June 2006 Archives

There are several different types of what I call computer people.

First, there are those folks that want nothing whatsoever to do with computers or any technology at all. Rotary phone types. Not really part of the discussion at hand, but I have to put them in here.

Next on the food chain are people like my daughter and grandmother. They don't particularly give a shit HOW it work, they just need it to. They are willing to learn simple tasks (like creating fire) such as opening the web browser, etc. The are the end users that create havoc. Download garbage, spyware, generally fuck up their computers within a couple of months. The only reason I have my daughter in this list is because she is eight. I am pretty sure that she will progress as time goes by. This group of people, although I end up making money off of them, is a big pain in the ass. I have driven the 60 miles to College Park more than once to fix the sound on my Grandmother's computer because the fucking speaker wire was unplugged.

Third on my list are the sterotypical Mac users. Secretly all serious computer geeks want to be Mac users. Just have the shit work right, but not be afraid to ask questions and try and fix it. They can also be pretty dangerous, viruses, spyware, but overall, they are the perfect end users. If it don't work right, pop in the fucking restore CD and be done with it. Most of the people that I do small jobs for fall into this range. My wife is one of them. Over the last couple of years, I have stopped building PCs for people, and just recommend buying compaq or macintosh. Easy to use, comes with a restore CD. Just make sure you get one with a burner and backup your important docs and pictures.

I am going to leave the Professionals out of this. Most of the full time pros are very good at what they do, but when they leave work, either they are the previous group that just wants the shit to work right, or they hate computers completely.

I belong in the last group. Semi-professionals who think they know everything and have to tweak shit all of the time, usually to their detriment. Recently I had a hard drive crash and had to rebuild everything. I finally got everything right, running under Windows XP, everything was moving along smoothly. Microsoft has released their Windows Vista beta 2, so I downloaded both the 32 bit version as well as the 64. I tried to upgrade to the 32 bit version and something went wrong with the install. Damn. I booted to the 64-bit DVD that I had burned and proceeded to install. Can't do an upgrade this way (it is disabled) and I don't think that I would be able to upgrade from 32 to 64 anyway. I installed the 64 bit version and found that it didn't support the 64 bit Abit drivers from XP for my damn NIC. I formatted it again, and loaded the 32-bit Windows Vista. Everything seemed ok for a couple of days, then it started freezing up on me. Then I lost sound. Dammit. Reloaded the drivers and that didn't work. I figured that I had screwed something up messing around with the Vista settings, so I tried a repair. No good. So I formatted the drive and have now loaded the 64-bit evaluation of Windows XP. Sound STILL didn't work, and after a bit of troubleshooting (which I should have done a week ago) I found that it was mainly locking up when accessing the sound hardware. Goddam onboard sound. I disabled it in the BIOS and found an old SB Live card in my basement, popped that in, and everything is hunky dory.

Now I am just waiting for compatible 64-bit drivers for my NIC and I will upgrade back to Windows Vista beta 2, haha. I am a damn glutton for punishment sometimes.

Whether it be screwing around with my operating system, or skinning my desktop, or seeing if I can run some bad-ass AS400 fans in my desktop, I am always tweaking. Sometimes it can be a real pain in the ass and at those times, I wish I were just an end user. I just want the shit to work right.

Lisa made a comment in one of her posts that had to do with communication and modern day marriage. She mentioned BBSes and that sturck a cord. I have posted before about how my site started and just got to thinking about it.

During the time that I was calling BBSes and ran my own, I met some really nice people both in person as well as online. My wife and I both had a couple of nice friendships that started as a result of being online. I was into BBSes for several years and finally took it offline sometime around 2000. I know that the last year or two that I ran it I was strictly telnet only.

One of the things that I missed after that was the ability to converse with people online. I know that I can chat, but I hate chat. I use AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo, but prefer not to use them except rarely. I have used IRC as well. It's ok, but I lump it in with all of the other chat programs. I guess maybe there is something psychological about it, but I prefer the Bulletin Board, or blog format. I have your undivided attention (you had better be listening dammit), and you can't talk back, at least until I have had my say. It also gives us more time to think about what is going to be said, rather than having to come up with witty one-liners in two seconds flat. Not that having more time makes me seem any less retarded, give me ten seconds or ten hours, and I will pretty much come up with something related to poo.

I am looking forward to meeting some new friends soon. I have conversed online with a few of you, I have even spoken on the phone with a couple. I think that this fall, if they have it again, I am going to try to make it to the blog meet in Helen. Hopefully it won't be on a holiday weekend. Other than that, as long as I know ahead of time (at least a few weeks) I can take my fall vacation. Consider that time-frame a friggin request to the gods-that-set-blogmeet-dates. Time to have a couple of brews with some bloggers.