So I just set fire to a G5 with sparks and flame firing from the the rear fans (i was holding it up and staring in it at the time)
all I did was plug in a firewire cable,
sigh...
Looks like I am going to have to Sacrifice a few sales people....
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
I appear to have pissed off the god of electricity...
So, I thought it was bad and annoying when my Xbox360 DIED without reason on saturday and gave the red ring of death...
couldnt get worse right?
Monday:
I have firewire ports not responding to each other (trying to figure out with machine has the dead ports and all signs say both now)
My external hard drive just decided to day its gonna go into meltdown and almost start a fire under my desk and in the process losing about 96gbs of data.
My GM's pc just gave up the ghost and rick has been working hard to bring life to it some how we even went out and bought a copy of vista upgrade but that needs to start in the os (?)
SIGH
3 hours left...
couldnt get worse right?
Monday:
I have firewire ports not responding to each other (trying to figure out with machine has the dead ports and all signs say both now)
My external hard drive just decided to day its gonna go into meltdown and almost start a fire under my desk and in the process losing about 96gbs of data.
My GM's pc just gave up the ghost and rick has been working hard to bring life to it some how we even went out and bought a copy of vista upgrade but that needs to start in the os (?)
SIGH
3 hours left...
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Joining the masses
For awahile now I have been trying to figure out what people do in Starbucks when they are sitting there for hours.
So due to a series events that all lined up just right...
here I AM!
So got my coffee, 1 Venti Americano (good stuff I suggest everyone drink one of these a day)
Laptop open, its nothng special to look at unless I rotate it to tablet mode but it is running Vista, hopefully no one will notice and want to talk, I am just here to observe and follow the Prime Directive!
So laptop open, and surfing the net...
people coming in and going out,
few people been here looks like for the long haul, i suppose i look like this right now,
not much going on, people reading
chatting, writing, staring...
this is all not very interesting
wait
theres wildlife in the back
ahhh the local crazys... babbling to everyone half smoked cigarettes in their mouth
you know
for all its pomp and arrogance...besides the tmobile hotspot deals and readily available electricity this place is like Dunkin Donuts -donuts.
I think its the mood lighting
It sets your internal clock wrong so you dont notice how much time has passed
they dont really bother you either
and I have noticed the clientele here is between the ages of 15 and 20 majority, girls..
how odd, I always thought guys drank more coffee and the older generation
then again I hung out in a dunkin donuts for like 16 years...
and it was alot like this Starbucks in Upper Montclair
all I need is to look out the window and see some kids hacking and Morty walking around babbling nonsense to feel at home...
ah well...
So due to a series events that all lined up just right...
here I AM!
So got my coffee, 1 Venti Americano (good stuff I suggest everyone drink one of these a day)
Laptop open, its nothng special to look at unless I rotate it to tablet mode but it is running Vista, hopefully no one will notice and want to talk, I am just here to observe and follow the Prime Directive!
So laptop open, and surfing the net...
people coming in and going out,
few people been here looks like for the long haul, i suppose i look like this right now,
not much going on, people reading
chatting, writing, staring...
this is all not very interesting
wait
theres wildlife in the back
ahhh the local crazys... babbling to everyone half smoked cigarettes in their mouth
you know
for all its pomp and arrogance...besides the tmobile hotspot deals and readily available electricity this place is like Dunkin Donuts -donuts.
I think its the mood lighting
It sets your internal clock wrong so you dont notice how much time has passed
they dont really bother you either
and I have noticed the clientele here is between the ages of 15 and 20 majority, girls..
how odd, I always thought guys drank more coffee and the older generation
then again I hung out in a dunkin donuts for like 16 years...
and it was alot like this Starbucks in Upper Montclair
all I need is to look out the window and see some kids hacking and Morty walking around babbling nonsense to feel at home...
ah well...
