June movie predictions.

I'm already behind the curve on Iron Man. I'm not feeling good about my Speed Racer prediction, either.

***

In other news, I tried out Camino as a new browser. It's nice, but unfortunatley it won't suffice. I was willing to try and learn to live without my CoLT plug-in or the ability to recover a closed tab at a keypress, but I found a deal-breaker. It won't remember the information I put into forms. Considering how much of my work is doing that, it's absolutely necessary for productivity.

I pondered trying Shiira, but it doesn't seem set up for what I'd require.

So I switched up to the Firefox 3 Beta. So far it's working out quite well. Seems to be a bit quicker and smoother than 2, and I like the new look. I lost the Tabs Mix Plus plug-in, but I found another that gives the the keypress recovery.

I should be looking into upgrading to Leopard one of these days, though.

So, I've been using the MacBook all weekend to try and get used to it before I head out on the long trip on Wednesday. I even turned the desktop off so I wouldn't feel tempted too much.

And today, when I had to turn the desktop on to get some work done on it, I found it eerily uncomfortable. I'm not sure I can exactly say why, but the interaction with OSX is so much more comfortable than XP that even when I've got the habits for navigating in Windows fairly well ingrained, they feel wrong after just a couple days of using the Mac.

It bodes well for using the laptop on the trip, and reinforces to me what a good decision it was to get one, but I wonder what it's going to be like when I get back home. For a number of reasons, I'd prefer to use a desktop (it's better ergonomically and the screen size and brightness are more comfortable...) but the OS differences are vast.

OSX isn't perfect. Java tends to be pretty poor, on it, and when I'm using it it'll tend to bog the system down far more than in XP Both systems have 2 GHz processors and 1 GB ram, so they're comprable there. The desktop does have a dedicated video card, but that's less of a concern with Java. I'm probably going to purchase 2 GB of ram to plug into this when I get to Indiana. Hopefully that will allow me to achieve roughly the same functionality. And since I got the refund, it'll be like I didn't spend anything extra!

Also need to get an iLap.

Got $100 refunded.

Got very little sleep yesterday, as well.

The new computer is working out well, for the most part. I ended up getting a mid-range, refurbed MacBook... of course I've now found out that this has just become the low range MacBook, so I'll need to see about the price protection... granted, since it's a refurb, it's not going to save me a lot of money by doing that.

Even so, it's wonderful. I've been working to make it comfortable to use, and the OS interface is very user friendly. Thus far, I'm not really even missing the second or third mouse button. The two finger scrolling on the touchpad makes up for a lot.

The only downside is a bit of a weird oddity, where the computer and our wireless router do not seem to play well. If I plug it into the router, everything is fine, but if I'm trying to go wireless, any attempt to see a webpage will likely fail. Other internet services work fine, including a DNS lookup, but actually loading the webpage is a no go. And it's just my computer, since every other computer goes over the wireless just fine.

I was concerned that it might be a problem with the computer itself, but I've managed to piggyback a connection over someone else's wireless in the neighborhood just fine. I'm not really sure what to make of it, but since I mostly got this to use when I'm out on trips, it should be fine, provided other routers are okay. We'll see the first test of that when I head out next week.

It's convenient I have it since my desktop is starting to give me some significant problems. It's crashing more often and it's having some really weird issues with the internet itself by only loading pages partially and whatnot.

Now that I have a decent backup I think I'll be able to wipe windows from the desktop once and for all when I get back from my trip. Even if it's difficult for me to get Linux running to satisfaction, I'll be able to use the laptop to work on.

Man... this screen is really nice.

The problem that arose last week resolved itself when Alex moved out over the weekend and became former roommate #4. There could be some rockiness in a couple months, again, but we'll see if we can roll with that if not, eh, at least then I'll be in a bit better position to deal with things.

On the downside, my computer started crashing heavily again. I'm leaning more towards the bad motherboard theory, although I suppose I can test it by reinstalling windows first.

