Twev1701.net

Yes, I am still around even though there has been a serious lack of posting lately. The biggest reason for the lack of posting was a serious distain for computers. After my main computer died, I seriously just felt like giving up on computers all together. But, thanks to Jess, I was able to come back and make some sense of things.

So this is how things are operating right now. I went and took a server I had laying around here and put all 3 of my HDs from my main computer into there. It took a little while to get everything right, but now I have access to all my pictures, music and videos again. Granted, I still have to start recovering all the files on that failed 250gb drive, but that was the least of my problems last week.

After I got my new temporary media server up and running, I cleared my desk and started over. I bundled a bunch of cables together, and moved some stuff around. In the end, I made a nice docking station of my laptop. So, when I want to on the computer, I just plug my laptop in with 4 cables — power, USB, CAT-5, and VGA. That sends everything from the laptop to my 19″ monitor, my Copperhead mouse, an old Microsoft USB Internet Keyboard, my iPod dock, my digital camera, and my speakers. So, for the few months that it’s going to take me to save up for a new computer, Lappy is now my main system. Which is actually kind of nice. I picked up Adobe Photoshop CS3 for it since it runs Vista, and it’s not bad. I’ve got about 80% of all the programs on here that I usually have on my main system, and with my HDs now in a server, it’s almost like nothing having my old system back. And the nice part about turning Lappy into my main system, is that when I want to go into the living room, or on the porch, or even somewhere else all together, when I Lappy with me, I literally have my main system with me. That’s actually pretty cool.

I am off this weekend, which is nice since this is my first weekend off in 3 weeks. However, this is also my last 2 days off until we leave for England. I will literally leave work on Thursday night, come home, finish loading up the car, and we’re off to Easton. Then on Friday afternoon, we’re at JFK, hen Logan, and then we land in Manchester, England on Saturday morning. So, to use the old phrase, ‘so much to do in so little time’. The thing that really sucks is that even though I have the weekend off, I can’t really pack yet. I’m going to need mostly everything I am going to pack for this trip up until Thursday afternoon. The only thing I may start packing is like dress clothes and the such. But that’s not that much compared to all the other things you would normally pack.

As for today, I have to cut my grass today. Granted, it’s not because the grass has grown at all. It hasn’t in 3 weeks thanks to no rain. But, the buckhorns are getting rather high an I’m going to run the lawnmower to basically cut them down. But, it’s crystal clear out today, no humidity, and in the lower 70s. Not a bad day to work outside. Then after that Joel is coming over to pick up his parent’s kitten, and then after that, who knows. Maybe some gaming, maybe some DVDs, maybe nothing. Time will tell.

So, my streak of pre-England bad luck continues.

Today, Jess calls me to tell me that my computer is off and she can’t turn it back on. I come home after work and take a look at it. I throw a tester on the system and discover something blew inside the power supply. I hit up my Best Buy contact and get a new power supply. I install it, and BLAM — no picture, no boot.

In fiddling around I discover that the power connector for my video card is short out since when I hit it with my finger, the entire fucking machine just shut right off. Okay. I turn it on again only to notice it’s not really making any noise. The fans and HDs are spinning up, but the fucker isn’t even posting at this point.

So here’s where I am at.

I know the mobo is pretty much fucked.
The video card maybe, but without a mobo, I can’t really test it.
I have no clue if the RAM or the processor is even good at this point.

So, my current situation is this: do I spend a potential $400 (post-England) to start replaceing components, or do I wait, make Lappy my main machine for a few months, and then just bite the bullet and get a new (i.e. different and current) motherboard and matching processor. Oh yeah, let’s not forget RAM as well. I know that fixing it would be cheaper, but not in the long run since I built that system almost 4 years ago.

I hate fucking computers….

Red = Bad

So Apple today released Safari BETA 3 for OSX….and Windows XP.

The decision for this is pretty obvious — the iPhone SDK. I think that just like we saw iTunes come to the PC because of the iPod, we’re going to see some more Mac applications come to the PC because of the iPhone.

While Safari doesn’t seem too bad, the killer application to come to the PC for me would be iCal. On can only hope though.

“Going forward, in reverse”

I never really understood that line until about 48 hours ago. This past Thursday night, it was so hot in the house that I ended up sleeping on the couch with the air conditioning on. I was actually up pretty late since TNT was showing an ‘X-Files’ marathon. I used to be a huge ‘X-Files’ fan, and really, still am. It’s unfortunate that they really killed the series in the last few years of the show’s run, but that’s a whole other conversation.

Anyway, watching ‘X-Files’ made me realize how much I missed that series and how much it used to be a part of my life. I can remember when I started buying the DVD box sets, I would watching nothing that week but that box set. In, fact, I’m still missing a few of the box sets, something which I will try to remedy in the next year or so since the prices have now dropped.

Again, I digress. Right now I’m watching the ‘X-Files’ movie on DVD, while I am transferring files from my OS drive onto my new 500gb drive. I have made the decision to wipe my OS drive and start from scratch. It’s a good thing to do every once and a while to start fresh, and since my whole computer has gone to shit, I figured this would be as good a time as any. While I was transferring files, I needed to get some of my backed up files off of my home server. Since I was formatting my 500gb at the time, I went into the living room and used remote desktop to log into my server. It wasn’t until I was remotely logged into my server from my laptop that I realized that this was something I always dreamed about having — an establish infrastructure that is completely remotely accessable. Having that realization, I remembered how fun it was when I first setup my home network here almost 6 years ago. I miss that excitement of configuring everything and setting everything up. It was then that I really started to look forward to wiping my system and starting all over again. I really haven’t done much with my home network in the past year or so, and I think it’s time to really reevaluate it and maybe change a few things around.

This is the first time in a few months that I have been excited about computers and technology. It literally used to be my life, but with the past 6 months of i/o Computers being more of a burden then a pleasure, this is a feeling I welcome again.

I think that once I get Windows back up and running, and all of the proper drivers installed, I’m going to install World of Warcraft and may even re-activate my account again. I’ve really had the itch to play the past few days, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s when my computer had been down.

From the initial scans, it would appear that I have lost almost all of my data, including all of our MP3s, from the corrupted 250gb drive. Although, once I have transferred all of the files I need to, I plan on assaulting the drive with a foray of diagnostic and forensic tools. I’m not giving up that easy.

But, for now, it’s back to transferring files and getting ready to wipe my 40gb OS drive.

Today was a very good, yet very bad day. Let me explain.

My day literally started off with Loki eating my glasses. Since I am literally blind without my glasses, I had to call off and call upon my mother to take me to get new glasses.

For those of you keeping score, this is my second pair of glasses in 6 months.

Anyway, it took a little over 2 hours to get my glasses, which means I ended up getting my glasses around 2:30pm.

Since I called upon mu mother to take me to Lenscrafters to get my glasses, I had her drop me off at Target since Jess was getting off at 3pm. That was a blessing and a mistake. I ended up buying an Alton Brown DVD pack, and a progressive scan upscaling DVD player at Circuit City.

I have to say up front that I do not regret either purchase. I’ve already watched 1 DVD out of the 3 DVD Alton Brown pack, and right now I am watching ‘Clerks II’ for the second night in a row. Last night when I watched it, it was full-screen on my HDTV, but the asprect ratio was off. Now that I have an upscaling progressive scan DVD player, DVDs now fill my entire LCD HDTV. It is truly wonderful.

I will fully admit that I am totally drunk, and if none of this makes any sense I totally apologize. All I know right now is that my DVDs now look totally kick ass on my HDTV and I am very happy. Plus, the 500gb drive I ordered on Wednesday night arrived today.

Right now, life is great.