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Windows Vista: Day 3 (work)
So today I decided to plug in my wonderful partially disabled (due to Vista incompatibilities) Tablet to the big wide work network and I saw some new activities:
Vista Prompted me to setup a network location as soon as it started because I had wifi on, and being security minded, it offered me the option of Private or Public network (incase you forgot Public means firewall goes up and there is 0 sharing between you and everything else, i.e. you cant see them they cant see you) so on my wifi i set public and then plugged in and shut wifi off...
I have a ip assigned to my Tablet already so thats taken care of (we are a non DHCP location) and as soon as the plug snapped to port up comes the "Choose a new location..." prompt and I choose Private this time and proceed to see the Netowrk shares loading.
Now there is a repository for temporary files that we use to transfer files around, aptly named 1TEMPORARY, this little g4 400 with 80gb drive that sits under my desk is super important to connect to for all users...
guess what?
For some reason Vista wont inout the User and password right directly out of sharing (in its defense I am probably doing something wrong or I need to be more patient) but it kept adding T1501 to the beggining of my username (thats the computer name) and I know i have quite a few pc users on 1TEMP so there has to be away....
Next I tackled the the elusive Flashplayer issue
and with the help of this (http://weblogs.asp.net/derekh/archive/2005/08/16/422743.aspx)
I finally have it running!
Yay....
Vista Prompted me to setup a network location as soon as it started because I had wifi on, and being security minded, it offered me the option of Private or Public network (incase you forgot Public means firewall goes up and there is 0 sharing between you and everything else, i.e. you cant see them they cant see you) so on my wifi i set public and then plugged in and shut wifi off...
I have a ip assigned to my Tablet already so thats taken care of (we are a non DHCP location) and as soon as the plug snapped to port up comes the "Choose a new location..." prompt and I choose Private this time and proceed to see the Netowrk shares loading.
Now there is a repository for temporary files that we use to transfer files around, aptly named 1TEMPORARY, this little g4 400 with 80gb drive that sits under my desk is super important to connect to for all users...
guess what?
For some reason Vista wont inout the User and password right directly out of sharing (in its defense I am probably doing something wrong or I need to be more patient) but it kept adding T1501 to the beggining of my username (thats the computer name) and I know i have quite a few pc users on 1TEMP so there has to be away....
Next I tackled the the elusive Flashplayer issue
and with the help of this (http://weblogs.asp.net/derekh/archive/2005/08/16/422743.aspx)
I finally have it running!
Yay....
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Windows Vista: Day 2
I have made a promise to myself to not use any macs for this whole weekend to get the nice full experience of Vista without distractions, and I have to say, its not bad...
Except:
So I set out to make Windows Media Player to play nicely with my 360, so after I checked my file sharing abilities (in a very user unfriendly menu), I make sure everything is as it should be and reboot...
and start my 360
start the the media center setup on 360 and media center on pc...
input 8 digit code (not sure what this is all about)
and...
IT WORKED!!!
unfortunatly I have no media on here so i navigate to online stations and attempt to check out mtv when
"THIS OPTION REQUIRES THE LATEST FLASH PLAYER INSTALLED"
wtf?!?
(now a little backstory: since I loaded Vista and started running aim, i noticed my friends icon, titled "weemee" doesnt run anymore because it says i need the newist version of flash which have tryed to install again and again over a matter of hours)
So i discover flash doesnt work for Vista,
oh well...
Besides that and some odd problem where my aim keeps logging off and Vista drains the batteries like crazy
oh
and the fact my tablet cant sleep anymore (felt like the processors were going nuclear)
everything is pretty cool.
I forced Divx player to install and run under a Win Xp sp2 emulation, so I was able to connect to my bedroom Mac (which is getting a little long in the tooth) and share some movie files to my Vista and played a episode of FireFly cross network, unfortunatly the codec couldnt install into media player so I used divx player.
I look forward to the future of this OS and to testing it this week at work in a office environment.
Except:
So I set out to make Windows Media Player to play nicely with my 360, so after I checked my file sharing abilities (in a very user unfriendly menu), I make sure everything is as it should be and reboot...
and start my 360
start the the media center setup on 360 and media center on pc...
input 8 digit code (not sure what this is all about)
and...
IT WORKED!!!
unfortunatly I have no media on here so i navigate to online stations and attempt to check out mtv when
"THIS OPTION REQUIRES THE LATEST FLASH PLAYER INSTALLED"
wtf?!?
(now a little backstory: since I loaded Vista and started running aim, i noticed my friends icon, titled "weemee" doesnt run anymore because it says i need the newist version of flash which have tryed to install again and again over a matter of hours)
So i discover flash doesnt work for Vista,
oh well...
Besides that and some odd problem where my aim keeps logging off and Vista drains the batteries like crazy
oh
and the fact my tablet cant sleep anymore (felt like the processors were going nuclear)
everything is pretty cool.
I forced Divx player to install and run under a Win Xp sp2 emulation, so I was able to connect to my bedroom Mac (which is getting a little long in the tooth) and share some movie files to my Vista and played a episode of FireFly cross network, unfortunatly the codec couldnt install into media player so I used divx player.
I look forward to the future of this OS and to testing it this week at work in a office environment.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Old Friends...
I was pointed by Anthony pointed me to a friends blog (Erica) and I discovered 2 things:
1. Shes on Blogspot (which I swear it never occured to me that her blog, which I have read, was at blogspot)
and
2. True friends never forget each other, ever.
So I have to make more of a effort to contact all the people who are and were true friends and try to make plans to meet up face to face at least once a year and talk to them (email, phone, im, blogs)more often.
To Erica:
we will meet and you need to come see the fam sometime soon.
To all of my friends reading this:
I wont ever forget who you are and welcome all contact.
does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said "we would meet again..."-Pink Floyd
p.s. if anyone has seen or heard from Chris Pinder tell him "Wassup" for me!
1. Shes on Blogspot (which I swear it never occured to me that her blog, which I have read, was at blogspot)
and
2. True friends never forget each other, ever.
So I have to make more of a effort to contact all the people who are and were true friends and try to make plans to meet up face to face at least once a year and talk to them (email, phone, im, blogs)more often.
To Erica:
we will meet and you need to come see the fam sometime soon.
To all of my friends reading this:
I wont ever forget who you are and welcome all contact.
does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said "we would meet again..."-Pink Floyd
p.s. if anyone has seen or heard from Chris Pinder tell him "Wassup" for me!
Windows Vista: Install and Day 1
Friday Feb. 2, 2007,
Rick and I run the Windows Vista Update Advisor on our HP Tablet tc4400 (Vista Capable). Well they are almost compatible, the hardware is fine and we had enough ram to run things, there were some software issues. Almost all of the HP included security software and Windows Messenger (yep Windows Messenger requires you update it seperatly) oh and Nero Burning ROM 6.0. So I removed all the offending software and off we went to purchase Vista Business edition...
Which Best Buy doesnt have, oh well we get all the same stuff from Ultimate! Yay!
Back to the office Vista Ultimate in its pretty black all hard plastic case...
which took about 10 mins to figure out how to open, jeez, they could have worked that out better. For your sake I will explain how to open it before you go mad:
On the case near the front you will see 2 tabs, lift the one on the outside of the case, then squeeze the 2 tabs together and pull outwards and down and it folds out. Also pay attention to which disk you pull out because there are 2 and one is for a 64bit Win install the other is for a 32 bit.
Rick started his install first so I didnt get to start mine until I got home later that night (the tablets dont have optical drives so we share a usb plextor drive that was actually made for this machine).
So I get home and eager to start my "Jolt to the standard OS" (tagline for Vista seen in Penn Station) I pop in the disk and hit "Upgrade"...
