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For X-Mas my parents gave me some upgrades for my computer. I had selected these items, of course. There was, however, something I didn't take into consideration. Something I'd never have thought to check. Something, in fact, that I didn't realize until after I had spent roughly an hour swapping equipment in and out of my computer case.
The new motherboard only supports up to two IDE devices.
I guess for most people this might not be a problem. However, counting my hard drives and my optical drives I have four IDE devices. I've never seen a motherboard that only had one IDE port, so I never would have thought to check. I haven't really figured out how to connect the primary hard drive and one of my optical drives at the same time, since they're so far apart in the case. So, while everything technically works, I can't install drivers for, say, the onboard sound and network hardware. I was actually pretty impressed that Windows booted at all, considering I replaced the motherboard and processor.
Looks like I'll be going to Best Buy tomorrow to buy a SATA hard drive.
Posted at: 16:50
[path: /teiac] permanent link
It took me about three hours of tearing my hair out about this e-mail situation before I actually took a look at the headers for one of my severely delayed e-mail messages. It turns out that google is the culprit, mail is getting from sunflower to dreamhost just fine and then when it hits google it sits undelivered for 12-18 hours. It looks like their servers are choking when they try to authenticate where the e-mail is actually coming from, which makes sense really.
This sucks, because I need to have reliable access to my e-mail from a large number of computers throughout the day. The gmail interface is really nice, but if they're going to hold my e-mail indefinitely I guess I'll need to find something else. In the interest of totally overreacting to this situation, I think I'm going to try using Pine for a while.
Posted at: 23:22
[path: /teiac] permanent link
What follows is a discussion of my totally out-of-control e-mail situation. It will almost certainly not be up to the caliber of my normal posts, which have been described as riveting.
So my e-mail situation is totally out-of-control. I currently have about six e-mail addresses that I use, all of which are forwarded to my gmail account because gmail has the best web interface of them all. I don't really know why I maintain so many different e-mail accounts, but since I have them all forwarded to the same place it hasn't been much of a chore to keep up with them for some time.
The most heavily used of my e-mail accounts is my @sunflower.com address. This is because the sunflower mail server supports plussed mailing. This means that you can append "+anything" between the account name and the @ symbol, and it still gets delivered properly. For example, if my e-mail account were [account]@sunflower.com, you could send a message to [account]+whatever@sunflower.com and it would still be delivered. This can be useful because you can tag the e-mail address you provide when you register for websites with a unique marker to help you filter out any spam that you receive as a result. Basically, it prevents you from having to set up dummy e-mail accounts.
Well, a further complication is that I no longer live in Lawrence, so I don't have active Sunflower cable service. Until very recently, my e-mail address was tied to my old roommate's account, since he still worked at Sunflower at the time. When he quit, however, the account passed to his new roommate's name. The result of this is that I lost administrative access to my e-mail account when that happened because I don't know what the cable account password changed to.
And that brings us to the true dilemma: I stopped receiving most of the e-mail that was sent to my Sunflower account. I sort of sat on this for a few days because I was hoping that it would just work itself out. I really didn't want to call Sunflower for support, because my name's not on the account.
However, I noticed tonight that e-mail sent to my @sunflower.com address wasn't being forwarded to my gmail account, but to a third address that is itself forwarded to my gmail account. So I've realized it's actually the third address that's causing the grief, but I have no way to change where the sunflower account gets forwarded to. In my attempts to figure out what's causing the issues with the problem account I accidentally deleted it, and now all of my mail is just bouncing. How am I supposed to know when I get myspace messages without my mail notifications?!?
After restoring the e-mail address at my domain, I don't know what to do next. Mail that is supposedly forwarded from my domain isn't arriving at my gmail account, but I do see mail arriving at my domain. Is it getting forwarded at all? I've tried adding postmaster and abuse addresses because I read that some domains refuse e-mail if you don't have them? It's never come up before, but I'm pretty much willing to try anything to duct tape my precarious situation back together so I can get some sleep.
Posted at: 22:02
[path: /teiac] permanent link
This entry is also about computers
So, my parents now have a fully functioning Windows XP installation. Their printer, however, is another matter entirely.
I didn't really discuss this much yesterday, but one of the biggest pitfalls of maintaining my parents' computer is having to deal with my parents. I'm sure that this is not uncommon among people my age, but my parents approached regular use of a computer with a great deal of trepidation1. And while they've both become fairly competent with the use of their computer, they have done so by learning very specific patterns of clicks and button presses that produce the desired result, rather than learning the underlying mechanics. So whenever anything changes they get completely lost, and they get pissed. I understand this, I really do, but when I've spent considerable time trying to un-fuck whatever is fucked on their computer and they start coming at me with complaints that some extremely minor thing has been altered slightly, I can't help but lose my cool.
