Archive for the 'Computers' Category

Page 3 of 8

fishtank computer needs a name

Published on July 12, 2007 in Computers and Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , .

Yup, it’s done. I promise that I’ll get some better pictures later. This is a motherboard and power supply, mounted to a tray and turned sideways, so that the back panel is facing up. The tray is mounted in a fish tank full of mineral oil. There is also an air stone and some decorations in there. Sarah was in charge of decorations. The eSATA hard drive and wireless keyboard/mouse receiver are under the fish tank lid along with the air pump for the air stone. It’s run very well, so far. It seemed to hang when I plugged in a USB card reader, I’m not sure why. The oil level is so high that the USB plug had to be cleaned off before inserting it into my laptop. It’s pretty darn kick-ass and it needs a name.

quickie update

Published on July 8, 2007 in Computers, Family & Friends, Photo and Work. Closed Tags: , , .

Got the fish tank set up with an eSATA drive. Attempted to seal the acrylic to the frame… made a big mess. clean-up of big mess and possibly finishing the project may occur this afternoon. I’ll make a stop at Meijer, on the way home from work, to check out their tank decoration supply.

Another fun week of camp… there some photos on Flickr and Zooomr (same shots). I enjoy the camp photographer role quite a bit. Next week’s trips include Lamb’s Farm and an Ice Cream Factory. Wee!

Spent July 3rd at the Taste of Chicago and stuck around in the record breaking crowds long enough to catch some fireworks. We all stayed at a hotel in the city that night and went swimming in their 19th story pool, the next morning.

different kind of camp/computer/movie

Published on June 30, 2007 in Computers, Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Inner city camp is a new kind of experience. It’s still camp, it’s still summer, there’s still songs and activities and such but having no real home base means we take a lot of trips… some walks to parks and playgrounds and a lot of field trips (on school buses with seatbelts!) to interesting places around the city. It feels like an extreme version of those school-vacation-week camps that I’ve been part of in the past. It’s also a much more liberal and less restricted camp, in terms of contact with the kids; I’m finding it hard to break out of the mold of the Y camp no-unnecessary-touching behavior/style. Another mind-blowing difference is that we provide the lunches for the entire camp and staff, every day. The food’s not bad, either. I need to start bringing my camera every day, the camera-phone is probably not doing these scenes justice. Oh, and I went in Lake Michigan for the first time, on Tuesday, with the campers. It was cold.

Fish tank computer is going slowly. Booting off an external drive is proving more difficult than it seemed. It wouldn’t be an issue, except that I’m trying to preserve the Windows XP OS from the Gateway. I believe Linux would happily boot off a USB drive. I don’t think the machine is quite powerful enough to attempt OS X x86. I attempted a few portable XP installations, with no luck, and I think I’m going to give in and go eSATA instead. Otherwise, it’s in good shape. It runs, and the tray fits into the frame and acrylic piece that I cut to shape (which snapped into two pieces, but we’ll solve that with the silicone sealant). We decided that a blue light was necessary, so I picked one up, and then found that there are blue lights in one of the fans and the power button and the external hard drive enclosure. The machine might need a blue-themed name, when it gets finished.

The Serenity screening was very fun, it was definitely a different experience on a big screen. I knew the fan base was extreme and had obviously accomplished some great things, but the Done the Impossible documentary was pretty informative and really pointed out just how special they all are. We got a couple of Sarah’s friends hooked on the show and have been watching Firefly from the beginning with them.

Serenity

Published on June 15, 2007 in Computers, Family & Friends and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , .

In one week, Sarah and I are going to see Serenity in the theater. Every year there is a charity event called Can’t Stop The Serenity, and we’ve got tickets for the Chicagoland show. In preparation, we’ll probably be watching Firefly – The Complete Series. We were also waiting for the Serenity (Collector’s Edition) DVD to come out, and now we’ve got it pre-ordered at Amazon. I’ve learned to love Amazon. I used to boycott them, when they were still trying to enforce their patent on cookies (via the one-click shopping patent). Hopefully they won’t abuse the new patent they were just awarded. I’d hate to give up my Amazon fix.

