06.14.06
Posted in Rant, Toys at 9:09 am by Soabirw
What a miserable day yesterday was. I thought Apple Support was better then any other support I have had to deal with, but in the end that is the only part I am upset about. We verified that my laptop was fuckered, so I said i wanted to do a return. Because I ordered it online and made changes to it, like adding another 512mb RAM, that I don’t qualify for a normal return or refund. I have to take it to a certified Apple support center, have them verify the problem, then they can help me setup the return. The nearest one is in Salt Lake. So I drive my ass all the way up there and the main Apple technician has no idea what I’m talking about. Said they only do repairs there, which I could have done at a place 1 mile from my home. I told him everything I tried and that somebody in a forum said they had the exact same problem and it was determined to be bad RAM. He was way ahead of me though and already at the Memory Tester that comes on the Mac install disc. Almost immediately it failed. Lame thing is, he still has to ship it all the way to Apple. Can’t just swap it out right there.
Now here are three problems I have with that situation. First, the only way to order online is through the customization screen. Yet if you choose anything at all, you are negating the option for a return for exchange or refund. That’s a dirty policy. Secondly, telling me something that gives me 2 hours of driving in nasty weather and rush hour when it isn’t even remotely accurate. The support people should have told me straight up that I don’t qualify for a return, instead of tricking me into the repair solution. Thirdly, why the fuck don’t they run their own damn RAM test before shipping it to people? Sounds like this isn’t a rare problem. The guy at the Mac store said he gets at leat two a week with bad RAM issues.
But on the plus side, I should have my MacBook in good working order next week. Hopefully they’ll ship it to the house and not make me do that drive again. And after I got home I went to a real Mac store called Mac Something. “Something” is really part of the name, it’s not me forgetting like usual. Sweet digs. Had a gorgeous 30″ cinema display running with all kinds of sexy accessories. Sosacms came with me and he was drooling over everything. Karen’s work PC is a 900mhz, 256mb ram pile of shit. And once again Windows fucked over my folks. Second time they have legitimately bought Windows and had it disable because it was “pirated”. I’m sure it is some idiot with a keygen who actually registers his ill gotten Windows. So instead of spending more time and money on this garbage we went the Mac Mini route.
Brought it to work with me and put it on my 2nd monitor. It’s a bit noisy, unlike the pre-Intel ones, but I hear that will be fixed soon since it is just a software glitch in one of the patches. Doing updates now, hopefully that will resolve it. Other then that I am as happy with it as I was with my MacBook. And getting it from a local store will make any possible woes easier. I also had them upgrade and test the RAM when I bought it. The Mighty Mouse is wild. 4 button, 3D scroll mouse. Crazy thing is the button is actually the entire bottom of the mouse. So if you are a savage, you can just mash your entire hand down to click. Or you can do left and right clicking as it is pressure and position sensitive. Also has two side buttons that do some pretty neat effects in the OS. Scroll wheels works great too. And it’s nice to have horizontal scroll without having to hold down a keyboard button.
I think my mom will have a blast with this thing. She is a hobby artist, but damn good at it and definitely has that mind set most of the time. Have until Monday to have all her office needs setup on this thing. Should be fun for me.
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Posted in Development at 9:14 am by Soabirw
My Ruby book came yesterday. Much bigger then I expected it to be. The Ruby on Rails books is rather small, so I was thinking this would be similar. I guess it makes sense though. Rails is just a framework to aid the language, so can’t be too much you can talk about. I look forward to having time to be able to crack it open and get another great language under my belt. So I can join the masses and shout, “php is teh suxx0rz!”. And that is a big rant for another day.
I think I’ll be writing up my own blog sooner then I expected. This WordPress is OK, but already there are thing my fellow SGers and I are wanting that just aren’t here. Have been developing my own basic PHP framework, so it wont be much to get something up and running. Then I’ll work on a Ruby on Rails version as well as an AJAX heavy one.
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Posted in Rant, Toys at 6:22 pm by Soabirw
My three 1gb sticks of RAM came today. Was all excited to start up CoH to see if the performance was any better. Instead it immediately froze. Turns out the 2nd memory slot on my mobo is bad. I hate computers so very much. The last three mother boards I’ve owned has had this issue. So not even sure buying a new one will help. Such a God damn gamble with computer hardware these days. So I have 2gb of worthless RAM sitting on my desk. Fun.
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06.15.06
Posted in Rant at 12:27 pm by Soabirw
Normally I don’t post about stuff like this because up here it is an every day occurrence. But there was a little extra crazy today that made it extra special. Every time I go home from work there are a few lights that seem to be victim of some very poor driving habits. I’m usually going straight and waiting for the left turners. Their light goes yellow and they keep on coming, then it goes red and you think it’ll at least start slowing down right? Nope, they keep coming. Then our light turns green, so now they really should stop right? Nope, they keep coming. Eventually the folk with the green light get sick of waiting and just start going. Ends with left turners slamming on their breaks and swerving around a bit.
I find this baffling. Is the 2-3 minute wait really worth that much? Today on the way back from lunch it happened again, but at a much smaller light. Their light turns red, ours turns green. But this time the left turn lain is cleared out. But then this bitch hauls ass down it and tries to turn, like she can “beat” an already very red light. The through traffic is already moving at this point. So she slams on her breaks and starts honking at the through traffic. The ass holes that they are. After all, she was merely trying to run a red light and they fucked it all up. Inconsiderate pricks.
That I find most baffling. No shame. No thoughts of “shit, that was dumb and impatient of me.”. We were the fucking ass holes for getting in her way. She was going to Wal-Mart God damnit!
