Category: Technology

I must be losing my touch

It’s been a very long time (too long) since I last built a computer from scratch, and even then I did not have to research or purchase the components. My boss just said: “here are the parts for your workstation. Put it together.”

So I want to build a new machine and I’m not even sure where to start looking. Does anyone have any suggestions for finding good prices on components for a decent gaming system? At the minimum I’ll be needing a new motherboard, processor, RAM, and case (along with the requisite cables/connectors/cooling/power….) I can cannibalize my current system for other needed pieces (video, cdrom, hd, etc) for the time being, seeing as how I’m on a tight budget. (I’ve got about $300 to get me started.)

Edited on Dec 7th 2004, 01:56 by Hooloovoo

It’s a Boy!

Jenny had her 20wk lvl 2 sonogram last Monday. Duckling is healthy, developing normally, and quite plainly male. (That last bit took the technician a while to determine, as duckling was not being overly cooperative.)

We have a 5 minute VHS video capture of part of the sonogram. We’ve subjected my parents too it already, Jenny’s parents are coming down Sunday to see it, and a few friends have expressed an interest in seeing it as well.

I may be digitizing and posting a clip online. Need to find a friend with a decent capture card.

The name game phase 2 has begun. Anyone have suggestions for boys names?

Picture CD Annoyances

So I’ve finally gotten around to getting some of my film developed. I’ve got a backlog of 15+ rolls now. When I took the first batch (3 at a time seems to be a good number) to the photolab to get developed, I chose to get one set of prints and a Kodak Picture CD for each roll.

I’m really happy with how some of the photos came out, I’ll get around to uploading them at some point. (Read: Mid 2004 – meh)

What I’m not so happy with is the fact that on one of the Photo CDs, a few of the pictures were saved upside-down.

You see, when they burn the CD’s they very conviently rotate the images for you, and include software that plays back slideshows on you computer, or on a tv using a compatible dvd player.

It’s not a big problem, since I wanted the CDs so I didn’t have to scan this stuff myself, I can rotate them easily enough before posting themonline, but I’m still annoyed. It’s not like you can’t TELL they’re upside down. There are a couple of images where it isn’t really appearant which way is up, unless you took the shot, and know. These were not rotated at all, and that’s fine with me. But if you are going to take time to rotate the images for me before sticking them on a CD, please make sure they’re rightside-up!!

So now, I’m going to track down a customer service line and see if I can get another CD burned, or at least get a refund for this CD, since it’s obviously thier goof.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that Mozilla FireBird 0.7 was out?

Here I am innocently attempting (I think successfully) to convince a coworker that he should switch to Mozilla FireBird when I discover that it was recently revved.

must be sure to download the new version, after checking the release notes, when I get home. Or I could just order a CD…

(BTW – this entry represents the breaking of a promise I made to myself last week. Look for an entry related to the AK trip last month to appear “below” this one in a couple of days. It’s currently marked private because I havne’t had a chance to clean it up. Something I promised myself I would do before posting another entry.)

Hooray for the Internet Archive

Looking for the street address for a company that doesn’t exist anymore? (One you worked at as a contractor for six months almost 7 years ago?)

Try using the WayBack Machine: http://www.archive.org to search for the company’s contact info on an archived version of their site.

Too bad I wasn’t able to recover an old version of my resume I had posted online the same way.