After putting it off and putting it off, I finally went over to fix mom's computer. Her video card had gone bad and when I tried installing it last weekend, I ran into other issues. I didn't have the time last weekend, so I told her I'd be back. I called over this morning and arranged to come over and then head to the art store to select a new mat for the Jiminy Cricket cell. N came along for the ride (and to play with Sarah) as M had a couple of birthday parties lined up this afternoon/evening.
Not wanting to go back again, I really wanted to get this working before I left so I went straight to work. I was able to get past the initial error regarding the corrupt iosys directory, but whenever I tried to install the drivers for the card, I'd hit a brick wall. After 2-3 hours of working, I was finally able to get the drivers installed after extracting them from the directory that ATI's setup program created (but that Win98 indicated wasn't a Windows application). Although a couple of hours behind schedule (I planned on being done by noon-ish), we headed out to the art store -- but only after I kicked off the disk defrag process. (I really wanted it to be optimized before I left for the day).
After some discussion, we finally agreed on a new set of mats for the cell. The previous ones were cream and really didn't do much for the piece. They pretty much stopped your eyes from focusing on the picture and kept them on the mats. No good. We went with the same frame and a set of sage and black mats (the sage is the primary mat, the black one will serve as the border between the cell and the sage). I'm sure it will look much better than it did before.
After we got back from the store, I fixed the DVD player so they could watch DVDs in the bedroom. It was pretty simple as the cables had been connected to the output vs. the input. Once I switched them (and figured out which buttons needed to be pushed) it worked and N and I were done. I was rewarded for everything I did with a nice bird book. It was quite unexpected, yet also appreciated. I'm sure I'll spend quite a bit of time pouring over the book as I try to increase my knowledge of our fine feathered friends.
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Day 278 - 11/25/2007
After spending the morning trying to fix my computer, I decided I needed a new power supply, so shortly after noon, N and I headed out the door to the Computer Place in Fairfax. We stopped by Target for some clothes for him and then attempted to get his haircut, but the line was too long, so we left and went to the computer store.
I love going to that store, it's chock-full of possibilities of what could be: It's like walking into a candy store! Up and down the aisles we went, checking out all the various hardware available for us to purchase. We left with a new power supply, a drive rail kit and a couple of cables, as well as a new-found desire to build a new box. It's been a few years since the last one (3½ at least) and it's about time to replace it. Actually, I will convert it to be used as the server as that's barely chugging along (it runs Win2k Server on a Celeron 500 MHz w/ 64 MB RAM!). I've been looking at parts for the past few months, but haven't really done anything serious. Maybe over Christmas (or early next year) I'll get around to it.
N and I then headed over and picked up M in Springfield. Actually, we hung out for a while watching the 'Skins game vs. Tampa Bay (which they eventually lost). It doesn't bode well for the Redskins this year (although they Post was touting that they could still make the playoffs if they won out the season...yeah right, like that's going to happen!).
I love going to that store, it's chock-full of possibilities of what could be: It's like walking into a candy store! Up and down the aisles we went, checking out all the various hardware available for us to purchase. We left with a new power supply, a drive rail kit and a couple of cables, as well as a new-found desire to build a new box. It's been a few years since the last one (3½ at least) and it's about time to replace it. Actually, I will convert it to be used as the server as that's barely chugging along (it runs Win2k Server on a Celeron 500 MHz w/ 64 MB RAM!). I've been looking at parts for the past few months, but haven't really done anything serious. Maybe over Christmas (or early next year) I'll get around to it.
N and I then headed over and picked up M in Springfield. Actually, we hung out for a while watching the 'Skins game vs. Tampa Bay (which they eventually lost). It doesn't bode well for the Redskins this year (although they Post was touting that they could still make the playoffs if they won out the season...yeah right, like that's going to happen!).
