13 posts tagged “computer”

So, I've been thinking about getting a second Hard Drive for backup and other stuff, so I scanned the ads in Kijiji (being the bang-for-buck person that I am) I found a 200 GB drive for about $50. Went down last night and got it. Got home. Put in the case. Plugged everything in- no POST (For you non geeks that Power on Self Test, an indication that everything is working correctly.) So, I thought I had not plugged in a cable or something. Tried that. No dice. Called up my cousin, he suggested a cycle my Power Supply (Turn Off, wait, Turn On). Again, I tried that. So I called a friend who does IT work for the Health Authority. He suggested I pull the drive. Did that. Nothing. Frustrated (it's now about 11:30 at night) I went to bed. Woke up the next morning and I looked at the stuff I posted on some forums the night before. Someone suggested swapping RAM, Hard Drive etc. Pulled a stick of my RAM. Bingo. That's it. I'm down to 1 GB of RAM, but RAM is uber cheap ($30.50 for a stick of 1 GB taxes in) So when I got home this afternoon, I put the new drive and started to back up my stuff. Everything is back to normal Moral of the story: If you're afraid of technology, talk to your neibourhood Geek and get him to do it for you (make sure he knows what he's doing first.)  

 A little less then a year ago, I was in the process of waiting for my new computer system. A the time, I thought it was a pretty decent system. 2 GHz processor, 1 GB, 250 GB HDD, X1300 (Budget) Hard Drive, Small Altec Lansing speakers, crappy generic optical mouse and keyboard. All in all, taxes in, cost me about $1000. That's without a monitor. Had to scrounge a 15" CRT from a friend. Fast forward a year. I've got a nice 19" LCD Widecreen, Wireless Logitech Keyboard, Wireless Microsoft Laser Mouse, a midrange GPU (7600 GT), new Power Supply, New Headphones, Speakers. I still have to add another Gig of RAM and upgrade to a Dual-Core processor,maybe a secod hard drive, but other then  that, that's it for major upgrades. The next thing is going to be a Laptop.Or a Mac. Or a Macbook:P.

     Remember all of that stuff I was telling you guys about a few days ago? Well it finally got here. Yesterday around 5ish, delivery truck pulls up and bring in a box. It's my speakers! The nice X-230's I ordered a bit more then I week ago. Had a bit of trouble setting them up as I have not done any cable managment since I got my computer and my sister decided to move her tower over to the other side of the table, further complicating the situation. Soon I'm going to have figure out where to put all the cables Currently all of the cable are draping over the left side of the table and it looks like a jungle. I could open up a little crack in the table (it's an old dining room table.) and run cables down there, but I'm monitor is sitting. If I could just move up my setup to my room things would be so much better. Alas, my parents will not permit me to have an internet connection in my room as of yet. I'm hoping that when I turn 17 or 18 (the age of majority here in Canada.) that they will change there minds. But I digress. Speakers came last night, Dad got me back this morning, Dad wakes me up at about quarter after 7. I have a tendancy to sleep in a bit so I thought that it was almost 8 or so. I get out of my room and see that the keyboard and mouse have arrived.Joy! Only thing is though, it was a refurb'd mouse and keyboard and the store that I got it from didn't ship any batteries with the combo, so I had to go out after school and buy some AAA's. It's bloody expensive too. I love my new setup, only thing I have to worry about now is things like the chair and a new desk. I'm hoping to get a new GPU sometime in the future but I'll wait for the midrange Direct X 10 GPU's to come out sometime this year to grab myself one.
Off to bed, I'll post pics tomorrow.
   

So it's the end of 2006 and I have to say, it's been quite a year, both in my personal life and in the tech world. I joined Vox in August after using Blogger for a few months and I've really enjoyed the community atmosphere. Thanks a whole bunch to people like MainMor,Myke,ninja!bouche and all the other people who've made me feel at home on Vox. It's been a great time this year. I would like to thank all of you guys for the funny stuff that you've posted to Vox. I'll have pics of a revamp of my computer set up in a week or so when the components I've ordered get here. I can't wait.
    I wish you all a happy new year and I'll see you in 2007!
Virtunate

