shai

Yeah, casek....I gotta bone to pick with the people who define the "I broke it and I don't know how and it's going to cost HOW much to fix it? OMG OMG OMG" archetype, too. These are the people that have no clue as to how things work...in that they've never changed the oil in their car, let alone attemped basic repairs/maintenance, because "that's what the shop is there for"....so, when something breaks and it don't go no mo', they have absolutely NO idea why, but are mad as hell because they can't imagine having to walk five blocks to the store for their TV Guide and Twinkie fix. It's fine by me if they do have the foresight to keep it tuned up and THEN it craps out, but that's rarely the case. I think I can top your story, though. I mentioned my neighbor here a while ago...she had a bunch of WMA files she couldn't play thanks to DRM. Now, get this- she's pretty good with computers, in that she got her wireless up and running without any help. So, knowing that, I asked her how she got all these bad files, and she said, "Oh, Limewire..." I shuddered, and told her to STOP USING LIMEWIRE, or else she was going to regret it. I recommended some other sites, then installed Firefox, Avast, Kerio, Spybot and Ccleaner (after unNortoning the comp, of course) and ran them all (those logfiles were something else, BTW) and said, "Okay, that should do it...but, whatever you do, DO NOT USE LIMEWIRE EVER AGAIN. If you do, and it blows up in your face, I'll know." And, what do you know...two weeks ago, I get home and there's a panicked message on my machine, saying her comp is powering on and off like it's possessed, and it's got all kinds of error screens. Awesome. I go to her house, lug the damn thing home, and pop it open...and, I swear to God, it looked like Don King lived in there. I'm sure I was the first person to ever see the inside of the computer since it left the store, so I grabbed some air, went out on my stoop, and let 'er rip...and unleashed a mushroom cloud of funk that made me sneeze for about twenty minutes, which is about how long it took to get the inside of the case emptied out. I forgot to mention that she lives in a warehouse loft with two cats- it's bad enough to make my eyes water just thinking about it...so, now that I can actually see the HD, I pull it and hook it up to my Linux box. Find her home folder, check to see if her media files are there...they are, along with a folder marked "limewire" that had been modified three days earlier. Well, how 'bout that! Vindication is always a nice thing, but when I tell someone something like, "Don't touch that frying pan, it's hot," and they say "DUHHHHH" and grab the handle with both hands...I get irritated. But, I had a chance to make a point, so here's what I did. I put an old HD with a clean install of MEPIS in the box, along with the offending XP HD...booted it up, made sure that Amarok and K3b (media player and CD burning suite) worked, and called her. "So, good news and bad news." "You found my stuff? That's great!!!" "Yeah, it's all there...the bad news is, you have to use Linux for a while. I'll explain the basics, it's not too tough to get the hang of..." "Linux? How come?" "Well, if I did a complete rescue of all your personal files, I'd have to charge you for it...and, it's a big job, there's about 40 gigs of media on there, and honestly, that's time I could be spending with my girlfriend, or fixing my own comp....and, XP viruses don't affect Linux, so there's that, too. The bad news isn't done, though. Once I show you where your stuff is on the system and how to back it up, I'm dropping it back into your lap, and YOU can do all the recovery. As I see it, I already did more than I said I would, and I did it for free because you're my friend. But, I see this as a great chance for us to both learn a lesson- you need to be accountable for what happens to your computer, since it doesn't go out and get viruses without some intervention on your part, and I need to learn to be a little less forgiving when people don't take my advice, and end up coming to me with their ass in a sling because they know I can be counted on to clean up the mess. I don't mind helping out, but..." Slience. Me- "I'm not trying to piss you off, or belittle you...if you had went to CompUSA instead, you would have spent a few hundred bucks getting this straightened out, and they would have told you the same exact thing. If you want to be mad at me for being truthful, be mad...the main thing is you have a working comp now, and all the important files are there, so whenever you're ready I'll drop it off and explain what you need to do." Remarkably, she apologized, and said that she was grateful that I had spoken up...and, I ended up getting a twelve pack out of the deal, so it all worked out. Plus, she likes the new system, too. But, I swear...I wish a LOT more people used Macs, sometimes. Then, I could just shrug my shoulders and point them to the Apple store.

Oh...well, maybe he figured it out. Okay. I am still on vacation too, then. See you when I see you, I suppose.

I didn't think of that. It seems pretty easy to me to pull the HD and switch it to another box. Granted, that's me, and not taking into account if this guy as tried to do that before. Well, if you want to explain the CMOS thing to him, it's all you. How was your week off?

215, if you are able to do so, pull your HD, put it in a USB box, and that way you can access your files on another comp. The password can usually be changed in BIOS...at boot, press F2 or DEL...one of those should get you into the BIOS. I'm on an old Dell box as well, and these seem to be the common BIOS keys for Dell boxes.

