Category: Compgeeky

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Not Exactly Reindeer Games…

Warming up just a tad, but in the low 80s (as in 81 degrees fahrenheit in my no A/C, just windows open office) for the latter part of June? Not too shabby. Heck, the humidity is even in the low 1,000s% range *heh* (Yeh, it is humid enough to drown fish.)

Anywho, after much debate with the voices in my head, I ended up not building a new box from separate components. What I did instead was buy a “debranded” media center comp that I could seriously upgrade. Now, that does mean it came w/o the media center OS it was originally built for, and specific drivers for some of the components are “fun” to track down (drivers for the IR reciever and remote will likely be the most fun to hunt down). It also means I need to buy some more cable to build a new run to the computer (and not incidentally, another–better–splitter; split once into two, then again; one straight to cable “modem” and three runs to other places, for now).

Just more techie fun.

Still, for dirt cheap, an AMD 64X2 5600+ base system with a gig of memory (which I’m going to hand off to someone else–already selected, so don’t put in any requests :-)–and replace with 4GB), a competent sound/vid setup… which I will upgrade, and lotsa nice lil goodies including a nice TV Tuner card, bunches of media connections front and back and enough open PCI slots (one PCIex-1 is taken up already and the PCIex-16 is just waiting on a new vidcard). Oh, the 300W power supply is also scheduled for replacement. I have a nice 450W ps I can use in it until I get the PC Power and Cooling “Rolls Royce” ps I have my eye on, so I’m not screaming bloddy murder about a wimpy ps in my box.

Of course, no OS, media center, all that jazz, means it’s currently running Ubuntu 8.04 with MythTV, but as soon as I plop VirtualBox on, I’ll also install WinXP Pro-64 and hunt around for the usual stuff to use with it. Then, drag out some old software and install Win98 in another VirtualBox, so I can use Encore with it (cos it still doesn’t run under WINE).

UPDATE: *grrr* 64-bit CPU. 64-bit OS. 64-bit version of Virtualbox. Attempt to install 64-bit WinXPP, error: “Attempting to load an x64 operating system, however this CPU is not compatible with x64 mode. Please install a 32-bit X86 operating system.” The only XPP I have available that’s not been installed elsewhere is a 64-bit version. Looks like I’ll have to uninstall VirtualBox and go with VMware, instead. Sad, cos I really like the way VirtualBox sets things up. Oh. Well.

Other fun?my Wonder Woman’s Toshiba is at the “repair depot” for an LCD issue, so… have a desktop compy set up in the living room for her use. Kinda clunky solution, but at least she can chjeck her email and watch Stargate SG-1 reruns simultaneously. *heh*

Still getting above 40mpg in my lil 11-year-old Saturn. Even with “idjits” driving in front of me on two-lane roads that’re largely solid Ozarkian no passing zones.

Example: heading outa town (to another Third World County town about 10 miles away). Traffic stacked up for nearly a mile at nearly 30mph in the 55mph zone. Yep. Some 300 pound idjit on a motor scooter that he could probably push faster than it can carry him.

Now, at 30mph on a level road, I have to keep the lil car in 4th gear. That translates to about 1,500rpm. 45mph, I can use 5th gear… also 1,500rpm. 55mph is not quite 1,800rpm on the same level roadway.

But there I am lugging along at under 30mph, almost 1,500 rpm behind some idjit, wasting fuel.

Oh. Well. Lotsa those folks “driving” around, and I still got 42mpg on my last fill up (about 1mpg more than my porevious fill up–it’ll balance out, perhaps).

Imagine what kind of fuel economy I’d get if even a few of the idjits were to park their cars and attempt to master the intellectual challenge of putting one foot in front of the other…

😉

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Monday, Monday… Every other day…..

…every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah…

*heh*

Meanwhile, gratefully taking a break from Monday (and a break from Dhimmicraps, Repugnican’ts and other evils) to jot a post.

A cardinal principle to remember when purchasing anything: price is not cost. Sometimes (often, in fact), a lower price will mean a higher cost down the road. Sometimes, not all that far down the road.

Example: I haven’t mentioned before how much I despise a certain vintage* of eMachine “computers” have I?

Just a mild warning: if you happen to have allowed yourself to be sucked into buying one of the eMachine cheapo pieces of crap

1. Never trust ANY important data to one
2. Replace the power supply FIRST THING, as soon as you get it out of the box, before turning the *&%^#* thing on. Just sayin’
3. Get some real surge suppression between the thing and any electricity, cos the MOBOS aren’t much better than the power supplies.