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Day 76 - 05/07/2007
Went to the new pho restaurant across the way. Apparently Viet Crystal has changed their peanut sauce recipe and they're no longer lunch-worthy. I liked this new place better anyway. It was:
I also spent some time trying to get D's laptop to work. She called in a panic (alright, not really a full-blown panic, but needed assistance none-the-less) in that she couldn't connect to the Internet. Without the Internet, she couldn't send e-mail. Without being able to send e-mail she wouldn't be able to finish her room mom correspondence for Teacher Appreciation Week. So, like the good tech support staff that I am, I dashed home and fixed her issue. Don't ask me how I did it as I pretty much did nothing she couldn't have done. I turned off her laptop, went into the office and played backgammon for a few minutes and then came back out and turned it back on. Viola! It worked like a champ. She was back in business.
I have no idea why, but it worked.
M had another blowup this evening about something or other that caused me to take away Narnia for the night. She and N were going at it as soon as we got home and neither one of them would let up. It was partially my fault in that N and I lost track of time down the street and didn't get home until 645p. Seeing as N hadn't had dinner yet, he was well on his way to full on Mr. Crankypants. While part of me worries that this will be long term behavior (it better not be!), I also think it's just her being a normal 3rd grader and that she'll grow out of it. (Of course, I know some adults who pitch a fit when things don't go their way, so it's always possible.) One thing that I need to be cognizant of is the way I interact with her during these periods. I need to remember to stay calm and not escalate the situation. There's a few cliches that I could name (e.g., crying over spilled milk, throwing fuel on a fire, etc.), but I'll try and refrain from using them here and now. Whoops! Looks like I did just that! :-)
Anyway, as I said, the important thing is to not actively participate in her tantrums and instead try to remain calm and unimpressed. Maybe this will cause her to see that she's not getting anywhere with her behavior and will change tactics herself. But, truth be told, the day when she does can't come too soon.
- bigger;
- brighter;
- cleaner;
- closer to the office (right across the light at 50 vs. having to actually turn down 50); and (most importantly)
- the food was delicious.
I also spent some time trying to get D's laptop to work. She called in a panic (alright, not really a full-blown panic, but needed assistance none-the-less) in that she couldn't connect to the Internet. Without the Internet, she couldn't send e-mail. Without being able to send e-mail she wouldn't be able to finish her room mom correspondence for Teacher Appreciation Week. So, like the good tech support staff that I am, I dashed home and fixed her issue. Don't ask me how I did it as I pretty much did nothing she couldn't have done. I turned off her laptop, went into the office and played backgammon for a few minutes and then came back out and turned it back on. Viola! It worked like a champ. She was back in business.
I have no idea why, but it worked.
M had another blowup this evening about something or other that caused me to take away Narnia for the night. She and N were going at it as soon as we got home and neither one of them would let up. It was partially my fault in that N and I lost track of time down the street and didn't get home until 645p. Seeing as N hadn't had dinner yet, he was well on his way to full on Mr. Crankypants. While part of me worries that this will be long term behavior (it better not be!), I also think it's just her being a normal 3rd grader and that she'll grow out of it. (Of course, I know some adults who pitch a fit when things don't go their way, so it's always possible.) One thing that I need to be cognizant of is the way I interact with her during these periods. I need to remember to stay calm and not escalate the situation. There's a few cliches that I could name (e.g., crying over spilled milk, throwing fuel on a fire, etc.), but I'll try and refrain from using them here and now. Whoops! Looks like I did just that! :-)
Anyway, as I said, the important thing is to not actively participate in her tantrums and instead try to remain calm and unimpressed. Maybe this will cause her to see that she's not getting anywhere with her behavior and will change tactics herself. But, truth be told, the day when she does can't come too soon.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Day 46 - 04/07/2007
It snowed this morning.
Yes, you read that right. It snowed this morning. The kids came in around 730a and opened the shades to point out that, yes, it did snow.
Last week we had 80° temperatures and now, the first full weekend in April, it's snowing? What up wit dat?!?
Oh well, good thing D hadn't planted the marigolds in the boxes on the deck yet!
