Category: Useful Stuff

At first you might wonder about a site called Black Viper’s Web Site. I suppose it’s better than Black Viper’s Home Page or Welcome to Black Viper’s Home Page on the World Wide Web!!!, but I digress.

The biggest problem I have with my Dell Inspiron 600 is that it tends to run hot (check out I8kfanGUI if you have a Dell laptop). Under load, the CPU can often reach up to 50 degrees Celsius before the fan kicks in. Heat can hamper performance and even damage your computer. I got myself a little laptop stand that has two built in fans, and that helps a bit–mostly by drawing heat away from the hard drive and memory compartments.

But I still had problems with the CPU experiencing high loads and thus generating heat. I noticed that there were times when I wasn’t doing anything and yet 85-95% of the CPU would be used by a process called cisvc.exe. According to several sites, this was a Windows service, not Spyware or anything malicious. Of course, that doesn’t mean you necessarily want it running.

That’s where Black Viper comes in. Black Viper’s Service Configurations essentially lists the various Windows processes and services, explains what they do, and makes recommendations on whether you want them disabled or not. I suspected cisvc.exe was a completely useless process, but this confirmed that I could safely turn it off. Go ahead and take a peek at the list; you’d be surprised at the number of stupid things that are running at any given time.

Disclaimer: Using I8kfanGUI to override the automatic controls on your fans or Black Viper’s Service Configurations to muck around with Windows carries with it a small element of risk. Personally I think it’s negligible, but don’t come crying to me if you break something.

Separate skin from breast with your hand. Pour a few tablespoons of brandy under the skin. Shove fresh rosemary, fresh bay leaves, peeled cloves of garlic, sliced onions, and sliced lemons (with the peel) under the skin and inside the body cavity. Fill rest of cavity with stuffing.

Roast turkey according to directions. Baste every 15 minutes. Don’t use an oven bag.

Thanks to MG for the recipe.

Really now. $8 a pound is approaching the price of a good cut of beef, so for us carnivores it might make sense to pony up a few extra bucks and get that USDA Prime steak that melts in your mouth. I haven’t quite made up my mind whether my sense of values and my concern for my health justifies the 200% cost increase for organic. Still, if you’re thinking of grilling some chicken (organic or otherwise) this weekend, give this marinade recipe a try:

This is a great marinade. It’s got lots of different things going on at the same time: salty, tangy, sweet, spicy. Good stuff.

Good grief.

A friend of mine got a spyware and virus infestation that was more severe than anything I’d seen before. The steps for dealing with the problem went far beyond what I’d prescribed in my Public Service Announcement. Thankfully, the counter-spyware experts at The PC Guide Forums were able to walk me through the process of marking, fixing, deleting, repairing, and immunizing. I think the machine is clean now.

Right now would probably be a good time for you to update your spyware and anti-virus definition files. SpywareBlaster is also a good one to have. It puts known spyware on the shit list and prevents them from being installed in the first place. It’s free to use, but if you donate a small fee, you can enable the auto-update feature for worry-free protection.

Hey kids, just trying to make up for a lackluster week of no posts.

I signed up for Netflix a couple months back and have come to the conclusion that it’s a really good service.

It’s fast. I have always received my DVDs the day after I get the email from Netflix saying it’s on its way. If I drop off the movie for return at the post office, Netflix usually gets it the next day and ships my next movie that same day. I’ve never been so impressed with the postal service in my life.

It’s flexible. My sister and I wanted to watch all the Lord of the Rings movies in one sitting, so one of the first movies I got was Return of the King. As it happened, we never got our schedules to coincide, so I had to sit on that one for a week and a half. In the meantime, I watched/returned about four other movies.

It’s cheap. Well, this one depends on how many movies you can get through in a month. I pay about $24 every month, and got through 14 movies this past month. That’s $1.71 a movie. Not bad. If you’re one of those people who gets hit by late charges at your local videostore all the time, you’re probably better off joining Netflix instead.

It’s convenient. I get movies delivered to my mailbox. I can return them at any mail drop. It doesn’t get much more convenient than that.

It’s expansive. Maybe I’m stretching it a bit here, but really, I find that I’m watching all kinds of movies now. If I think of some movie I’ve been meaning to see, or hear about some movie that sounds interesting, I just add it to the Netflix queue and figure I’ll eventually get to it. That goes for TV shows as well. Seriously, who wants to spend 13 weeks following some series on television with commercial interruptions and cliffhangers when you can just order up the entire season afterwards and watch it in one 12-hour marathon? This may change the way you watch TV.