Blog of Ortz

So I’ve got like 6 10GB hard drives that I’ll never use. What do I do with them?

I was thinking maybe I could use the magnets or the motor for something.

(I know about the hard drive speakers thing, I don’t think I’ll do that.)

So any ideas? If you don’t want to comment below, you can email me at ortzinator [at] gmail [dot] com.

First of all, I thought my hard drive died. It started flipping on and off repeatedly, and when I rebooted I got a “unmountable boot volume” BSOD. But then I booted into Linux, which mounted the partition fine. Then I ran WD’s diagnostic utility and it didn’t find any errors. Thoroughly confused, I rebooted again into Windows and it worked fine. :X So now I’m thinking it’s my PSU acting crazy. Which sucks because it’s only like 3 months old.

Then, abeit unrelated, the wires on my front case fan must’ve shorted out (when I got the case, it had cut the wires somehow, so I had to solder them together) because shortly after plugging it back in and moving my case back into place, my carpet started smoking. (The side of the case wasn’t on, so it was lying on the carpet.) So I had to put a fan in the window and evacuate my room until the smoke was out. Great fun.

So yesterday my router died. I wasn’t really surprised, it was starting to act strangely. Port forwarding entries would disappear for no reason, even though they were still being forwarded. So my server was down all day yesterday.

On top of that, my connection is screwy today. I disconnect about every 3 minutes. It got me banned from a few channels. Hopefully this won’t last long.

This past Saturday me and the family took a 30 mile trip to the little town of Cameron where they have an antique fair. The town’s 13 antique shops along with 300 other vendors (and food stands) all put their antiques out on tables up and down the side of the highway that runs through town.

About maybe 60% of the things being sold are actually antiques, the rest are things that just happen to be old, and new things made by local craftsmen like rustic tables and porch swings.

It took us about 2 hours to look at everything and we weren’t actually looking at everything. Not only that, we skipped a bunch of vendors. Actually, most of it was boring. There was plenty of cool old stuff to look at though, like old woodworking tools, 50-year-old license plates, Roy Rogers toy guitars. There were also quite a few things that I couldn’t identify at all. I really wish I brought a camera but I misplaced the battery charger for my digital camera, and my dad’s film SLR is pretty heavy. Actually, I didn’t think of bringing one in the first place…

I just had a cheeseburger and some fries for lunch, although the fries were really good. I got mine straight out of the fryer. I was so starving, though, that I didn’t really care. I can’t even remember what was on my burger. Also, I smelled funnel cake, I saw one person eating funnel cake, but I didn’t see anyone making it!! That was a bummer. Also, they didn’t have any of those cool flavored soft drinks (like Nehis) like they did last time. Another bummer.

So it was fun overall. I’m trying to think of something really cool I saw but I can’t think of anything right now. I guess that would’ve been the advantage of taking pictures.

Oh, I did see a dude in tights and colonial-era clothes.

I’m hosted on my home Linux server now. GG

Just a note that I’ll be on vacation. I should be back on the 16th.

Myrtle Beach

Well technically it was a poorly written driver, but anyway…

I got my computer in the mail finally on Friday. I got it all put together, which was uneventful except for my discovery of the ATX2 PSU. It’s the kind where the big plug leaves four pins of the socket open for a separate connector. At first, my heart sank because I thought I got the wrong PSU. Luckily my dad was there to embarrass/impress me by plugging it in.

After it was together, to my dismay, Windows refused to boot. Even to safe mode. All I got was a microsecond BSOD and a reboot. This was followed by about 12 hours straight of fiddling with different things, trying to avoid having to do a clean install, in addition to 6 hours the following day.

Nothing about the whole stressful ordeal is worth noting, so long story short, I reinstalled Windows to find that my computer would boot, but I got a BSOD within minutes of logging in. My friend Mr. Google helped my discover that a driver was disagreeing with Windows’ Data Execution Prevention. So I just disabled it and Windows ran fine.

So yeah, dual-core is pretty awesome. I can do stuff so much faster now. For example, I can Alt-Tab from games nearly instantly instead of waiting forever for Windows to wake up.

Yay me!

Well, I decided to stay home today cause I’m not feeling well. I think I’m catching a cold or something.

So I’ve been waiting for the package to come today with all of the parts to my computer (except the case, which was supposed to come tomorrow, the 14th). Finally, I spot the UPS truck outside, but the guy never brings it to the door. Instead, I look out and see the truck driving off! Now, at this point, I had already seen on the UPS tracking page that the package was “out for delivery”, meaning it was on the truck to be delivered. So, I was a little confused. I just expected for it to come later in the day.

A few hours later, I look at the tracking page and I see this:

THE BUSINESS WAS CLOSED TODAY. A DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE ON THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY;PACKAGE WILL BE DELIVERED NEXT BUSINESS DAY-NO SATURDAY GUARANTEE

WHAT! This was a little maddening, but I wouldn’t get my case until the day , so I wouldn’t be able to put it all together until then anyway. So no big deal. BUT THEN, I look at the tracking page for the package with my case, and I see “Your package is in the UPS system and has a rescheduled delivery date of 06/15/2007.”

I’m a little mad but I guess one day is nothing to complain about.

I turn 20 today! This means I’m not a teenager anymore. It also means I’m becoming a big boy and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. It also means I’m starting my third decade of life.

I’m not sure if I should be happy or depressed.

For now, I’m very happy, as I’m getting a new computer this week

About my computer. Found out yesterday that they actually sent it Sunday instead of Monday like I thought they would, so everything should get here a day earlier (wednesday). Then I found out that they’re sending the case seperately, which won’t get here until Thursday. So the parts are going to sit on my desk mocking me for a whole day.

This is what I’m looking to get. Going for low budget but still awesome.

Click

I’m not upgrading to a SATA drive just yet. I’m trying to keep the total price down. I can always upgrade later.

Also, I’m trying to decide if paying the extra money for a dual-core processor is worth it or I can shave some more money off by going with a slightly faster single-core.

Comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Update: Order placed!! The parts should arrive on the 14th.