If doing that doesn't solve the issue, I'll need to replace the MoBo. Currently, it's got a Gigabyte K8NF-9 board I bought from Newegg back in January. It's eligible for replacement, however I've long since gotten rid of the packaging, and Newegg policies state it needs to have all of that for a return and I'm not sure if I can return it to Gigabyte at all. Bleh.

So it looks like I need to buy a new one. I've been browsing Newegg, and it looks like I could get any of a number of comparable MoBos (tagged here although there were a few others). Looking at them, they seem to outstrip my current one in a few ways (it's in there, in the middle), although the thought occurs to me that I could, sneakily, buy the same mobo, replace my old one, then return it. Not very honest, but lacking the packaging, it seems the only way to get a return out of it.

Really, I'm not sure. Using the same MoBo is theoretically smoother for any transition. Getting a new one could give me better performance and goes along with the wisdom of not using something that's failed me.

After talking to one of the guys at the office, the problem with my computer may be a bad MoBo, of all things. Which is tremendously annoying to replace, but not impossible.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the original packaging.

Since I made my post yesterday, my computer has crashed just once. And I was out of the room. If a computer crashes and no one is there to see it, did it really happen?

Actually, I think reinstalling the processor drivers (of all things) may have solved the problem. Not totally sure, but one can hope.

Unfortunately, my theory that because I have XP Home and not the slightly better XP Pro, the problems are due to XP Home's incredible suckitude have to be thrown out the window. I've got XP Pro... it's just not labelled as such when loading up. It doesn't say Home either. Now, the easy way to tell would have been to look at my computer properties. This didn't occur to me, though. r, Jesse (Roomie #2, for those keeping score at home) had some computer problems last night and asked to borrow my CD so he could check his hard drive. While he did that, we got to see the nice "Windows XP Professional Setup" on that all text blue screen. So that's how I found out.

In any case, there's a costume party meme going around.

( This is your daily dose of braincell death. )

There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?

It's been a really odd week, computing-wise. I'm not exactly sure what started it, but Motoko was suddenly BSoDding on me every 20 minutes or so. Initially, this was of great consternation, because I'd finally got it comfortable. It was playing music and anime files, both of which I'd accumulated with reckless abandon and (despite stability) something poor Skuld was having trouble with. At least the anime. She was okay with sound files. Usually.

Of course Skuld isn't playing anything, now. She seems to have lost the ability to identify her sound card. It may have gotten jiggled loose when I was moving her around.

So I wasn't really sure what to do. There's over 100 GB of media on Motoko, and 20 minutes really isn't enough time to burn a DVD of files. Eventually, I shrugged and decided to drop $100 on an external HD from Newegg. Although I'm slightly disappointed I had to pay tax now that I live in California.

Once that arrived and I got it set up... Motoko stopped BSoDding. I had about two days of uninterrupted file transferring and work, in which time I was lulled into a false sense of security so I did less of the transferring than I might have, otherwise.

Then it started up again. Since then, it's been haphazard. Sometimes it won't stay for more than 15, at others, it'll be stable for hours on end. I burned two CDs of diagnostic tools so I could check the memory (fine) and the hard drive (fine). This was after I'd switched out my video card and made sure I had the latest drivers. I had to come to the ultimate conclusion that, well, my hardware and ability to build a computer is a-okay and Windows sucks.

Why Motoko, running a perfectly legit and fully up to date version of XP keeps crashing, while Skuld who's never been updated and I don't even think has service pack 1, and has various program issues therein never crashes I'll never understand.

With the expectation that I'd lose my wonderful electronic hookup at any moment, I remained diligent in the file transfers.

They are finally completed. At this point, all I really need to do is shut down and reinstall Windows. I've even got the drivers for the various components saved on the external for when I do get it reinstalled.

I've got a bit of trepidition, however. It's a huge annoyance, and I'm rather hoping that it will suddenly decide to be good and not crash on me.