The printer has been a sore spot for quite some time. When we purchased the computer four years ago, we also got one of HP's All-In-One printers, which is a combination printer/scanner/copier. This thing is a piece of shit, and it hasn't worked reliably since the day we got it. I've tried to explain that swiss army devices such as this are almost always garbage and that we should just get a separate printer and scanner. They mention that the copier function would then be lacking, and when I try to explain that the "copier" is just scanning and then printing, they totally shut down. So when the printer kicked the bucket today, I had to trundle off to Best Buy and try to find the least offensive of the All-In-One devices available. Against my better judgement, I went with another HP. Honestly, this decision was based on the fact that of all of the display models, the HP in question was the only one that was actually able to scan and then print something. I admit this was probably an elaborate Best Buy ruse to trick me in to buying their overstocked device.
In order to install the new printer, I had to first remove the old printer. I drafted my mother for this task, since moving light objects seems to me a fairly inoffensive task. I was not prepared, however, for her reaction to what lurked behind her computer desk when we wheeled it out from the wall. Behind every desk I've ever seen that hosts a computer is a rat's nest of cabling. I know that some people zip tie cables together, but this becomes a total hassle when you need to replace things. My mother was apparently not prepared for this inherent cable jumble, because she lost it when she saw this and began lamenting the state of her house. This did not prove very helpful in the installation of the printer, so I had to banish her from the room so I could get the damn thing over with. As I was sitting among these cables trying to tease out the power and USB cords that needed liberating, I began to reflect on how often doing some favor for my parents has caused me to yell at them.
I mentioned earlier that I do understand why they act like they do, I can see how unnerving it would be to have something change that you consider a fundamental aspect of the way you use said thing. Understanding, however, has not come close to staying my temper. I feel like I'm getting better, though. Yesterday when I needed help finding the backup CDs for the computer, mom claimed to have already given them to me. Since this was not the case, I calmly persisted in asking where, if anywhere, some CDs might be if I did not already have them in my possession. Rather than considering this, she proceeded to assign blame to me for not having them, and wiped her hands of the whole mess. And despite the huge bait laid2 before me, I was able to move on without comment. So, hooray for progress!3
----
1 While looking up the word "trepidation" to ensure I had the correct word, I found the following definition:
tremulous fear, alarm, or agitation; perturbation
I found this pretty funny.
2 I spent about five minutes reviewing the uses of "lie" and "lay" before I could remember the correct one to use here. I'm still not fully confidant I chose correctly. So much for the 35 I got on the English section of the ACT.
3 Regarding the use of footnotes, I've been reading House of Leaves. I apologize.
Posted at: 19:00
[path: /teiac] permanent link
I started using Debian exclusively a while ago. I've had kind of an on again, off again thing for linux over the past five years or so. I'd install it to dual-boot with Windows, and then I'd try to see how long I could go without booting into the Windows partition to see whether I could permanently make the switch. The thing that always brought me back to Windows was that I wanted to play video games, and they just don't really make video games for linux. While it is possible to emulate Windows for the purposes of gaming, it doesn't tend to work very well or reliably, unless the game in question is pretty old. At least that is my experience. So I'd invariably switch back to using Windows full time.
When I moved home in December, I decided that I wanted to quit playing World of Warcraft, permanently. I decided to merge my infatuation with linux with the desire to rid myself of the possibility of easily playing an MMORPG and installed Debian. And that brings us to today.
The point of all of this is that while I've been running Debian exclusively for about seven months, I didn't make this switch because I harbored any ill will towards Windows. I just wanted to try something different, really, and since thinking differently costs so much damn money, I went with the cheaper route.
So it has been interesting that while I've been using Debian, my parent's Windows PC has been nothing but trouble. Until recently I'd been using Windows PCs for the past 13 years or so, and in all that time I have never seen nor heard of a computer with such problems. They're all software problems, and they are all apparently inexplicable. I consider myself to be fairly competent technologically speaking, so it's pretty much only a matter of pride that has kept me from reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows. It's gone on so long, though, that I finally gave in and started the process this morning around 9:00AM.
My mother asked how long I expected this to take, and I said not much more than an hour or so. Well, the time is currently 5:46PM, and I'm still not done. The lion's share of this huge waste of my day was installing Windows Updates, roughly 200 of them, over the course of about four hours. And rebooting every 15 minutes or so.
So while my exodus from the Windows world was rooted in no real animosity, I am now convinced that the work required to install Windows is far more than any inconvenience Debian could possible present me with.
Posted at: 18:00
[path: /teiac] permanent link
X-Box 360 - May 20, 2006 - June 3, 2007
WE HARDLY KNEW YE
Posted at: 09:05
[path: /teiac] permanent link