Computer Frustrations – Page 2

This That and the Other

I haven’t had a chance to post anything for a while as my life has became quite full lately.

This week is spring break at Ivy Tech and IU. It’s been a nice break from the organized chaos that has become my life. So I thought I would write about the goings on lately.

Backup, Backup, Backup!

I finally got a stable backup file server going. My original one died and I’m in the process of parting it out. If you’re looking for some cheap computer parts you can find ’em right here. I finally gave up on linux and went with Windows Server 2003. It’s essentially XP with additional goodies for server functions. I only have one step left, and that is setting up the RAID configuration. That’s for a safety net should a hard drive fail.

ROX Update

While I haven’t had much time to concentrate on ROX, I have started recording episodes that still play on CATS. I have many of the episodes on VHS, but capturing them straight to a digital format makes things much easier. Given the advanced development of my daughter I might be able to start working on ROX again and finally get season one released in a few months.

Amelia

She is growing and developing at an alarming rate! She is now eating solid foods every night. She is also starting to move around on her own, she isn’t crawling yet but very close. She has learned that she has a voice and likes to use it often. I would say her favorite activity is getting mommy and daddy wet when she’s taking a bath. She’s a hoot and a very happy baby. We couldn’t ask for more.

The Semester From Hell

This semester I’m taking a class I’ve failed before (MATH-111) and a class that interests me (CINS-102). My math class is great, as the instructor does his best to ensure everyone in class understands the concepts and can do the work. 85% of the final grade in this class is based upon test scores, something I’ve never had to deal with before. Right now I’m earning a solid B, which makes me very happy. I plan on thanking him at the end of the semester for being such a good instructor, all teachers should be reminded how much they’re appreciated when they do a good job! My other class is a completely different story however. While I’m learning some much needed skills in this class (XHTML & CSS) the instructor seems to use the class has her way to release frustrations she has. There aren’t many people in this class, and many don’t seem to have the skills required or aren’t putting forth the effort required. The class has opened my eyes to the world of web programming, but it’s almost impossible to swallow her totalitarian attitude.

Give Me The Fiber

If you live in Indiana, you might have heard about what Smithville Telephone is doing. All of their customers are receiving fiber to the home. It’s exciting to say the least. Last year I rewired the phone lines in my house and installed a LAN in anticipation. This week we were “pre-wired” for it. This consisted of them installing a new network interface on the outside of my home, installing a battery backup system in my home, and installing a data jack. My area, called the “Fullerton Remote” should be completed by the last quarter of this year. With this upgrade broadband Internet download speeds are rising from 1.5mbps to 20! They are also adding television services which beat all it’s competitors, but that’s my opinion. This upgrade is amazing to say the least. Do you know anyone who has access to 100mbps download speeds at home? That will be their fastest rate, and I’ve seen it work. It’s almost like comparing a 14.4 modem to a 56k, a world of difference.

Spring is in the Air

Spring is upon us here in Indiana. The grass is becoming green again, and the temperatures are rising. That means the honey do list starts back up again. I listed what we want to get done around the house in an earlier post. Now it’s time to get into gear and get those items checked off the list!

Like a Phoenix

I am slowly but surely rising from the ashes of a dead hard drive.

About a month ago, my brand new 1.5 terabyte Seagate hard drive crashed. I tried a few tricks to try to recover the data, but none of them worked. I didn’t want to spend the $700 to $2700 I was quoted for data recovery, as I am a person of simple means.

Luckily I had old data from my old computer stored on 4 separate hard drives. I used my “old” hard drive dedicated to video work and installed it, and then started transferring data. Unfortunately my “backup” drive decided to crap out as soon as I got most of the data off of it. That drive is the only other Seagate I have. Their reputation isn’t doing so well with me. I think I’m going to stick with Western Digital from now on.

I now have almost every episode from season one of ROX on my computer and edited. There are a couple I’m having problems with, but this time around things have been much smoother than before. It’s a shame because I spent 3 years working on that stuff. The video is crisper, the audio is clearer – just a better product all around. I think this disaster was actually a blessing in disguise.

Once I get these “trouble” episode problems resolved, which are: Family Values Special, A Festival of Fools and Mom, Dad, I’m Getting Married. I can start on DVD menu authoring which is a tedious process. The more time I spend on it, the better the end product will be though. I want this season to be the standard, not the example.