Phase One of this week’s computer upgrade project is complete. I gutted the old Gateway that Frank, Sarah’s little brother, had been using and put in a new motherboard, CPU, RAM and hard drive. It took a little more work than I expected, due to the fact that gateway’s choice of case didn’t have all the right holes on the back for the motherboard ports… so some creative sawing was necessary. All that’s really left to do on that machine is add some front audio ports so frank can plug in his headset for his games.

Phase Two involves all the hardware we pulled out of the Gateway and a fish tank full of mineral oil. I’m following the specs detailed by Puget Custom Computers on this page. Fish tank and oil and random parts are all ordered and on their way. I’ll have to go to Home Depot to get the sheet of acrylic and all the necessary sealant. Wish me luck!

flea markets

Published on March 5, 2007 in Computers and Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , .

What better way to spend a couple hours on a sunny weekend afternoon, than browsing at a flea market? Sure, it’s a little cold, but most of it was indoors. Some of the dealers reminded me of the flea in Auburn that we used to go to every weekend, when I was little. I think it was the classic toy & game themed tables, there were a lot of those in Auburn. I bought a Battlestar Galactica comic book from 1978, partly for an icon contest Sarah needed some content for and partly because I really couldn’t resist it. Sarah got some great Mother Goose prints/pages and a few other vintage books and crochet magazines. Good flea market booty. Maybe I’ll get some scans in later.

Also made some good progress on getting OS X on a partition on this Dell. Sometimes it boots funny and is just plain unstable… application crashes and not quite getting into the GUI. The sound is still choppy and sorta half-installed, but otherwise, it runs great. In fact, I’m posting from the OS X installation, now.

weekends are my friends

Published on March 2, 2007 in Computers, Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Work is different in this adventure ed. program. The pacing of a group is spread out over about 20 45 minute sessions and a couple field trips. These sessions are a couple times a week, and there’s a LOT of time for them to forget the things we do and process between some of these sessions. It’s throwing off my whole sense of pacing and timing… and no matter how I look at it, it’s a lot more low-level initiatives than I’m used to doing with a group. Hopefully I’ll get into the pace soon, but the first days with these groups had me fumbling for ideas with a couple of them, and jumping ahead to things that might’ve been too much, too soon. It’s definitely fun, though, and I had some good laughs with a couple of the groups, too.

Sarah’s family took me to Medieval times for my birthday. I had never been before, but I had gone to Medieval Manor quite a few times when I was younger. I couldn’t help but compare them, especially since wenches (and man-wenches) served food to you without silverware and there was the castle themed waiting area. Obviously, though, Medieval Times is family oriented and more of a big-production kind of show, while Medieval Manor was comedy, adult-oriented and in a small, more initimate setting. It was definitely fun, though, and not a bad meal, either. We had a good time laughing at our knight, who was having a sorta bad day. The jousting and swordplay was all pretty cool, but from certain angles, it was painfully obvious how fake the hits were… occasionally, someone actually got a hit in, or some sand in the eyes. We also felt some pity for the guy who carried a pot and a pitchfork around and picked up the horse poo during the show. We figured he must be the new guy.

The Dell is still working great. I experimented a little, trying to get OS X to run on it, on a spare hard drive I have, and had some mild success. The hard part is proper drivers for all the network, sound, video and such. I was pretty close on all of those things, but then had a bunch of random application crashes… so I put the whole thing on hold for now, until I find the right info from the various forums. The native resolution makes everything even smaller and harder to read than it is in Windows, but it was still fun to see this thing boot up the Mac OS. If I could get it working well, I’d probably use it quite a bit. If only Paint Shop Pro had a mac version…

And now I’m enjoying my long weekend (except for front desk work tomorrow night at the Y)… there’s some local school holiday on Monday and we don’t do groups on Fridays, so it’s like a mini-vacation. I can catch up on my TV and maybe read some of the class material or whatever, I really appreciate weekends again.

