Category: FWIW

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Minor Compy Fun: Fun with Peripherals

So, got the computer I screwed up all back to “useful” then installed Acronis TrueImage (the free–and “slightly less good”–version from Western Digital, since the drive’s a WD drive) and made an image of the drive. Now, if I screw it up again, I can just reinstall the image and Bob’s youruncle.

Anyway, I was in the process of picking up some more DVDRs and CDRs at our local “fell-off-the-truck-pricing” store and saw a neat lil Microsoft Wireless mouse for $20. No packaging, just the mouse, USB connection and battery. Bought it. Brought it home and tried it out on Hawg (this computer). No joy. The lil USB adapter got so hot I had to use a chip puller to remove it. Took it back and traded for a Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 keyboard/mouse combo. Slick stuff. Works fine. 5 button Bluetrack mouse and multi-media keyboard. (Of course the first thing I did, before installing the combo, was to stick some high density foam rubber under the capslock key to prevent accidental triggering. Much more useful, IMO, than any of the software solutions I’ve seen or tried.)

Oh, how much did I pay, total (after returning the mouse) for the kbd/mouse combo?

$30.

Same thing is available at Wally World for $60. At Amazon, $50 (and free shipping, no tax). I can live with $30.

First impressions? Nice “click-y” sound and feel from the soft touch keyboard. Really nice. The mouse? I’ve yet to use the “flip” side buttons, but it fills the hand nicely, tracks like a dream and the scrollwheel is smooth. So smooth, in fact, that it’s going to take some getting used to. All-in-all, though, compared to some Memorex, Logitech and “Gateway-branded” sets I’ve used over the past 10 years or so, I like–a lot.

Pics? You want pics? Here’s one:

Another Update:

and

UPDATE: BTW, the 4th and 5th buttons? right now, I just have them assigned to go back (left) and forward (right) in my browser. It’s not such a much, though, because it’s such a minor enhancement as against the mouse gestures I normally use to do those things. Still, until I’m more comfortable with the rest of it, that’s as far as I wanted to take it. I didn’t like the default “flip” function on clicking the mouse wheel (instead of scrolling), so I reset that to act like the default function other mice with clickable scroll wheels have had, just a standard middle click. The scroll wheel is so very smooth and responsive in its default configuration that I am having a bit of difficulty using that function precisely.

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Partitioning Software

I’ve partitioned hard disks since the Good Old Days of DOS, largely from the command line. “sfdisk” in Linux is similar to fdisk in DOS and works quite well. PartEd is a Gnu app most commonly, nowadays, seen as GPartED that does partitioning pretty much like Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director and other apps used in both Windows and as CD boot disks for installing new hard drives. Indeed, the Acronis product is used by several hard drive manufacturers in a brabded version keyed to their company’s hard drives as the recommended method for installing hard drives.

Of late, although I have a licensed copy of Acronis Disk Director on hand, and an older version of Partition magic, in addition to familiarity with command line partitioning, I’ve sort of standardized on a live CD of GPartEd as my preferred method of managing partitions.

Well, I stupidly decided to test out a different product, Partition Wizard (yeh, kinda cheesy riffing off the Partition Magic name; I should have taken the warning that sent up seriously) on the computer I’m customizing to give to someone who might read this post, so I’ll not name that person, yet. 🙂 Anyway, really stupid. Hosed the Windows XP Pro partition. Unbootable.*

GPartEd to the rescue. Not the easy route though. Since a repair install of WinXP had no effect, I simply repartitioned and formatted the drive all over again with GPartEd and reinstalled a fresh install of WinXP Pro, then reinstalled the limited set of software I’m customizing the install with. Bob’s your uncle.

A couple of hours’ work, all-in-all, but now everything’s as it ought to be. Windows now sees and can use the space once taken by a hidden partition (a “restore” partition that was almost entirely useless, given the fact that all the computer had originally was WinXP Pro installed–no other software), and things are working well. I’m toying with adding an external drive to the gift that’s the same size as the on board drive, simply for imaging the thing to once it’s complete (I still have to do a “Windows Easy Transfer” of files and settings from the old computer to this one). I’ve not decided yet whether I’ll add that to the mix, though.