Season One will be made up of two volumes of 4 discs each. This is mainly due to quality concerns. In the set will be all 25 episodes! Also included will be special commentary on episode 31, A Toast to Poverty by the shows’ producers – J and Editor B. Plus a few surprising extras. It should be a hit for all!

I finally have a backup plan so this shouldn’t happen again. With some help I have purchased a backup hard drive for ROX and I will have my server up and going soon. With those two options, I hope I have enough redundancy for this not to happen again.

I hope to have season one finalized within a few months, so be on the lookout!

7

Microsoft has taken a lot of flack for it’s Vista operating system, due to it’s many issues. While I didn’t have many, the ones I did have forced me to upgrade to Windows 7.

This is my non-technical review based on my jeers and cheers.

Since I am a staff member at Indiana University, I have access to vast amounts of software for free or very cheap. This afforded me the opportunity to upgrade for $20. That’s right.

I’ll start with the things I like about Windows 7…

First of all, my Nikon Coolpix 7600 and it’s accompanying software would not work with Vista, period. Vista’s own picture transfer wizard would not even work. I believe it was something to do with the horrible USB support Vista had. With 7, my 4 year old camera, and it’s software work better than ever! I can’t wait to see how my bluetooth dongle works!

Second, Vista loved RAM. It loved it so much, that no matter how much you had it seemed like it wasn’t enough. This isn’t the case with 7 – it’s more like the opposite. Windows 7 actually uses half as much RAM at idle on my machine than Vista did. Freeing up that memory makes the machine much more responsive, programs load instantly.

Third, UAC. User Access Control, introduced with Vista was a major pain in the a**. I disabled it, but by doing that I also disabled notification of any problems elsewhere that could have happened. With 7, you can do the same with a slider without the potential repercussions. Set it to where you want it right from the task bar.

Fourth, Media Center. I started using media center with Vista’s version, and I thought it couldn’t get any better. I was wrong. 7’s media center works better and is more reliable. It also has CBS TV streaming built right in. So now you can watch ANYTHING on TV if you have media center and Hulu Desktop. Add Boxee to the mix and you have the ultimate home entertainment machine. I also have My Movies3 and Heatwave integrated into WMC, I love it!

Now onto the not so nice things…

There are many compatibility issues with programs and 7. While they will work, you may have to re-install. While this isn’t a huge issue, it’s still bothersome. I can happily report that I’ve only had one casualty of the upgrade, Quickbooks 2008. I have to restart my computer any time I want to use it. Intuit knows about this issue and is “working on a solution.” I hope it is resolved soon, this program wasn’t cheap, even though it’s free now.

I haven’t been a fan of the “new” start menu since it was introduced with Windows XP. Luckily Microsoft has always provided us with an alternative, the “classic” start menu, which has it’s origins with Windows 95. It has gone the way of the 8-track. While there are some registry hacks to get the old menu back, and even a guide on lifehacker, I’m adapting to this change and I’m starting to get on board with it. Many of us “old timers” don’t like change.

Those are my only complaints thus far. Which isn’t that bad. I believe 7 is what Vista was meant to be.

Crash and Freeze?

Over the past couple of weekends I’ve been working hard at getting ROX season one to the production phase. I’ve authored all the DVD menus and have done most of the design of the case inserts. I had all the episodes ready. It was just a matter of rendering all of the discs and making sure I had all of the extras we wanted before it would be finished.

All of that work took an extreme turn for the worse the other day. I had been having troubles rendering video. I thought it was a Sony Vegas or Quick Timeissue, so I removed and reinstalled. I then went on to think it was a codec issue, so I removed every media codec I had (quite a few), still didn’t fix it. I had given up for the night out of pure frustration as to why my 2 month old computer wasn’t working properly.

The next day I woke to something I’ve never seen before. A black screen with a message: Cannot read disk on SATA 0 and Cannot read disc on SATA 3. WTF!

I restarted the machine to hear a distinct “clicking” noise. One of the hard drives was toast, so I removed the secondary one (the one with all the important data on it) and the computer would then boot into safe mode. Apparently, my virus software which I get from Indiana University somehow became corrupt and became “Incompatible with my version of windows.” So I wiped it and am still installing my programs.

