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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • Why I Love System Restore CDs

    The Spud’s computer went sort of kerblooey, in a software-ish sort of way, a week or so ago. Luckily it’s a Compaq D310 (well, most of it is, anyway) and I have all of the restore CDs, still in the big fancy ziploc bag they came in. I booted off of a handy-dandy “Bart” DVD, copied off everything that I deemed worth saving onto the network drive (wasn’t about to use the USB drive on a machine that old), and swapped out the two smaller drives for a newer, bigger model I happened to have kicking around.

    You’ll be amazed to know that I can see eight unused IDE hard drives from where I’m sitting, without even turning my head, won’t you? Right.

    Sorry, that’s ten. And two SCSI drives. Anyway…

    Say what you will about PCs built by megacorporations, but HP/Compaq restore disks have saved my bacon dozens of times in the last half-dozen years. You have to go in afterward and tweak a few things, it’s true. If you leave out the “supplemental software” disk, however, there’s surprisingly little garbage to worry about. Among the nifty benefits is that you don’t have to worry about entering the license key. Any time I don’t have to stress about typos is a good time.

    The next step is to install video drivers (you don’t think it’s using the motherboard video chipset, do you?), throw on some of the key software that no Windows PC should be without, and haul those files back off of the network drive. When I’m done the machine will be cleaner (dust bunnies? try dust elephants) and leaner (less leftover cruft from years of installing and removing software) and feature greater capacity on a single drive instead of two drives so it’ll also run cooler and on less power.

    All I need to do is complete it by the weekend. I can do that, right?

  • Writing, first. Writing project, later.

    As some of my friends and readers know, I’ve been batting around the idea of doing an Autumn Writing Project in the same general vein as my Summer Music Project. That’s great and all, but let’s take a look at my writing output for 2008 so far.

    Go ahead, check out the archives for the past dozen months or so. It won’t take long.

    One of the goals I set myself was to avoid creating a guaranteed failure situation. Which is to say, I don’t want to (yet again) begin something that I know I can’t actually finish, then beat myself up because I don’t finish it. Self-perpetuating negativity should be avoided, yes?

    So. The project isn’t dead, but it’s on hold indefinitely until I can accomplish something else that’s been nagging me for quite a while now: I want to get back into the habit of writing here again. Once I’ve proven that I can actually write on a regular basis and at a consistent level of quality, then I’ll think about taking on something a bit more challenging.

    And that’s how I’m turning a morose and dreary Monday mindset into something a bit more positive. Go, me!

  • Music Meme Answers

    Here are the answers from last week’s meme post, and the Excel spreadsheet you’ve all been waiting for. First, the songs: (more…)

  • Another Birthday, Already?

    As of today, and for the next three hundred sixty some-odd days, I have a fifteen year old daughter.

    It’s been a moderately lousy week month year so far, and at first I woke up this morning feeling grim and glum, but when I realized what day it is today I cheered right up.

    Happy Birthday, Erica!

  • Music Meme That Will Bore Everyone

    As we’ve learned, over and over again, my musical tastes are unlike those of most people. They’re similar, mind you, but just a bit off-kilter. It’s as if you took a normal person’s tastes and rotated them about five degrees from reality. Oh well. I got a kick out of the meme (I found here) so you’re stuck with it anyway. Unless you choose to stop reading at this point, of course. (more…)

  • For the Want of a 9V

    Beep. Wait. Beep. Wait. Beep. Wait. Beep.

    This is the pattern of sound in my home right this minute. I’m not there now, but I know that the beeping continues because, it turns out, we don’t have any 9V batteries in stock. I’ll be hitting the store during lunch, indeed, so that when I eventually get home I can do something about the smoke alarm at the top of the upper stairway.

    The one that woke me up at about one-thirty and interrupted my sleep many times until my alarm finally went off, that is. (I’d also like to thank the waste management service for the nearby apartment complex for emptying their dumpster at quarter ’til six in the A.M. Rock on with your bad, noisy selves.)

    Am I tired? Oh yes, yes I am tired. It’s going to be a long, long day. The only “arrr“s you’ll be hearing from me will be growls of frustration…

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