Since I was up late Friday doing work on iTriTracker, D was kind enough to let me sleep in. Well, maybe not kind enough to let me sleep in, but kind enough to get up with the kids after they'd been up for an hour or so. After finally rolling out of bed around 930a, I got dressed and went for a short run. I decided to walk for about 5 minutes as a warmup and then run the rest of the way. The total distance I ran was ~1.5 miles, which is pretty wimpy, but was as far as I wanted to go without stopping for a walk in-between...which I also didn't want to do. Overall my knee felt good. I still iced it when I got home and popped a couple Advil after the shower, but over the course of the day, there were no aches or pains.
I showered and grabbed a bite to eat and, after what seemed like hours trying to get M and N to clean up their mess, hit the road to Grandma's house so I could help her with her computer and the kids could play with Sarah.
After talking with her a few weeks back regarding her new venture into the world of FIOS, I volunteered to setup a backup system on her computer using an external drive as a backup volume (in addition to helping her get her computer configured for connecting to the web via FIOS). This would allow her to survive a catastrophic failure of her hard drive w/o losing any data (which is something we should all have in place, especially now that most of us keep so much on our computers).
Configuring her computer for use with FIOS was a piece of cake, but the external drive was not. I spent a couple hours trying to get it working before I finally gave up. Knowing that I had recommended this solution, there was no way I wasn't going to get it working as I knew that if I didn't, I'd never hear the end of it. So, with that in mind, when she called Friday night to see if we'd be around, I invited the three of us over so I could finish configuring the drive. This was a win-win-win situation: I got to check this off my list of chores, the kids got to play with Sarah and she would now have a backup system in place (wait for it) to survive a catastrophic failure of her hard drive. As I said, we hit the road and got over there around 130p or so. I went straight to work and in about 30 minutes, had the external drive configured. (I had forgotten to disable the virus software when I was there originally, so the drivers weren't getting installed successfully.) One down and one to go.
Next, I created a backup system using SyncBack, a free utility that kick's ass when it comes to automating simple backup and synchronization routines. This system will not only back up her documents, but also her e-mail and pictures...automatically. She asked me what she needed to do and the answer is nothing, it will run all by itself. After getting that done, I helped myself to a bagel (well, I really didn't help myself, Rudy made it for me, and boy, was it G-O-O-D!) and a Old Dominion Ale. I hadn't had one of Rudy's bagels (plain bagel, toasted, with a schmear of cream cheese, lox and tomato, hold the onion please) in quite a while and the bagel and beer hit the spot. After shooting the breeze for a while, I tried to round up the kids to head home, but only made it as far as the living room, where N and I started listening to old records. Sugar Hill Gang and David Bowie made their way onto the turntable and both were hits. M and Sarah did a great interprative dance to "Changes" and I about broke a rib in hysterics. I wish I had a videotape. Oh well, maybe next time.
On the way home I had to stop for gas. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. On the opposite side of the pump, an Eastern European looking woman, driving her X5 was trying to open her gas tank. I'm thinking to myself that she's never gotten gas before, so I sit there and watch her try to pry open the opening to the gas cap door with her key. (Not the gas cap itself, but the door that covers the gas cap.) She went back into the cabin and fiddled around a bit and then opened the trunk, fiddling around in there as well, before attempting to open the door. No luck.
By this time, I was done pumping my gas and she still hadn't even opened the door to start pumping hers. Feeling bad about the situation, I asked her if she needed any help.
"It whon't ohpen," she said with what sounded like a Russian accent.
"Did you press the lever inside?" I asked her (knowing she had done something in the cabin, but just not sure what).
"There iss no leverr inside. You press the button and it ohpens. Somtiymes it ghets shtuckh, so I ushe my key or push like thish." she said, as she slid her key into the slot between the body and the gas cap door, pushing the lower right corner at the same time.
"Uh, sorry, but I guess I can't help you then. Good luck!" I said as I got back into the van and left her at the pump. As I drove down the road towards the parkway, I couldn't help but wonder how long she was there until she either a) drove off; or b) got it open. Hopefully it wasn't too long - the wind was biting and she wasn't dressed for it.
I'll have to expand on that for my collection of stories. I see a lot of conflict in this woman's life when she goes home and tries to explain why the gas tank is still empty even though she said she stopped at the gas station.
