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The Parting Tide
Apr. 3rd, 2006 09:37 pmMy computer is back safe at home now, apparently working just fine. (In fact, I picked it up on Saturday, but I've only now gotten around to updating.) Apparently there were no hardware problems--the motherboard and C: drive checked out just fine, and though I had inadvertently connected my old hard drive(Lazarus/Phoenix) to a RAID IDE port when I installed it, disconnecting that didn't fix the problem. Apparently the Windows installation was completely corrupted, though, so they had to reinstall Windows, thankfully without having to reformat the hard drive. In other words, little or not idea what actually caused the problem, but we can hope it doesn't happen again three weeks from now.
Then, of course, I had to redo all the setup I'd done when I first installed the thing. Since apparently my motherboard only has one IDE port proper, and the DVD-RW is already plugged into it, I had to install Lazarus/Phoenix close enough to slave it onto the same cable. The computer store had sold me a mounting bracket as well, which I eventually managed to attach, and after several fruitless minutes trying to shove it into one of the 5.25" bays from inside the case, I remembered that you can punch out the plastic bay covers in the front of the case, too, and slide it in from the front. This was complicated slightly by the fact that a big snake of cables was trying to occupy the free space under the DVD-RW, but I eventually managed to push it far enough back to get the screws in. Having done all this, it still wasn't working, so I ended up having to take it out again and change the jumpers to "slave" mode. (I always forget that step.) After a mere hour and a half, hands scratched up like I'd "been in a fight with Hedwig"(as my wife described it)from all those sharp metal edges inside the case, the deed was done.
I also had to reinstall a bunch of software, because of course the registry had been reinstalled with the rest of Windows. I actually was more methodical this time, and got more stuff actually installed. I had to reinstall the DVD burner software myself(it had come preinstalled when I bought it), and most of the rest is games.
Oh, yes, and apparently reinstalling Winamp caused it to forget, again, all of my song ratings. So, for the third time in the past six weeks, I had to go through and rate my music. At the moment I don't have a very complicated rating system--it's either five stars, for my favourites, or three for everything else. Though I do have the odd song, like the Rheostatics' execrable cover version of Jane Siberry's "One More Colour", which tempts me to include a one-star rating as well.
Having gotten into last.fm recently, I've changed my MP3 listening strategy. Rather than make a gargantuan randomized playlist containing each of my music files once, which will take me a year and a half to get through, I make a gargantuan randomized playlist containing each of my music files once(except for my favourites, which go in three times), and regenerate every time I have new tracks. I realize that this means that there are some tracks that will never come up, but since I'm also listening to my collection on CD & cassette in a once-each fashion, I'm not too worried.
I didn't get as much accomplished in my computer-deprived time as I might have hoped. I may have gotten more TV watched, though I taped an episode of "House" that I didn't manage to finish watching until last night. We did finish watching the last season of "Buffy", though, finally, and the last three episodes seemed better than a lot of the season. And we went out to see "Eight Below", which was a good Disney animal movie, lots of good canine acting, apart from the inexcusable mistakes in the amount of daylight available at various times of the year in Antarctica. No, for some reason without my computer I ended up mostly getting more sleep. (Is my computer artificially stimulating my brain to stay awake? Is sleepiness a symptom of computer withdrawal? Unsure.)
Time for "24", must go.
Then, of course, I had to redo all the setup I'd done when I first installed the thing. Since apparently my motherboard only has one IDE port proper, and the DVD-RW is already plugged into it, I had to install Lazarus/Phoenix close enough to slave it onto the same cable. The computer store had sold me a mounting bracket as well, which I eventually managed to attach, and after several fruitless minutes trying to shove it into one of the 5.25" bays from inside the case, I remembered that you can punch out the plastic bay covers in the front of the case, too, and slide it in from the front. This was complicated slightly by the fact that a big snake of cables was trying to occupy the free space under the DVD-RW, but I eventually managed to push it far enough back to get the screws in. Having done all this, it still wasn't working, so I ended up having to take it out again and change the jumpers to "slave" mode. (I always forget that step.) After a mere hour and a half, hands scratched up like I'd "been in a fight with Hedwig"(as my wife described it)from all those sharp metal edges inside the case, the deed was done.
I also had to reinstall a bunch of software, because of course the registry had been reinstalled with the rest of Windows. I actually was more methodical this time, and got more stuff actually installed. I had to reinstall the DVD burner software myself(it had come preinstalled when I bought it), and most of the rest is games.
Oh, yes, and apparently reinstalling Winamp caused it to forget, again, all of my song ratings. So, for the third time in the past six weeks, I had to go through and rate my music. At the moment I don't have a very complicated rating system--it's either five stars, for my favourites, or three for everything else. Though I do have the odd song, like the Rheostatics' execrable cover version of Jane Siberry's "One More Colour", which tempts me to include a one-star rating as well.
Having gotten into last.fm recently, I've changed my MP3 listening strategy. Rather than make a gargantuan randomized playlist containing each of my music files once, which will take me a year and a half to get through, I make a gargantuan randomized playlist containing each of my music files once(except for my favourites, which go in three times), and regenerate every time I have new tracks. I realize that this means that there are some tracks that will never come up, but since I'm also listening to my collection on CD & cassette in a once-each fashion, I'm not too worried.
I didn't get as much accomplished in my computer-deprived time as I might have hoped. I may have gotten more TV watched, though I taped an episode of "House" that I didn't manage to finish watching until last night. We did finish watching the last season of "Buffy", though, finally, and the last three episodes seemed better than a lot of the season. And we went out to see "Eight Below", which was a good Disney animal movie, lots of good canine acting, apart from the inexcusable mistakes in the amount of daylight available at various times of the year in Antarctica. No, for some reason without my computer I ended up mostly getting more sleep. (Is my computer artificially stimulating my brain to stay awake? Is sleepiness a symptom of computer withdrawal? Unsure.)
Time for "24", must go.