JBOD's done. Works great, too. It's a RAMBUS mobo....and, I have no money to spend on hardware. If you have any ideas, I'm game. New sockets? The other box seems to be fine, after all. It flips out all the time, I'm used to it. Okay, that's enough. I'm done.

Yeah, well, sure....I drink a whole lot less than I did when I was that age, too. I don't have a death wish, or anything....the reason I said no was because I had made plans to go out, and it was, what...5 pm when you went to the store? You know me...I could have done it no problem, but if I had it would have conked out by 10 or 11...about the time I was supposed to be going out. BTW, you didn't miss much. I'm assuming you didn't go because you would have still been there when I showed up. I really like that house a lot, it's got a nice feel to it. Mostly it was a bunch of hippies smoking dope on the back deck, and offering to get me high...me saying, no thanks...them forgetting, and passing me the joint...followed by me passing it down the line....repeat for two hours. Nice folks, though. By the time I left, I had a pretty good contact buzz on top of all the beer I drank. I could barely stay awake on the ride home. But, enough of the fascinating social life of Shai...I'm gonna try dropping that IDE video card you gave me into the Linux box, if I can find a driver for it and figure out a way to bypass the onboard Intel 8180 video chipset. If it works, I'll figure out a way to square up with you on the deal. I'm kind of waiting for my lady to come by right now...and halfheartedly working on setting up a JBOD array (similar to RAID, except that instead of striping the data it uses disk concatenation and makes the comp read the disks as one large HD) for the XP box with that RAID card now that I can install the drivers for it. If that goes well, I'll throw in an extra ethernet card so I can network to the Linux box. It's looking like the XP box is going to be the house server....but, I need to find a way to fit more HD's so I can run a JBOD and a RAID in tandem. Oh, and some more RAMBUS RAM...shit's expensive, two bills for a half a gig is bananas. Okay, I'm gonna be offline for awhile. I'll update on how this went later.

I still haven't looked at the PHP list yet, casek. I've been meaning to talk to you about it...so I'm switching to AIM right now..

File exentention (such as, .mp3, .jpeg .exe, .rar, .zip, etc.)....most of the time, the extention tells you what should be done with the file. it's probably a .avi or .mpeg file. Beyond that, I honestly know next to nothing about DVD codecs... Mostly, all I really wanted was to call bullshit on spectr for saying he doesn't drink much, for one reason and one reason only. Last Friday, he comes over to my house, and asks me if I want to drink...I say sure, and immediately regretted it when he told me, "Okay, one fifth of Jager it is, then." Thing is, he was serious....I know I could have done it, but wow, the pain of reentry would have been hellacious. So, I stuck to beer, got my room clean, fixed up my HD, and didn't have to send the last two days bowing to the Porcelain Thundermug and cursing spectr...then again, you should also know that I curse you all the time...and, it worked! You left something on my desk and it's safe. I'll leave it at that. Okay, I'm honoring the holiday (casek+1/4 lb=vacation?) now. I may pop in here and there, but meh. Go outside and ride your bike...you'll be glad you did. Oh, hey, casek...or Ghost Of Casek. (Cough Cough)

I want spinners...it's only fitting since I live in Oakland. I want the first "scraper" computer..I may just do it. Jack it up on some 24's, and paint it lime green. Lots of bass, too.

At long last, there's a couple things that have been vexing me. I knew that "all good in the hood" streak wouldn't last long, darn it ... For some reason, my Linux box (running MEPIS 6.0 rc3) went on the fritz. Gets about halfway through the bootup, then it bricks on me. I'm considering finally going with Slackware, now that I found out my neighbor is running it and has kindly offered to walk me through the ordeal that is installing Slackware. If you've tried to install it, you'll know exactly what I mean...shit's harder than Chinese algebra. LENS gave me his old Compaq Presario 2266 to revamp...I quadrupled the RAM, and threw a HD with a clean install of Damn Small 3.0 on it...and, same thing, it hangs when I try to xconf, for some reason. It's old, but Xvesa won't even work on it...and, that's practically idiot proof. So, am I an idiot, or is his machine basically a doorstop? I'm still working on it, but this is machine no. 2 that has refused to work w/Linux this summer. And, if that wasn't enough, my Tiny XP box suddenly started giving me software update screens at boot. This doesn't seem right....and, all I've done is install Opera, JetAudio, Gaim, SLSK, and an old licenced copy of Photoshop on it (I'm seeing how little I can get by with). I know there's something in the registry to turn this off...but, I forgot what it is, and haven't gotten around to looking into it yet. So, I'm taking the easy way out and saying, "HELP!" Besides that, this Tiny XP install is fantastic. It may be the best OS I've used to date...in that it works with everything, and it's much faster than I could have ever imagined. I still use Linux (when it works) most of the time, so don't worry..I haven't sold all the way out, but I may have to take back some of the nasty things I said about XP. I'm using it right now, in fact. I'll be back tomorrow...none of the above is high priority, BTW. Just troublesome. Later.

APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD! I still have that Mac drive that my roommate, AKA "Butterfingers", dropped. It's sitting in an old case, collecting dust. One of us should get a job at a data recovery lab. That would rock.

No, EBP, you must have seen someone else's. She's not on there...she's smart like that. If you are referring to the first person on my list, I dated her about 15 years ago. She's a weird one...I think she keeps getting hotter the older she gets.

Anything interesting happen this weekend? When I wasn't out with LENS raising hell, I was in the mountains getting a second degree sunburn with the lady (she got it a lot worse than I did) while drinking cheap wine....then hitchhiking through the mountains home. Good times. I haven't been home yet...hopefully my gear hasn't been pawned for weed and malt liquor money. Before I left, I- A)...saved my neighbor's computer w/ a Linux install on a spare HD I had laying around. She just wanted to back her files up, so I gave her a ten minute crash course in UNIX. I hope it went well. B)...set up my two comp/one monitor thingabobber. It works really well, just CLICK! XP. CLICK! Linux...and so on. (I ended up "liberating" a VGA to VGA cable somehow. What it do.) Well, commence to...whatever it is you do.

Since 12 oz. is getting hot (again), here's a thought or two about ULing stuff. 1. Use Open Source. It's free, nigga. So you have to learn a little more about computers...good, you should learn about them. It's the 21st fucking century, caveman. 2. We should get the SLSK room going again. It's definitely an untapped resource. I used it a lot last year for file transfers...or we could get a FTP site going....or another board. I'll help out if everybody contributes.

Anybody know about good open-source playlist editors to use with VLC/XP? I'd use MediaMonkey, but I don't want their player, and it's a package deal, that's out. All the ones I've seen are not so hot. In Linux, I use mc....wait, is there a version of mc for XP without having to use Cygwin?

I finally got a shot of the Eisentraut. I put a Cinelli Unicanitor saddle on there because I was too paranoid about something happening to the Swift. It's a lot more comfortable than it looks...and, it's fast as fuck, too (when it's tuned right). Right now it's about 80% in tune...and, I'm lazy. I still don't have any shots of the Expedition, though. LENS has expressed an interest in buying it....so, I may let it go, since I have another touring frame that's closer to my size. That, and I'm moving, and I don't ride as much 'cross as I used to...plus, the Eisentraut does okay on trails, believe it or not.

Yeah...give me a minute and I'll upload it.

No, this is for two seperate boxes on one monitor. Our power bill is outrageous, and everyone is pointing the finger at yours truly. Well, fine- I don't HAVE to get them any more apps, movies or music. I'll just sit in my room and read. Works for me. Seriously, though...the idea is eventually to set up a LAN between the two boxes so I can do everything I need to do and be able to switch views on the monitor. Yeah, I know...I could go with VMware, but I'd rather do it the hard way.

HI. Anything interesting happen while I was out? Everything seems to be running smoothly over here. Oh...I need to get a VGA to VGA cable so I can run two servers on one monitor (the Sony Multiscan G400 has a auxiliary input). Who makes these? And, how much should I plan to spend on one?

I see good deals on tall frames all the time. The Le Tour is a decent commuter. I wouldn't do any long-distance riding on it, however. I'd be looking for something like an old Miyata, Univega, or Fuji touring bike. There's tons of them out there...you probably want to find a 62 cm frame. If you want to measure a frame, get a metric tape measure, and measure the distance between the center of the crank bolt to the center of the seat lug (or the center of the top tube, if there's no lugs). This is the center to center height measurement. Also, look for old Suntour parts. Thewy last forever with minimal maintenance.

^^Last summer, I think. Hey, does WERL still paint in PDX? I haven't seen that guy's stuff in a while.

spectr, the only thing I did to your laptop was install Opera on it, with your permission. Honest, nothing else. I highly doubt that could the problem, but I'm not 100% certain. I have to go fix the neighbor's comp today, but send me a PM and maybe you can bring it by and let me take a look at it later today or tomorrow.

I already know his passwords. I'm the house admin.

I'm glad you didn't say, "Pee in his butt." He's the Mac guy. I may just sign him up online for some VD awareness literature from the Government Printing Office.

I'm back...my roommate, Mr. Funny Guy, thought it would be a hoot to switch my ethernet cable from the router to the wireless hub...thus, resulting in endless dropped packets. Without telling me, of course. It's fixed...but, jeez, I thought both my computers were hosed. Not cool, mang. So, what should I do to get even?