Category Archives: computers

Wednesday Morning Random Stuff

So this morning I’m off to the third day of the four-day “Intro to Statistics” course that I started last week (it wraps up tomorrow). I have to admit, having the break in the usual routine is nice, and today should be more enjoyable than last week since I won’t be running a fever or coughing up a lung. As usually happens with these things, I do still have a slight residual cough, and probably will for another week or so. This led me to get up at 2:15 AM to take some cough syrup, and I couldn’t get back to sleep until 3:30 AM. Ugh.

So I did finally pull the trigger on buying a new laptop. I went with the Dell Inspiron 1520 (2 GHz Dual Core 2 processors, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive) and picked up a very nifty discount through takaza‘s employer. Plus, it’s a color I suspect pinkleader will drool over:

Of course, I’d have felt better if I hadn’t read two scary pieces about Dell in Consumerist right after ordering, but I figure that’s pretty much life in the consumer laptop market these days. And I look at it this way: if anything goes badly wrong, I always have someone I can call. Hey kellicjtiger, would you be OK with exchanging laptop service for dinner at a fancy restaurant? 🙂

So following today’s exciting class, it’ll be over to the Westin to have dinner with MFF’s salesman there. Hopefully we’ll nail down a few important items, and maybe get some pictures of some of the suites that we’ll be offering soon, as well. But now, I’m off to class.

Laptop Envy

So as I mentioned my laptop power supply gave up the ghost again. This is annoying because I only bought it two months ago. I will note that it was sold with the Compaq part number as its catalog number – not “compatible with” or “replacement for” – yep what they sent was clearly a knock-off piece of crap. The power module is twice the size of the OEM part, and the OEM power supply has a ground plug; the replacement didn’t. Looking at the warranty, I see that they will “repair or replace at their discretion”. Um, thanks but no thanks. I have a replacement coming in from Amazon that, which more expensive, I know will work.

For all that this is a relatively inexpensive part, the busted power supply reminded me that my laptop is really getting on in age. I was shocked when takaza reminded me I bought it back at Christmas, 2004 – three years is a heck of a lifetime for a laptop that gets as much use and travel as mine has. Still, I’m also reminded of the problems: if you run iTunes and anything else, it slows down the whole system and any use of Java or Flash is cause for the system fans to crank up to “ultrasonic”, the processor to heat to near-glowing, and the whole system to slow to creeping halt. I’m thinking it may be time for a replacement. Plus, genet has mentioned that Midwest FurFest’s Artists Alley needs a new laptop – they may be getting mine!

I’ve got my eye on a Dell Inspiron 1520 running Windows XP. I’m just not sure I’m ready to make the jump to Vista yet, though I know it’s only a matter of time. Maybe after the next service pack release? I dunno. The setup I’m looking at has Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 processors, 3 GB on board, and a 250 GB hard drive – not a bad laptop for $900. Given that I’m going to be doing work with RAW files in the near future, I’m going to need something with plenty of processing power and memory. I’ve got time to think this over, though. I want to get the best bang for my buck, so I’ll be looking at all possible deals and configurations while I can.

My MP3 Cup Overfloweth

How unique – a LiveJournal entry that isn’t a meticulous chronicle of my daily life 🙂

We’re in the middle of attempting to combine and sort through our MP3 library on a single server in takaza‘s office. Happily, it’s hooked into the network so it’s accessible from anywhere in the house. As we’ve combined stuff down, a nasty by-product is the discovery of duplicate files – mostly stuff that was on different computers. In some, but not all, the more recent files have been fed through MusicBrainz and properly tagged. Were that the case universally, it would be much earier to sort through the 2,500+ duplicates (out of around 17,000 tracks). It’s looking like I’m going to have to sort through manually and remove either mis-tagged or, in some cases, lower bitrate files (how the heck did that happen?). Fortunately, MediaMonkey is excellent for identifying duplicates, and the interface seems to be good for comparing the files and deciding what to keep. I expect that once we ahev everything in place I’ll set up a local library and a network library in iTunes so I can keep stuff locally on my laptop to sync with my iPod, and also have tunes on hand when I’m mobile.

It’ll be interesting to see if we have the network throughput to play MP3’s from the remote server and pipe it to the Airport Express once everything is up and running. Speaking of which, some of you may recall we were getting a nasty ground loop hum from the conection beteen the Airport Express and our stereo. After doing some research it turns out this is not a unique problem, but the solution was simple: go digital! I got an inexpensive TOSlink cable from Amazon ($4.95 with free two-day shipping!) and now everything seems to be running flawlessly there.

Dan is looking at possibly building a new desktop for use as a server, since the one we have now is a P3 500 MHz oldster he picked up from work. After skimming through the listings on Newegg I can officially say my technical know-how of desktops and motherboards and such is so far out of date it’s not funny – circa 2000 or so. This is what happens when you switch to 100% laptops, I guess. Anyway, it looks like he can build something reasonably cheaply, and it should be an interesting project.

A Random Weekend of Stuff

Well, I’ve been productive enough today, so I guess that means I have time to look back over the last few days and see what’s been going on.

After a small series of scheduling snafus, I picked up lisagems on Friday and we met up with foxish to ostensibly start the moving process early in the afternoon. Well, that didn’t happen, but we did get two loads of stuff moved over to the new place by evening. emrldgirrl was nice enough to pick up gyros for everyone and a very entertaining dinner at the new house was had. Still a lot of work to go on that, but they’re getting there.