The install starts and suddenly tells me there is yet another incompatible piece of software and it will not continue until I remove it through "add/remove"...sigh
...2 mins later...
Installing!
Transfering nessecary files yay!
hrm, wait a minute... says at the bottom:
Install Operation in Progress, this may take several HOURS!
What the hell!!!
HOURS? its a damn UPGRADE of existing software, is this normal?
I did a fresh install of linux on my PS3 and it didnt take hours!
oh well, I suppose if I want the goods I got to be patient.
Thankfully, the install (with a few prompts that aren't really note worthy took 2 hours and 20 mins (which I spent playing with my new Xbox Live Vision Camera and a few rounds of Rainbow Six:Vegas with Omer, thanks man!)
So its up and running at 2:30 am, sigh...kinda tired, so i look at it for a few mins, check out the "Gadgets" (like Mac os widgets but they stay docked on the right side of your screen, not sure if thats good..)
"Aero" makes things interesting, like now the windows are translucent so you can kinda see things behind your open windows edges, mousing over anything in your taskbar brings up a tiny little window of said item (dont know if thats worth the cpu power)and things don't popup when you click them anymore, like applications or folders, they kinda dissolve in and out.
There is something here that confuses me and I havent figures it out yet. When you click on a icon, or just mouse over it, a little empty box appears over the top left side of it which upon double clicking puts a "checkmark" in it. If anyone knows why thats there please write to me. Otherwise I will post about it upon discovery.
Now even though its almost 3:00am, I have Windows Vista Ultimate on my lap, and in front of me I have the Xbox 360 which is supposed to share media through Media Center which is a part of the Ultimate edition of Vista.
So I can surely spare the few mins it takes to have them connect and prep to start sharing media right?
Well first I scan the network using the 360 to see if it sees Media Center...
No Dice.
OK try scanning for the 360 in my network using Vista...
Nada,
but now it says "You must enable sharing as it is default off on public Networks and the current NetworkGrendels Lairis public unless you Change it to Private"
So I go about changing it to a private network and I enable file sharing.
The Xbox 360 shows up immediatly 2x. I try to scane for media center using the 360 and...
Nothing!
WTF!.
I am tired so off to bed...
The next day:
I have been using Vista all day (effectivly ignoring the Macs in my house for the first time since they got here) and well not much is different, it did seem to take a hint from the Mac OS in the security (this is not a "OMG they copied again" dig at windows), when you install software you now have to permit it through a series of click throughs asking "If you wanted to install this software please click continue otherwise click cancel".
I downloaded a several new Gadgets, but one of them was broken and kept crashing the Gadget dock, and I got this:
"A program has crashed the Side panel click here to find a solution"
I click and wait 10 secs as it runs
"A solution could not be found please remove the program: (name of program)"
I remove it and all is better.
I go to empty the trash and see something I have never seen before on a windows trashcan, "Delete"
Which I hit, hehe
and the trashcan vanishes.
oops
I head to Desktop Properties and I am hit by a confusing list of choices, very much unlike the old prompt. Its confusing in its style and content.
I head to the place where the icons for the esktop reside and there was my Trash icon enabler and a new desktop Icon: Control Panel! That seems convenient so I enable it.
Also I was tempted to change my setup to classic mode but I decided to keep it as is to get the total experience....
I will keep you informed.
Rick and I run the Windows Vista Update Advisor on our HP Tablet tc4400 (Vista Capable). Well they are almost compatible, the hardware is fine and we had enough ram to run things, there were some software issues. Almost all of the HP included security software and Windows Messenger (yep Windows Messenger requires you update it seperatly) oh and Nero Burning ROM 6.0. So I removed all the offending software and off we went to purchase Vista Business edition...
Which Best Buy doesnt have, oh well we get all the same stuff from Ultimate! Yay!