Today, I had to tell another person who brought their eMachine to me that it’d cost about what it originally cost him simply to repair the thing… cos the cheapo power supply failed and tooik the motherboard out with it.

If you already have one of the things (shame on you for buying strictly on price!), back up your data and start putting money back to buy a new computer. Or build one from parts.**

*“certain vintage” to mean… darned near ALL of the *&%^#* things. *heh* Of course, this is only one guy’s opinion, but… based on at least some experience over the years.

**June micro-mini-project for America’s Third World County Central: build my first completely new computer in several years from parts. I’ve tended in recent years to take discards and upgrade them to make them useful for my personal use. Nice computers, but I need to do some consolidating, streamlining of my office: just too many boxes and monitors jamming things up. So, my next computer is just awaiting assembly time.

AM2 motherboard (choice is now down to one of two).
Athlon 64X2 (dual core) 5600+ (nice sweet spot)
4GB Crucial memory (my preferred brand)
500GB Seagate HDD
Plextor DVDRW
512MB PCIex vidcard
Nice steel case and good (but not best, which would be PC Power and Cooling) 500W power supply

And a few other goodies, including an external Seagate to match my onboard storage.

To run the thing: testing out several flavors of Linux this month to see which I prefer. So far, even with stiff competition from Linux Mint and PCLOS, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron is still looking pretty good to me. Run the 64-bit version on the 64-bit Athlon based comp; VirtualBox (or VMWare–still testing these) to allow running Win98 (for my music transcription software), WinXP and maybe even PCBSD 1.5 in virtual machines inside the Linux OS.

That’d give me most of the computers I really need to run right there in one box, without the need to use the clumsy KVM switch I now use for several boxes.

Heck, maybe I’ll even switch out my 61-key MIDI keyboard for a smaller controller so I can save even more desktop space to spread my other mess out on. *heh* I like this one (even though I have this one sitting in a box somewhere *heh*)

Well, back to the salt mines.

Riiiiiight… (Cue Moody Blues: “Lazy day… “)

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This weekend…

…is starting early for me. I’m going to be playing with Virtualbox, and I’m putting other things in… another box, for now. (Lovely Daughter’s dropping by Saturday, so that day’s out *heh*)

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OS Play Time

No politics, no rants, no foaming at the mouth with this post. Just a lil fun.

Well, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS “Hardy Heron” has been out for over a week now, and here at twc central, three Windows computers have had it installed… three different ways. The full install (partitioning off a chunck of one hard drive) went slick as goose grease. Nice looks, snappy performance.

Two “Wubi” (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer) installs. One was straight off the CD. (Note: for the one or two readers of twc that don’t know what an iso file is or how to create a CD with one, no sweat. Just visit the Ubuntu home page, download the iso and read up on the well-written tutorial available there.)

A Wubi installation from CD in Windows is just like installing any Windows app you’ve ever installed, only a bit slicker than some. *heh* On a Toshiba Satellite WinXP system, the hard part was putting the CD in the drive. *yawn* Slipped it in during a commercial break (was watching one of my Wonder Woman’s fav shows with her) and autostart brought up the Wubi installer. Told it what user name and password I wanted and let it trundle along. Next commercial break, looked over at the notebook and it was asking for a reboot. Let it. It did its thing and before next commercial break it was rebooting and giving me a choice of booting Windows XP or Ubuntu, using the Windows XP boot manager.

Slick.

Continue reading “OS Play Time”

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An always timely reminder

FWIW

I’m just a tad paranoid about network security. Hardware firewall. Software firewalls on each computer. Up to date anti-virus/anti-spyware, etc., softwares. Strong passwords. Highest level wireless encryption compatible with all my devices (pretty high, lemme tell ya–I’ll just let you guess :-)), etc.

In my inbox today:

Did you Change the Password?

The article’s a short and sweet reminder to change default passwords on equipment you purchase, such as routers, firewalls, etc. I simply do not know how many times I’ve made a service call and discovered as a matter of course that the client has such a device with the default user/password combo still unchanged.

*sigh*

Can you say, screen door on a submarine?

BTW, my last wireless router default UN/PW combo was admin/admin. How hard is that to crack?