Yes, you read that right. It snowed this morning. The kids came in around 730a and opened the shades to point out that, yes, it did snow.
Last week we had 80° temperatures and now, the first full weekend in April, it's snowing? What up wit dat?!?
Oh well, good thing D hadn't planted the marigolds in the boxes on the deck yet!
Since I was up late Friday doing work on iTriTracker, D was kind enough to let me sleep in. Well, maybe not kind enough to let me sleep in, but kind enough to get up with the kids after they'd been up for an hour or so. After finally rolling out of bed around 930a, I got dressed and went for a short run. I decided to walk for about 5 minutes as a warmup and then run the rest of the way. The total distance I ran was ~1.5 miles, which is pretty wimpy, but was as far as I wanted to go without stopping for a walk in-between...which I also didn't want to do. Overall my knee felt good. I still iced it when I got home and popped a couple Advil after the shower, but over the course of the day, there were no aches or pains.
I showered and grabbed a bite to eat and, after what seemed like hours trying to get M and N to clean up their mess, hit the road to Grandma's house so I could help her with her computer and the kids could play with Sarah.
After talking with her a few weeks back regarding her new venture into the world of FIOS, I volunteered to setup a backup system on her computer using an external drive as a backup volume (in addition to helping her get her computer configured for connecting to the web via FIOS). This would allow her to survive a catastrophic failure of her hard drive w/o losing any data (which is something we should all have in place, especially now that most of us keep so much on our computers).
Configuring her computer for use with FIOS was a piece of cake, but the external drive was not. I spent a couple hours trying to get it working before I finally gave up. Knowing that I had recommended this solution, there was no way I wasn't going to get it working as I knew that if I didn't, I'd never hear the end of it. So, with that in mind, when she called Friday night to see if we'd be around, I invited the three of us over so I could finish configuring the drive. This was a win-win-win situation: I got to check this off my list of chores, the kids got to play with Sarah and she would now have a backup system in place (wait for it) to survive a catastrophic failure of her hard drive. As I said, we hit the road and got over there around 130p or so. I went straight to work and in about 30 minutes, had the external drive configured. (I had forgotten to disable the virus software when I was there originally, so the drivers weren't getting installed successfully.) One down and one to go.
Next, I created a backup system using SyncBack, a free utility that kick's ass when it comes to automating simple backup and synchronization routines. This system will not only back up her documents, but also her e-mail and pictures...automatically. She asked me what she needed to do and the answer is nothing, it will run all by itself. After getting that done, I helped myself to a bagel (well, I really didn't help myself, Rudy made it for me, and boy, was it G-O-O-D!) and a Old Dominion Ale. I hadn't had one of Rudy's bagels (plain bagel, toasted, with a schmear of cream cheese, lox and tomato, hold the onion please) in quite a while and the bagel and beer hit the spot. After shooting the breeze for a while, I tried to round up the kids to head home, but only made it as far as the living room, where N and I started listening to old records. Sugar Hill Gang and David Bowie made their way onto the turntable and both were hits. M and Sarah did a great interprative dance to "Changes" and I about broke a rib in hysterics. I wish I had a videotape. Oh well, maybe next time.
On the way home I had to stop for gas. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. On the opposite side of the pump, an Eastern European looking woman, driving her X5 was trying to open her gas tank. I'm thinking to myself that she's never gotten gas before, so I sit there and watch her try to pry open the opening to the gas cap door with her key. (Not the gas cap itself, but the door that covers the gas cap.) She went back into the cabin and fiddled around a bit and then opened the trunk, fiddling around in there as well, before attempting to open the door. No luck.
By this time, I was done pumping my gas and she still hadn't even opened the door to start pumping hers. Feeling bad about the situation, I asked her if she needed any help.
"It whon't ohpen," she said with what sounded like a Russian accent.
"Did you press the lever inside?" I asked her (knowing she had done something in the cabin, but just not sure what).
