“twice as likely” to wear heavy metal t-shirt as other people

By Josh Highland in funny, Josh's Rambling

I found an interesting article from a while back. I guess people who work in the IT industry are twice as likely to wear a heavy metal t-shirt as their non-IT counterparts.

If I was to be given the survey, i would have answered yes to it. I wear heavy metal/hardcore shirts EVERY DAY to work, I just wear them under a button up shirt. I’m undercover I guess.

The study also showed that black jeans are 63% more popular among IT types than other workers (yes i wear black jeans some times), and IT people are 34% more likely to sport a ponytail (I cut mine off a few months ago!)

I wonder what the statistics on tattoos and piercings are?

Either way, a mildly interesting read that I thought was funny
http://www.intermedia.net/about-us/news/2006/IT-people-are-different.asp

Bulk downloading from Flickr

By Josh Highland in Josh's Rambling, software

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Some of my friends have stated to discover how awesome Flickr is, and have started to upload tons of pictures of the parties and other events we throw.

I am weird when is comes to data. I’m worried that Flickr or any other photo hosting sites for that matter, will one day go away and I will lose access to all those awesome images.

The only solution to solve my neurotic ways is to download the large versions of the images from flickr, and back them up locally, 7 ways from sunday.

I could always click into each picture and then save it. LAME. not doing it. Instead, I spent about 5 minutes googeling for a solution, and I came across FlickrDown.

FlickrDown is an open source app based on Microsoft .NET 2.0, and it works great. Download it, run it, enter a flickr username, pick the album and download. EASY AS THAT!

download it today! http://greggman.com/pages/flickrdown.htm

My Blog, 2007 in review

By Josh Highland in Josh's Rambling

2007 is gone and dead, but I took a few moments and went back to check out that I blogged about during last year. Here are some of the highlights.

Fixing my laptops display

By Josh Highland in hacks, hardware, Josh's Rambling, tutorials

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Last June, I got a new (used) Toshiba M55 laptop.

I got it for an awesome deal because the hard drive was broken, and the screen flickered a lot. I figured for the price it was worth the gamble, even if I had to replace the screen it was still a bargain price.

The hard drive was DOA, and was replaced immediately. I installed Ubuntu 7.04 Gusty as the main OS with windows as the second OS. Easy enough to do.

The screen flickered a bit, but if i messed with the lid enough, moving it back and forth, I could get a good picture. Over time the picture just got worse and worse. It was time to do something about it. I did a quick google search and found a Toshiba M55 LCD replacement guide.

I figured it had to be something with the connections on to the screen or board because when the screen was working, it was working good. The image was great, but it took a bit to get it there.

I followed the guide exactly. I powered it on when I had it torn apart and it worked! It seems that there was to much stress on the LCD cable connection, causing it to freak out when the lid was in specific positions.

I followed this guide to open up the keyboard. (steps 6 – 8 only). I was able to give the cable a bit more slack, and every thing started working like it should! I put it all together and it’s like I have a new laptop, and all it took was an hour of my time and the guts to do it. I should have cracked this thing open 6 months ago if i knew it was going to be this easy!

I hope this helps someone else with a similar problem.