Friday, July 14, 2006

I Rode "Goliath"

Melissa and I took the kids--well, the older two kids--to Six Flags last Sunday. Had a blast! They removed the "Great Gasp", the ride where you go straight up, hoisted by cables suspended from a big tower, and then drop back down to the earth. In its place is the latest roller coaster: Goliath. It was pretty cool, but I was holding my glasses so that they wouldn't be blown off by 70 MPH winds, so I couldn't see very well (everything was very blurry, though even if I were wearing my glasses thing probably would still be blurry), but I sure could feel the ride. Oh, the picture above is a piece of canvas attached to a tree next to the queue line for the Log Jamboree ride. It's just the thing to do at Six Flags: put your gum on a tree for all to see! I joked with Emmie that maybe they would let her take it home with her at the end of the season... In this picture you mostly see the "Georgia Scorcher". Part of Goliath can be seen in the background (teal support beams and orange track). Most of the Goliath ride is outside of the park. You go over the entry/exit road, do some spins and humps, and then go back into the park to finish up. In fact, this picture shows the cul-de-sac where the parking log tram drops folks off at the ticket counters. Where you see Goliath in the background is actually outside the park. I also got to ride the "Batman". Again, I was holding my glasses, just to be safe. The best part of that ride is the queue line as you wait to get on the train (in which you are suspended from the track). It looks like you're walking into Gotham City, or at least the dump. Well done! Madeline's favorite ride was the "Gotham City Crime Wave", a ride where you're suspended in a swing and they spin you around and then tilt the top of the swing. At the end of the first ride they said you could stay in your seat if you wanted to ride again (the lines were very short at this time of the evening--about 7:30 or 8). She rode it about 7 or 8 times in a row! We got Emmie on the Canyon Blaster--her first roller coaster! This was also Madeline's first roller coaster last year. We also rode the Wheelie--but I don't think any of us liked it! The bumper cars were a hit, though, except Emmie complained that it didn't last long enough. We arrived when the park opened and we left when the park closed. That was a long day, but definitely a fun one!

Friday, July 07, 2006

MaxiVista Update

I tried the demo of MaxiVista and liked it, and then it expired. I uninstalled it. I forgot about it.

Recently, however, I have wanted to control the information coming at me a little better, and I remembered MaxiVista. So I bought the Pro version. (This version does everything except mirror your desktop on another computer--I don't foresee the need to do that.) Now I have my e-mail client open on the secondary PC and my main work open on the main screen. I can move windows around from screen to screen if I want to change where they are located.

One thing that this version does that the demo version did not do is control the second PC from the first one. So instead of making your desktop span multiple screens, this allows you to use your primary PC's keyboard and mouse on your primary PC and then drag the mouse to the other monitor and start accessing that PC's files and programs--all while still using your primary PC's keyboard and mouse. Pretty neat, though I'll still probably not use that feature all that much. A side effect of this feature is that you can highlight text on one PC, copy it, and then paste it onto the other PC.

MaxiVista also allows up to 4 PCs to be used--the primary plus 3 others. Right now I only have two laptops in use (which I think is enough for now at least).

Configuration: By default, it is configured for "Maximum Speed". This had a noticeable effect on what the desktop looked like on the second PC, so I changed the setting to "High Picture Quality" and that seemed to take care of it (the maximum setting is "Maximum Picture Quality", but "High Picture Quality" seems to give me the best look/speed tradeoff).

I just wanted to follow up on this since I said that I would.

[Update: After browsing through the documents at the MaxiVista web site, I came across this note in the Version History page:

For experts only: To change the MaxiVista behaviour when locking the Viewer PC, you can alter value "2" to "1" in following registry key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MaxiVista\A2\username]"lock_method"=dword:00000002 (video tutorial)

I much prefer the setting set to "1" than "2". In this mode, the monitor program on the second laptop doesn't close when the primary laptop is locked, so I don't have to reposition all the programs back onto the secondary laptop/display once more after logging back into Windows. Note that "username" in the registry key name should be the name you logged in with, not the literal "username".]

Thursday, July 06, 2006

I Saw "Sally Carrera"

My office building also houses the Porsche North American Headquarters. There is always a Porsche on display out front, but the other day there was a slightly different one parked in front of the building. I was coming back from lunch and was walking from the parking deck (shown in the background of the picture) when I saw people looking at the car. One guy was taking a picture of it with his camera phone (or would that be "phone camera"?). I didn't think much of it since, like I mentioned, there's always a Porsche on display. Also, since I was coming up from behind the car it didn't look any different than any other Porsche (except that the roof line looked different--it was bubbled up/more pronounced than other Porsches I've seen). It was only when I got to the front of the car that I noticed what the commotion was about. So I joined the small crowd and took a picture of my own. Here are some links about Sally: