A paw, a pause.
A pa, a pace
Apace, appair.
A pair appear,
Appetition, appel.
Apperil, apparati
Appendages appete.
A parent, preserved.
Latest Entries »
My faithful followers (all 1 or 2 of you) will be happy to learn that after a hiatus of approximately 5 years, my arm has been twisted to the point of actually resurrecting this husk of a web log. Being in college means a fairly irregular posting time, but recently I’ve had peculiar urges to write a verse or two of poetry, a brief sketch of some idea, or just share something funny. Seeing as this place already existed, these things when they manifest to actual posts might as well go here. Also, I just like the URL. (Oddly enough, these urges usually come on stronger the closer I am to any deadlines of presentations, lab reports, or exams. Funny thing, creativity.)
They say that diamonds are formed under conditions of extremely high heat and pressure. I say that ∆S ≥ 0 anyway.
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
Made my first foray into networking/upgrading/randomly taking computers apart recently.
First thing…
*Stripping a Compaq Presario 7360 Series*
Tools:
Phillips screw driver (small/medium)
Crowbar
lots and lots and lots of patience
Larry was an old Compaq Presario 7360, with all the standard factory components.
A whopping 64MB of RAM (SDR at that.)
Totally awesome 7 GB hard drive
500 MHz processor (same one as in Allen)
and the usual built-in video card that dies if you try to run anything more than Majesty.
+ two fans that are probably the best part of the whole thing.
Let me tell you right now. If you have a 7260 Series, they are the hardest computer I have ever tried to open… I have a link somewhere to a guy who actually went through the trouble of upgrading one of these things… I’ll find it and give it to ya later. All in all, I got about $75 of scrap from this thing. Everything worked fine ‘cept the HD was fried. But I’ll get the files off of that soon enough.
Ok… the second fun thing…
*Setting up a wireless network*
Routed the main internet to Hal through a Belkin wireless router, then hooked a Belkin wireless USB adapter to Allen. Could not get Allen to connect to the router… So I called Tech support…
…
…
Your call is important to us, please remain on the line and the next availiable representative will be with you shortly.
…
…
*one hour later* (No exaggerations either)
Your call is important to us, please remain on the line and the next availiable representative will be with you shortly.
…
…
*twenty minutes later* (Bear in mind that by this time it was around 12:45 AM)
Finally, after 80 minutes of Vivaldi’s Autumn (from "The Four Seasons") I get to speak to a Belkin Techie! Yay! Oh wait. It’s an immigrant who can barely speak intelligible English… After a good 20 minutes of confusing help, she asks me to call back tomorrow and let them know if her jumbled instructions worked… By this time the clock read 12:54 AM, I wanted to go to bed… But I figured one more try. Of course, it didn’t work… Then I got in trouble for even being on at such a late hour, at which point I had to produce the permission given me by mom… yada yada yada… It gets better…
So the next day around 3:00 PM, I call up tech support again.
"If you already have a Belkin product and need help setting it up, please press 1"
*1*
…
..
.
*1*
…
…
*11111*
…
*!11181!!11!!11*
…
…
#$&@
…
*hang up the phone.*
*pick it up again*
*call tech support*
*1*
"Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and a Belkin representative will be with you shortly."
…
*cue Vivaldi* (It is so ironic how I wanted to listen to the orchestral arrangement of that song for so long, and now, I never want to hear it again.)
…
*twenty minutes later*
*click*
"”ello?"
[Ah, yes of course! They only have a SINGLE PERSON RUNNING TECH SUPPORT… ALL DAY LONG!!]
(Again, the same person… who still cannot speak "Ingles")
To cut a long, frustrating story short… I got my connection working. Thanks in a very smalll part to tech support. They told me the location of the LAN control panel, and I went there. They told me what to do, and it didn’t help. She gave up, and asked me to call back later. I messed around in the control panel and found that the problem was that it was – get this – *factory preset to disallow other computers to connect to the network*
Oh yeah. If you ever buy a Belkin product, be completely sure you know how to run it, because tech support is little to no help. And chances are, the problem is with the bizzare factory presets, so check there first.
Now, I’m going to either connect Squirrel Boy to Allen via a cross over ethernet cable, or directly to the router via *shudders* a Belkin wireless card. The third option would be to hardwire Squirrel Boy to the router through a long ethernet cable… but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a wireless network…
Whatever I end up doing, I have to wait until I reinstall Windows on Squirrel Boy. Hehe… I had to use the copy that is on Hal, but then realized that if you don’t activate windows in 30 days, it becomes unuseable… and since that windows is already registered on Hal… yeah… ah well.I suppose I could use Larry’s recovery disk… but I don’t want win’ 98 on Squirrel Boy. I plan on playing Halo/Diablo on him.
Well, that’s all for now. Oh! My nerd score is 97! My computer geek score is 93! Beat that!!
Later
You have to press tab 26 times to get from the title box to the text box on this weblog poster.
Anyway… So I started my First Aid merit badge on Tuesday. The only requirement I have left now is teaching another scout a first aid skill… That’s going to be tough, because most of the rest of my troop did the badge back in December. Oh well, I’ll find somebody!
To all of my fellow computar geeks/nerds:
Here’s a brief list of some of the computers in this house:
Hal
Gateway 820GM
1022MB of RAM
2550 MB page file
250 GB Hard drive
Direct X version 9.0c
Intel Pentuim 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
ATI Radeon x300 (Internal DAC[400MHz] 128MB display memory)
DDI Ver. 9 (or higher)
Max monitor Res. 1600×1200
Realtek HD audio output
8.5 GB double layer 8x DVD +/- RW and 16x DVD CD Drives
Hal is our main computer. Most of my gaming is done on Hal, and he takes every bit of stress we throw at him. From playing Pinball to running Halo with full video, Hal does an outstanding job of coping with the massive demands of high-end gaming. Hal is also the only computer connected directly to the internet via cables, and serves as the hub of the other computer’s internet access.
Allen
Compaq Presario 7360 Series
128MB RAM
287 MB page file
13.5 GB Hard drive (F:/) and 3.5 GB HD (C:/) for a total of 17 GB
Direct X Ver. 8.1
AMD-K6 3D processor 500Mhz
Trident Video Accelerator Card 3D/MVP4 8.0 MB memory
Max Monitor Res. 1280×1024
Double layer 48x24x48 CDRW and 4x CDROM
Squirrel Boy
Compaq Presario 5000CL
1024 MB RAM
2462 MB page file
120 GB HD
Direct X Ver. 8.1
AMD Athlon XP 2600+, MMX, 2131Mhz
Not sure about Vid card
8x DVD ROM
Blogs… no. Weblogs. I absolutely refuse to call them blogs! Just had to get that out in the open. Oh, and there really isn’t too much to add to this *weblog*, so I figured it needed some attention.
This log will self-destruct in ten seconds… If I wired it right…
Yo. If you’re reading this, then you seriously are not having an exciting day. And there isn’t anything here that will fix that. So go away, I’m doing HTML!
>end
Word is Up 