Just do it. Don’t buy a piece of hardware that has a default password and just leave it that way. Getcherself off your lazy butt and change the password. No, don’t use your birthday, your mother’s maiden name or your pet’s name. *sheesh!* Get real.

BTW, let me give you a hint how to crack some of my passwords. Some of my passwords are based on the technical names of specific mountains. I simply misspell them in various ways, as well as mixing cases in a semi-random fashion. There. That should get you started cracking those passwords.

Oh, what does that family of passwords go to? That’s your second level exercise, cos I’m not saying.

🙂

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Yet another vote against “upgrading” to Vista

*heh*

Installed Turbo-Tax on the Vista machine. The execrable Vista will not recognize any of my DVD drives as CD drives, and thus would not install; so I shared an XP drive, mapped to it on the Vista machine, and installed using a networked CD. Vista is not really ready for prime time, and nothing I can do will get it to believe that either a read only drive, or a perfectly good Plextor R/W drive, is also a CD drive. DO NOT “UPGRADE” your XP machine to Vista!!!!

Oh, yes. Every time I have to work on a client’s Vista machine I have to watch my BP. I’m glad (I think–I have annual B&Ms about TurboTax) Pournelle did get TT installed finally, but I understand his frustrations. ANd there are multiple reports that Vista SP-1 “breaks” apps that once worked with Vista pre-SP-1, along with driver issues continuing (and in some cases worse) from pre-SP-1.

But mind you (from Pournelle again) Apple’s iPhone has some issues. Here’s one:

If there is no service — when there really is service — this is potentially serious, is it not? I have no idea of what to do about it, except that if you get no service, try restarting the phone. Note that reboot is the usual remedy for many Windows problems. Is Apple learning from Microsoft? Stay tuned.

*heh* “Is Apple learning from Microsoft?” Very funny.

In other OS news, Kubuntu 7.10 has a few more wrinkles to iron out and hoops to jump through than plain vanilla Ubuntu 7.10, but I like the interface better, so I put up with it. Still, installing WINE is a snap in either, and using my Windows version of Portable Opera (on a Memorex TravelDrive) is transparent. Oh, a minor puzzle for the Portable Opera under WINE: for some reason all web pages display in a non-proportional, seriffed font that is NOT the way it dosplays in Windows–nor does the Linux version of Opera on the same machine display that way. I’ll puzzle that one out later.

(Duh. The fonts specified under Windows aren’t available. Simply had to specify fonts that were installed on this box. Shoulda remembered that. Oh, I can make the Windows fonts available to WINE, but it’s just easier for now to use the fonts already installed.)

For the proverbial Aunt Tilly, I believe plain vanilla Ubuntu 7.10 is really about ready for prime time, but Kubuntu 7.10 is for folks who are just a little more ready to dig into the thing and do some of the scut work of getting it set up juuuust so. “Out of the box”–so to speak–plain vanilla Ybuntu 7.10 is a easier for a non-techie to tweak–the Synaptic installer is easier to use than the Adept Package Manager (and much easier for non-command line folks than apt-get *heh*).

I like either.

But for ease of setup and just using the computer, PCBSD 1.5 is just about as good as it gets, IMO. From bare drive on an old 1.3 Ghz compute to installed and up and running in about 20 minutes? Yes. Installing apps is easy-peasy, too. Easily passes the “Aunt Tilly” test. And yes, you can give it all the eye candy of Windows Vista or OSX, if you really want to. With less hardware overhead.

Interesting times.

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Is a Media Center PC in Your Future?

Way, way back in the dim dark past of 2007, Diane bought a Mac and moved her Vaio desktop in with her entertainment center (well, there was that huge flat screen TV to hook it up to, so… :-)) after realizing it was a Media Center-enabled PC. *heh* She’s using it a lot in that way now, but I’ve seen los of folks who’ve had MPCs who never really used the platform’s potential. So, when I began thinking about building an MPC, I began gathering info and making plans for a decent media center I could really use. At the same time, I’ve become ever more comfortable with Linux and BSD ways of doing things so when I ran across LinuxMCE (and here), I kinda hunkered down for a good long read… and then looked about for more information. Here’s a taste of why I became so interested:

LinuxMCE is the only all-in-one solution for your home that seamlessly combines media & entertainment, home automation, security, telecom and computing. You can control your whole house with a mobile phone, a touch-screen tablet or a web-interface. A LinuxMCE system is like an appliance – not a computer. It is self-configuring, maintaining and updating. No technical skills are required to use or install LinuxMCE. LinuxMCE is above all simple. The devices are all plug and play. LinuxMCE is also an open platform, offering unlimited expansion potential, and requiring no special cabling. This is LinuxMCE: a complete, comfortable and secure solution for your home. “

Hmmm, ambitious. And using its full–or even much of its–potential will require some rather extensive hardware/infrastructure upgrades if I decide to go whole hog with it.