My newer comp is having issues. I'm not sure what got it started, but it's been BSoDding all over the place. It had an issue like this a few weeks back, but seemed to have settled down before the move. Since, it got started again. The error reports state that it's a video driver problem. However, I've updated the drivers twice and replaced the video card in the past day, and if anything the problem is getting worse.

So I'm on the old box. This thing is over six years old (bought in Sept of '00). I've had a few HD crashes in that time, but in its current build (early '04, I believe), it's been amazingly stable. This is despite the fact I'm running an unpatched version of pre-SP2 WinXP. Actually, I think it's pre-SP1. There are some software issues. Things it looks for that don't exist and I don't know how to get stop, and it's a bit noisy at times, but the thing's solid.

I really do love the box, which is probably why I carted it 800 miles, despite being technically inferior to my new system in every way. Of course, I'm really glad I did, since it gives me a computer to use.

Still, it would be nice if I could get the new box to work reliably. Long term solution there would be to drop Windows entirely. I'd like to go Linux, provided I can get some help setting it up, but I don't know if that will happen any time soon. Even so, there's an immediate problem of getting the ~100 GB of media material I've got on the comptuer off of it. My first attempt to solve this was to start burning DVDs. Should take about 25 or so to do it. However, since it keeps crashing, I can't reliably do that.

My next thought is to get an external USB HD. I can transfer the files over to that. It might crash, but the files transferred should be fine to pick up where I leave off each time. I've been looking around at prizes on Amazon and various online retailers, and it looks like I could get a 120-160 GB drive for under $100, and I've seen a few as large as 250 for under $150.

My third thought is to finally suck it up and spring for a laptop. Something like this, perhaps. Not top of the line, but it seems rhobust enough for my needs. Of course the sale for it ends today, and I don't think I can spring for it that soon. ^^;

What I may do today is run down to CompUSA to see if they've got any external HDD on sale for a reasonable amount that I can pick up. If not, on Thursday I'm going to run down to Redwood City to get my tires rotated and balanced (nearest Discount Tire is 35 miles away >_<). That's not too far of a shot fromt he Palo Alto Fry's, so I can check it out while I'm in that area. I may possibly check out one of the climbing gyms that far south to see what they're like, even though I'm likely to use the one up here in the city more regularly.

Wednesday we're going to try to get my couch and chair up here. Friday I head out to Fresno for a cousin's wedding.

After about twelve hours of industrious shifting, the living room and my little office have been effectively "flipped". The entire purpose of this was so that we could connect my computer to the TV so we could show off fansubs. I had to do a bit of software finnagling but I've managed to get it set up where I don't need any other equipment or to manually switch things around. I checked it with Haruhi episode 11 and it plays stuff just fine. The only downside is that I can't actually see the TV from my computer, so it's a bit tough to actually manipulate things in that window.

So, the plans for Friday are in full Go mode. We'll be having another anime night. Beforehand, those who want to can trek down to the Wood-Fired Neo Pizza place down the street for dinner. I'm going to tentatively guess that we should get together around 5:30-6 to eat so we can start watching stuff by 8 at the latest.

In the offering, we've got Eureka 7 volume 1 (recommended to me by a friend as the Best Anime EVAR. We'll give it a shot) and more fansubs than we can shake a stick at. I've also got Infinite Ryvius, Super Gals, and Rune Soldier on DVD.

Right now it looks like Chris, Wooko, and I are confirmed. Alan, Ro, and Brian may show. If anyone else wants to come, just ping me if you need directions. Otherwise, show up!

Probably the coolest thing I've read in quite some time: Brazil has plans to go completely ethanol... By the end of the year.

Right Stuf is having a sale on Tokyopop items. 33% off. I browsed through the list, and saw a few items that piqued my interest. I think I might use it to grab a random sampling of a number of titles to see what I like. Also, if anyone (Pete, Ro, Chris, Erik) want to, they can give me stuff to order. I'll pile it all on to make the savings better. Note: you can preorder stuff (like, um, the next two or three volumes of Furuba, it seems.)