Today being the first day back to school after the long weekend it's what I would call I so-so day. I had my free this morning and I tried to get some work done, however I got kicked off the computer by the teacher who came into the library. And it was my Canadian History teacher no less. It just pisses me off. I mean, I respect him yes, but he thinks that everyone

needs to get out of his way so his students get priority. I mean come on, it's a free country. And I'm actully trying to do work. I bet you some of the bozo's on those computers. But whatever. I got the word today that I failed the math test I wrote before the weekend. I'm going to re-write it though so that's good. But on the bright side, I'm doing extremly well in both Sociology and Math, which is good. And I've been shopping around for a few things for my computer I might get after Christmas. A new LCD display, preferably either a 17" or a 19" and a new Keyboard and mouse. And I finally got that picture of the inside of the case. It's looks cool doesn't it? But I gloat. I also want to get that fax modem out of the case as well. Yes, you heard right, a Fax modem. I have no idea why the put that in there but I have no use for it so it's going bye-bye. Besides, it's taking up one of my PCI slots.
    Congrats to the lovely Boredsvunut who just got a new computer over the weekend. From what I hear it spanks the 400 Mhz PII she was using for going on 3 years. The clock speed on the processor spanks my Athlon 3200+ but I beat her in the RAM and Video cards departments. And I still havn't gotten Ubuntu to work right, but Kudo's to the guys on the Ubuntu boards who've been helping me so far. Without you guys I would be lost! Keep up the great work! I have to do a few things before I get to bed, but I'll see you guys tomorrow, since I get home early.

This is just a short post with the pics I've taken of my computer I few days ago. I couldn't post them until now because the USB ports on my grandmothers computer where screwy and wouldn't recognize the driver. In case you didn't know I've returned back home after a weekend of visiting my mom's family up in the boonies. I had to suffer through the intolerable torture of having Dial Up. And it wasn't even 56 K. At max it was up to 33.5 K which is pitaful for what I want it to do. I'm glad to be back on my 2 Ghz 1 Megabit connection computer. Anyway, I'll post tomorrow. Here are the pics. I hope all my Canadian friends had an awsome Thanksgiving!

Do you play any musical instruments?

I did. When you get into Grade 6 here, your given the opportunity to join ths school band. When you do, your given the choice of a few basic instruments like turmpet, clarinet, flute percussion and few others. When your done Grade 6 your obligated to continue until Grade 9. Which I did. In Grade 8 I switched to the Bass Clarinet which is much better for me since I couldn't play up in the high register. I haven't looked back since. However, this year I decided not to continue in band as I felt I had done my part and I really didn't like the theory in Grade 10. I took heat from both my mother and my band teacher for that decesion. But it's not thier decesion to make, it's mine. I still play my Bass Clarinet in

the community band from time to time, however not the extent I have over the past few years.
    I went through a feasco last night and this morning. See, when I got the monitor I'm using currently, I didn't have the powercord for it, so I snitched the one from the monitor my sister had for an old computer. Turns out she was planning on selling that computer so I felt I should tell her I was using her cable. She told me to buy or give it back. I refused. I thought that was the end of it. So I wake up and go downstairs and turn on my computer. And turn on the monitor. Nothing happens. Then I realize my sister has removed the power cable. Needless to say I was pissed. I confronted her about i t and she say pay her $5 or no deal. I said no way (the cable is worth $4 max.) so there I was with a killer computer, but no cable to power the display. So I talked to the guy who gave me the monitor and he said he would give me the cable. I went to see him after lunch and he wasn't home. I wasn't willing to wait for him so I called up a friend of mine and she said she had a spare lying around and she was willing to give it to me. She did and I went down to her house to get it and that's the end of the story. I actully have a spare as well which is cool. I still have not gotten around to taking pics of my computer, I might get around to it tomorrow or Tuesday.

Yesssssss! *jumps for Joy* I finally got my hands on my new computer. It took me 2 months of working and a week of waiting, but it's here and set up. I was worried that I wouldn't have a display since my friend hasn't gotten her new computer yet, however I friend of mine had an extra monitor and he gave it to me. I brought it home last night and the bottom right colours where a bit wonky, but there all right now. All in all it's been a pretty smooth migration. I thought ahead and loaded the installers for Open Office and Firefox onto my Flash Drive so I wouldn't have to use *shudder* Internet Exploder Explorer. I've migrated my iTunes music to my new machine and backed up all my  purchased stuff onto a CD. I put Firefox, PAINT.Net, iTunes and a few other things onto the computer, but I haven't even used up 10 GB in my Hard Drive yet. The burning on this thing is really fast as well. When I went to burn my music to a CD, it took maybe two minutes. That's all. On the Old Dell, it would've taken a minimim of 5. I haven't tried out the new GPU yet, but I will in a few days. I also want to get Ubuntu running on this baby.
    The look of the computer is pure awsome. It's in kind of sucky local right now, but there is a Windows to the Interior and it has a bunch of LED's that are Green, blue and red on the inside. It looks awsome. There's also a logo on the front that glows. As well as the load light that glows read. (the logo glows blue). I'm wondering if I can change the colour of the Logo in BIOS? Probably not, but it was worth a thought. Overall, I'm very impressed with my new machines' performance, I wish that we some more space though..... Once I get a hold of my mom's camera, I'll shot a few pics of the box. It's a cool looking beast, and I think everyone should see it.
    It seems Netvibes has put a new release of it's webpage. It's defintitly more cool looking than  it was before, but it stil retains that classic Netvibes feel. If you want to check it out, give it a go at http://www.netvibes.com