Still, it’s intriguing, attractive and designed to be integrated with Kubuntu–one of my two fav distros of Ubuntu (the other’s Xubuntu, a good choice for older computers, IMO).

A quick rundown of installing and using LinuxMCE:

I haven’t built an MPC yet, but the day’s getting closer as I gather more info and explore the benefits and pitfalls of various approaches, but the LinuxMCE approach is looking more and more appealing as I go about this process. If/when I get off the dime and actually build a system/upgrade the twc central infrastructure, I’ll be sure to report back in on how it went.

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Droll: Upgrading to XP from Vista

If you’ve been a Bill Gates “upgrade slave” for any time now, especially suffering through a Vista install, you’ll appreciate, Review: Windows XP. For example:

“XP comes with some impressive device support. In fact, every peripheral I’ve collected over the years works perfectly with it. Many have the device drivers preinstalled on XP, making their installation a snap, but for the rest it was easy to find device drivers on the Web. In addition I found the drivers quick and reliable, a far cry from the buggy, slow and sparse driver support in Vista. I’m glad to see that with their new flagship OS, Windows XP, Microsoft have finally learnt from the mistakes they made with the Vista launch. In addition, support for mobile devices seems to be significantly improved.”

*heh*

In other compy developments,

I guess with Apple shares down about 35% Jobs needs to expand his market, eh? Good luck switching CIOs from RIMM’s Blackberry.

In related news, Intel managed to fall 1.9% recently on news that first-quarter gross margins for the company would be about 2% under projections… Seems fair. (Yeh, the link for that one’s somewhere… )

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Vista-like Drive Icons in Win32

Trackposted to Leaning Straight Up, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, and Right Truth, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Making computers more friendly, one post at a time… *heh*

Interesting lil app posted at TechRepublic

Vista Drive Icon is a free utility that will transform the drive icons in Windows XP’s My Computer into drive icons that resemble those in Vista’s Computer. Once installed, Vista Drive Icon will display a blue, glass-like bar underneath the drive icon. If the drive is close to getting full, the color changes to red.

Now, that lil piece of eye candy might not seem like a big deal, but most of the follow-on comments from people who are IT Pros (read, “techie snobs” for the most part) sound like your common, garden variety Mac users: “Do it MY way and you don’t need this” kind of comments.

Silly.

Continue reading “Vista-like Drive Icons in Win32”

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Still Avoiding Current Events…

…mostly.

Here’s another diversion.

Unnecessary confession: I use Windoze. Because I have to. (I also use PCBSD and Ubuntu, but that’s for pleasure… and some work/productivity.) So far, I have managed to avoid installing Vista on any twc central computers. *whew!* (Wipes forehead gratefully. *heh*) I have seen enough Vista computers “in the wild” to become convinced that, apart from the eye candy, it’s just not worth the hassle for most folks to switch from XP to Vista, if they must use Windows. And even buying a new computer with Vista installed can be problematic; I’ve already seen enough software incompatibilities in the workplace and problems with drivers for peripherals to know it just is not for most of the folks I know, including me. And this is quite apart from the fact that Vista–even installed new on “Vista-ready” computers is generally–from what I’ve actually seen “in the wild”–*heh*–a resource hog and slower than a properly-configured XP computer.

And, despite the monthly or more bug fixes and patches, Vista’s SP-1 is not really available for general installation–not that it is a definite improvement.

Still, there are a few things about Vista that are nice. The eye candy. 😉 But… all I had to do to get the “AeroGlass” look in PCBSD was simply download a skin. And for various versions of Windows, skinning and other Vista-like functionality is available for free via various downloads(free registration required for download), some of which also offer the 3D “flipping” of cascaded apps, etc.

The screencap above is on a Win2K machine with some of the functionality of PCMag’s “VistaMagicPack” (the first link above) enabled. Not half bad, and no discernable performance hit on a middlin’ old 1.3Ghz machine with only 512MB RAM and a tiny lil 16MB vidcard. Try running Vista with all the eye candy on that machine. Not.

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