Back to the office Vista Ultimate in its pretty black all hard plastic case...
which took about 10 mins to figure out how to open, jeez, they could have worked that out better. For your sake I will explain how to open it before you go mad:
On the case near the front you will see 2 tabs, lift the one on the outside of the case, then squeeze the 2 tabs together and pull outwards and down and it folds out. Also pay attention to which disk you pull out because there are 2 and one is for a 64bit Win install the other is for a 32 bit.
Rick started his install first so I didnt get to start mine until I got home later that night (the tablets dont have optical drives so we share a usb plextor drive that was actually made for this machine).
So I get home and eager to start my "Jolt to the standard OS" (tagline for Vista seen in Penn Station) I pop in the disk and hit "Upgrade"...
The install starts and suddenly tells me there is yet another incompatible piece of software and it will not continue until I remove it through "add/remove"...sigh
...2 mins later...
Installing!
Transfering nessecary files yay!
hrm, wait a minute... says at the bottom:
Install Operation in Progress, this may take several HOURS!
What the hell!!!
HOURS? its a damn UPGRADE of existing software, is this normal?
I did a fresh install of linux on my PS3 and it didnt take hours!
oh well, I suppose if I want the goods I got to be patient.
Thankfully, the install (with a few prompts that aren't really note worthy took 2 hours and 20 mins (which I spent playing with my new Xbox Live Vision Camera and a few rounds of Rainbow Six:Vegas with Omer, thanks man!)
So its up and running at 2:30 am, sigh...kinda tired, so i look at it for a few mins, check out the "Gadgets" (like Mac os widgets but they stay docked on the right side of your screen, not sure if thats good..)
"Aero" makes things interesting, like now the windows are translucent so you can kinda see things behind your open windows edges, mousing over anything in your taskbar brings up a tiny little window of said item (dont know if thats worth the cpu power)and things don't popup when you click them anymore, like applications or folders, they kinda dissolve in and out.
There is something here that confuses me and I havent figures it out yet. When you click on a icon, or just mouse over it, a little empty box appears over the top left side of it which upon double clicking puts a "checkmark" in it. If anyone knows why thats there please write to me. Otherwise I will post about it upon discovery.
Now even though its almost 3:00am, I have Windows Vista Ultimate on my lap, and in front of me I have the Xbox 360 which is supposed to share media through Media Center which is a part of the Ultimate edition of Vista.
So I can surely spare the few mins it takes to have them connect and prep to start sharing media right?
Well first I scan the network using the 360 to see if it sees Media Center...
No Dice.
OK try scanning for the 360 in my network using Vista...
Nada,
but now it says "You must enable sharing as it is default off on public Networks and the current NetworkGrendels Lairis public unless you Change it to Private"
So I go about changing it to a private network and I enable file sharing.
The Xbox 360 shows up immediatly 2x. I try to scane for media center using the 360 and...
Nothing!
WTF!.
I am tired so off to bed...
The next day:
I have been using Vista all day (effectivly ignoring the Macs in my house for the first time since they got here) and well not much is different, it did seem to take a hint from the Mac OS in the security (this is not a "OMG they copied again" dig at windows), when you install software you now have to permit it through a series of click throughs asking "If you wanted to install this software please click continue otherwise click cancel".
I downloaded a several new Gadgets, but one of them was broken and kept crashing the Gadget dock, and I got this:
"A program has crashed the Side panel click here to find a solution"
I click and wait 10 secs as it runs
"A solution could not be found please remove the program: (name of program)"
I remove it and all is better.
I go to empty the trash and see something I have never seen before on a windows trashcan, "Delete"
Which I hit, hehe
and the trashcan vanishes.
oops
I head to Desktop Properties and I am hit by a confusing list of choices, very much unlike the old prompt. Its confusing in its style and content.
I head to the place where the icons for the esktop reside and there was my Trash icon enabler and a new desktop Icon: Control Panel! That seems convenient so I enable it.
Also I was tempted to change my setup to classic mode but I decided to keep it as is to get the total experience....
I will keep you informed.
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