My 1.5tb drive which has all of my personal, business and ROX data was clicking. What do I do? I could not initialize the disk. My first thought was disk recovery, so I called the only computer service place I trust and they referred me to Drive Savers. They gave me a code that cuts 10% off the price and gives you a no data – no cost guarantee. I called them up and the estimate was quite shocking, $700 to $2700. Anybody want a large Seagate drive on the cheap?

Is the data worth that? It contains 3 years of blood, sweat and tears on this project. I conferred with my partner in crime, Editor B. He said he would help, which was a relief. My homeowners insurance policy will cover anything over $1000. After much thought and searching my other hard drives for data, I’ve decided to try something a little ‘home brewed’ to alleviate my situation. Freezing the drive.

Not like this picture though. The moisture from the ice will ruin it. I scoured the interwebs looking for “freezer trick hard drive” and came across many posts about how this can help you retrieve the data you need. Sometimes it works for just a few minutes and sometimes it works for a few hours. There is no definitive amount of time, I think it’s limited to just how damaged the hard drive is.

I put my hard drive in the freezer last night about 6pm and I plan on taking out about the same time tonight. I wrapped it with some paper towels and placed it in a vacuum bag. This will help with any moisture issues that could result. I plan on keeping the hard drive in the bag and placing it in a larger bag with ice. When I connect the drive the computer, this will help keep it cooler longer.

I have about 500 gigs of data that I would like to get off of this drive. But I have prioritized what I am retrieving.

Wish me luck.

UPDATE: This did not work in my circumstance. However I’ve been told it does.

Backup the Backup

After many years of accidentally deleting or losing data, I have come to a point where that should no longer happen.

When my old machine died, I thought I would turn it into a backup server. I was unable to make that dream come true as it was too far gone to resurrect. I was however able to find an adequate machine for $50 that does all I need it to. I wanted something that would be able to work cross platform as I currently have 2 windows machines and I want to eventually buy a Mac Book. The only option that seemed to be the right decision was Linux, specifically Ubuntu.

After working on many different options, I found what I believe will be the easiest and best way for my specific situation. I have samba running on my Ubuntu Intrepid machine with the built-in windows backup client backing up the machines on a weekly basis. While I haven’t researched it yet, from what co-workers have told me Apple’s time machine program should work much the same.

This link was the clearest on how to set samba up: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605

From there it was just like sharing folders or drives in Windows.

Now that my testing is complete, I can add some hard drives and put it in production mode. My wife is so thrilled that she shouldn’t have to worry about losing data anymore.

Going Back to the Darkside

After a call from PC Max regarding my computer, I found out some financially crushing information. My computer is officially dead.

The motherboard will not respond, I’ve had problems with it since I bought it off of eBay. I’ll never trust ASUS products, this motherboard was a headache from the word go. They also said that my video card was starting to show signs of going as some of the capacitors are starting to mushroom.

Their recommendations where to replace it with an “upgrade box” which essentially replaces all the internal parts. This would have ran about $450. I built the computer for this cost. Plus this would be like throwing more money into a big money pit. As I’ve written about previously, I’ve replaced the motherboard, replaced a hard drive and went through 5 power supplies on this machine alone. I’m not sure if I work it too hard, or if I’m having some bad luck.

After making some tough choices, we decided to purchase a Dell Optiplex 760. There are many advantages to purchasing this, but there are some disadvantages. I will outline them below.

Advantages:

3 year warranty opposed to standard Dell 1 year warranty
If any problems happen, I can bring it into TS for service
Business class machine that should hold up to whatever I throw at it

Disadvantages:

Can only hold 2 hard drives; I currently have 4
More costly than building a machine
Pushes back my anticipated purchase of a MacBook Pro

While the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages, they are something to think about. This machine also has a Intel processor, something I haven’t had since 1995 which was in my first computer, a 486DX2 running at 50mhz. Since then I have switched to AMD for their better price points with unequaled performance. I just hope this machine is as good as my old one was.

It’s specs are:

Core 2 Duo running at 3.06ghz
4gb of DDR2 ram running at 800mhz
320gb boot hard drive
16x DVD-RW drive
16 in 1 Media Card Reader (for SD/CF and other types of flash memory)
On-board video with a digital video adapter card – a good system that is used at IU

I am not purchasing a monitor, keyboard, mouse or any other peripherals with this to save money. I have all of these items, and don’t really need new ones. Dell is currently saying I should receive it by September 3rd.

