Tag: computers

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Hard drive blues

Thomas’ hard drive on his computer (my old Beige G3) went south quite awhile ago. I thought I had successfully copied everything from it last weekend onto another drive, but I couldn’t get his computer to boot with that drive. I thought there might be something wrong with that drive so this weekend I did some more drive swapping in order to get Thomas another drive. Here’s where things stood before I started:

  1. One 80 Gb drive in my computer is my startup drive
  2. One 80 Gb drive in my computer is a data-only (non-booting) drive
  3. One 30 Gb drive that was “laying around” that I had tried to make Thomas’ new drive but wouldn’t boot
  4. One 160 Gb new, unformatted drive

It’s really easy to swap drives in and out of my computer and it can hold up to four hard drives at a time. Because of that, I have been doing all the work there. One of the drive mounts is vertical and is held securely by a single screw. Almost every time I remove that screw, it falls between the hard drive and the mounting sled. Usually, I just turn the mounting sled upside down and the screw falls out. This time I forgot to do that and it evidently shorted out the hard drive circuit board next time I powered up. It took me a while to figure out what had happened since the only symptom was that my computer wouldn’t boot. When I realized what had happened, I switched focus back to installing Thomas’ new hard drive so that I could feel somewhat successful on the day. Alas, the same problem occurs there as the previous hard drive – the computer won’t recognize the drive as a boot drive. Failure there. After all my efforts, here’s what I had left:

  1. One 80 Gb unbootable and probably unreadable hard drive
  2. One 80 Gb drive with Thomas’ stuff on it that won’t boot in his computer
  3. One 30 Gb drive with Thomas’ stuff on it that won’t boot in his computer
  4. One 160 Gb drive presumably with my carbonite offer codes on it
  5. Two computers that won’t boot

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with the 30Gb drive so I’ll continue to work on getting that to work for Thomas. I’ve got a week-old backup that I can restore to the second 80Gb drive, but I really don’t have a drive I can boot with now. Perhaps I’ll boot with Thomas’ 30Gb in my computer until I can restore the 80.

Sometimes I really, really hate technology.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 257 miles
Weight lost: 35 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 9.2
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Pronounced Leh’-nerd Skin’-nerd by Lynryd Skynyrd, DrugMusic, NPR Story of the Day, Science Friday, Planet Waves by Bob Dylan, Lost Dogs by Pearl Jam, Second Helping by Lynryd Skynyrd
Recent viewing: Countdown, Sportscenter, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Drawn Together, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, My Name Is Earl, The Office
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo
Recently accomplished: Paid bills, trying to figure out Thomas’ hard drive
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: Nintendo DS and other folding things: Thomas releases his first animated short to the world.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 243 miles
Weight lost: 32 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 8.5
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Glimmer by Kim Richey, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses by Slipnot, KBOO Bike Show, John Prine
Recent viewing: Crash, Steelers at Chargers, Cowboys at Eagles, Charlie Rose (Bob Woodward), Meet the Press (Bob Woodward), Drawn Together (season premiere!), Without A Trace
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo
Recently accomplished: Fixed Thomas’ hard drive, installed new OS for Thomas, lubed and cleaned bike
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store, pay bills
Cool Link: Blogs – and God’s Youth: Does God want you blogging?

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 233 miles
Weight lost: 32 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 9.5 (slept in)
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Portrait: The Music of Dan Fogelberg by Dan Fogelberg, The Ramones, Eating’s Not Cheating by mc chris, Glimmer by Kim Richey
Recent viewing: Battlestar Galactica, South Park, Nova, Discoveries This Week, Rock Show, Charlie Rose, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Installed new bike computer, pulled Thomas’ hard drives for analysis and repair
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, rake, finish fixing Thomas’ hard drive, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Video: Darkness.Light.Darkness. (Warning: contains clay nudity)

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Vital Statistics

Two more Half.com gift certificates arrived after my birthday. Here’s the rest of the stuff I bought:

Thanks a bunch to Tom & Jan and Tina, Graham & Thomas. As I mentioned earlier Half.com has become my favorite semi-annual ritual.