Went in to see a teacher in my school yesterday, and I told him what system I'm getting. I outlined the specs to him and he said it looked like a nice computer. However, he was a bit concerned, because, apperently custom computers have a higher rate of component failure. Custom computers are 1 in 10 while the brand name computers 1 in 100. But, he said that it's highly unlikely, and if it does happen, it's covered by warranty. According to the teacher, most of the compon

ent failures take place within the first year, so it should be covered by warranty. When you think about it, it makes sense. Companies like Dell, HP and Apple put the systems there making throw hundreds if not thousands of hours of testing and they iron out most of the bugs before they put the system on the market. With customs systems they don't know if the hardware will go together. They might turn the system on to see if it works and to install the OS through the BIOS, but they don't do any extensive testing on the hardware. But another thing that I have a problem with the brand name companies is this put so.much.bloatware. on.the.machines. They offer you all these trails of things like McAfee antivirus, corel stuff and yadda yadda yadda. I. don't.all.this.crap.on.my.computer. I don't need a 30 day trial of McAfee Annoyance or Corel Photo Album 6. I can get all of that free from other companies like Google, and avast. I don't need to be told that I should use the crappiest software on the market. The way I see it, when you buy a branded computer like an HP or a Dell or something like that they always give you 1 bad part. Sure they'll give you the 250 GB HD, the DVD burner. But to throw in a few sour apples, they'll give you 512 RAM or an Intargrated GPU which will subtract from the main system memory to feed the graphics. That's what I love about custom systems. You and you alone get to dictate what goes inside the case. Now mind you, you have to stay within the constraints of your budget, but if your willing to spend a few extra bucks, you'll see the difference in the amount of performance you can get out of your processor and processor. For example, I wasn't content to just have a 1.6 Ghz Sempron (I've been running at 1.6 Ghz for the past 5 years on the Dell.) I put in an Athlon 3200+ and instead of being content with 512 RAM I put in 1 GB. As for the GPU, I'm not a big fan of Nvidea, so I swapped out the 7300 GT that came by default for an X1300 Pro with 512 DDR onboard. That should be able to handle what I can throw at it. I also put in a 250 GB HD because I want to put Linx on my Box as well as a backup partition. The case is fine, but there is one component  I would like to upgrade in the near future. The display I'm getting is one from a friend of mine who's giving it to me for free. According to my cousin I can get a 17" CRT at Value Village for $15. I think I'lll hold off for Christmas though, when I get some more money.

Score 1 for the hackers! A judge in New Zealand declined to convict a hacker who hacked into a reserve bank to find holes in the security system then billed the bank for a security consultation. The bank charged the hacker and he  pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally accessing a computer. He pleaded guilty, however the judge refused to charge him sayi

ng conviction would be out of porportion to his actions.
    I don't know. I mean I'm not for people hacking into innocent  people's systems. But if your a while hat hacker, and your plugging holes in somone's security system, then I really don't see why the bank should take you to court over it.If your hacking into somone's personal computer and then messing around with them, then I think that's wrong. And hacker isn't neccesarily a bad thing. I've tried hardware hacking and it's harmless. For most of my hardware hacks I use a site called hackaday. It's just like the title. It provides you with one hack a day. The one I'm currently working and will hopefully get done in the next few weeks in the Blue Bawls Bottle Hack. It involves takes a bottle of the popular caffine geek drink and making it into a light that only goes in the dark. I've been trying to get the hack to work for the past little while, but the instructions on how to make the circut are vauge and I really have not had time. But I don't thinking hacking is a bad thing, in the grand scheme of things. Unless your doing it for personal benift that is.
    I have tomorrow off so I will probably blog. I'm still waiting impatiently for my new system and I looked around today to see how much and LCD flatpanel would cost along with a wireless keyboard and mouse. I'm looking at upgrading to that after Christmas. But I'm just happy to have a computer now.