My plan is to buy a new 1.5tb hard drive to replace the space I use on 4 hard drives. This will let me have the space I need and want via an internal hard drive. I’m going to sell 3 of those hard drives to try to recoup the cost. I also need to buy an adapter to get the information off of those old drives.

I’m going to keep my old machine and eventually buy a new motherboard and processor. It will be my Linux box. This will also be an addition to all of the extra tax write-offs we will have this year. With a new child, remodeling my business space and a new computer, we should have a nice tax refund next year.

Winding Down

My summer is quickly drawing to a close. My last class for the summer semester is tomorrow, I start working at TS again on August 10th and the birth of my second child is becoming more imminent as each day passes.

I’ve been pre-ocupied with class and remodeling the nursery. I don’t feel like the progress is coming along like I wanted it to with the nursery.

This is the first room that will be “complete” in the house. While we have painted, installed doors, ect. One thing we haven’t done is change our trim from stained to painted. This room will be. Once little one is born, we will take a remodeling break and then change the trim, each room at a time.

I’m very happy that I was able to take a break from work this summer and focus on my studies. While I only have one grade posted thus far, I believe I’ll have 3 A’s and a C. The C is due to some weird quizzes that had wrong answers! The professor would sometimes throw a few points our way, but nothing that made up for the loss. I now have a greater appreciation of what it’s like to be a college student. If our finances could support it, I’d like to continue going full time until I complete my degree.

My computer’s power supply died again, at least it’s still under warranty. I took it into PC Max, but it will probably be a couple of weeks before its return due to Antec’s slow warranty claim process.

We bought a new car, well new to us. With the impending arrival of a new member of the family, we needed a more family friendly vehicle. I didn’t want to trade in my truck, but I did due to it’s much higher trade-in value than the Kia. We bought a 2007 Chevrolet HHR 1LT. We’ve rented them on two occasions and love them! It looks small, but has a lot more room than you would think it does.

Once I get some time to coordinate my thoughts, I’ll write something with more focus. In the meantime, if you’re my friend on twitter or facebook – I’ll keep you updated.

Resurrection…..Well Sort of

It turns out that my computer wasn’t on it’s death bed, my hard drive was.

For the past few months I would have these symptoms:

The power supply was extremely loud after being on for more than an hour.
No response on occasion, which would lead to a reboot.
Slower than normal function.

It all came to a head when all of these symptoms came together and after a reboot I got the dreaded message, “Disk Read Error.”

I knew the hard drive wasn’t dead, but there was a problem. I switched the power cables and it worked. So I backed up everything onto one of my other hard drives and purchased a new drive.

I bought a Western Digital 160 Gig PATA drive, that I must say is super quiet. You have to put your head up to the case just to hear it! It turns out that one of the pins on the 4 pin power connector had “sheered” away. I gave it to my co-worker Tito, I’m sure he can get it going again.

I knew my computer would run Windows XP, but I thought I would see if it could handle Vista. I think it runs Vista better than it ever ran XP.

I’ve had a few glitches, but nothing that wasn’t the case about XP years ago.

The biggest scare was last night. I’ve been re-installing all of my software, using my DVD-RW drive. When I went to install MS Visual Studio Pro 2008, my drive was nowhere to be found! Vista gave me a message that “there was something wrong with the driver.” After some searching I found that Vista has a quirk with some older drives. A quick registry patch resolved this.

While my computer cannot import video or audio directly anymore, it is working great as an all around PC. This is awesome news. I’m not feeling the pressure I was to purchase a new machine anymore. I can hopefully wait until our renovation is complete and I have a new office area before acquiring more equipment.

Meltdown

Last night Rachel and I had a computer meltdown. My main hard drive was not responding, so I rebooted to get a “disk read error.” I removed the computer and cleaned it out, switched some power cables – which lead to a rant about all of our computing issues.

I’m purchased a new 160 gig hard drive to replace the failing one. I was surprised at the price for a small hard drive these days, for $40 you can buy a 160 gig!

This is mainly a band-aid on a bigger problem, but I’ll remain optomistic.

IOU

I’ll be buying a new computer within a couple days. It’s just a matter of finding the proper hardware for the right price. Right now I’m leaning towards a Dell Optiplex 760, it’s a solid business class machine. KSoB uses them exclusively, and I know their inner workings inside and out. I wanted a quad core machine, but to get this machine I will have to sacrifice that feature.