I installed Windows 7 last night. This is where the blog post could quite easily turn into a huge rant, but I’ll spare you, and instead just tell you how to swap out the default icon pack for a really snazzy one.
This is the icon pack I’m using now:
http://tevc.deviantart.com/art/Windows-7-x86-and-x64-BUUF-151631197
It’s the same one that I use on Linux. It’s very nicely done, some great quirky images. The artist has provided instructions, but poorly translated and easily misinterpreted. I’ll provide hopefully easier to follow instructions.
1) Download the icon pack from the link above. Extract the imageres.dll file; the _86 one is for 32 bit, the _64 is for 64 bit. Save it somewhere easily remembered and accessed.
You’ll need something like WinRar to extract it – www.rarlab.com
2) Restart your computer. When the computer has finished shutting down and begins booting up again, tap F8 until you see a screen that lists booting options. Select ‘safe mode’ from the list and continue.
3) When your computer has booted into safe mode, navigate through C:\Windows\System32 and find the file ‘imageres.dll’. You’ll need to rename it from .dll to .bak (which just tags it as a backup file that’s not actually in use, because you’re about to replace it with the one you want to use), but before you can do that, you have to get around the user permissions and ‘TrustedInstaller’;
http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-how-to-delete-files-protected-by-trustedinstaller/
I recommend doing this NOT for the whole system32 folder, but just for the imageres.dll file itself. So right-click on the file, select Properties, and follow the instructions as per the link above.
4) When you’ve done everything above, you should be able to right-click imageres.dll and rename it to imageres.bak without any security messages.
5) Find the replacement imageres file that you extracted, rename it to imageres.dll and drag it in to the System32 folder to replace the one you just renamed.
6) The End! Reboot your PC as normal (i.e. not in Safe Mode) and gawk at the lovelies.
I’ve been doing a lot of ‘projects’ lately. Most are related to me getting my new camera.
For the past couple of months, life has been intensely Minecraft. Working on the MCWB site and server left me with little time to do much else, and I’ve started compensating by forcing myself to do mini-projects and diversions.
I dragged Jaco out of the house Sunday morning to take me to the local harbour for me to snap some photographs. He napped in the car while I got up close and personal with a cormorant, hehe. (See pics here – Harbour Morning).
I played with the cats on the kitchen table and filmed it in high-speed:
And then recorded some high-speed smoke from an incense stick while I was trying Mothman’s smoke photography:
I’ve also recently downloaded some music softare – LMMS, Rosegarden, Hydrogen – mostly just to have them there ready for when I’m feeling in a music-tinkering mood. I’d like to have the time to compose some stuff, even if it’s just techno-ish tracks, but right now I don’t get big enough chunks of free time to really absorb myself in a project.
Plan for today – process more of my smoke pics. Spend some time on the super secret wiki-project I’m spearheading with a few of the MCWB team (which is really fun – I’m trying to set aside more time to work on it).
I’m starting to find a balance. 
Very tired though. We were up at 5am yesterday (Jaco had to get to work early), and didn’t go to bed until gone 1am. From the time Jaco got home from work, around 5pm, until bed time, we were working on updates to the MCWB server. No rest for the wicked 
…To tell the story of how greeeat a love can beeeeeeeeee *croons*
I kid, I kid.
Yet again, it’s been a while. I’m sorry, I’m a slacker. Can’t promise I’ll be any more active on my blog after making this post either – life, she is busy!
Things have really taken off at http://minecraftwb.com. Jaco and I are both very busy each doing our respective ‘things’ there – for me it’s site and server admin and community management, and for him, it’s sysadmin of the server. We have over 7000 members on the site, and our multiplayer game server has 800 people whitelisted. Fortunately they don’t all connect at once – but still, managing 50 people in a game chat is intense!!
It’s great fun though. I’ve made some awesome new friends, and the community as a whole is fantastic to manage. It’s got me back into twitter from a networking perspective, and I’m also on youtube doing ‘Let’s Play’ episodes of the game, Minecraft. I have over 800 followers! That’s crazy. It’s so awesome to put a new video back and get a steady stream of people leaving feedback saying how much they enjoy watching, and getting involved with the little world I’m building in my single-player games that I show them.
The site owners are so appreciative of the work Jaco and I do on the site that they’re sending us on a weekend vacation. Well – it’s more like a forced vacation, I think they know that’s the only way they’ll get us to take a break, haha. They let us choose the location. We’re going here -
http://www.sa-venues.com/visit/barnardsboutiquehotel/
In April, for a Friday and Saturday. More info on the place – http://blog.sa-venues.com/provinces/western-cape/when-in-greyton/
It looks fantastic. Not sure Jaco will get the same benefit I will, he’s worried he’ll be bored the whole weekend (I’ve told him he should take the netbook 
) but I’m looking forward to relaxing in the country immensely.
In other news, my new camera finally arrived! Mum posted it before Christmas, and it arrived two days ago. Yeesh. Had to pay VAT on there too (a hefty amount at 70 quid) but it was still cheaper than it would have been to buy the camera here. This is the camera:
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/finepix_hs10/
So far, I love it. I need to get an SD card for it (the old camera took XD), then I can really start putting it through its paces -it takes HD video at 1000fps! WOOH!
Straight-out-of-the-box pics here, with no tripod because I left the mount in the car with Jaco at work…
http://jalbum.net/browse/user/album/901586/
So that’s my life of late in a 21-line nutshell. [Edit - well, it was 21 lines in the edit window...]
www.nanowrimo.org
That was the challenge; write 50,000 words between the 1st and 30th of November. I did it last year, incredibly unprepared, and I did it again this year – also incredibly unprepared but I just tapped my 50,116th word out which puts me over the winning line.
Last year, I wrote about 51,000 words and felt that I was almost near the end of the book.
This year, barely past 50,000 words, I feel that the book isn’t even half way through. I didn’t finish last year’s attempt because it needed so much reworking. I shelved it. I might finish this one – I feel that it’s got a sounder plot, deeper characters, and more scope. While writing 1667 words a day to make the 50,000 in 30 days target was difficult, I think continuing to write while not under the influence of a deadline will be even more difficult. It’s mentally draining, even though I love writing so much. But if I tell you guys that I’m going to try it, that’ll serve as some encouragement.
So here we go – the start of phase 2; finishing the damn thing. And then, if I finish it, probably ten or more editing re-writes. Fun!
Leaves are funny. Roses also.
Signs are informative.
Slime ball, redstone dust
