Thanks to two awesome Kibologist invisible friends, an Ethernet card should soon be on its way to me.
I am near to explodiating with happiness.
That is all. As you were, comrades!
Tag: computers
Mah Motherboard
I pulled the dead motherboard out of my old computer, thinking it might be useful for an art project. At the very least, it’s kind of fun to photograph.
That little thing in the center of the photo, that looks like a miniature paper cutter, is where the processor sits. The itty bitty arm holds it in place. The cooling fan sits in the black plastic cage surrounding it.
After I’d pulled out the motherboard, I realized that it looks a bit like the model in at the beginning of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. If I had a better camera, I’d be able to capture the streets-and-buildings feeling. It’s really kind of cool.
Instant Review: Dial-up
In two words: It sucks. Yea, verily, doth it suck. I suspect that my ISP is throttling the throughput, because I am unable to achieve anything higher than a whopping 28.8kps. Oh, yeah, bay-BEE. So I’m crawling the internet at something significantly slower than a snail’s pace. Which is why I decided to upload photos this ayem, before work, instead of yesterday, from home.
But I’m online, and everything seems to be working just fine, with the obvious exception of no Ethernet and therefore no DSL.
Also, if you are ever in the mood for the blackest of black comedies, and you have an hour or two to kill, try calling AT&T’s tech support. If their voice response system doesn’t give you an aneurysm, being passed around to kingdom come and back should do the trick. It did not help matters that my current phone number is not the same number that they have in their system for me[1], and that my e-mail username is not the same as my network username[2]. I’ve heard of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, but in this case, I’m not convinced that the right hand knows that there is a left hand. Heck, I’m not convinced that either the right or the left have hands, period.
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[1] They are THE PHONE COMPANY, for pity’s sake, they ought to be able to get that sorted out, or at least properly cross-referenced. Sheesh!
[2] Don’t ask me how that happened, but I suspect it had something to do with Yahoo wanting me to fold my 10+ year old e-mail account into my new AT&T DSL account.[3]
[3] And then Flickr jumped on the bandwagon, and everything went kerplooie!
Adventures in Computing
I won’t bore you with the details of the comedy known as “Shelly loses then finds then loses then finds her Windows disk,” but I assure you, it was only a comedy in the strictest Greek drama sense (e.g. it does not matter how awful the events were, as long as they ended on an up-note). The short version is that my computer did, indeed, arrive, and I did, indeed get it minimally set up.
Even after the drama of getting the hardware sorted out[1] and getting Windows installed[2], I might have been able to get on-line last night, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the on-board Ethernet is not working. I tried everything I could think of to make Windows find it, but my 133t sk1LLz are not good enough, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to buy an Ethernet card, which means waiting for one to be delivered ($11 including shipping) or buy one locally ($22). I want instant gratification, but it seems really stupid to pay $22 for an Ethernet card. Sheesh! I also need to get a USB-to-Parallel adapter cord, because stupid me wasn’t paying attention and bought a computer without a parallel port. Duh. Considering how much money I saved buying the machine I did, though, a $7 cord seems like small potatoes. It’s just that I’m a spoiled brat and I want my computer to work properly rightthisminutedamnit! Patience is not one of my virtues, I’m afraid.
It’s not all bad news, though. I can snag the modem out of my old machine and use my ISP’s dial-up service to get on-line. It’s not ideal, but it’ll be light years ahead of the crappy-assed connection I had in Spencer. Ah, how quickly we are spoiled by broadband.
Anyway, come hell or high water, I will have some eye candy uploaded by Saturday, hopefully in the ayem. If the planets are in the proper alignment, I may even manage to get a few things uploaded tomorrow.
Crankypantsing aside, I have to mention that the new computer is super fast and uber quiet. You can hardly hear the fan when it’s running, even with the case off and half of its guts hanging out. It also has a capacious hard drive (120G, which is almost 2x as large as my old drive). Once I get things backed up from my old drives, and can reformat them to be used strictly as storage and back-up drives, I will have a metric ass-load of space.
