I’ve always been fond of using red peppers for my homemade salads but here’s a cool food DIY on how to make “roasted” red peppers so you can get even better taste.  This is something I will definitely have to try as I didn’t know you could roast red peppers.

Adjust the top oven rack and place it 4 inches from the broiler. Turn on the broiler.

Place washed and dried red bell peppers on a greased baking sheet.

Broil the peppers for 10 minutes, or until skin is mostly blackened. Rotate pepper 1/4 turn and broil for an additional 10 minutes. Turn the peppers until the entire pepper is blackened. (Don’t be afraid to burn ‘em!) Remove from the oven.

via joshuaandshawnda

It looks like the Japanese are using barcodes for more than scanning, take a look at how they used barcodes as another place for advertising.  Great idea, I don’t see why U.S. companies are not doing this.

This kind of creative barcode design is completely new to me, but apparently it’s quite common in Asia - or at least Japan. Here’s a full gallery of some unusual product barcodes. Please comment if you have seen similar designs in your country (or if you are missing out on them as well).

via fosfor, source

Today, I decided to buy a new laptop since my previous two $2000 HP laptops keep dying on me constantly.

I did get a Dell Inspiron 1525 for about $600 at my local BestBuy.  It turns out the laptop gives you bang for your dollar.

Although I do hate even saying Vista as of lately, I decided to give it another go and see if Vista would stay on the laptop as it came with it.  The funniest thing happened though, I got the “unlimited” blue screens of death after installing one of my older programs.  This was the worst unlimited blue screens of death I’ve got in my 21 years career of using Microsoft’s products.

After installing that program, I’d get the blue screen of death whether I booted in Safe Mode or not.

So, if I wasn’t tech-savvy, I’d have to take it to the GeekSquad at BestBuy and spend another couple hundred bucks to fix it.  (Yes, let me also add that the BestBuy sales guy was worst than car salesman, he tried to sell me “optimization” and “virus protection” for MONEY, how fu*ked up is that?  I told him to shut the fu*k up and hand me the laptop so I can pay cash for it.  He actually agreed finally that I was right and he’s only doing his “job” as there are cameras watching him.)

Well, you can solve this problem by recovering Vista to an earlier point in time, similar to VMWare’s System Restore feature.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Press F8 at boot to enter the recovery mode.

(image credit)

2) Select “System Restore” and you will be able to select which “time” you want to recover the whole system to.

Now, I was very impressed that Vista had this capability to restore to a point in time.  But the bad news is that I should have been able to boot my Vista at least in Safe Mode.  I have never encountered such bad blue screen of death on my Windows XPs but this was just devastating for your average Joe user.

Again, I confirm the horribleness of Vista but I will keep using it on my laptop for now, just to see if I can come up with more hacks and write it on this blog.

It’s funny because the first 386DX-25Mhz PC computer was the very first computer I bought when I was 9 years old.  On the first day, somehow I deleted command.com from my MS-DOS operating system, of course made by Microsoft.  After that, I had to wait couple days so my parents could take the 30 pound PC back to the Chinese computer makers couple hours away so they could install command.com for me.

You see, Microsoft has been making vulnerable operating system since MS-DOS, how can you allow the user to erase command.com??? (Kinda stupid idea that you let that even happen without any security locks)

It was probably that first time I bought my PC that I fell in love with hacking, well, it seems like I do have to re-live my horrible operating system nightmares once in awhile.

I wonder how many people in the world do the same thing that I do, well, let me keep trying Vista and see if it gets any worse than today.

Here’s a really fun Halloween DIY that shows you how to make a haunted mirror that will magically let “ghosts” appear.

The mirror is really a box with a two-way mirror on the front. Inside the box are models or other renderings of ghosts. Since the inside of the box is black, the two-way mirror reflects the room normally, but when tiny lights hidden inside the box are illuminated, they wash out the reflection and reveal the hidden ghosts.

via make, DIY Page

Google GMail has added another cool feature that will prevent users from sending unwanted drunk e-mails at the middle of the night.  I think it’s a good idea, I admit to sending some e-mails that might have been better kept in my draft box.

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

via gmailblog

Here’s a cool Eee PC Hack that uses a modified Fedora Linux to speed up the boot time of Eee PCs.  I think this shows how great linux operating systems are modification by uses.  I am sure you can do something similar with Windows, but not to the extent this hack does.

How did they do it? Arjan said it starts with the right attitude. “It’s not about booting faster, it’s about booting in 5 seconds.” Instead of saving a second here and there, set a time budget for the whole system, and make each step of the boot finish in its allotted time. And no cheating. “Done booting means CPU and disk idle,” Arjan said. No fair putting up the desktop while still starting services behind the scenes. (An audience member pointed out that Microsoft does this.) The “done booting” time did not include bringing up the network, but did include starting NetworkManager. A system with a conventional hard disk will have to take longer to start up: Arjan said he has run the same load on a ThinkPad and achieved a 10-second boot time.

via engadget, slashgear, Hack Page

Here’s a cool hack that shows you how to install a GPS seamlessly into your Dell Mini Inspiron 9 netbook.

I started by tearing the Mini down and seeing if it was even possible. Luckily, there’s a bit of space around where the Bluetooth adapter is located. It wasn’t much, but it looked like enough, so I ordered the smallest USB GPS receiver I could find. It’s a nice unit with a SkyTraQ chipset and support for AGPS. Once I used the included utility to download an AGPS update into the unit, it gets a location fix in about five seconds after a reset.

via laptop blog, Hack Page

You can easily get 20% off pretty much anything you buy if it’s part of Microsoft’s buyback program.

Here’s how you do it.  Goto Live.com and search for anything you want to buy.  Sometimes, you will have to enter the competitors product to get the discount.  (As you can see above, you get 20% off for HP laptops by searching for Dell Laptops)

I started my search at Live.com and searched for “cheap” along with some product name; I tried a few variations such as “cheap wii” and “cheap laptop” and both worked. (Nick pointed out in the comments that you should sign into Live before you search; I’d forgotten that I was signed into Live when I started. Thanks, Nick!)

Looked for the link titled “Buy A Cheap Laptop. You may get XX% off with PayPal if eligible.” (This morning, it was 30%. As I type this, it’s 20%)

Searched for the MSI Wind (Buy it Now items only), and purchased it using Paypal.

Made sure that at every step of the way, I saw the icon for “Microsoft cashback” at the top of the screen.

via laptop blog, hackszine

Here’s some really neat DIY crafty Halloween Ideas involving your pumpkin and some creativity.

If you’re looking for some easy ideas for Halloween decorating and entertaining, try these quick crafts. They’re sure to beautify (or boo-tify) your home with a minimum of effort.

via ivillage