March 01, 2003
The Unstoppable G.B.E.
Posted by Jess in
Tech Talk
Some words of inspiration on an otherwise quiet Saturday.
I remember it quite clearly. My brother and I were both out of college for the summer, and had our individual computers set up and ready to go in our rooms. Windows 95 had only been out for a few months.
My bro showed me something on his screen. It wasn't what was on his screen that amazed me (which, I remember was that neato 3D clock screen saver). It was how nice and sharp and tiny everything was. "How did you do that?" I asked.
It was then that I learned about screen resolution and how to go into desktop properties ("what the heck is 'the desktop'?!"). I ran back to my computer to change it to 800x600, and lo and behold, mine looked different. It was greyed out so it couldn't be moved.
I went back to Jay and told him that I couldn't change it because it wouldn't move. His response?
"Only losers don't change things on their computer just because it's greyed out."
We went back to my computer, and he then proceeded to do stuff (which I now know all I needed to do was change the default monitor), and all of a sudden the button was moveable.
Had I accepted the fact that it simply would not change, I might still to this day be destined to looking at a 640x480 desktop forever.
Chew on that next time you run into the grey-button epiphany (GBE). It's realizing that you have the power to change something as long as you're up for the challenge!
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You'd be amazed how many systems sit at 640x480 for much of their lives - even quite recently, when I took over my current role we had machines that we setup by 'highly skilled computer engineers' (from a company I will not name - except that they are huge) - that were running at 640x480 and 60Hz refresh rate.
The default monitor trick did the trick and low and behold, they were quite happy doing 800x600x24 @ 75Hz refresh.
'highly skilled computer engineers' didn't loose the contract for nothing I guess!
That reminds me of something that just happened a couple of days ago... I have my laptop networked to my desktop machine via Internet Connection Services (ICS). While my desktop machine showed a tray icon when the machines were connected, my laptop never did (unless it was disconnected). I finally decided I didn't like that and started searching... Lo and behold, there's a checkbox on the connection properties screen that says to show an icon when connected... DUH!!! Just another example of living with something when you don't have to... Thanks for sharing.
LOL... I had a similar issue trying to get the battery life icon to show in the systray for laptops. Darn Power Management...
Interestingly enough, the same goes for anything. Being a first time homebuyer, Matt and I have decided we'd rather not have a wall near our front door. So we'll take it down. Talk about a GBE Ephiphany! ;-)
This site sucks. If you don't know what a desktop is, you're a homo
Mmmm, yes. I have NO idea what a desktop is, but I managed to slush my way through this darned wacky technical new-age stuff and somehow I managed to register a domain name, create a site with SSI, CSS, HTML, etc., and I even managed to figure out how to FTP it all up to this thing they call "The Internet".
And the homo bit, considering you were on a site called 'MATTANDJESS.NET', now THAT was some deductive reasoning.
:-P
