A Series of Tubes

ROFL! Typing ‘gofirefox’ (no quotes) into Firefox brings you to the closest match- an Opera Browser community member’s page called gofirefox. That’s funny. 😛

Ok I’m bugged about my friend’s computer again, so I’m posting again. Yesterday he bought a $90 WD 250gb hard drive (which really pissed him off, because when it was installed it said that it was 233.88gb, not 250gb), and called me before purchasing to make sure he was buying the right kind. He was really worried when I told him to get an IDE drive and the box said eIDE on it, but I figured “Hey, it’s still IDE,” and told him to buy it.

*Insert trip to see V for Vendetta a school day here*

So then I go over to his house to help him install it (3:30).
We get the computer unplugged and shut down (3:45).
Computer is open (3:50).
We realize that his computer only has one hard drive rack (3:55).
-Begin Failure-
Ok, we can improvise. There are extra removable media racks that the drive would fit in (4:10).
We have unplugged the current hard drive, the 9-in-1 media reader, the dvd burner (read: the dvd burner), and basically anything else blocking our way to this empty rack, except for this huge cluster of power cables that seems to be soldered onto the mobo. Oh well, we can work around it (4:25).
After struggling to fit the drive in, we decide to remove the 9-in-1 media reader (4:30).
We fail (4:35).
We replace the reader and ponder what to do next (4:37).
We ponder (4:45).
*Bing!* Idea strikes (5:10).
Idea also fails (5:10).
Ok enough of that. To put it simply, we end up just plugging everything back in and placing (/dropping) the hard drive on the floor of the computer case, plugged in and stuff. We boot ‘er up, and it doesn’t recognize the drive. It also won’t open the dvd burner, so I assume we set the master/slave jumpers wrong. We opened the box again, and set them all right. This time *WHAM* the drive works! =D So we set it to partition it (/:Y, isnt that cool?), and I leave to return to my dwelling.

A few hours later, my friend calls. His dvd burner still won’t open. Dammit, the thing we forgot to check! So I’m going back there tomorrow to check that out…

In between these escapades, I attempted to uninstall ZoneAlarm a few times, and experimented with alt+f4 😛

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Alienware, maker of l33t gaming computers (and all-nVidea, thank god), has recently been bought by Dell. This move by Dell is to get closer to the gaming community, and ultimately AMD themselves. Pitiful. They acquire one of the l33test companies in the world to escape Intel. You signed up with them, you can go down with them too.

I’m at my friend‘s house, trying to help him install Maya 7. I figured this would be easy, just open the setup.exe on the disc and install.
Well, I was wrong. Very wrong. There are a few complications here. First of all, my friend has 3 virtual drives, all called basically the same thing as his DVD drive, meaning it took a while to even find the setup.exe file. Then, his firewall. ZoneAlarm or something. It seems like every time Maya tries to install another file, I get a popup that says ‘ZoneAlarm has detected a program doing something you might want to look at’, which stalls the installer and waits for me to click ‘allow’. If this weren’t annoying enough, I’ve waited through at least 5 loading bars, which all say ‘Please wait while I install Maya 7.0’. WHAT IS IT DOING THAT REQUIRES A FREAKING 15 MINUTE LONG INSTALLER?!?!?!?!

Update: Man, this is a sight for sore eyes:

Update: While I’m on the topic of this dude’s computer, may I mention that apart from a few awesome programs like 3ds and maya (whose legality are questionable), his computer sucks. It didn’t come with MSPaint, Calculator, or Sound Recorder. It refuses to install service pack 2 (or any updates, for that matter…). He’s looking to upgrade it, but I’m thinking that he should back up the files he needs to a DVD and scrap it.

“I cannot connect to the database because: Too many connections”

Uh oh… Why am I suddenly having deja vu? This looks suspiciously like the GOAC message when it went down…Ohnoohnoohnoohnoohno!

“I cannot connect to the database because: Too many connections”

Uh oh… Why am I suddenly having deja vu? This looks suspiciously like the GOAC message when it went down…Ohnoohnoohnoohnoohno!

Update: *Whew* ok it’s alright now. 😛

If you’re having trouble viewing the images in my template (or if they have a dark outline instead of being fuzzy), click this link:
Click-a Me! Then click-a me next!

For some reason my computer doesn’t load these images right the first time, just view them on their own and they should correct themselves.

Ok so now that I’ve received a present from every expected person, here’s the final roll call of my presents:

• $120 in cash and checks
• $50 in iTunes cards
• An Adesso CyberTablet 6400
• I, Robot (the book)
• Robot Warriors (a book)
• Godless (an awesome book)
• Shirts:
1. Urban Outfitters “Winning the war against trees”
2. UO “Obey”
3. UO “More cowbell” (too small…)
4. UO “You say potato, I say fuck you!“
5. ThinkGeek “Binary 4“
6. TG “You are here“
7. TG “2+2=5“

I may have gotten other stuff as well, but off the top of my head I can’t remember.

If you have any love for Cyan Worlds, Myst, or Uru, or if you consider yourself my friend, sign this petition. Please.

Did you know that you can set Microsoft word to check for ‘style’ in your writing? Yeah that’s right, I said style. In the style settings, you can set it to check for the following and much more: Use of And, But, and Hopefully in the opening of a sentence; Cliches, Colloquiaslisms, and Jargon; Sentence length; Unclear Phrasing; and get this – Wordiness. Compare that to Appleworks, which (as far as I know) doesn’t have a freakin’ grammer checker!

Also, you can turn on ‘readablity statistics,’ which tell you the basics (word count, char count), the above average (avg. sentences per paragraph, and avg. words per sentence), and the ridiculously above average, and a bit average (reading ease and grade level). Read – Grade Level. It actually delivers a GPA based on the document. It seems a bit off, though. I have 1 sentence and an incomplete title, and it gave me a 3.7. Yeah, not so much.