"There iss no leverr inside. You press the button and it ohpens. Somtiymes it ghets shtuckh, so I ushe my key or push like thish." she said, as she slid her key into the slot between the body and the gas cap door, pushing the lower right corner at the same time.
"Uh, sorry, but I guess I can't help you then. Good luck!" I said as I got back into the van and left her at the pump. As I drove down the road towards the parkway, I couldn't help but wonder how long she was there until she either a) drove off; or b) got it open. Hopefully it wasn't too long - the wind was biting and she wasn't dressed for it.
I'll have to expand on that for my collection of stories. I see a lot of conflict in this woman's life when she goes home and tries to explain why the gas tank is still empty even though she said she stopped at the gas station.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Day 36 - 03/28/2007
Did the usual mundane things at work (babysat the migration), followed by a quick trip to the grocery store for some ibuprofen for M. She's still running a fever and the Tylenol just doesn't do the trick. D told me we were out of ice cream, so I ventured down the frozen wasteland and, lo and behold, Breyer's was on sale ($1.99 per container). Since we were all out (and we typically have 3-4 kinds at home), I tossed four in the basket and made my way to the registers to check out. However, upon returning home, I found out that there wasn't that much space in the freezer, so I had to make adjustments. I've already taken out the ice bin in the garage fridge, the next step will be taking out the ice maker as well!
Since M still wasn't feeling all that hot (the doc said it was probably viral), D made N his standard fare for dinner: chicken nuggets, french fries and ketchup (yes, he considers ketchup a side dish vs. a condiment). Since that was the case, I hit the trail for a quick run. 2+ miles later I was back with a little pain in the knee (but nothing an ice pack couldn't contain). I walked the first 0.20 miles and then ran the rest of the mile (did that twice) and then after the second mile, just walked the rest of the way home. Even including the walking, both miles were right about 10 minute miles. I was especially surprised w/ the second one as I walked/ran that in about 9:30. I really need to slow it down; I'm going way too fast.
I had promised my mom I'd go over and help her w/ her computer, which wasn't set up properly when they installed FIOS (she recently upgraded to FIOS to get rid of the telephone line going across the family room floor). To hear her tell it, she was going to have to buy a new computer because her old one couldn't run the Internet (or so she was told by three different technicians). As it turned out, all that was necessary was to plug the network cable into the router (it had been plugged into the DSL modem). Ten minutes after arriving, I could've packed it in and headed back home, but no, I had also recommended an external drive for backup purposes. Installing this *should* have been straightforward as it's a USB plug and play device. Plug it in and it should work, right? Wrong. 90 minutes later I'm still struggling with it and finally tossed in the towel. I now have this hanging over me to install and configure since I was the one who recommended it. Hooray for me! Not.
Since M still wasn't feeling all that hot (the doc said it was probably viral), D made N his standard fare for dinner: chicken nuggets, french fries and ketchup (yes, he considers ketchup a side dish vs. a condiment). Since that was the case, I hit the trail for a quick run. 2+ miles later I was back with a little pain in the knee (but nothing an ice pack couldn't contain). I walked the first 0.20 miles and then ran the rest of the mile (did that twice) and then after the second mile, just walked the rest of the way home. Even including the walking, both miles were right about 10 minute miles. I was especially surprised w/ the second one as I walked/ran that in about 9:30. I really need to slow it down; I'm going way too fast.
I had promised my mom I'd go over and help her w/ her computer, which wasn't set up properly when they installed FIOS (she recently upgraded to FIOS to get rid of the telephone line going across the family room floor). To hear her tell it, she was going to have to buy a new computer because her old one couldn't run the Internet (or so she was told by three different technicians). As it turned out, all that was necessary was to plug the network cable into the router (it had been plugged into the DSL modem). Ten minutes after arriving, I could've packed it in and headed back home, but no, I had also recommended an external drive for backup purposes. Installing this *should* have been straightforward as it's a USB plug and play device. Plug it in and it should work, right? Wrong. 90 minutes later I'm still struggling with it and finally tossed in the towel. I now have this hanging over me to install and configure since I was the one who recommended it. Hooray for me! Not.
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