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Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Catch The Moment
Thursday, April 7th, 2011SPB Mobile Shell Wallpaper Fix
Sunday, February 20th, 2011If you don’t use a Windows Mobile phone and SPB Shell, you can pretty much skip this post.
SPB Mobile Shell is just this awesome shell for Windows Mobile. It’s available for other platforms, but I use WinMo, so don’t confuse me. The one feature, however, that was driving me bonkers, was the wallpaper option. Regardless of what resolution your wallpaper is, SPB will do this bizarre zooming on the picture, so that you lose most of the sides and bottom of the wallpaper.
This is okay, if you have a pattern or nature scene and the primary image you want is central, but if you prefer having your primary Lifestyle panel to one side or the other, or if detail is important, you will be very unhappy with the results.
I have an Samsung Omnia II, so it’s pretty much stuck in a portrait orientation, but if you have something else, you can tweak this for your device. The Omnia’s screen resolution is 400 x 800 VGA.
Click for photo source
As an example, let’s just use this in SPB Shell, using the recommended resolution of 960 x 748. We’ll adjust the image so we get that resolution and capture as much of the detail as possible. I’ll also mirror the image because my primary Lifestyle panel is on the far left, and do a little cleaning up of the picture. You can use Photoshop, or some other graphics program to do this, but if you skip the mirror and cleaning, you could even do this with Windows Paint. And yes, the motorcycle logo is reversed because of flipping the image. Are you really looking that close at the motorcycle?
Click for full sized image.
Regardless of how much you moved your image selection in the Shell, it would come out looking something like this.
Click for full sized image.
Well, that sucks. We’ve lost the model and the motorcycle detail. The picture is granulated and seems out of focus. The messed up area at the bottom would be where your Launcher/Contacts bar would be.
So how do we fix this? We add a side and bottom border, so the shell is forced to “scooch” the wallpaper to the fit the screen to the entire image you want to see. The side borders will vanish, and the bottom will descend just to the top of the Launcher/Contacts bar.
Let’s resize the original picture to 720 x 588.
Click for full sized image.
Now we add our borders. I’ve set the bottom border to 136 pixels. The left and right border are 160 pixels each. I set it in black, but you can always change your borders to something more compatible with whatever your wallpaper looks like. When we apply this image in SPB Shell, the left and right borders will disappear “off-screen,” and only the bottom border will show up behind the Launcher/Contacts bar. So here’s our new image.
Click for full sized image.
When you apply it to the shell as wallpaper, it will come out looking a lot like this:
Click for full sized image.
Depending on your device, you can tweak the height and width of your wallpaper. And you’re not stuck to 720 x 588 dimension I started with. Again, you just need to fiddle with the borders to make it work for you. If you prefer your image to run all the way down to the bottom of the screen, using this example, just change your original wallpaper dimensions to 720 x 724, don’t add a bottom border, and just add the side borders.
Engrish Prease
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010Okay, I know this is totally politically-incorrect, but I have absolutely no clue of what it means. I got this on Flickr, and I’m very, very confused.
“hiiiiiiiiii
I would like you to identify yourself and be decent Asjqa intimate
Special hobby, and only a photography
I love it so much
So that all the love and appreciation my friend”
Flickr is a photo sharing website, so I think this is legite. I just have absolutely no idea of what “I would like you to identify yourself and be decent Asjqa intimate” actually implies. What thel hell is “Asjqa?”
Yeah, I know, just ask them. FU.
UW Insurance Fiasco
Monday, September 13th, 2010I have a lot of conservative friends that oppose health-care reform. I’m in support of it, with this example: Your mom isn’t old enough for Medicare, and she has a stroke. Are you gonna cover her dead ass (obviously I have family issues)? Yeah, I’m starting to lean more to the conservative side on other issues, but this isn’t a political post, so shut the hell up about my politics. I’m Dutch. We have a genetic political position. I don’t care if you have sex with barnyard animals as long as I don’t have to pay for it.
But in case you DO support health-care reform, let me give you this warning tale. I was seen at UW Medical Center for my neuropathy and tremors. Now, they wanted me to register with my insurance so they could tie it in to my appointment, so I registered with GEHA, my employer-provided insurance company. Let me repeat, corporate insurance, provided by my employer.
So the next day I get this call and a lady tells me “Mr. Huster? I’m working out the registration between your visit yesterday and your insurance company, but you’re only authorized for Medicare-A.”
“What?!!?”
“You’re only authorized for Medicare-A.”
“I have a Medicare-A account?”
“Yes sir.”
“How the hell did I get a Medicare-A account?!?”
“Well, when your 65 or older you only qualify for Medicare-A.”
“I’M NOT 65!!!!”
“You’re not?”
“Jesus Christ lady! I’m only 47!!”
“You are?”
“#@$!!!. Why would I say that if I wasn’t!!!”
“Oh, let me look…………………… oh, it looks like they gave me the wrong account number.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, woman…”
(sound of Jack wetting his pants while he thinks about what the hell happened to HIS records)
If this is what happens with private sector insurance, think about what it’ll be like when the government takes over.
The Pink Flamingo
Thursday, September 9th, 2010Okay, went to neurologist #1. Sweet lady, took my wife so she wouldn’t ask me to fix her computer. Anyway, gave me an anti-epilepsy drug to try. Woohoo! Good thing I have the shrink to give me the more entertaining meds. Okay, so tested negative for diabetes, lyme disease, and a couple of other things.
Went to neurologist #2. Big dog. I think he’s head of neurology at UW Medical Center.
After the general questions, the bastard asked me to do something else I didn’t realize I couldn’t do. Stand on one foot. They had to catch me twice when I fell over. What is this, some kind of entertainment for docs? What’s next? Handstands?
Then of course, the usual 47 vials of blood. This time we’re testing for cancer, and a bunch of other things.
As we were leaving the building, I told my wife that I had already given up my retirement career as professional bowler and ballroom dancer, but now I had to give up my hopes of becoming a pink flamingo in the front yard. -sigh-
Fell down three times since my last post. One time I got that horrid skin crawling thing that comes with neuropathy. I pulled into McDonald’s to get something to drink, and knew something was wrong when I could hardly put on the lid, and it was serious work not to drop the cup.
The UPS man was leaving just behind me, so I tried to open the door for him, and down I went.
Another time was getting out of the car, and the other was when my backpack on wheels took off at a dead run, with me still clinging to it.
Oh, and what’s really cool is that the postmaster approved my request to replace 4 doorknobs I struggle with, with levers. Guess he isn’t the dick I usually tell him he is. Er, forget that last sentence. Love you Len. And I mean that in a manly way, ahem.
P.S. There are times I struggle to do simple things, and I almost come to tears. Don’t tell my wife. I’ll have to kill you. Probably by falling on you.