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[1] If you ever have a computer shipped to you, and nothing happens when you first try to turn it on, donut panic. Or, if you must panic, please do the following first: Open the case and check to make sure that the RAM is properly seated. Twice now, I have gotten computers that did not turn on, and it was because the RAM had become loose in transit. The first time, the RAM was half-way out of its slot, which made it pretty obvious that that was the problem. This time, the RAM felt like it was properly installed. I had to pop out both sticks, then pop them back in, after which, Mr. Computational Appliance sprang to life fully armored from his father’s forehead. Wait, no, that was Athene. Anyway! The RAM is probably the easiest thing to trouble-shoot. Even if you have never before opened up a computer, you should be able to install RAM.
[2] I also took pee-churs of my torn apart studio. It looks like a Borg spaceship explodiated all over the place. There are computer guts everywhere. Pandora is happy, though, because she loves–loves, I say!–boxes. She’s commandeered the big computer box, and has been sleeping in it and shredding the sides.
[3] I just can’t get enough of poor Lolrus.
It’s Heeeere!
Not only did they update the tracking info, but they delivered it a day earlier than originally estimated. And without a signature. Yay!
The Adventures of Mr. Computational Device
He’s crossed the Mighty Mississippi and has been spotted in the Indiana Territory. He probably won’t be delivered until Friday, because I bet they’ll want a signature, and I won’t be home until then. The waiting, it is almost killerating me!
It Is Done
Mr. Computational Device has been ordered. Thankfully, I was able to find one without Vista pre-loaded on it. Ugh. Now, all I have to do is play the waiting game and cross my fingers that UPS/FedEx doesn’t screw up.
I stopped for coffee this morning, so I’m vibrating. For some reason, the coffee I make at home, even when it’s extra strong, doesn’t do this to me. Hmmm.
And that is the boring, boring, boring extent of my Friday morning news update.
Teaser
I’m up to ten new two-page spreads in the Equations art journal, which means I’m about 3/4 done with it. Last weekend, I stumbled across a most excellent book of Victorian poetry–nice and flowery and emotive–and I’m using fragments from it. Also, more paper boats, because some of the poems deal with adventures on the high seas. No pirates, alas.
When I started working in this journal, I thought it would visually be similar to the hemp bound journal. Not so much, it turns out. The first few pages started off in that vein, but it quickly changed direction. For one thing, there is more color (pink, even!), some window cut-outs, and generally less clutter. The pages are more spare and formal, which is as it should be, considering the overall theme.
Anyway, neener-neener! You can’t see any of it until next week, when Mr. Computational Device arrives. Actually, it may be more like next weekend, because it will take me awhile to get it set up.
Computer Update
Still no computer, but slightly less cranky, onna counta I think I’ve figured out what to do, computer-wise. Instead of getting a bare bones kit, I’m just going to get a basic machine. It doesn’t have a DVD burner or a ton of RAM or a card reader, but I’ve already got those things, and I know how to install them (blindfolded and in my sleep, even). I’m also going to get an external drive case, so I can use (and hot-swap) my current hard drives without having to actually install them. It’ll end up being a money saver, because a box with room for a second hard drive will cost more than the price of the hard drive case.
Anyway, I’m planning on ordering it tomorrow, so it should be here sometime next week. Yay!
Also, I am cat sitting Saturday-Wednesday, which should be interesting. It’s a 2x/day drive-by job, not board or live-in, but it’s on my side of town, so it should be pretty easy to do, schedule-wise. I went over to meet the cats a couple of weekends ago, and the male is a total mush. It made me miss my big-headed orange boy. The female is a bit stand-offish, which is typical of cats. She’s a senior, and will require pilling, which should be fun. After months on end of pilling Rory, though, I think I’m well qualified in the cat pilling department!
Damn You, Windows!
Today started off much better than yesterday. When I got to work, the escalators were turned on. Yay. No hauling my ass up gigantor steps. It quickly went down-hill, though. Last night, a Windows patch was installed. This morning, half my keyboard did not work. I had to reboot several times before the problem resolved. And then I realized that the Windows update b0rkened OCLC. Since I, and most of my coworkers, cannot do any actual work without OCLC, this is sort of a biggie. Fucking bastards!
red paper boat 