Bike odometer: 220 miles
Weight lost: 32 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 7.2
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Portrait: The Music of Dan Fogelberg by Dan Fogelberg, DrugMusic, Humpy’s Soul Show, It’s The Jump Off
Recent viewing: Without A Trace, Mystery of the Megavolcano, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Installed memory in Graham’s computer
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, rake, install new hard drive for Thomas, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: Kittens: Pictures taken by a man in Taiwan who rescues street cats before the government collects and “disposes” of them.

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Vital Statistics

It had been at least five years since I last cleaned and refinished our deck so it was far overdue for some care. The weekend before my birthday, I rented a pressure washer and cleaned the deck very thoroughly. After my mother offered to help me finish the job while she was here, I took Wednesday and Thursday off last week and we did just that.

On Wednesday we cleaned the entire deck including the railings with deck detergent. I mixed the detergent into a high concentrate so I could use my Ortho Dial ‘N’ Spray to spread it on the deck. Pretty clever, eh? What was not clever was sticking my hand into the liquid with the brush when we were scrubbing it onto the wood. At that concentration, the detergent is evidently highly corrosive and I ended up with about six small but deep holes in the tips of my fingers. Ouch!

Thursday was refinishing day. I decided on the $40/gallon Brazilian rosewood oil (BRO) which blocks 99% of ultraviolet light. Presumably this means I won’t have to do this job as often so the extra cost was not really a factor. Of course, as I bought my sixth gallon Thursday afternoon, I was definitely questioning the sanity of my decision. We spent most of the morning applying the BRO to the railings with paint brushes and then I did the same to the floorboards of the deck using a nifty sponge-on-a-stick contraption. The instructions recommended two coats, but we decided the railings would only need one. I finished the last coat to the deck boards just as it was getting dark on Thursday.

Bike odometer: 209 miles
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, NPR Story of the Day, Science Friday, Coverville, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: World Series of Poker, Sportscenter, My Name Is Earl, The Office, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Cleaned deck with finger-eating detergent, filled in cracks in sidewalk and driveway, refinished deck with rosewood oil, hammered in nails that were sticking out on the deck (most of them), treated blister on thumb from hammering, hair cut, paid bills, made new fender for bike, bought a gift of appreciation
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, rake, install new hard drive for Thomas, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick: The ultimate breakfast on a stick

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Vital Statistics


This is a screenshot from Thomas’ computer last week. It shows the “History” menu in his web browser. Behind the the menu, you can see parts of the article he was reading on Wikipedia: Eroticism. Click the image to open a window with a larger version.

I stumbled upon this information one night because he kept using his computer when he was supposed to be in bed. Tina busted him several times and so I checked on him remotely from my office (all of the computers in our house are remotely viewable/controllable from my office computer). He was no longer using his computer, but I was surprised to find that he was reading an article on eroticism. I told Tina the next day and we agree to talk to him about it.

In the meantime, I pondered how he had even thought to look up “eroticism” on Wikipedia. We considered that he might have gotten some inappropriate spam, but I checked his email and didn’t see anything like that. Then I thought to check his browsing history and obtained this screenshot. The “History” menu shows all of the pages that you have accessed in the order that you accessed them. More recent pages are at the top and go down in reverse chronological order. So you can see that he started at Wikipedia’s front page where he clicked on a link to “relationship”. This took him to something called a “disambiguation page” – a page designed to resolve word ambiguities by summarizing the articles for each use of the word. From there, he clicked on the link to “romantic love” which has links to “free love”, “puppy love” (which has a link to “crush”) and, finally, “erotic love”, which redirects to the “Eroticism” article.

When Tina and I asked him about it (separately and non-chalantly), he said that he just clicked on a link in Wikipedia and then clicked a bunch of others after that. Moreover, he said he didn’t really understand any of the articles. We told him he could ask us about stuff like that if he wanted to know more and he said, “OK.” And that was the end of it. At least for now.

