Here is a simple and ridiculously efficient way to kill LanSchool and access internet. This one is new and works as of November 20, 2009 with version 7.3.0.1

1. Go to C:\Program Files (can be accessed by going up folders from My Documents) and then find the LanSchool folder.
2. Delete or move as many files as you can from the LanSchool folder. The application can survive this, so we will go a step further and make sure it can’t run even if the files are there.
3. Right-click on school.exe and select Properties.
4. Go to the Compatibility tab.
5. Check the Execute in compatibility mode box and choose the oldest available operating system.
6. LanSchool might then show various installation boxes. Always click cancel.

Voilà! You can now use Internet Explorer and other restricted applications, completely unseen!

UPDATE: Some people do not have access to these files. Another way to sabotage the LanSchool files would be to create a batch file that messes with the files it needs to run.

I resorted to install the demo of Arcade Reality on my Treo, 3 years after it started collecting dust. I saw it came out for the iPhone and I remembered how awesome this game was. Is it ridiculous to want an iPhone to be able to play a game with the camera?

Never in the past would I have seen this coming. Back in the time when PS2 ports were all the rage, I could never have expected mice to be headache-inducing bundles of hate. I explain.

With my first laptop, I had bought a simple, wired logitech laser mouse. I had no budget for those awesome wireless mice and thus used my mighty 3-button mouse until I bought another laptop. Then, having mastered the art of saving tons of money with eBay, I got myself a wireless mouse. A MICROSOFT wireless mouse, mind you. It worked rather well, with some connectivity issues here and there, but nothing to go crazy about. I eventually broke it by my own fault and decided to upgrade to the all-too-awesome Microsoft Wireless Memory Mouse 8000. In a line: bluetooth and 2.4gHz wireless, 1GB memory on the dongle, charges on the dongle, 5 buttons. What a mistake.

First, I discovered you have to use IntelliPoint, the software that allows you to use your mouse. That’s right, you need nasty software for your mouse to work. IntelliPoint… doesn’t work that well. Scrolling wasn’t always working (that’s right, scrolling) and the mouse stopped working with the dongle. With only bluetooth left, my only choice was to use it, which wasn’t that much of a big deal. That’s until Windows Vista’s shitty bluetooth support charged in. The mouse would rarely – if ever – be recognized when I turned on my computer so I had to remove the device and repeat the pairing process every – goddamn – time. Charging didn’t work everytime neither, rendering the mouse absolutely worthless.

So, as soon as I lost my now-useless dongle, I tossed the mouse aside and bought myself the first mouse I had, from Logitech, thise time with artsy zebra stripes. The previous one is still serving my mother, 4 years later, and NEVER failed to connect. Mice is another thing I will stop buying from Microsoft, along with mobile devices, keyboards and software.

Early this year, Linux pundits kept dubbing 2009 “the year of Linux”. For the first time, Linux distributions were bundled with consumer laptops and sold in the big stores. Nonetheless, it didn’t work quite as well as we would have wanted it to. Basically, here’s why.

Netbooks are dirt cheap devices marketed as simple net’n'mail laptops. When I try to imagine who will buy these, I can only see the kind of people who run old Windows XP computers with Internet Explorer 6 and an expired version of AVG. Now you are trying to sell these computer-illiterate people something different that won’t play well with their iPod Touch and you expect them to like it?

What happens is that these people cannot chat or play their music the exact same way they did on their previous machine. Even if the bundled software did everything better than Windows (and it often does), they don’t look and work the same way. These people don’t want to learn how the new thing works, they just want it to work like Windows. Don’t expect them to give a crap about the bulletproof stability and the security of Linux if it doesn’t look like XP. After a while, they will get bored with having to figure out how to do what they easily did on Windows and they will return the damn thing.

There is no way to easily market something radically different to people that have used Windows for years. No matter how intuitive Gnome is, people will still ask how they can install applications or change the wallpaper. Until manufacturers start to fully embrace and support Linux and offer it with full computers (and not mere Atom-powered netbooks), then maybe Linux will get the chance it deserves.

I admit it: I spend way too much time on the computer. I do a lot of great things with a computer, but I also kill a lot of time doing absolutely nothing but web browsing. It doesn’t have the impact it would have on some people’s life, but it’s still a lot of wasted time. Here is a few tricks to fight your computer addiction.

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I finally got tired enough of the shitty Diamond ROM to flash it as someone suggested in the comments of my strong-worded article about why I hate Windows Mobile. Keeping in mind Rogers will never ever bother releasing a ROM upgrade, I decided to head back to XDA-Developers and find a 6.5 ROM that suits me.

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