Digital Impulses

Upgrading Alex's PC: Adding a CD burner

This afternoon Alex stopped by with his current Acer computer and a CD Burner we took from his old Gateway PC so that I could install it for him.

The install of the CD Burner went well, save for the little snag I had getting the plastic thingamabobs that hold the optical drives in place to re-attach to the drive cages.  Once I figured that out, everything was fine and I was able to put every thing back together and test his PC in my garage.

Windows Vista Home Premium detected the new drive and added the drivers for it and Windows saw the new drive perfectly.  Now Alex has a 2nd optical drive to copy CD's from.  Cool.

Re-instaling Vista: Using the SP1 DVD I got at the Microsoft HHH Global Launch Event

I just finished re-installing Vista on my main production machine in my office.  It took about 30 minutes and I just now started poking around the interface and desktop,

Depressingly enough, the two items I was having an issue with in the Device Manager are *still* causing problems, andf Vista appears to not know what to do with them.  I was holding out hope that since this version of Windows that I installed includes SP!, that it would have drivers for those two devices.

Sigh.

We'll see in the coming days how the machine handles and what I can do to resolve these problems.  Considering all of the issues I have had with the front USB ports on this box, I suspect that I have motherboard issues that Vista is not going to be able to fix.

I need a new computer.  And this time, I am going to go strictly OEM.  I am tired of the issues involved with building your own box.  It will be either a Dell or an HP, and as soon as I get it in the door and plugged in, I intend to strip down the hard drive to bare metal and re-install Vista myself, thereby ridding myself of any crapware that might have been included.

Interesting times lie ahead, most definitely.

Computer Support for Bert: Up late with the Purple Dell

FUCK.

So, after the absolutely *exhausting* grind of dealing with meeting Aldo's attorney for the 1st time, I came home and attempted to crash, only to receive a phone call from Bert, at like 9:30 PM, to pressure me about the progress on his POS purple Dell "pizza box" computer that he wanted me to retrofit for the Factory.

After expressing frustration with Bert at the fact that he was calling me about the computer and not about Aldo, we had a tense back and forth about the ETA on the repair of the computer, with Bert stating that although "i kinda need it by Friday", I will be very upset if you stay up late working on it.

I, of course, got out of bed, got dressed, stomped outside, got his computer, took it to the garage and hooked it up.  I then spent almost 2 hrs in my office and the garage, updating the computer, patching it up, installing the new nic card in it and making sure it was good to go so I could take it to him in the morning.

Fixing another PC for Bert: A visit to PV

So, Bert calls me after work and tells me if I would be so kind as to stop by his house this evening to pick up his OLD purple Dell "pizza box" and swap out the Wireless Nic card it has for a regular nic card so that Bert can integrate into his network at the factory.

Around 1930, I took off for his his house and stopped by the Best Buy in Torrance on PCH to buy the nic card that I would be installing in this old PC.

I paid $26.00 for the card and took up to his house.  Under the impression that I would be working at his house, I arrived to find Bert and his family just finishing up dinner. I sat at the table with his wife and him and made small talk while his son cleared the table.

As the small talk wound down, Bert got up and got the PC from the den.  He then came upstairs and gave me the PC, stating that I would work on it better at home.  So, i grabbed the PC and just came back home and I will be working on it over the nexdt few days.

And here I thought I just wasn't gonna do this anymore.  I never learn.

VISTA / XP PC comes back from PC Club

This evening after work, I drove to PC Club to pick up a network card for Claudia's old PC.  While I was there, Abdul stated to me that if I was willing to wait for a little bit, he would go ahead and finish up my computer also.

So, I waited around and eventually paid $77 for the install of a CPU fan and an IDE cable and paid Abdul $20 for the fan itself (one that he brought from his car).

POS PC rejects the Wireless NIC card
I also paid $25.00 for a wireless nic for Claudia's ancient (Pentium 166Mhz, 80 MB of RAM with a 4GB hard drive) computer.

Predictably, as soon as I installed the card in the one free PCI slot in this dinosaur, the PC refused to boot.  I tried another PCI slot with the same refuse to boot result.

So, it looks like I will be relegated to copying her docs off of that PC via floppy diskettes.  God, what kinda shit is this?  2008 andI am SNEAKERNETTING documents from a computer via freaking floppy diskettes?

OMG, the 90's called and they want their old school network back. 

Ugh.

Claudia and Aldo get a PC

This afternoon after work, I got some $$$ from the wife and drove over to PC Club in Hawthorne with Aldo to purchase a PC for his mom Claudia and him.

We ended up going with an entry level system that was $485 and included the following:

• 1.8Ghz Intel DualCore CPU
• 1 GB RAM
• 160GB Hard Drive
• Combo DVD Player / CD Burner
• 13-in-one card reader (in place of floppy)
• On board sound
• On Board video
• On Board LAN
• Keyboard
• Mouse

It did not include a monitor, however, they have one and it should do them OK until they decide to upgrade it.  All that is left now is for them have DSL service installed at home.