Bike odometer: 201 miles
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: This Is The Moody Blues by The Moody Blues, Coverville, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Falcons at Saints, Countdown, The Daily Show, The Simpsons
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: n/a
Imperative To Do: Refinish deck, hair cut, new rear fender for bike, finish old blog entries, fix toilet (call plumber), rake, install new hard drive for Thomas
Cool Link: Fembot for sale: Somebody is selling an Austin Powers prop and the pictures are quite creepy.

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Vital Statistics

My back is all better after the pressure washing whirlwind last weekend. In fact, this morning I felt like I had more energy than I have for quite awhile. I’m taking a day off from work tomorrow so I can expend some energy on the yard and house before the party on Saturday.

Bike odometer: 196 miles
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Science Friday, John Prine, Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers, One Hot Minute by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Recent viewing: Countdown, CBS Evening News, American Masters: Gene Kelly, High Stakes Poker
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Cleaned and disinfected CPAP equipment, bank, post office, FedEx
Imperative To Do: Hair cut, new rear fender for bike, mow lawn, follow-up phone calls for birthday, finish old blog entries
Cool Link: Drug-danger league table: When ranked according to the harm they cause, which drugs are the most dangerous? (Hint: the top two are legal.)

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Vital Statistics

Apple introduced new iPods, a new version of iTunes and added movies to the iTunes Music Store yesterday. The new version of iTunes has a really cool feature that lets you browse through your music like you would browse through your albums back in the day. I really, really like it. The new iPods have better games including Zuma! Man, if I got one of those I would never read again.

Bike odometer: 147 miles
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Coverville, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses by Slipnot, De-Loused In The Comatorium by The Mars Volta, Spillane by John Zorn
Recent viewing: U.S. Open Men’s Final, Colts at Giants, Dead Zone
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Bought new bike seat, labels for my sister’s CDs
Imperative To Do: Bank, refinish deck, hair cut, service van, new rear fender for bike
Cool Link: Ultimate Lego Chaingun

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Vital Statistics

I think I got better sleep last night, but I still woke up many times either because the mask was leaking or my mouth had opened. After blogging this weekend, I went back to Wikipedia to see if there was any information about my problem. At the end of the CPAP article, there were a number of links that I tried including one for CPAP Talk, an online forum for CPAP users. I found an article by a guy who had the same problem as I have (mouth opening during REMs) that solved it by taping his mouth shut. I’m going to continue as I have for a couple of more weeks, but if I keep waking up because of my big mouth, I’m going to give my doctor a call and ask him his opinion about taping it shut. Sounds pretty simple!

Five years ago today I drove my little truck to work instead of biking or riding the Max. I think I forgot the faceplate for my stereo because I didn’t listen to the radio on the way there. Usually, I would listen to NPR if it was early enough, or Mark & Brian if it was later. When I got to work, Tina called me and told me to go to CNN.com. That’s how I found out about the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. We turned on the satellite receiver attached to our projector at work, but we had let the subscription lapse. So I wasn’t subjected to the media coverage until I got home that night. I remember driving to work for days after watching the taller buildings expecting a plane to fly into them. I remember how happy I felt when I heard a plane fly over our house again after the airport was silent for a week. Little did we know then that it would be used as justification for the biggest mistake this country has ever undertaken.

Bike odometer: 137 miles
Current reading: The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell by John Crawford, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Taking The Long Way by Dixie Chicks, John Prine
Recent viewing: Bad Santa, U.S. Open Men’s Final
Recent playing: Zuma
Recently accomplished: Paid bills
Imperative To Do: Labels for my sister’s CDs, test drive new bike seats, bank, refinish deck, hair cut, service van
Cool Link: HowStuffWorks: A great site with easy explanations, diagrams and animations to show how stuff works. Examples: How Car Engines Work, How Blogs Work, How File Compression Works, How do stringrays kill?