GeekedChef

A blog with the mission to prove that cooking does not have to be expensive, or labor intensive. Written by a student for those who are too short on time (and with a hint of geek)

[geekedchef]

Surface Pro 3 Dead Spot Fix

I know it has been a little while since I last posted, and quite a bit has changed since then. I for one which I am sure is an obvious change is that I upgraded to a Surface Pro 3 from my Surface RT. I will make a post about this later with an actual review. To get to the issue at hand my Surface Pro 3 was having a rather annoying issue where my display no matter finger or pen would register touches in certain zones of the screen; particularly the top left corner. This caused all sorts of issues, and depending on the location of yours those will vary. No matter the location as long as it is pen related the issue should be fixed by doing the following:

**DISCLAIMER** Make sure you have a keyboard and mouse before continuing. The cover is fine too. Does not have to be an external keyboard. 

Make sure ALL Windows updates have been installed. Including the optional ones. Even if Windows says all updates have been installed check for updates again anyway. Sometimes Windows runs on old data and all of the updates have not actually been installed. 

Restart.

Go to the device manager.  Press the Windows Key then type 'device manager' and then enter.

Double click on (HID) Human Interface Devices, locate the touchscreen driver. Make sure not to select the touch pen driver or the touch cover. Not a huge deal if you do, just those will not fix the issue we are trying to resolve.

Right click and uninstall. 

Click on any device in the list. Then go to 'Action' in the menu above, and select 'Scan for hardware changes'. This should automatically get Windows to re-install the driver. If it does not then just check for Windows updates, and this should resolve it.

Go to NTrig's website and download the wintab driver. I am only going to post the website because the drivers are periodically updated and the link would no longer be valid. It is also very important to get the latest version when possible so this allows for that as well. To find the driver select Microsoft as the manufacturer and then your device/operating system which will most likely be Surface Pro 3, and Windows 8.1 64-bit. http://www.n-trig.com/downloads-drivers/

Run the tool making sure not to touch your screen until it is completed.

You are now done. See if this resolved your problem. If it did not restart your Surface, and see if this resolved it. If not you should contact support or look into another solution. It could very well be a hardware issue which cannot be easily resolved.

[geekedchef]

Made the mistake last week of buying 20 lbs of potatoes at Costco while I had a broken oven. So here I am trying to still get rid of them a week later. in any way possible that does not require an oven. Besides what a better way to procrastinate from your assignments other than to cook (and more importantly eat)?

Potato Lentil Soup

Cost: $0.75 / serving Servings: 4 Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 white onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 largish carrots, sliced

3 cups vegetable stock (I used bouillon cubes that are salt free, and while I may not be a chemist I do believe that includes MSG given the sodium component of that or at least mine did not have it)

1 cups green lentils

1 large Russet potato, peeled and chopped

2 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon ground coriander

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Kosher sea salt and pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon white vinegar

Dried parsley to garnish

Procedure:

Sauté the carrots, garlic, and onion until the onions are yellowed over a medium heat.

Throw in the vegetable broth, potatoes, coriander, oregano, and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low and cover for 30 minutes.

Check that the potatoes and lentils are tender. If so put in the vinegar (really important makes the flavour, but you do not taste the vinegar itself), salt (if needed), and pepper.

Serve and garnish.

[geekedchef]

Although this really should not be an issue for much longer for those who have taken the plunge into Ubuntu 14.04 while it is in beta here is a quick way to get steam to install after it gives you an error in Ubuntu Software Center. With an error saying something like "package operation failed". Open up the terminal and enter

sudo dpkg -i /location/of/file.deb

After this it will start the installation and you will be on your merry way. It should also install all the extras that you need to have installed in order to get Steam working properly. I did this on a fresh install of Ubuntu so I had not had them installed previously. Just a little side note this isntallation method works for all .deb files. If you are ever having issues installing something give this a try.

[geekedchef]

Bear with me everyone. Site is in transition. Lots of stuff to work on converting from a wordpress blog to a tumblr. Also need to repair the database from a recovery of the site due to the old host deleting my account without notice (and then trying to pretend they did not). Theme will be a long running project. Midterms are currently going on this week so not much will be happening.