Dell wins, so far.

Published on February 22, 2007 in Computers, Family & Friends, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

Just about everything is going well, I think. I just finished my first couple days of Adventure Ed. It’s been mostly paperwork, surveys and such, but I’ve had the chance to see some of the kids and teachers and get a feeling for what kind of groups these are gonna be. I really like the idea of this program, hopefully it’ll go as well as I think it can.

Nibbler is running great (and quiet!) thanks to all the new Dell parts. It’s basically a whole new computer… the LCD, processor, keyboard (which i should probably replace, since a few keys aren’t quite right) and some of the case pieces are still original, and that’s about it. It was about $900-1000 worth of parts, according to the lists that came with the parts and the orders that showed up on my Dell account. Pretty good birthday present from Dell, I’d say. Oh, and DHL came a few hours after I called to pick up all the returning parts.

Got a care package from Mom the other day. It had some clothes I left behind, a harmonica that was supposed to be in my xmas stocking, my Super Scrabble board game, some of her famous blond brownies (which have gone over well, here) and a cute card with a check in it. Thanks, Mom.

I get the feeling that there’s something planned by Sarah and the family for Sunday, which is probably birthday related. Anybody else who is feeling generous can still check out the lists (extreme, not-so-extreme). Only few shopping days left! Apple gift cards are also still a great idea, because even though the Dell is working well, Sarah’s iBook was pronounced terminally ill by the Apple store. Only a logic board transplant would save it, and the problem is a genetic defect with the whole line, so the fix is not a good guarantee against a relapse. And there’s no guy named Neil working for Apple offering to send us free parts to fix it ourselves, instead, the Apple store would charge us $300+ and recommends a new machine instead, since the coverage would only be 90 days after that job. So, I’m still considering a Macbook Pro, for us, now, when OS X 10.5 comes out.

Nibblenstein!!!!

Published on February 20, 2007 in Computers. Closed Tags: , .

It took a couple tries, but I installed all the new parts that the awesome guy from Dell sent, in an effort to make this laptop usable again. Opening it up was almost as tedious as the dashboard on my old Celebrity station wagon… but since it didn’t immediately work after I closed it up the first time (no power), I went back in and checked everything, eMailed the guy from Dell and then went in again and replaced the motherboard a second time. So, I’m pretty familiar with the process, now. The second time went way better than the first, it booted up and I installed a fresh windows installation. I made the mistake of saving the anti-virus for last, though, so I don’t know which sketchy old install that nasty little virus came from. It’s all gone, now. It wasn’t too hard to track down once I ran one deep scan. The verdict? Nibbler is much quieter and hasn’t had any “heart attacks” with the new hardware. Neil the Dell guy definitely rocks for “owning the problem.” Now I’ve gotta figure out which box all this stuff that has to be sent back goes in and how soon I can get DHL here to pick it up.

Sarah took Pictures

squeak

Published on February 11, 2007 in Computers, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

On mom’s advice, I officially added a shaver to my Amazon list. She said that my Uncle and Grandfather have been using a Norelco tripleheads with no complaints and that my dad had a Braun self-cleaning that was a disaster. I looked into the Norelcos, and found the ones that dispense gel or lotion the most appealing. So I added one.

Work has been going well! The initial meeting/training for the Adventure Ed position went great. I’m working with a few cool people and the way the day(s) work is much clearer to me, now. More trainings for that on Monday and Tuesday, and then it really begins the following week. I had my first official day as desk staff at the Y, tonight, and I learned a bit of the other desk-related jobs from the night’s facility manager. We also talked a lot about other programs, team-building, teen center type stuff, and she turned out to be a very like-minded individual. So that made the night fun. Clean-up took a little longer than expected, but otherwise, not a bad gig. Looking forward to picking up a few extra hours at their rock wall and possibly in that community service program.