Good for them.

An Old Laptop resurfaces

So the wife is in the process of cleaning out junk from the garage this evening and in the process she uncovers a very old (2001 vintage) laptop of mine that I received as a birthday present from my family in August of 2001 for my 35th birthday.

I bought this Toshiba Satellite 3000-S353 form CDW while I was working at Toyota in the late summer of 2001. 

Here are the notes about the purchase that I made at the time of the purchase:

Laptop Purchase:
date: 8/29/01 10:44
from:  cdw
Model: Toshiba Satellite 3000 S353
Order #: B501355
Shipping Zip: 90501
Accessories:
128 MB ram  $25.86
Case: Targus Notepac  $28.52
sub-total: $1461.05
Shipping:  $65.98
total:  $1527.03

It came preloaded with Windows ME and I erased the HD down to bare metal and installed Windows 2000 on it with the first 72 hours that I had it.

Alas, the laptop was by itself and did not have the AC power adapter with it.  So, I decided to do a Google search for the laptop make and model # and sure enough, I found a company called "Spare Parts Warehouse" and they had the exact AC Adapter for my laptop.

I placed the oder for a little over $63 (including shipping).  Details below:

So, I am going to try and resuscitate this laptop as much as possible to see if I can give it to my sister for her own personal use at home.

Recovering Isa's AOL Saved Mail Folders

During a visit to see my mom for a little while, she started in on me with a MASSIVE GUILT TRIP about my sister and the recent loss of some email folders that were deleted when AOL crapped out on her for the nth time.

My mom took the drama to such an extent that I logged on remotely to my sister's computer via logmein.com from my mom's computer and attempted to fix the problem right then and there.  My sister was told by AOL that all of her info was in a folder on her desktop called AOL Saved Info.

Sure enough, the folder was there and I could see a file called "saraisabel" that was about 218 MB, so clearly that was the file that contained the email folders I needed to restore.  A little bit of Googling for a solution and I was able to determine what files from that folder on the desktop needed to be moved where.

However, a little more noodling was in order because Windows XP would NOT let me move the files due to the old "this file is open or in use by someone or something else on this system" error. 

Easy enough to fix:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Go to User Accounts.
3. Create an Admin account for myself.
4. Log off my sister's account.
5. Log into my new account.
6. MOVE the files from her desktop to wherever AOL wanted them (the "organize" folder buried somewhere).
7. Log off my account.
8. Log into my sister's account
9. Log into AOL.
10. Check mail.

Voila!  Folders restored and order is restored to the Universe once again.  call up my sister and have her check her AOL Mail.  Folders there, much rejoicing is heard throughout the land. 

Drama over.  For now.  Until next time.  I'll be here to douse water on the next mini fire that flares up.  We're family after all, right?

Very busy, fun Sunday

Wow.  What a day.

Isa
It started off with a visit to my sister's house to see about fixing a problem with the AOL software installed on her computer.  I managed to install something called 'AOL Desktop' and typically (of course), my sister *hated* it and made NO ATTEMPT WHATSOEVER to get familiar with it.  More on this at a later date.

Pedro
Later in the early afternoon, Pedro, my uncle stopped by the house on his motorcycle to pay us a visit.  He stayed for a few minutes and I showed him all of the home improvement stuff we have done to the house.

Street Sweep
After Pedro left, i spent the next 30 minutes sweeping the street and sidewalk directly in front of my house in my continued vain attempts to win the war of debris that the tree in front of our house is waging against us.  I lost again because an hour after I was done, there was a messy crapload of leaves all over the street and sidewalk again.  Why do I bother??

Wifi Signal Extended: Victory!
Later in the afternoon, I found a Linksys product that looked like it might help me finally get a usable WiFi signal into the Den:  Linksys makes a Wifi 802.11N PCI Card that has IT"S OWN ANTENNA that you connect to the back of the card.

I picked it up at the Hawthorne Best Buy for like $86.00 and brought it home and installed it .  BINGO.  The signal coming into the house is more than OK (on average about 55% signal strength) and wireless internet access at my wife's PC is snappy and working great.  Nice.

Ethernet cabling fiasco

The morning and afternoon portion of today was consumed by an abortive attempt at running Ethernet cable from my office to the Den to connect my wife's computer to the network.

I bought two (2) 50 foot sections of white CAT5e Ethernet cable at Home Depot and a connector to unite them.  I also bought a high-powered flashlight.  One look under the house and I immediately determined that this was not the place for me due to the very limited space there.

So what did I do?  I did the crappy thing.  I slung the 100 feet of cable across the grass in the backyard, through the slightly opened den door and to the computer.  It was a horrible, stop-gap solution and it's not going to work.  I need to find a way to extend the wireless signal from my 802.11N network to reach the main part of the house.

A WiFi range expander of some kind is the ticket.  We'll see what further research brings.