On Saturday takaza slept in until quite late, but he had had a rough week and was certainly due the extra rest! He and I ventured out into the burbs and ran some errands, in particular picking up a PCI wireless card for the spare desktop we keep in the bedroom for extra storage and emergencies – emergencies like Dan’s laptop dying. Just because he was using it to make the MFF conbook, that’s no cause for alarm, right? Ack! Fortunately, the card worked great and he is now on his way to getting stuff together for the book.

Sunday, I joined Linnaeus, siriuswolfstar and simbalion for lunch at the Lucky Platter in Evanston. I had the “Omelet #1” (artichoke hearts, goat cheese, avocado, and roasted tomato sauce), and it was just amazing! I loved the food there, and I’d love to go back! Afterwards, I gave Sirius and Simba a life to Beast Buy where we wandered among the slack-jawed and they picks up some needed items. On the way back to their place we stopped by Evil Squirrel Comics to say hi to woodychitwn, then had an interesting conversation about who can and cannot be considered a “hack” furry artist. The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around the house and getting in some quality snuggle time with my sweetie 🙂

Yesterday…not a whole lot to say. The usual job applications, grocery store runs, etc. Dinner was excellent, and I’ll be posting that recipe shortly since I want to make it again. I did call in Dan’s laptop to Circuit City’s warranty program, since we paid for it after all, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the problems seem to be covered and they’ll be sending a box to ship the laptop back to them for repair.

Today has been quite productive. Laundry has been running all day, and I have put in the orders for our sponsor gifts, Registration bags, and cloisonné pins. In a little while I’ll hit the road out to the burbs to help out with the moving once again; I figure if I can’t be useful here I might as well be useful somewhere. There’s some other MFF-related stuff I need to do later this week. I’ll probably talk about that more later.

Sort of back and IRISHFEST!

Well, the good news is that they finally got the work computers back up. The bad news is that my laptop goes out today via FedEx so any computer access I have at home is on borrowed equipment. Safe to say, don’t look for me on ICQ or AIM anytime for the next week or so.

So this coming weekend is Irishfest in Milwaukee. I’m planning on heading up there on Saturday, leaving Chicago at around 10 or 10:30. Anyone interested in joining me, or meeting up at the Fest? Tickets are $12. I’ll be sticking around until at least 10 PM or so.

Standard Weekend Recap #912

Saturday, the plans were simple: have lunch with Takaza‘s mother to belatedly celebrate her 60th birthday. As a gift we were going to add some components to her computer and get everything running again. Sounds simple, right? Heh heh heh…

First, there was a trip to Cyberexchange in Vernon Hills to get a CD-RW. We had an external CD-RW that Dan got for free from work but it was a USB-driven unit and Dan’s mom’s computer is an older box running Windows 98, therefore all it has is slow USB 1.1. The CD-RW’s they had in stock were too expensive and the owner was reluctant to take the CD-RW we had to trade (come to think of it, we still haven’t heard back on how much he’s willing to offer). Eh – we picked up a SoundBlaster Live card since her sound wasn’t working either and resolved to figure out a way to get Win 98 to recognize the CD-ROM that was already in the computer. We arrived only a little late at 2:30 PM and proceeded to spend the next four and a half hours banging our heads against the wall trying to get everything up and running. It was frustrating, but in the end we got everything working! Of course, the birthday lunch had now turned into a birthday dinner, but that was OK.

Dinner was at a little Italian joint between Crystal Lake and McHenry. The food was OK but clearly…well, would it be too snobbish to say “It was good for McHenry County”? After dinner we headed back home, with a quick stop at Culver’s. I had a taste for their lemon ice, but I was dismayed to find that they started making it with Splenda so now it has that nasty chemical aftertaste. Phooey! I settled for a concrete and we drove home, pausing briefly to admire the fireworks at Lakemoorfest on our way through the town.

Sunday, Dan wasn’t feeling well, having had a bad reaction to the previous night’s dinner (as had I, but that’s because I was stupid and forgot that I should always take an antacid before bed after a dinner that has tomato sauce). We got a late start, but Dan, Linnaeus, and I drove around the northwest suburbs scouting out hotels for an upcoming shindig. We found some good possibilities, but probably the most surreal moment was the tour of a certain hotel which shall remain nameless (hint: it rhymes with Schmingate Inn). The manager took great pride in his hotel, but there’s such a thing as too much pride. We got a tour of the rooms, a description of the granite countertops, assurances that the furniture was sturdy, Canadian-made stuff, and the many and varied television stations they carried. And to top it all of, after we mentioned we had stayed at a sister location a few miles down the road: “I don’t want to put them down or say we’re better than them. I mean, they’re friends of mine and we work together all the time. But we’re really a much better property.” Heh. Right. After that we retired back to the apartment and spent a relaxing evening watching Tivo and reading. And that was our exciting weekend, woo.

This week it looks like we’re going to have some company over for dinner on Thursday (hopefully), and maybe do some touring around the city on Friday afternoon/evening. Saturday is IrishFest (I’ll be posting more about that soon) and Sunday is the Midwest FurFest staff meeting at the Hyatt Woodfield. Lots to do!