Since I started playing Guitar Hero 3 a month or so ago I’ve been keeping an ear out for songs that I think would be awesome to play in Guitar Hero.  Today, I thought of the perfect song, which I found a few months ago on the blog of Fake Steve Jobs: Hocus Pocus by Focus:

Hocus Pocus by Focus

Now, this would probably have to wait until Guitar Hero: Focus Edition which would allow you to get points using not only the guitar, but the drums, the flute, by yodeling (voice recognition like SingStar), and using face expressions with a facial recognition system and the PS3 Eye where your score is based on how close your facial expressions match that of the lead singer.  I know I’d definitely be first in line to buy it.  Heck, I’d take a GH3 downloadable song right now even though I could only play the guitar just to tie me over until the full release.  Any other takers?  Are there any other songs that are as good, if not better (though I doubt one exists) than this one that you’d like to see in a Guitar Hero game?

I picked up Metal Gear Solid 4 today and ran into an issue.  After you install the game, you get to the screen where it says “This game saves data automatically at certain points…”.  On this screen, you have to it X to continue.  The problem was, X didn’t do anything whether I hit it on my six-axis controller, my remote, or on my Guitar Hero 3 wireless controller.  That’s when I knew what the problem was.

I shut off the PS3, unplugged the guitar hero 3 USB dongle, turned the PS3 back on and went in to Metal Gear Solid 4.  When it brought me to the “This game saves data…” screen, I hit X on the six-axis controller and it went right in.

Now, I know what to do when I want to play MGS4.  The sucky part is that I have to do it every time I leave the GH3 USB dongle plugged in.

In Windows Vista, you can no longer drag a folder from Explorer on to a Command Prompt and have it change to that directory.  They say it is a security feature.  But, they did add the ability to shift+right-click on a folder to show the option to Open Command Window Here.  This was something on XP that was you could add through a Windows Explorer extension.  I’ll admit, it’s a nice feature to have built into Vista, however, I stumbled across an even nicer shortcut (read: magic) for those of us that are prone to using the keyboard over the mouse, when it comes to shortcuts.  To quickly open a command prompt to the folder you have open in Explorer, hit Alt+D (mouse users: click on any empty space in the Address Bar), type cmd and then hit Enter.  I told you it was magic!

1. In Windows Explorer, hit Alt+D
2. Type cmd
3. Hit Enter
4. A command prompt window will open to the folder you had open in Explorer

I’ve been working on some Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer extensions and for the ease of testing I have to constantly restart Explorer.  Heck, I’ve just probably saved myself an extra 10-20 seconds per day.  I know, I’m weird, but you know what they say about special weird people…

If you’ve been looking for a reason to upgrade to Vista folks, this is definitely it (only kidding, of course) because it doesn’t work on XP (ugh, I feel my subconscious bullying me into creating an extension for XP to mimic this functionality…must…resist…urge)!

On a Dell Precision 670 (@work), updated to Vista SP1, and a new Dell Inspiron 530 (@friend) with Vista SP1 installed on it when it was received, I have been having issues using the Internet.  Every time I restart my computer, my Internet connection won’t work even though the globe indicator on the network connection icon is showing as being online.  I can browse my local network but I can’t do anything online.  I found that I could temporarily get around this by disabling and re-enabling the Local Area Connection.  However, I wanted a more permanent solution:

Disabling IPv6 on Windows Vista SP1

Option 1:

1. Click on the Start Menu.
2. Click on Control Panel.
3. Once the Control Panel is open, click the Classic View link on the left sidebar.
4. Find and double-click Network and Sharing Center.
5. Click Manage Network Connections on the left sidebar.
6. Find your Broadband connection (usually named Local Area Connection) and right-click on it.
7. On the context-menu, click Properties.
8. Click the Networking tab.
9. Remove the checkmark from Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6).
10. Click Ok.
11. Close all the windows opened in the previous steps.
12. Restart your computer.

Option 2 (requires modifying the registry but allows you to change one setting to affect all network adapters):

1. Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - KB929852 - How to disable certain Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) components in Windows Vista

Known Issues with disabling IPv6:

1. Any programs that require IPv6 will not work.  One example is Windows Meeting Space:

Hopefully Microsoft gets this issue fixed soon as I hate workarounds, especially ones that make compromises.  Though we all know that workarounds are a necessity of the digital life.

The original post can be found here: http://www.systemsabuse.com/2007/12/27/xp-service-pack-3-sp3-where-did-my-toolbars-address-bar-go-missing/

MuvEnum has released the MuvEnum Address Bar v1.3.1.0; the ultimate replacement for the missing address bar in Windows XP SP3!

MuvEnum Address Bar (x86 and x64 compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 2003 Server)

Download:

www.muvenum.com/downloads/freeware/muvenumaddressbarsetup.exe

Update 04/30/2008: v1.3.1.0 Released

• Added x64 support.
• Added support for checking for updates from the about dialog.
• Added support for showing Typed Url history from explorer/internet explorer in the dropdown.
• Added support for running applications with arguments.
• Added ability to clear text by pressing escape.
• Added support for MuvEnum Google Sponsored Search (currently redirects directly to Google).

Enjoy!