The blog of Michael Rice

I have recently gotten into this awesome show called The IT Crowd. Its really funny. I thought I would share with you a really funny clip from season 1.

Well the guys at South Park did it again. Here is a classic clip from a recent episode of South Park

So about a month ago I started building a new computer. I used an asus P5Q SE/R mb, an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 then stuck 6GB of Kingston HyperX RAM in it. I used an LG GGC-H20l Blu-Ray drive, and my video card is an nvidia 9800GT 1GB. I decided to use Windows Vista Ultimate 64B for the OS. I just got the Blu-ray stuff in this week. I thought that I would install the drive maybe need some drivers and possibly a special player, but I thought I would be watching my first blu-ray with in the next hour. Well I was wrong, sort of. I had everything installed hardware wise and was trying to play the disc but it was not working like I had hoped. I did have to install the PowerDVD disc it came with to play a disc, but the disc I tried to play was playing the video choppy and the sound sucked. I was kind of mad but I figured it was somethingto do with my disc or something. I tried another blu-ray but the same thing happened. With the help of the guys at work some google searches led us down a path of “did you try …” I tried all kinds of stuff. People on forums were suggesting to others with similar problems as me that it was the version of PowerDVD, it was the sound card, it was bad RAM, etc.. Well I spent the next few days trying everything, including buying TotalMedia Theatre from Arc Soft. Nothing worked. The thing I couldnt understand was that if I used VLC to play an MKV 1080p “rip” it played fine. Well last night I was going though all the settings again on the TotalMedia Theatre and found one that said “Enable Hardware Acceleration” and it was checked. That made sense to me to be checked all the other times I had gone thoguh the settings but this time I decided to uncheck it. I hit apply and the movie I had playing in the background was suddenly fixed!! I couldnt believe it. So now I am watching hi-def blu-ray movies on my samsung 46a650 tv successfully using Windows Media Center (this requires the arcsoft totalmedia theatre), and it kicks ass!!

• @calebgroom freakin awesome man!! congrats to you and your family on the good news. Dont forget to pray for health in reply to calebgroom #
• fighting with AD to get my Offer Remote Assistance thing to work. Life with Linux was so much eaiser. #

• @calebgroom awesome man!! I used to love going to those when we were expecting in reply to calebgroom #
• @Ponderous76 roflmao!! that is awesome!! in reply to Ponderous76 #
• heading home for lunch. I hope UPS shows up while I am there #

• @Ponderous76 I love their burgers in reply to Ponderous76 #
• wtf is the deal with Ubuntu and all the damn apache config files?? I thought Ubuntu was all about KISS. #

• installing ubuntu 8.10 server in vmware esx to run our company web site. #
• I really miss tabbed windows from Fluxbox while on Windows. I wonder if there is some app that will make it happen on Vista? #

• getting ready to head to Sonora Texas to pick up our daughter from her week long visit with the grandmothers #

• moving a physical SAN booting server into vmware esx using rdm today after we close. This technology seriously amazes me!! #

• why cant we swap the weekend for the week… work 2 days off 5 #

• getting ready for work, thinking about how much fun today is going to be. more vmware esx testing & more playing with our SAN stuff #
• iscsi where have you been all my life? #
• just finished exporting Ubuntu desktop to ESX then converted it to go to workstation. Technology amazes me everyday!! #
• burning the midnight oil tonight… some server room upgrades are taking longer than expected which makes me a sad Panda #

• thinking of ordering a new 9800gtx since my current card wont do 1080p@120 it only does 60, and getting a blue ray drive #
• “your son rip is on line toot.” Gas relief commercials always make the kid in me giggle #

• YAY all the parts for my new media center pc arrived while I was home for lunch!! #
• got my new pc built it runs like a champ. just finished watching I am Legend, it was a pretty good flick #

• why are simple things like showing both time and date in your toolbar on windows so difficult to make happen? Is it not common to want that? #
• watching righteous kill. #

• installing ESX Server on the SAN. Hoping this all works well as we really need something to go smoothly for a change #
• there is nothing quite as fun as following instructions that don’t work #
• @Ponderous76 better get a bucket to try to catch them in in reply to Ponderous76 #
• @Ponderous76 what kind of errors? in reply to Ponderous76 #
• Console servers.. they can be your best friends at times!! #

• @Ponderous76 Killer choice!! in reply to Ponderous76 #
• watching south park episodes on http://southparkstudios.com/ #

• Just left frys in austin #
• Envy me. Just left the salt lick #
• @Ponderous76 Yeah I picked up a new 1TB drive and a new video card while I was there. Frys is my walmart super store in reply to Ponderous76 #
• @Ponderous76 I thought about you and Joe while I was eating my brisket in reply to Ponderous76 #
• @calebgroom It was amazing. I love that habenaro sauce they have. We need to take a field trip over there some afternoon in reply to calebgroom #
• I think I am fixing to order an asus p5q3 delux and a q9550 and build a media center pc that will also be my new file server.. over kill? #
• ended up going with the Asus P5Q SE/R and the Intel Q8200 & 2GB of RAM #
• RMS is coming to town in April: http://tinyurl.com/dng9r4 Im planning on going. #

• getting ready to head to Mr. Luckys for a few hours of tattoo fun and excitement. My arm sure is gonna be sore tomorrow #
• Getting inked at Mr Luckys #
• home at lat. my arm feels like mush #

• Why cant IIS be as easy to configure and trouble shoot as Apache? #
• standing in line at chachos #
• just finished watching semi-pro. not as funny as I hoped. I think Ill hack on some python code for a while #

• need to go to bed, why do I do my best coding when I should be sleeping? #
• @calebgroom I think I used linux for 3 or 4 years before I knew you could echo hostname > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname #
• playing some mario kart wii!! #
• watching the education of sonny carson again. this is a good flick #