Today, of course, is Opening Day. While there’s no doubt that it’s going to be a long year for my Giants, I still can’t wait … only 4 more hours until the return of baseball season! I may have confused my daughter a bit this morning when I insisted that there were in fact five seasons: winter, spring, fall, summer, and BASEBALL.
I never thought this would be possible … but even more exciting is that there are only 4 1/2 days left until season 4 of Battlestar Galactica finally premieres. If you haven’t seen Galactica, I promise you it’s worth it. It is, without any question, the single best show currently on TV, and I’d argue with anyone that, after Firefly, it’s the second best TV show of all time.
I want to apologize for the delay in getting the tutorials on emailing from forms done. I started when I did because I thought I was done with the book and would have plenty of time to write them. However, the publisher threw me for a loop this time out and is having me review the PDFs of what the thing is going to look like when its printed, and as such I’ve seen that time I thought I was going to have evaporate. I hope to be done with this in a few days and then I really, honestly will the PHP and ASP tutorials done.
This afternoon, I finished up the front matter for my book – the “How to use this book” section, my bio, and the acknowledgments (which is quite possibly the hardest part of the book to write.) So that means that as of about 2:45 this afternoon, my part in HTML, XHTML and CSS: Your visual blueprint™ to creating effective web sites is done. Now, I just wait until the book with my copies shows up on my doorstep, which according to Amazon should be on or about June 3 (they were exactly correct on the date of the first one, so I see no reason why they won’t be this time.)
I have already begun negotiations with the publisher for book #3, although this one is going to be top secret, so I won’t be able to even give a hint as to what the subject matter is until it is published.
One of the great mysteries about Windows Vista for me has been how to get the power button on the Start menu to shut down the computer rather than putting it to sleep. I’ve seen lots of posts elsewhere that say to go into the Control Panel, select Power Options, and then click the “Change what the power button does”. However, this changes what happens when you press the physical power button on the machine, not the one in the Start menu.
Well this evening, I was playing around on my wife’s machine because the screen saver didn’t appear to be kicking in, and purely by chance I finally found the setting. So here goes: the solution to one of Vista’s best kept secrets.
You do indeed start by going to the Control Panel and selecting Power Options. You can also get there by clicking the “Change power settings” link in the screen saver dialog box.
Once you’re in Power Settings, you need to click the “Change plan settings” link under whichever power plan you are using. In the next screen, click “Change advanced power settings.” This is the dialog box you need – scroll down to the “Power buttons and lid” option, click the plus sign to expand it, and there you have it – “Start menu power button.”
Some day, someone will have to explain to me why Microsoft decided to make “sleep” the default option, and more importantly, why they decided to hide the setting. For now, though, I’m just glad I finally found it.
Now if I could only figure out how to get rid of the “Start Search” option on the Start menu …
