This evening I came home to find a couple of boxes waiting by our front door, I bent down to picked them up and the shoulder strap of my messenger bag sort of broke off, sending my bag to the ground. Normally it would not be a big deal but tonight, my stomach just knotted the moment I felt the bag come off my shoulder. Why? my powerbook was inside the bag and I just new it was going to take the brunt off the fall.

I have been taking care of my computer since day one so it really bugs me that it now has two dents. A smaller but similar incident happen a while back with the same bag so it is time to move on to something a little more secure. Eventually I might also look into replacing the bottom case of the powerbook to get rid off these blemishes.

update: I found a bottom case on ebay, however, I also found out from a couple of Apple technicians that such repair is a major undertaking. I would have to remove everything off the original case and then replace all components back onto the new case. Certainly not something for the faint of heart and I am not sure that I want to play hardware-tech with my main machine.

To have the case replaced by a professional tech would cost me about $150-$180, including parts and labor. The expensive part is the labor since the repair is somewhat time intensive. The benefit of going this route is the warranty provided with the repair, something I would not be able to provide. Since it is my main machine, I would feel a lot better to have a professional replace the case. Since it is only a cosmetic blemish, I am also going to wait until the wedding and possibly the holidays pass before sending it in for repair.

To create alternate row colors in Excel.

• Highlight the range of cells to format.
• Choose Conditional Formatting from the Format drop down menu
• Select Formula Is from the first drop-down list box, and enter =MOD(ROW(),2)=0 in the second box.
• Click the Format button, select the Patterns tab and specify a color for the shaded rows.
• Use the other tabs to make any other modifications
• Click OK twice to return to your worksheet.

By using a formula, the formatting is dynamic and can handle deleting rows without affecting the other rows formating.

In the registry, navigate to HKEY USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors. Change the Background key with the RGB values that you want to change the screen to. The default values are 0 78 152. Log off for the changes to take effect.

Why change the logon screen? we have two XP machines connected to a KVM switch and each serves a different function. I need to let the user identify the proper machine before they log on and this provides an easy way to do so.

Playing with Photoshop this afternoon trying to fix a problem I came up with this.

I have posted some updates about our wedding in our wedding website such as our gift registry as well as our honeymoon plans.

I’ll try to only update this site with the wedding information when significant or important information has come up.