In conclusion, women drivers, no survivors…. Actually, I’m finding the elderly are by far the most dangerous. That South Park episode wasn’t far off. Average age male and female seem to be equally retarded.
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06.16.06
Posted in Rant at 6:54 pm by Soabirw
Talking to Sosacms about my miserable damn day while transferring data from a crummy 900mhz, 256mb RAM PC to the new Mac Mini and playing a bit of City of Heroes. Then I notice that I can’t move my mouse or use my keyboard. But all my City of Heroes animations are working just fine. Look at my USB hub and all the lights are out. Think, “Great, this shit just never ends.” But it turns out that wasn’t the problem. No matter where I plugged my keyboard and mouse in, they wouldn’t work. I even have extra USB cards because I am so used to my motherboards’ on board USB crapping out. I have a total of 10 USB slots and I barely managed to find a combination that would support just my mouse and keyboard. So not only is my RAM slots bad, but the on board USB is hosed now too. This mobo is really trying to fill in the shoes of it’s predecessors.
I have no idea what to do next. I loathe the idea of trying yet another motherboard. Not only because I think it will fail me too, but the thought of tearing apart my entire PC really isn’t appealing. I am so very, very sick of PC repair.
*edit* Did a complete power cycle (turned off the power supply) and all the USB ports seem to be working. Think the hub died and temporarily killed them.
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06.17.06
Posted in Toys at 5:23 pm by Soabirw
The new Crucial RAM is either bad or incompatible. Can’t get even one stick to pass Prime95 tests. A new mobo could solve that, but I’d rather not risk it. So I am sending it back for a refund and picking up these babies. Along with a USB hub to replace the one that just fried. Even with a $50 restocking fee I will come out even. I would love to go all Mac right now, but I think I’ll keep this sumbitch alive a little longer.
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06.22.06
Posted in Toys at 8:54 am by Soabirw
After that last batch of RAM, I was worried that my motherboard wasn’t going to support the full speed it was supposed to. But this new Corsair XMS stuff is working just dandy. Same speed as the other stuff (PC3200/400mhz). My co-worker is the one who talked me into trying the higher end stuff. Never had a problem with the normal Crucial before, but now I am definitely sold. I ran 2gb of Crucial for a while, when it wasn’t crashing I thought my computer ran much better. Especially with games. Now I’m running 2gb of this Corsair stuff and I am noticing a significant difference over the 2gb of Crucial. This stuff is damn fast. Cranked City of Heroes up to max graphics and ran around town with Super Speed. Normally, even with the 2gb Crucial, it would start cranking pretty heftily. You just move so fast and they have so many people and objects in a town. With this new stuff, not even the slightest pause. Don’t think I have ever seen this game run so smooth.
Windows is still a pile and demands 1.5gb for page file. I had it set to 1gb, but I guess it was doing a “give or take 500mb”. So I set it to 512mb. Still uses 1.5gb even though my RAM isn’t even close to being all used up. It’s looking like a re-install will happen at some point, but at least I can function until then. And I’ll be all the happier with this RAM and a working Windows. If that’s even possible anyway. Maybe this time around I wont apply a single update. Those are what seem to keep hosing my install. I’ll do SP1 and stop there.
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06.23.06
Posted in Rant at 2:15 pm by Soabirw
I like it when we cure things. When I read this, two of my favorite quotes popped into my head. I don’t remember then verbatim, but here is the jist.
Mel Gibbson:
There was an interview I watched on T.V. where he claimed stem cell research was a scam and has made zero progress. This was a while ago, but even then they had cured a few diseases in mice.
Bush:
“These cures are several years away, so why even try?”.
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06.26.06
Posted in Toys at 10:54 am by Soabirw
Co-worker told me about this sweet app. I’m not normally a fan of such things, but it is supposed to have a very nice memory manager, which as you probably got from my recent posts, I could probably use. Ended up checking out a lot of other functionality it provides and am very impressed. Goes through all your Windows settings and gives advice on tweaking settings for performance or you can just let it take care of it. Cleans up your registry, temp files, etc. Even checked out my Firefox settings and gave like 14 recomendations on improving it’s performance. Even lets you restore stuff you permanantly deleted. Does some XP “styling” too if you are into that. Ran it on the work computer and it had a lot of cleaning up to do. Looking forward to trying it at home. Maybe it will help Windows stop using a 2gb page file when I have a gig of RAM still unused.
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06.28.06
Posted in Toys at 8:32 am by Soabirw
Probably going to be moving in the next month or two (towards glorious Utopia) and there is no way I am taking that massive Wega with me. I think we’ve sacraficed enough toes. It’s a great T.V., but about 150lbs too heavy. So I am leaving it with the house and was needing a replacement. Preferably one that doesn’t match the Wega’s fantastic weight. Thought about doing a projector, but all I knew about them is that they project. The Projector People helped with that a bit. They have some good buyer guides and tutorials and such. Ended up buying this sweet rig. The picture makes it look a bit goofy, but the manual really shows it off.
Seems more then perfect for my needs. Since we will be renting I doubt thy want us punching holes in their cieling to mount cages and such. This is a table top unit, so no problems there. Until the 30th they are running a special, so it comes with a 92″ screen and a sub woofer. 92″ is kick ass, but the subwoofer may seem wierd. Turns out this unit has a build in DVD player with stereo speakers. Making it very portable. Want to watch a movie in another room or even outside and you will have a DVD player and basic sound without transporting half your entertainment center. As far as quality goes it is supposed to be very nice. Does HD, VGA, Component, S-Video, and Composite. Supports 480i/p, 720p, 1080i and some other less common resolutions. So as far as specs and features go I am very happy. Hopefully I don’t find out I hate projectors in general though. Never seen them in action in a home theater environment.
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