How To Fix Dead/Stuck Pixels on a Playstation Portable (PSP)

So, I broke down and bought a Playstation Portable (PSP) this weekend. Lo and behold, it has a single stuck pixel. I didn't even notice it until I fired up a game for the first time, but there it is... A little, constantly red, annoying little bastard!

I really hate confronting retailers with returns, especially when its a single pixel that I'm complaining about. This wouldn't be the first time that I've done it though. But before I packed the PSP back up and headed for Best Buy, I figured I'd check online to see if this was a common problem. Unfortunately, it is a very common problem with PSPs and many people that have exchanged a PSP due to dead pixels, reports that their new unit has even more. So I count myself somewhat lucky to only have a single stuck pixel.

Luckily, I happened upon a post that talked about a little movie that that was originally distributed to help fix dead/stuck pixels on LCD TVs and monitors. The video is a series of screen that flash repeatedly in each of the colors that a pixel supports (Red, Greed, Blue.) The idea being that you can coax a stubbornly stuck pixel into working (or raise a dead pixel from the grave) by constantly forcing all of the pixels of the display to cycle through all of their possible states. (great idea!)

(Note: A stuck pixel is a pixel that only displays a single color (red in my case) and doesn't cycle to any other color. A dead pixel is a pixel that is black and never displays a color. The success rate seems to be higher with stuck pixels over dead ones.)

I downloaded the PSP version and have it currently running on my PSP, but some people have reported success in minutes, while other have had to let the video run for several hours. The consensus seems to be, that if the video doesn't fix your stuck/dead pixel in 24 hours, you might just be stuck with it.

I post this here, because I know of a lot of people that have stuck/dead pixels on their LCD monitors or laptop screen, and I figure that this might be worth a try on those as well. I'll post a follow up and let everyone know how it worked on my PSP. =)

You can download the movie file here, and read about it here.

Good luck and let me know if it works for you (especially when not used on a PSP.)

UPDATE

Well, I ran the video for probably 7 hours on my new PSP with no luck. The red little bastard pixel remained. Luckily, Best Buy was great at letting me return my unit for a new one. And I haven't been able to find any other stuck/dead pixels.

Hope you have better luck.

World of Warcraft /Played Total - Can you beat this...?

I quit playing World of Warcraft (WoW) a while back after playing off-and-on since release. I was determined to quit for good, so I actually canceled my account, logged onto my character and sold everything of value, sent it to a good friend who played and deleted all of my characters (mainly a decently equipped 70 rogue.) This astonished many of the people I work with who play WoW, and I thought the reactions I got were truly amazing (and hilarious.) At the time of my rogue's deletion, I think he had a /played in the high 40's (days.) That's a lot of time to have played a video game, even if it was over 2.5ish years... (p.s. I know that I could have sold my account for some decent $$, but I didn't really want someone else playing my toon. Call me crazy. =) )
Back to the point of this post... I have a friend (we'll call him Bob) that I went to school with, and now work with. Bob has played WoW since it was released on November 23, 2004, and continues to play to this day. Most people I know who have played WoW at one point or another got a single character to 60 (now 70) and then mainly played that character with a few sporadic alts here and there. Not Bob...
Bob has 11 character over the level of 60. That's fairly impressive and got me thinking. Just how much time has Bob spent playing WoW since releases. I asked him to get the /played totals on each of his characters so that we could add them all up. I asked a few people around the office to venture a guess at just how much time he's played WoW. I started it off with a guess of 250 Days played.
The rest of the guesses looked something like this...
250, 215, 190, 285, 280, 260, 260, 330, 150, 331, 332 DAYS played!
By this time, the rest of the office had gathered around in awe at our guesses. How could someone play a game "that" much...?
Here is what his characters and /played values look like...

Character #	Level	Days	Hours
1	62	8	18
2	61	8	22
3	65	8	10
4	63	14	19
5	66	17	17
6	70	24	7
7	65	30	7
8	70	24	19
9	70	38	17
10	69	19	5
11	70	62	10
Totals		252	151

Interesting Information Based on these numbers!
Total Days Played: 258.29
Total Hours Played: 6199
WoW Release Date: November, 23, 2004
Date We Did This: June, 19, 2007
Total Days/Hours in between: 938 / 22512
% of time that Bob played WoW during this time: 27.54%
That means... In a span of about 2 years and 7 months, Bob was playing WoW about %27 of the time!
All I can say is... wow. Can anyone out there post more impressive numbers...? I know you guys are out there. The uber gamers!!! Hell, you might be reading this while raiding RIGHT NOW.... We want your numbers! =) Add a comment below...!

Virtual Stock Trading anyone...?

I've been participating in a company game of Virtual Stock Exchange (VSE) that we have running at my current employer. We have about 12 people in the game and it's pretty fun to see how everyone invests, and how well it pans out. If nothing else, it's good to get a better understanding of the markets.

The game is somewhat realistic because it's based off the market and only lags a bit behind. Josh and I setup an Open Game of VSE that anyone can join and participate in. If you're interested, come and create an account and invite your friends and family!

Use the information and directions below to join the game.

Game ID: ezcomeezgo
Game Password: ezcomeezgo

1. Open this link and read the competition summary:
   http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/StartViewGame.aspx?id=ezcomeezgo
2. Click on the 'Join Game' link.
3. If you are an existing Virtual Stock Exchange member, enter your Email address and Password in the login panel and get set to trade. If you are a new user, follow the link to register - it's easy!
4. Follow the instructions and start trading!

Join now, and see if you can win my Open Game competition! The more participants the higher the level of competition.