The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

  • Mounting ISOs in Vista

    Does anyone out there have a suggestion for software that actually works on Vista for mounting ISOs? I’ve tried a few with varying results – from immediate BSOD on boot to nothing but a black desktop on boot (cursor included).

    1. MagicISO – This is the one that worked the best until a reboot. I’d just arrive at a black background with a mouse cursor – no login screen
    2. Virtual Clone Drive – Caused the Blue Screen of Death upon install and subsequent boot. Even in Safe Mode. I had to boot from the Vista disc, attempt a repair (which failed), then drop down to command line and rename/delete system32driversvclone.sys (I think that’s what it was called). Then everything came back up so I could uninstall this horrible excuse for an app. Note, I just realized that download page doesn’t include Vista as a platform. Oops. I had read others who were successfully using it on Vista so gave it a shot.
    3. Can’t remember what I uninstalled – I uninstalled it because ULead didn’t recognize the virtual drive. Now that I’ve ran into these recent problems I really wish I could remember the name of the software I was using because it worked except for the ULead visibility.
    4. Daemon Tools Lite – Yeah, this might have worked but is packaged with spyware crap.

    All I want is to be able to mount an ISO as a virtual CD/DVD drive. A nice-to-have feature would be for that drive to appear as a CD/DVD drive in ULead Media Video Studio 11 (edit: changed the name). For some reason MagicISO did (and worked until reboot) but others didn’t.

    Any recommendations?

  • Baptism Today

    This morning David was Baptized at our church, Little Flower.  Photos are up.

    Ana, David, and I thank all of the wonderful family and friends that attended – you made the day.

    * Church photos courtesy of Brian since I had my hands full and couldn’t get behind the camera myself;  thanks Brian.

  • Workbench Completed

    More photos available…

    I really like how it turned out. 

  • Project

    Ana gave me a compound miter saw for Christmas, so I can now attempt a few projects around the house like crown molding.  I’ve never really been very good at building things, but I suspect that’s mostly because I: 1) just don’t try to often and 2) never have the appropriate tools. So, needless to say, thus begins what should be an interesting little adventure.

    Yesterday I discoved that before I can actually properly use the new saw I need to mount it to a table/workbench.  Well I don’t have a suitable table.  Much to my dismay I learned that the solution to this is to… build one.  So that’s what I did tonight – I built the frame of what is a very simple yet sturdy work bench.   All that’s left is the table top and shelf and it’ll be ready to accept the saw and other tools.  I was really surprised that it’s actually looking and feeling like a real, sturdy workbench!

    I used this website as a guide, and will be making a few additions such as built-in electrical power with a switch to turn off the whole table.

  • Quote of the Day

    It’s early but I’m pretty sure this will be the quote of the day…

    I had just opened up a gift from Ana, a t-shirt from ThinkGeek with “dad” written in binary. I made note that “david” would only require two more little lines on the shirt to which Ana replied:

    “David is Dad with a little Vi!“.  Perfect 🙂

  • A Thousand Words

    Merry Christmas everyone!

    For Christmas eve, Ana and I spent the evening at my parents’ with my sister’s family.  It was a lot of fun, we all had a good time.   I really like this picture from the evening, it kinda captures the chaos and fun of the gathering.  I laugh every time I look at it; even the poor dog looks exhausted.

    For a quick summary of the photo – Dad and Ana are having a conversation while Emily (pink) is tearing into a gift of grandma’s that could hurt her (notice my mom cringing in the back left corner of the room).

  • Cured!

    Well, it seems that I’m normal and my ITP was pregnancy induced. We made our second outing for my first post hospital blood count today and I am at 110,000 for my platelet levels. The low end of normal, but still normal. I think we may have also forgotten to mention that David had his blood drawn in the hospital to determine what his platelets were before his circumcision and his levels were at 275,000. So he is also normal and I didn’t screw him up too badly on that front.

    I have also started the process of getting off of the Prednisone. Had my second day at the first step down dose with no horrible side effects thus far. My next appointment for blood checks and final signoff (hopefully) will be in the first week of January. At that time I will be nearly off the Pred and we will have a good understanding of what is truly normal for me.

  • Since it has been a couple days

    A couple more photos. Yes, that’s my cat in there.

  • Nights

    So far so good as far as the nights go.  His first night home, David didn’t want to sleep by himself in the bassinet but would quickly fall asleep in our arms.   Figuring it had something to do with the temperature in the room (he’s by our bed, near the window), we brought out a small desktop space heater and pointed it toward the window on low for the past two nights.  That seems to do the trick, he stays nice and comfortable in his bed and sleeps the majority of the night.

    I think the past two nights we’ve gotten up twice each night to feed and change him, but we all went right back to sleep.  Knock on wood, we’ve been getting like 6 hours of sleep.  Which… is a little more than I usually get…

  • Trip Out

    We’re about to make our second trip out.  Today we need to run to the Springfield Clinic so Ana can get her first blood test post-pregnancy.  We’re crossing our fingers that her platelet levels have at least stayed steady (100k+) and hopefully risen substantially.

    Yesterday I finished the first cut of the DVD chronicling David’s arrival and first few days.  I burned a copy and we watched it this morning to look for things to fix.  There are a few small tweaks to be made, and some more pictures and video to add but overall it looks pretty darn good.   Can’t wait to get it all done.

    Just a side note, I’ve collected around 8GB of stuff from David’s first week.