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Blowing up a Floppy Drive
Been putting together Connie’s new computer. First time I’ve ever had a machine not power up and also the first time I’ve smelled burning. Not good. Fortunately, didn’t burn out the whole motherboard. Whenever you build a new computer, make sure your hand is next to the power off switch. So, here is what I…
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Mac Flac and Bit Torrent
Here are some more tools that I’ve been using: * “Mac Flac”:http://www.danrules.com/macflac/. Flac is a lossless compression format for compressing CDs. * “Bit Torrent”:http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/. This is a pretty cool file download system. The client is a little strange as it is the usual obscure user interface. * “Experimental”:http://ei.kefro.st/projects/btclient/. When you download experimental, you get a…
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Connie's Work Machine
OK, Connie has $2,200 to buy a machine and printer for work. That’s the standard budget over at Harberview. They are standardized on Dell Optiplex desktops and Latitude notebooks. Interesting to see Windows 2000, not XP is part of the standard too. I’m not used to paying so much for hardware, so this is a…
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My Onkyo TX-DS989 Dies and what are all these formats anyway?
Onkyo Upgrades TX-DS989 Future-Proof Receiver. I’ve had this Audio-video receiver for about two years now. Blew out an amplifier and also part of the digital processing section by crossing some speaker wires in the back (yes, Virginia, it was dumb to have a bunch of stripped wires back there, I’ve fixed that now). In any…
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nVidia GeForce 5900 SE
“Firing Squad”:http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_fx_5900_xt_review/, “Hot Hardware”:http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/gffx_5900xt.shtml, “Guru-3D”:http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/112/ and “Tech-Report”:http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q4/geforcefx-5900xt/index.x?pg=1 have all reviewed this board (called the GeForce 5900 SE) and the chipset (called the 5900 XT). Go figure this naming convention stuff. You can get it for about $185 right now online. It is basically a high end GeForce 5900 with slower memory (2.8ns vs. 2.2ns) and…
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Easy way to price video cards and CPUs
Pricewatch Video Cards. Here’s an easy way to see the prices of video cards at a glance. Pricewatch publishes them all on one page. The pricegrabber merchants seem higher end (fewer small stores), but this is a great way to get a feel for market pricing. “Pricewatch on CPUs”:http://www.pricewatch.com/menus/m3.htm. The same is true for CPU…
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Build Your Own PC Message Forums – shuttle sb61g2 memory problems?
Build Your Own PC Message Forums – shuttle sb61g2 memory problems?. I tried to overclock my Dad’s machine and everything fell apart! Got all kinds of random crashes. Not just blue screen of deaths, but hard crashes. Also unrealiable reads and installs. Tried a bunch of things and finally detuned the memory and this seemed…
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ATI and nVidia Roadmaps
“Endian roadmap”:http://endian.net/roadmap.asp. One of the worst things to do is to buy a new card or other piece of hardware and then discover there was a big price cut or a new model due the next week. Endian has a whole cut of news just basd on new roadmaps. Super useful to check. So for…
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Macintosh Blogging Tools
I’ve been using the Macintosh at work. Great to get back to this machine. quite a community of software. After 15 years of being on the PC pretty much exclusively, I sure feel clumsy in a different environment. Anyway, here are some tools and things I’ve been finding helpful: * http://www.errant.org/lago/archives/000723.html. A good list of…
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More on softmod for ATI Radeon 9800 SE
“OC FAQ”:http://www.ocfaq.com/forum_new/showthread.php?t=303. The folks at OCFAQ seem to know an amazing amount. Here’s the detailed scoop from a thread of theirs. There was quite an opportunity in the last ATI product cycle to turn 9500s into 9700s, but that window has closed, but is still open a tad for 9800 SE to 9800 non-pro *…
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Video Cards from 1999-2003 and Choices for 1Q04
Video at Digit-Life.com. A good overall review site. Every month, they test various video cards from top to bottom. Good to get a perspective. They just did a 4 year test from 1999-2003. Amazing the progress that’s been made. Good to check every month. “Overview”:http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/over2003/index.html of the last four years of video development. To sum…
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Athlon 64 Ship rates
X-bit labs – Hardware news – Does AMD Supply Enough Athlon 64 Processors?. Well as usual, yields are the big issue. A good summary of Athlon 64 shipments. They claim 170K units shipped in Q403. The folks at Solomon Smith Barney think they’ll do 350K in 1Q (a drop in the bucket). For perspective, they…
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Windows Update fails if your system time is off
My main problem right now is that Windows Update isn’t working. It’s the well know “Windows Update Problem”:http://www.updatexp.com/0x800A138F.html call 0x800a138f. Great name! In my case, studying c:\windows\windows update.log revealed I was really getting an 0x800C0008 error (man have PCs become like mainframes or what!). Amazingly, this is because I got the clock screwed up by…
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Athlon 64 Quiet'N'Cool
X-bit labs – Articles – AMD Athlon 64 3200 CPU Review (page 4). Very cool point about the Athlon is that with the right Athlon 64 CPU (look at the serial number on the chip, it should end in “AP” and if you have the right motherboard BIOS, it should have a quiet’n’cool entry in…
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Overclocking Software
Stuart’s Overclocking Software Page. Stuart recommends Motherboard monitor and cpu cooL. .:: Motherboard Monitor. Great tool when you are in overclock land. What is the temperature and other facts about your machine. A nice monitor, but you need to see if your motherboard is supported since it dives down *deep* into the system to find…
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Assembling an Athlon 64 3200+ in a Shuttle SN85G4
I got the components and assembled it over the last couple of nights. Here are notes for other brave folks doing this: * Pricing. Make sure you get good pricing on the Athlon 64. These prices seem to be changing weekly. There is good availability if you go to http://pricegrabber.com, but for instance the Athlon…
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Repair XP Guide
Repair XP Breat notes from Harry O. on fixing Windows XP. Man, you have to be smart sometimes. Some great links and notes. here are some I’ve used lately: * “Repair by Installing Over”:http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How%20to%20Repair%20Windows%20XP%20by%20Installing%20Over%20top%20of%20Existing%20Setup:. Good notes on how to repair. If you have an OEM CD you are in luck, it has a repair option…
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Ultimate CD and DVD Data Recovery and Rescue tool (CD Data Recovery)
Ultimate CD and DVD Data Recovery and Rescue tool (CD Data Recovery). Like winimage, this shareware, lets you backup CDs and DVDs. Very useful if you ever need this stuff back.
