Destination Unknown

The Curse Continues

nobody@vox.com(Paxton) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:56:39 -0600

My day consisted of driving 180 miles to teach two classes, then driving 180 miles back so I could be at rehearsal. When I got home, though, I found that the power supply I had ordered for my computer had arrived, and I had just enough time to install it. I had never installed one before, and found it surprisingly easy. After a couple of false starts, I got everything hooked up correctly, and now my computer is running again with the new video card.

But my speakers no longer work. They have a loud buzzing noise that continues even if I unhook them from the computer. I've tried plugging their power supply into a different outlet. No luck. These are the Altec Lansing speakers and subwoofer I carried over from my old computer, so now I have the cheap, tinny, pathetic speakers that came with my computer hooked up.

So I bought my new computer when the hard drive crashed on my old one. I couldn't play any games because my video card was too weak. I bought a new power supply to run my new video card. Now I have to buy new speakers. I feel like I bought a fixer-upper.

On the other hand, I feel quite manly for having installed a video card and a power supply with no help.

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What a Bargain!

nobody@vox.com(Paxton) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:05:18 -0600

So, a couple of weeks ago, the hard drive on my four-year-old computer died. I had been wanting to buy a new computer, anyway, and though I usually buy my computers online from Dell, I thought I would just go to the stores and see what was out there.

And there it was, a Dell Inspiron 531 at Sam's Club with a 24" monitor, for less than I had spent on my last computer, though it was (of course) faster, had an awesome monitor, and had everything else I wanted... or at least I thought.

One of the reasons I wanted a new computer was that I wanted to play newer games. Even games that don't take a whole lot in the way of memory and speed were too much for my old computer, and I like playing the occasional roleplaying game with cool graphics. So, the first thing I did after setting up the new computer was I went out and bought Neverwinter Nights 2.

But while installing the game, the installation wizard said, "Your video card has less than 128 Megs of memory, which may affect performance." Sure enough, the graphics skip so bad, I couldn't play it. I checked. My brand new computer had a video card with only 64 Megs of memory.

So, I ordered a new video card, this time with 512 Megs of memory, twice as much as is recommended for the game. Last night I installed it, and turned the computer back on to hear an awful, high-pitched solid tone emanate from the inside the case, although the computer started up fine. I knew that sound; I had a friend whose power supply went bad once, and it made the same sound.

I powered down, opened the computer, looked at my power supply, then looked at the specs for my new video card. The video card requires a power supply capable of delivering 400 watts. Mine delivers 300. My new power supply, the one I just ordered, will be here next Friday.

Gosh, I'm so glad I bought a computer off the shelf at a discount store! Look at all the money I saved!

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Windows Vista and Old Data

nobody@vox.com(Paxton) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:04:56 -0600

My computer died today, as in the hard drive crashed. I concealed my happy dance as best I could, because I've been wanting to buy a new computer anyway. We went to Sam's Club and found one I liked for less than I had intended to spend, with a 24" monitor.

So, I get it all set up with no problem, hook my external hard drive up to it, and go about trying to restore the files I had backed up from my old computer. But wait, will Windows Vista open .bkf backup files from earlier versions of Windows? Surely, it will! To make an operating system that's not reverse compatable with backup files from the last version would just be... evil, and of course, Microsoft's not evil, is it?

You guessed it, Windows Vista won't open .bkf files from the backup utility that was in my Windows XP machine. After a good deal of searching, I found that I could download a Vista version from microsoft, but I also had to make some other adjustments to the operting system's settings. No problem. I download it. It's not for the right type of processor. I go back and download the correct version.

It runs! It's able to access the backup file off of my portable hard drive! I start to extract the files! The program crashes.

I start it up again, and begin extracting the files. The program crashes.

I try it a third time, again, with no success.

Anyone have any ideas?

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IE Should Have Been Called Ah-yeeee!

nobody@vox.com(Paxton) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:25:51 -0600

I just wrote a very, very long post in which I went through the worst 100 movies on Rotten Tomatoes and re-printed my favorite critic quote from each one. I started at #100 and got down to #19 when Internet Explorer crashed. I haven't the energy or patience to re-write it. Suffice it to say that posts of that length will be written in notepad and copied over in the future.

I bet Bill Gates gets an instant message notification every time one of his pieces of software crashes, just so he can chuckle about it.

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