install perfectly now.

You can get the latest software from Netgear’s support page.

This fix came from scouring the comments from
 http://www.kowitz.net/archive/2007/09/11/netgear-sc101-finally-does-vista.aspx