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Software mod for turning your Radeon 9800SE into a 9800Pro- FAQ
Software mod for turning your Radeon 9500 non-Pro into a 9700 – FAQ. Wow, you can both overclock your video card. it also turns out that you can take a 9800SE and with a software modification to drivers, turn on some of the hardware on the board and turn it into a 9800 Pro. That’s…
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2004 Looking ahead
“Extremetech”:http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1419529,00.asp. A comprehensive review that helps plans buys for this upcoming year AMD “X-bit Labs”:http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20031203151532.html has all the details on the Prescott launch including pricing. The net is the launch is February 2. Main points are that we can expect in 1H04 the new “Prescott” to be marketed as SSE3 (what amazing marketing types these…
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19" LCD Monitors
Four years ago, I bought two 15″ monitors for $1,000. Then, two years ago, we got a great LCD monitor for $900. Now, 19″ monitors that are very good can be had for $6-700. Amazing. Given I’m spending so much more time at home, it would be great to have a 19″. Here’s the analysis:…
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El Cheapo Athlon Upgrade of existing Machine
OK, we’ve got a server running an old Pentium III 550MHz with 256MB of memory. It does have lots of disk though (2x120GB, 18MB system and 60GB backup with Promise Raid and removable drives). This is the only machine long term that won’t become a Shuttle box at some point because we need the drives.…
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Hardware Analysis – Forum – ATHLON XP 2800 (Overclocking)
Hardware Analysis – Forum – ATHLON XP 2800 (Overclocking). Good place to look to see how fast you can really overclock your CPU. Obviously, your mileage may vary. Hat tip to “Hardware Analysis Forum”:http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/17086/ for the discussion on getting an Athlon XP 2500+ vs. an Athlon 2800+ and then overclocking. It looks from this data…
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Tom's Hardware Guide Mass Storage: Affordable and Reliable 80 and 160 GB Hard Drives – Solidly Middle Class And Affordable
Tom’s Hardware Guide Mass Storage: Affordable and Reliable 80 and 160 GB Hard Drives – Solidly Middle Class And Affordable. If you don’t have $150 to spend on a hard drive, Tom’s Hardware likes the Samsung 160GB drive. It performed OK and is much cheaper at “$116”:http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=1224163/blsrt=1/ut=0ce6e8ac87113673 according to pricegrabber. That’s just $0.73/GB (although the…
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Kazaa Lite K and KLChat
Kazaa Lite K : Resources and Information. Kazaa Lite has gotten harder to find now that the folks behind Kazaa have been cracking down (how ironic that is!). In any case, these folks still seem to have a copy. “#KLChat”:http://kppdata.twizt3d.com/kl/index.htm. Some folks think this is the better non-spyware version of Kazaa. I’ll have to give…
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Digital Music Sites
RareWares. A great place to get codec binaries. “Hydrogen Audio”:http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/. Seems like the best forums for those with digital music technology questions.
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NTFSDOS
Sysinternals Freeware – Utilities for Windows NT and Windows 2000 – NTFSDOS. Another darn useful tool if you corrupt your Windows NT/2000/XP installation. Let’s you read an NTFS partition from plain old DOS. When used with the network boot floppy, it should get you home no problem.
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More on creating a Network Boot Floppy
Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk for M$ Networks. Amazing someone is still maintaining this. Darn useful though if your machine doesn’t have a CD-ROM
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XP Partition Management
Also know as how to get one big fat Windows partition into something manageable. I have a big partition and lots of data. So, how do you get to the right configuration and make everything boot correctly? * “Mandrake Linux”:http://mandrake.com. This Linux has a dynamic repartitioner for NTFS partitions. You defrag, backup and then run…
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Epson 3200 35mm scanning
Using my Dad’s new Epson 3200 scanner. Man, there are a lot of software settings, here are some guides to getting the scanning right: * Epson Perfection 3200 scanner: Impressions by Norman Koren, Benjamin Kanarek, and Guido Bruck