FramedPC

An occasional blog of occasional importance

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So I’ve been working on my blog all morning because my old one corrupted thanks to an out of date theme. To make things worse the old theme corrupted the database to the point I could only extract about half my posts. How did I find the missing posts? Google cache is a phenomenal website recovery tool. Searched “cache:www.framedpc.com” and viola there was all the content of my old posts. Little copy and pasting and done. Blog restored. Now to actually blog…eh too tired. See you in a month.

~Degen

If you have read my older blog posts you know the one thing I thrive on is finding a cheaper way to do anything. I found the absolute cheapest way to print color documents (something my business has to do daily in large volume) a couple years ago. This was the Xerox phaser 8560. The solid ink is an amazing technology and combined with the fact the generic ink works just as well and is extremely cheap…it was the perfect technology. Now two years later you can’t find the 8560 for sale anymore…wanna know why? Xerox changed their new models such that generic ink no longer works. Their ink loading systems now check for “ink authenticity.” This is my vent …my attempt to relieve my anger. Xerox you should be ashamed of yourselves for charging almost $700 for a single set of replacement solid ink. The moment I saw this on my new 8570 I threw the machine in the garbage. It’s not even worth selling…

So to all of you out there considering a new xerox phaser… this is your WARNING… think twice.

So today I had to create a new form on SharePoint which would allow one of my clients to submit billing information to me. One catch here that I had not run into before was that multiple default values needed to be set on SharePoint’s choice column… So after some serious digging here is the solution I found to accomplish this.

To frame this example for you: This is a list of drugs that are to be excluded. All of them but one are always excluded and thus their check box needs to be checked by default.

My choices are:
Propoxyphene
Tramadol
Buprenorphine
Fentanyl
Soma
ETC
Meperidine

The magic to make this happen is by utilizing the “calculated value” option under Default value: I entered the following in that field:
=”;#Propoxyphene;#Tramadol;#Buprenorphine;#Fentanyl;#Soma;#Meperidine;#”

The above formula will automatically set the choices within it as selected (aka checked).

Let me know if you have issues.

~Degen

I recently switched my business over to stamps.com and I have to say I am very impressed with the savings. I no longer have to rent a postage machine, pay for extremely expensive red ink, and I can use my solid ink printer to print the postage, return address, and destination address directly onto envelopes… The one thing stamps.com needs to get their act together on is how they support various printers. This post will show you how to properly line up a stamps.com printed envelope using a Xerox phaser 8560N (this is just for the N, the same concept is not needed on the 8560MFP…I know b/c I configured one of those too).

The problem: Postage is cut off when using a Xerox Phaser 8560N

The Solution:

Step one –> Go to the printing preferences screen (Devices and Prnters in Win 7, then right click on the phaser, click printing preferences)

Step two: Click on the down black arrow to the right of the “Paper” textbox and pick Advanced Paper Selection from the drop down

Step three: Click on the “…” to the right of the Paper Size text box

Step four: Set “Scale Options” to “Manually Scale” and set the percentage to 89% as shown in the screen shot below

Step five: Click OK and you are ready to print envelopes…only drawback here is that you are no longer ready to print anything else… We have a dedicated printer for postage so this doesn’t bother us…you may not have the same situation. I would suggest installing the printer twice (one with the envelope settings and one with default settings) This way you don’t need to change your printing settings each time you switch from envelopes to regular printing.

Feel free to post here if you have found a better method to solving this problem.

Thanks,

Degen

Yea Mafia wars is one of my life “time sinks” (we’ll discuss this topic later)…after a lot of playing I have compiled a list of all of the currently available job mastery items for New York, Cuba, Moscow, and Bangkok. I have to admit though the end ones in Moscow and Bangkok I found on the web…I’m not quite through mastering those cities…

City/Lvl	Image	Attack	Defense	Special
New York / Street Thug		NA	NA	+4% Dmg dealt in fights
New York / Associate		NA	NA	-7% Dmg received in fights
New York / Soldier		NA	NA	Health Regen timer reduced by 30 seconds
New York / Enforcer		NA	NA	-5% Cost of Properties
New York / Hitman		NA	NA	Stamina Timer reduced by 30 seconds
New York / Capo		NA	NA	-5% Property Repair Cost
New York / Consigliere		NA	NA	Energy Regen Timer reduced by 30 seconds
New York / Underboss		NA	NA	+5% Experience from jobs
New York / Boss		NA	NA	2x Energy Points per regen period
Cuba / El Soldado		40	30	NA
Cuba / El Capitan		38	35	NA
Cuba / El Jefe		54	24	NA
Cuba / El Patron		46	34	NA
Cuba / El Padrino		42	56	NA
Cuba / El Cacique		40	30	NA
Moscow / Baklany		36	52	NA
Moscow / Boets		50	38	NA
Moscow / Brigadir		48	30	NA
Moscow / Avtoritety		18	48	NA
Moscow / Vor		28	65	NA
Moscow / Pakhan		54	22	NA
Bangkok / Brawler		65	42	NA
Bangkok / Criminal		58	74	NA
Bangkok / Pirate		88	51	NA
Bangkok / Commandant		96	69	NA
Bangkok / Oyabun		72	111	NA
Bangkok / Dragon Head		70	112	NA

I recently had to reinstall my copy of Xcelsius Engage 2008 onto a new computer. By doing this I lost all of my custom color themes. There is an extremely easy way to transfer the themes to the new computer.

First, go to C:Program Files (x86)Business ObjectsXcelsiusassetsthemescustom on the old computer (remove (x86) if your are running a 32bit machine) Copy all xml files from this directory to the same directory on your new computer. Start up your new Xcelsius install and voila all of your color themes are back!!!

Instead of buying pre-built machines and spending twice what is necessary, we built our own Core i7 rigs. Here is a picture of the 5 newest additons to the Autimis family. Meet 40 cores (20 physical, 20 hyper threads) of computing madness!!!
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If you are having problems signing up via the form here
http://www.bcbstx.com/provider/ec/ndas.htm

You are not alone….their form has been broken for awhile now. The correct place to go to sign up for NEBO/NDAS is via the ecare website at:
http://www.ecare.com/signup.html

Send an email to their info address and they will reply with an enrollment packet. This is well worth the minimal monthly cost as you can check all the BCBSTX claim status you want…no more waiting on the phone! Please reply here if you have found an easier or cheaper way to check Blue Cross claim status.

So this post is not exactly relevant to the rest of the content on my blog…yet you still managed to find your way here. Everyone has to eat and my wife and I love to eat SUSHI!
We use the below ingredients for our Sushi vinegar sauce.
Rice Vinegar x 2 Tbsp
Sugar x 2 Tbsp
1/4 lemon’s juice
Salt x 1 tsp

Procedure:
Cook 2 cups of short grain sushi rice.

To make your Sushi vinegar: Mix rice vinegar, sugar, 1/4 of a lemon’s juice, and salt into a sauce pan. Heat only until the sugar and salt dissolves completely. Let your rice cool a bit after it is done cooking. Then slowly pour your sushi vinegar over the rice and fold it in gently. Do this until the rice is a shiny.

Use a sushi rolling mat to tightly roll your rice, seaweed, and other ingredients together. VERY IMPORTANT (unless you want mutant pieces of sushi that look like they were pulled apart by hand) clean your knife in between cutting rolls and do not worry about drying the knife completely. A little moisture on it makes it all the easier to cut beautiful pieces of sushi.

That’s it…good luck. Making your own sushi is a great experience and it sure does beat paying $6-$15 per roll