I find it delightfully odd that the people on my friendslist who talk most about superhero books (ostensibly guy oriented) are girls. Yet I've been having more fascination with more theoretically girl-oriented stuff like what Brian Wood or Becky Cloonan produce.

Media Blasters will release Voltron on DVD. Not sure if I should pony up for it, but it was the first thing I ever got really geeky about.


Fiddling with the new computer. Even with Windows, it's having some issues. Whenever I boot it up, the keyboard doesn't work (works fine in the BIOS and in safe mode. Also worked fine in Linux.) It also doesn't seem to recognize any audio devices, despite the onboard sound. Two very annoying issues. One friend (who helped me with the Windows install) thinks it could be a hardware issue, such as the MoBo dying. Another isn't so sure. I'm afraid it's outside my realm of expertise. If I have to replace the MoBo, that's annoying, and will take a bit of shipping money, but it's better than having to get a whole new one.

Even so, I should try and contact Pat to see if he'd mind coming to look at it.

On the upside, with Windows, I managed to figure out how to do file transfers between the two with little problem. Once I remembered to add foreign language support to the new one, at least. Currently, my music files are transferrring, which they'll probably continue to do for the next hour or so. I, however, will be asleep.

First a meme.

( Not really a suprise )

As is typical, I've plunged headlong into the Olympics. As is typical, there are some sports I love to watch (figure skating, curling) and others which are mildly interesting, at best (short track, snowboard halfpipe). This is true for the summer games as well (love diving, track and field not so much). I'm not strongly against NBC's coverage. The prime-time show actually works out well for my schedule, and I like Bob Costas. A lot of the commentators annoy me, though. I much preferred to watch snowboard cross on CBC than on NBC, simply because the NBC snowboard commentators were grating.

Also, a lot of the interviews with athletes feel insipid and banal.

One of these years, I'll need to go to an Olympics proper. I'd love to go to Beijing.

I've realized that I'm not really a good national fan. While there are some Americans I cheer for, I actually find myself rooting for non-Americans moreso. Also, I have far less excitement for the possibility of an Olympics in a US city than one in another nation. Since I more or less started watching the Olympics in '94, the two I've been least excited about were Atlanta and Salt Lake. From an admittedly biased position, they were the least impressive, as well.

To give an example of how much the Olympics takes my attention. I got my new computer built and mostly set up last month. However, I'm not using it, yet. There are a few programs I need to get running, but haven't, because I'm spending all my time watching the Olympics. Rather pathetic, really.

I also need to get scholarships reviewed. Soon.

Time to go climbing.

Holee shit.

( And now, a meme )


New computer is together and working. Finally. It only took me about a week to get the OS installed. However, I'm pleased that I did manage to get it all running by myself, with only the occasional help from jrenken. In a lot of cases when I had a problem, he pointed me in the right direction and I managed to get through it.

Only thing I need to do now is to get it to have the proper screen resolution. I made a mistake at that point in the install process, and now it's stuck at 1024x768. However, I use a 1280x1024 LCD... going at a lower resolution is really, really bad.

I'll probably spend tomorrow setting up the onboard software. Already it feels significantly more useable than the last time I tried Linux (~5 years ago.) Some things will take getting used to, but I think the 4 screen layers could be very useful for organisation. Use one for work, one for writing, one for general stuffs, etc...

King Kong.
Lakewood Towne Center Cinemas.
7:30 PM.

I'll be going. Chris will be there, pending freedom in his schedule. Ro's expressed interest. Julianne's said she'll make it. If you can make it, post a response.

I don't expect there will be any problem getting tickets right then, so we don't have to worry about someone buying a load for everyone. We could also get food beforehand. There's a Taco Del Mar in the vicinity, which is good and inexpensive, IIRC.

( More finalized plans for the computer. )