At any rate, avoid Partition Wizard. It doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time. The (also) free GPartEd is much better, and costs no more. In fact, it “costs” less, because it has yet to hose a drive in my use of it. 🙂

*see after the jump

Continue reading “Partitioning Software”

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A Very Good Thing

I don’t often plug things here at twc, but in the last few years (since escaping Fatcow), I have found Bluehost to be an excellent service. Some minor bobbles once upon a time, but, fortunately, customer service speaks AMERICAN ENGLISH and has always been available and helpful. If you’re looking for a hosting solution, click the graphic below.

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Don’t Challenge Me That Way

Over at Revelations From An Unwashed Brain, The Oracle issues this challenge:

By the end of 2010, Microsoft hopes to have Security Essentials in 87 countries and 33 languages. (Could you even name 33 distinct languages? I don’t think I could.)

Well, since you asked, here’s an off-the-top-o-my-head list:

English (duh), French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Russian, Georgian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Welsh, Irish, Scots, Serbian, Albanian, Sardinian, Sicilian, Norman, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Papuan, Maylay, Khmer, Hmong (well, the various Hmong dialects as a language group–some few Hmong live in a portion of America’s Third World County), Olelo Hawaii, Burmese, Arabic, Farsi… I think that should be well over the challenged 33 number, and if put to the test, I could (very) likely name a few more. These are just what few spring to mind.

Now, understand me well, I do not have facility in any but a very, very few of the number named, and what facility I have had in the past has waned with years’ disuse, but surely anyone who’s at all even moderately literate can come up with a similar list off the top of their heads. Surely.

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Curious Mysteries or Mysterious Curiosity?

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has
its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe
when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of
the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries
merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never
lose a holy curiosity.”–Albert Einstein

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Minor Improvements

Anyone recall the 2000 Census “long forms”? Nightmares for respondents and for Census workers, too, I should imagine.

There’s some small improvement in the Census questionnaire that is to begin being mailed out March 1. Only 10 questions, apparently. Download a pdf the Census Bureau has available for review here.

The only question I found really offensive was the question on race. Somehow, I suspect that if I checked “Some other race” and wrote in “Human” that I’d receive a visit asking for clarification… *heh* The phone number question? It’s not as though getting my phone number from a reverse directory is impossible, although in 2000 it would have been a problem (since we didn’t get “real” street addresses on my street until 2005 or so, IIRC).

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Random “heh”

About 15 or 16 years ago, I attended a concert by a wonderful choral group from a moderately large high school, directed by a former classmate of mine. It was my first exposure to the group, and I was amused to see they called themselves, “A Capella” for two reasons:

While the director obviously meant the term to mean “unaccompanied voices” (yes, I checked and that was what had originally been intended, and, indeed, the group had been a voices only group for its first few years), most of their performance was of music accompanied by their director or a student playing piano. And…

“Capella” refers to either a female goat or a first-magnitude star in the constellation Auriga, NOT a cappella (“in the manner of the Roman chapel”) singing. The second “p” really does make a difference for anyone who’s literate.

But nowadays, meaning takes the back seat in nearly every interaction, while feeling has attained ascendancy in all, it seems. Distinctions in meaning are dismissed as “just semantics” or “silly syntax/grammar/orthography rules” (assuming “syntax” and “orthography” are in the vocabulary of the illiterate boob objecting to clear communication).

But back to my lil vignette. I approached my former classmate after the concert and offered my sincere congratulations on having built so fine a musical performance group in a public school system. I also noted the interesting name. Appalled director much? *heh* Name was changed to protect the innocent singers.

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Twilight Zone Stuff

Today, I finally got my desk cleaned off. Well, almost. Four times today I’ve had my keyboard drawer cleaned off down to the keyboard and mouse.

Four times.

It’s not cleaned off now.

I swear–seriously!–my desk abhors a vacuum. Clean it off? “Stuff” creeps out from some space in some interstice between universes and plops itself on my desk. Really. Today, I found some pictures–just sitting out in the open on my desk–that I HAVE NOT SEEN FOR 12 YEARS. Pictures of me that I had been SURE I’d thrown out (because, like every picture I ever had taken for a yearbook–these as a teacher–they were ugly as sin, that is, looked exactly like me. *heh*). My Wonder Woman asked me to give her one of them, because she’d never seen them before (and has the typical perceptual problem of Good Women: she is unable to see just how ugly I am :-)).

Cue Rod Serling.