New computers you buy come with all kinds of software preinstalled by the OEM. It seems that there are trial versions of just about every major software package. Why? So they can charge you less for your new computer by selling these ‘advertisements’. If they shipped clean copies of Windows, they would have to charge more to offset the revenue loss.

But who needs all this ‘bloat’ on the machine and the constant prompts to ‘register’ and ‘upgrade’. I have a ‘routine’ I go through each time our office purchases a new machine. You end up spending quite a bit of time in the ‘Add and Remove Programs’ folder. Until PC DeCrapifier, the OEM’s worst nightmare!

PC DeCrapifier is a Windows script that is designed to remove most of the unwanted software that comes preinstalled on new windows computers. The new beta version will run under Vista.

When you run the program you first select which programs should be removed. Although it is targeted at Dell machines, the script should remove the software listed below from any new computer.

• QuickBooks Trial
• NetZero Installers
• Earthlink Setup Files
• Corel Photo Album 6
• Tiscali Internet
• Wanadoo Europe Installer
• Get High Speed Internet!
• Internet Service Offers Launcher
• Dell Search Assistant
• Norton Ghost 10.0
• Symantec Live Update
• MS Plus Photo Story 2LE
• MS Plus Digital Media Installer
• McAffee
• Norton Internet Security
• Google Desktop
• Google Toolbar
• AOL US
• AOL UK
• MusicMatch Jukebox
• MusicMatch Music Services
• Wild Tangent Games
• Norton AntiVirus 2005
• Norton Security Center
• Norton AntiSpam
• PC-cillin Internet Security 12
• Corel Snapfire Plus SE
• Yahoo! Music Jukebox
• Vongo
• Run Registry Entries
• Desktop Icons
• Startup Menu Items
• Corel WordPerfect
• Roxio RecordNow
• Sonic DLA
• Sonic Update Manager
• Sonic RecordNow Audio
• Sonic RecordNow Copy
• Roxio MyDVD LE
• Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2003
• Quicken 2006

HatTip: Mike Tech Show for this great little utility!

I am finally moving my blog over to my own hosting service! Matt has been great letting me leach his bandwidth for almost 2 years. I should have done this long ago, but it was easier to just leave things as alone.

I finally got everything up, running, and moved over. I think I have all the redirects working so that anyone who goes to the old site will automatically get bounced to the new site with all the appropriate messages to the browser.

I am still trying to get the RSS feeds to ‘bounce’ correctly. Easiest is probably to just resubscribe:

•   – If you want the feed for the regular blog posts.
•   – If you want the feed for the comments to the blog posts.

I just saw this color composite image of Jupiter’s moon, Io, on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). According to the site, the image is from the robotic Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.

APOD: In the image middle, near the night/day shadow line, the ring shaped Prometheus plume is seen rising about 75 kilometers above Io while casting a shadow below the volcanic vent. Named for the Greek god who gave mortals fire, the Prometheus plume is visible in every image ever made of the region dating back to the Voyager flybys of 1979 – presenting the possibility that this plume has been continuously active for at least 18 years. The above digitally sharpened image was originally recorded in 1997 on June 28 from a distance of about 600,000 kilometers.

One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, rock,
Five, six, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, rock,
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight.

It is time to dust off your dancing shoes and and your best girl(s) to join you on the dance floor wearing your blue suede shoes and twist the night away. Calvary Chapel of the Tri-Cities is expecting about 1600 fathers and daughters at their 11th Annual Father Daughter Ball. Last year my youngest daughter and I went for the first time and had a great time. We danced some dances, ate some goodies, and she goofed off with some of her friends.

The theme this year is Rock Around the Clock. You can wear whatever you have or dress for the occasion. If your ‘gal’ needs a ‘swell’ poodle skirt then check out JoAnn Fabrics on Columbia Center Blvd. They have ordered extra materials and patterns so she can look “peachy keen”.

This year the ball is on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 from 7:00 to 10:00 pm at the TRAC facility in Pasco.

Tickets are only $15 per dad until February 26th, and daughters are free. Tickets may be purchased at the Calvary Chapel Office and Cornerstone Cafe or at Parable Christian Book Store. A limited number of tickets will be available for $20 at the door.

Now you can build the ultimate Millennium Falcon™,the biggest and most spectacular LEGO® Star Wars model!

Straight out of the classic Star Wars movies comes the Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s famous smuggling starship. Every detail of the modified Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 freighter is here, all constructed to scale with LEGO minifigures. At almost 3 feet (90cm) long, it’s the ultimate centerpiece to any Star Wars collection!

• With over 5,000 pieces, this is the biggest LEGO set ever made!
• Model is built completely to minifigure scale – minifigures can sit inside and man the controls!
• Landing gear provides a stable base for model to stand on!
• Ship is over 33″ long, 22″ wide and 8″ tall! (84cm long x 56cm wide x 21cm tall)
• Radar dish rotates and elevates and boarding ramp extends!
• Top and bottom quad-laser turrets rotate for realistic play!
• Cockpit top can be removed to access minifigures!
• Includes 5 minifigures: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa!

The cost? A mere $499.99 for the Star Wars junkie who has everything. Seem like a lot? it is only $0.10 per piece! Remember: Limit 5 per customer.

Yesterday Pastor Craig, in a illustration, was talking about the many ways that Valentine’s Day can be celebrated, including flowers, balloon grams, lobster grams, and, of course, cards.

He mentioned a card he had recently seen. It had Gollum from Lord of the Rings on the front and inside were printed the words, “My Precious”.

I have looked online without success for the card… Maybe I can make it myself?

I visit some sites that do not have RSS feeds but I have to manually visit the site to see if there have been updates to the content. Also there is some software I use that I must visit their websites to see if an update has been released. I wish they would all publish RSS feeds that I could then just monitor with Newsgator, the free RSS reader I use.

My problem may be solved. I just ran across an online service called Feed43 which they say is pronounced, “Feed For Free”. It acts a middleman between your RSS reader and web sites that don’t supply RSS feeds. Using some simplified RegEx patterns and the web site’s html source, it allows you to create custom news feeds in RSS format for any web site that you can then read in your RSS reader.

They say it is “Feed for Free”, but is Feed43 really free? From their web site it appears there is the basic functionality that is free and they have 3 levels of paid membership offer more features. The free service has the following limitations:

• 6-hour polling interval
• Maximum of 20 news items per channel
• Only first 100kb of source page will be downloaded and parsed

This definitely looks promising….

Have you had an accident or done something stupid and want to sue somebody? Here is the company to call. I especially like the last line of the ‘commercial’.