In other news, on Monday, I am expecting a shipment of parts from Dell. These include a motherboard, fans, and video card replacement for my laptop. I have no idea how this super dude, Neil, found my site, but apparently this is an amazing case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. I’ve talked quite a bit about my poor Dell laptop over the past few years, all its ups and downs, and after my last post about it and the idea of replacing it with a macbook pro, I got an eMail from Neil from Dell. After a conversation and some research by him, he agreed that the situation was never truly resolved and put in an order for a bunch of parts. So I get to take apart my Dell and give it some fresh hardware. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

settling in, being a bum and loving life

Published on January 6, 2007 in Computers, Family & Friends, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I’ve officially lived in Illinois for about 11 days, now. I’ve had plenty of time to get all the computers set up and happy… as well as my TV, speakers, DVD player and Wii. It’s nice to live with a bunch of people again, getting to learn their schedules and habits and such. I feel at home already. Still have those loose ends hanging around… local bank account, switching driver’s license, insurance, car ownership, whatever address change requests I forgot, etc. Life is pretty damn good, though.

I’m also officially a bum, and so is Sarah. So we get to spend oodles and oodles of time around each other, which is fun. Threadless laid her off… right after the sale ended, though they kept her through the holiday party and such, so we got a bunch of cool free shwag and a good time out of them before she left. We haven’t figured out their reasoning, they said she did nothing wrong, but they still had the temps on for a couple weeks after she left. My best theory is that it has something to do with their new VC partners, but we haven’t heard about any other lay-offs of part-time people, so there’s no real answer.

Anyway, that leaves us both as jobless bums. Sarah’s knitting a lot, though mostly gifts at this point, but there’s still some interest in trying to make a living out of it… we have to find some sort of small project that’s the cash cow to support the big projects, though. perhaps some other simple craft.

Meanwhile, I need to start getting in touch with all those prospects I made initial contact with around Thanksgiving, to see what the actual job possibilities are. Most of them had the same message back in November: call us next year. Well, it’s next year… so I gotta start getting on that. Otherwise, I’ll have to take some weird job in retail or something.

Speaking of retail, there’s a buttload of it out here. I don’t understand it. The population density is about the same out here as it was in New England, but there’s retail as far as the eye can see here… and it seems like retail struggled to stay open back east. I haven’t seen an empty abandoned strip mall, yet. I do have a new favorite store, Meijer. It’s like Wal-Mart or a Target… of the super variety (full grocery and department store)… but it seems somehow less evil. And they carry Apple Soda and Matt’s Real Cookies, my favorites. And they’re right down the street; everything is right down the street. Driving ten miles to a store is a foreign concept to Sarah’s family. The only things within ten miles of my place in Woonsocket, was the Bargain Outlet, Box Seats, a White Hen, Ye Olde Fish & Chips and a few Dunkin Donuts (which are seriously lacking, or perhaps in a more reasonable abundance, out here) … and about 10,000 triple decker apartment buildings full of people who don’t shop retail as much as people in the midwest do, apparently. I guess the East Coast megalopolis is just spread a little too thin or something.

I miss the east coast a bit, obviously I miss Mom and some other people, but life out here is good. I’m getting used to the differences in the landscape and the commerce and such. It doesn’t seem like anything here is any worse than out there, just different. I guess I missed out on a lot of goodbyes during the weekend that Sarah was out visiting. I spent some time in Dudley and made a final daytrip to NYC, which was a lot of fun, but sort preempted any trips to Worcester or Amherst or Northampton. Now that I’m here, it doesn’t seem like much of a loss, though.

So, what do you think? Got any employment opportunities I should check out, or know of some hidden talent I have that I could live on like Odd Todd? Lemme know how you all are, too.

woot