Techno-muffin Magrathea! It's Magrathea!

29Mar/100

My favourite Anime series

Death Note

Death Note

After watching all the incredible movies I naturally moved on to find some good anime series. I purchased the first season of Naruto together with the first manga volume. I was quickly absorbed by the world of hilarious ninjutsu and bought 31 other volumes (in Danish, on dba.dk).

I abandoned the TV-series since it was way too slow-paced compared to the manga. In mere two weeks I had finished off all the currently released volumes in Denmark. Sigh, now I have to buy the rest from UK! I can heartily recommend both the manga and the anime. However, I still find the Dragonball manga better, but _please_ keep me away from the anime - it's nothing short of horrible!

So, having ploughed through both Studio Ghibli and (most of) Naruto, I looked for something new. I did some quick research and got hold of Death Note (by personal recommendation) and Elfen Lied.

I put on Death Note and was absolutely thrilled! The protagonist (Light/Kira) is a very intelligent high school student, who stumbles upon a notebook called "Death Note". It gives a brief description of it's purpose on it's own cover: write a person's name in it while visualising his or her face and he/she will die!

It may sound silly, but it's extremely convincing and as the story moves on, one of the coolest detectives are revealed: L, another genius, who is willing to die if only he can catch Kira. This was definitely the anime I was looking for! It is simply the Twin Peaks of anime!

If you're looking for an anime as well, seek this out; you will love it! The series contains 37 episodes and two different endings.

The evening after I wanted to try out Elfen Lied. This is a short series with only 13 episodes, each of 25 minutes. The soundtrack deserves a mention: it has the most beautiful opening theme. Seriously, listen to it, it just goes so well with the story.

And the story, basically? Naked babe ripping people apart in various, bloody ways. Even though I normally wouldn't enjoy that, I found the first episodes brilliant. It somehow captivates you instead of disgusting you - even though I usually can't stand gore. As the story progresses, however, I was a bit dissapointed. There are 4 girls and 1 boy in the series and most of the time at least one of them is crying hysterically. It's just.. too much and boring. Nevertheless, I can recommend the series - even though it gets a bit tedious at times.

By now, I still need almost 20 Death Note episodes. I'm always on a lookout for new series though I expect to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion afterwards. If you can recommend a series, I would be very delighted if you would write it in a comment!

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20Mar/100

Handy Windows 7 tweaks

Windows 7 Logo

I just stumbled upon some cool W7 tweaks on SevenForums and figured I'd post them here.

The first one is a tweak to change the hover delay on Aero Peak/thumbnail previews in the taskbar. The original link is here, but I've written a resume here.

  • Open regedit.
  • Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced"
  • Right-click and create a new DWORD called "ExtendedUIHoverTime".
  • Choose decimal and enter a time in milliseconds. I've chosen 200 and that works out fine.
  • Close regedit and restart explorer either by terminating and restarting the proces or logging out/in/restarting the computer

  • The next one also concerns the taskbar. It's a tweak to enable easy cycling through previews by clicking on the taskbar icon. Copy+pasta:

  • Launch regedit.exe (Win+R, then paste regedit.exe)
  • Navigate in the left tree control to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
  • Go to Edit->New->DWORD (32-bit) Value
  • Name the value LastActiveClick
  • Hit enter to assign the value and change it to 1
  • Restart Explorer and you're good to go.

  • My last tweak for you is really awesome. By creating transparent shortcuts in the taskbar you can group items in an easy way. Go to LifeHacker and find out how.

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    20Sep/090

    FF addons you can’t live without

    Firefox. Made up of all the small pieces.

    Firefox. Made up of all the small pieces.

    So, this post is a perfect example of the purpose of this blog: making my life easier and bookmarks lighter. I don't use any fancy addons and you will therefore (most likely) not be surprised or find anything new here, but nevertheless I will list the ones I use and recommend.

      Adblock Plus. The number one banner-killer on the web. Get rid of all those adds.
      Brief. My favourite RSS-reader. Comes with a simple and elegant design.
      DownThemAll. DTA is extremely useful if you need to download lot's of similar files on a page.
      FlashBlock. This addon will block flash by default and thereby save you from a lot of adds.
      IE Tab. Great plugin if you need to use/view some page in Internet Explorer.
      NoScript. Actually, I don't use this addon. In my opinion too many things are blocked and it makes surfing the web a pain. However, it is without a doubt the safest way so enable this whenever you're browsing a place with minimal security.
      PDF Download. Upon clicking on a link to a pdf-file, this addon will ask if you wish to open or save the file. Handy!
      StumbleUpon. One of the most popular FireFox addons. I've used it for years but since it's so it's time-consuming (i.e. addicting) I've simply had to uninstall it! Try it out and see what I mean :)
      Video DownloadHelper. Download those YouTube movies easily.
      X-Marks (Foxmarks). This is the main reason for why I use Firefox. I have loads of bookmarks and this plugin synchronizes them between all my computers. It also gives access to ones bookmarks through the browser.

    Okay, this was it I think. Cheers.

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