Matthew Ammann
Student, Programmer, Flash Enthusiast
ThinkPads and SSDs Part 3: Windows 7 Config and Power Settings
Posted by on July 15, 2011
OCZ Debacle
I know it has been awhile since I posted Part 2, but the reason I’ve held off on writing this part is because I was in the middle of returning my 120 GB Vertex 3 Max IOPS to OCZ. Unfortunately, their customer service is mind-bogglingly bad. The first rep I was in contact with about my initial RMA request was clearly contracted from Asia and wouldn’t address the questions in my ticket. After a week had gone by and I was getting nowhere, I PM’d one of the American reps on the OCZ forums for assistance, but the service was almost as bad. Every time I asked about something, he had to ask the West Coast office about it (he was a remote customer service rep). After five weeks of back-and-forth communications trying to find out whether or not OCZ had replacement cases ready for Lenovo notebooks, I’d had enough. I asked for a refund, and now am sporting an OWC 6G Extreme Pro 120GB drive instead. It is just as fast as my Vertex 3, and I won’t have to deal with OCZ ever again.
If you have a Vertex 3 and are considering returning it for 1/16 inch skinnier casing, I strongly urge you to reconsider. You will save yourself days of time & frustration accepting and dealing with the casing as-is.
This is the final part of a three-part guide I’ve created that is designed to help users get the best performance out of their ThinkPads using Solid State Drives.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for any damage or problems that come about as a result of following this guide. I highly doubt anything negative will result, but I like to have my legal bases covered.
Part 1: Preparation
Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation
Part 3: Windows 7 Configuration and SSD tweaks
ThinkPads and SSDs Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation
Posted by on May 30, 2011
This is part two of a guide I’m creating that is designed to help users get the best performance out of their ThinkPads using Solid State Drives. The guide is split up into three parts. This is part two.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for any damage or problems that come about as a result of following this guide. I highly doubt anything negative will result, but I like to have my legal bases covered.
Part 1: Preparation
Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation
Part 3: Windows 7 Config and Power Settings
Abbreviation Guide:
- SSD = Solid-State Drive
- HDD = Hard Disk Drive
- OS = Operating System
- OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer
UPDATE (7/13/11) – Added more details about deleting ProgramData. Typo fixed in the command-line arguments to create a junction.
Your laptop has finally arrived! Here’s a rough outline of what I’ll be covering in this part of the guide:
SECTION A: Before Removal of Stock Hard Drive
SECTION B: Hard Drive Swapping
SECTION C: Windows 7 Installation
ThinkPads and SSDs Part 1: Preparation
Posted by on May 24, 2011
Hello, everyone! I just bought a new ThinkPad W520, and I’d like to give a provide a guide of sorts for people wondering how to get the best performance from their ThinkPad. This is also meant to demonstrate a number of things you can do ahead of time, while waiting for your laptop to be built/shipped.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for any damage or problems that come about as a result of following this guide. I highly doubt anything negative will result, but I like to have my legal bases covered.
The guide is split up into three parts. The first part is about all the stuff you can do before your laptop gets here, so that you can jump right in with more important things when it arrives. The second part is about Windows 7 Installation, and physically installing your SSD or replacement hard drive. Part three will be Windows 7 configuration and creating a profile for your SSD in the Lenovo Power Manager.
Part 1: Preparation
Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation
Part 3: Windows 7 Config and Power Settings
Abbreviation Guide:
- SSD = Solid-State Drive
- OS = Operating System
UPDATE (5/30/11) – Added a section for creating a Bootable USB Installation. I also added a link to Part 2, which is now available.
It’s time to prep for our new arrival! Read more of this post
How To Make an Animated PNG
Posted by on August 16, 2009
What is a PNG? .PNG is a file format for pictures (like JPG). PNGs have good compression and zero loss of image quality. They are the successor to JPGs, and hopefully more and more people will continue to use this format.
You know how .GIF files can be animated so that it looks like the picture is moving? There’s a new format out called APNG (Animated PNG) that will retain the high quality of your images instead of reducing them to a crummy looking 256-color GIF file. Before you get too excited, just keep in mind that it doesn’t have a lot of Application support…yet. As far as Internet browsers are concerned, new versions of Opera and Firefox support it, but Internet Explorer doesn’t. Here’s a more comprehensive list of the applications you can use with APNGs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG#Application_support
Kongregate Staff Identifier Script
Posted by on August 15, 2009
This script for Kongregate was inspired by, and is based heavily on, arcaneCoder’s Forum Tools script which can be found here. It works a lot like the script’s “Forum Moderator” tag that people in the “Moderators” list are given.
This script is barbaric in comparison, and is simpler to understand than eating cereal with a spoon. To be honest, this is the product of being stuck in the car for 2 hours with no Internet.
Before you install this script, you need to be running Firefox and have the Greasemonkey add-on that can be found here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/748
Without further ado, here’s the Kongregate Staff Identifier Script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/55756
This will also be included in my next update of the Better Kongregate Firefox Add-on
Here’s the thread where you can find more discussion about this script: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/1/topics/53179
