Well, the people I bought the dead drive from, NCLC Online, emailed me today saying that they would refund me the price of the drive ASAP. Very nice, and very fast! I get to dispose of the dead drive. I'll let it join its three dead companions, I suppose. If anyone out there needs a drive or computer system, these guys are decent!
posted by MikeM at 3:16 PM    

 
Halloween! Today I put on some black pants, a chinese-collar button-up shirt, my long black leather coat, and of course, my clip-on shades that came with my glasses. Not a bad look after all. When I got to work, one of the guys said "SHAFT!". Heh. I don't flatter myself that I could pass for Shaft, but maybe Neo in poor lighting.

I won two 12gb bigfoot hard drives on ebay a week or so ago, $47.95 shipped, and they arrived yesterday. One drive worked OK, the other wouldn't spin up - just a knocking sound, then nothing at all on the next several boot attempts. I have emailed the seller with the details, hope we can work something out.

My jaw, which had been hurting for quite a while, stopped hurting a week or so ago - now I have just the occasional POP and stab of pain to remind me to take smaller bites. My dagwood hero-sub days are over, apparently. Other than that, everything is good, no problems.

One of my good friends, Christinia, is getting married today! Congratulations you guys! I got the invite Wednesday, so no chance of making the ceremony, but our best wishes to you!
posted by MikeM at 8:08 AM    

 
If you are in the market for a DVD burner, here is an article you shouldn't miss : Tom's Hardware Guide Mass Storage: Red-Hot Stuff: 11 DVD Burners Reviewed.

I just purchased an LG GSA-4040B from newegg.com for $139.99

Great price, and the above review holds that drive in high regard, as do several other reviews I found! This drive even supports reading and writing to DVD_RAM, like the two drives I have now removed from my system. I have always liked the usability of DVD-RAM, and since this drive comes with one 4.7gb DVD-RAM disk, I'll be using it for backup, most likely.
posted by MikeM at 1:34 PM    

 
So far this morning I have removed the W2002 DVD-RAM from Trotsky, my main system, and installed into Rasputin, the Dell 500SC. It booted right up, and is happily formatting the DVD-RAM. Apparently my efforts to delete/format on the Win2000 unit caused some damage to the partition on the DVD-RAM cartridge. Physical format of the DVD-RAM is required - about 90min per side, I think. No matter, that's what KVM switches were made for. I'll try to sell this W2002 drive on ebay, I think, along will all my other accumulated stuff.

I have a friend in Roanoke that may be interested in some of this stuff, maybe I'll give him a call and drop it off at his place next time I visit my folks. Bruce? Gary? :)
posted by MikeM at 9:50 AM    

 
Productive day, even if a bit annoying at times. I tore apart both Rasputin (Dell 500SC) and Stalin (older Pentium 240MMX) and with a lot of drive/card swapping ended up with two more useful computers. Where I used to have the three IDE drives in Rasputin, I threw them all out. I took my two largest SCSI drives (both SCSI-Wide) and put them in Rasputin, along with an Adaptec 2940W card. Installed Win98 on it, base install, and was able to install my SyJet 1.5gb removable drive unit and verify/format all six cartridges. Works like a champ. Then I removed it and installed the Toshiba W1111 5.2gb DVD-RAM drive, and verified/formatted all five DVD-RAM cartridges I have (2.6gb per side).

In Stalin, I installed the MGA Matrox Millennium video card and the companion Voodoo card, the Adaptec 2940 card, and the remaining 1gb SCSI drive (50 pin) I got Red Hat 9 started on a minimal install, but it failed due to insufficient drive space. ;) That was enough to verify the drive, and I have two IDE 12gb drives on the way ($47 shipped!) that I need to find a home for. I'm thinking one in each chassis. Should be enough to make a couple of nice units.

In the meantime, my main system (Trotsky) has been having difficulties with the new DVD-RAM drive - the Toshiba W2002. its a 9.4gb drive, getting 4.7gb per side of a 2-sided cartridge. Basically double the old DVD-RAM drive I had in Rasputin for a short while. I can write to it, but I cannot delete anything, and efforts to format result in lockups which, if I don't reset, result in a blue screen of death about 3 minutes later.

I'm thinking that my next step is to remove the W2002 from Trotsky and put it in Rasputin, then try to access the DVD-RAM and format it, etc. Since the older W1111 unit worked well in Rasputin, I'm hoping the newer W2002 unit will as well. Otherwise, I trash the media and sell the drive without a cartridge.

Yes, folks, I'm going to be selling on ebay again soon!
JUNK : 2111mb Western Digital WD AC22100 Caviar 22100 IDE 5200rpm HD
JUNK : 8622mb Seagate ST38420A Medalist 8420 Ultra ATA-4 IDE 5400rpm HD
JUNK : 341mb Western Digital WD AC2340 Caviar 2340 3.5" IDE 3322rpm HD
1500mb Syquest 1.5g SyJet Internal 3.5" SCSI Removable Hard Drive with SIX 1.5gb cartridges.
5200mb Toshiba SD-W1111 Internal 5.25" SCSI 5.2gb DVD-RAM with FIVE 5.2gb double sided (2.6gb per side) DVD-RAM disks
9400mb Toshiba SD-W2002 Internal 5.25" IDE 9.4gb DVD-RAM with ONE 9.4gb DVD-RAM disk (maybe)
3Com 3C16733A OfficeConnect 4-Port Dual-Speed Switch
ASUS V6800 Pure GeForce DDR 32mb AGP Video Card
Creative Labs SoundBlaster 64 AWE PnP Gold 16-bit wavetable ISA sound card
Altec Lansing ACS500 Surround Sound analog speakers with subwoofer
Two (2) Intel USB AnyPoint Phoneline 10mb Home Network (APR2H2USB)

I will also have for sale (LOCAL PICKUP ONLY) an operational full tower unit - check out Stalin, soon to be upgraded to include a 12gb Bigfoot IDE drive.

This thing is heavy, so only local folks need apply. Best offer. If all else fails, I'lll try to give it to a school. ;)
posted by MikeM at 9:04 PM    

 
This is a good site to visit if you ever wondered what TV shows have been released on DVD. TVShowsOnDVD.com
posted by MikeM at 4:15 PM    

 
Can you believe that they haven't yet released 'The Nanny' on DVD? If you want to see this happen anytime soon, please go to this site and sign the online petition!
posted by MikeM at 3:30 PM    

 
Ever play the Kevin Bacon game? You know, the one where you try to figure out how many steps there are between Kevin Bacon and another actor? These guys went one further.UVA Computer Science: The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia has a website that can play the game very well, but at This site you can link any star to any other star! Fun Fun Fun.
posted by MikeM at 9:21 AM    

 
I found out what happens in AD&D 3.5 when a Giant Octopus and a stunned Bard tangle. Bits & pieces of the bard go flying in all directions as he is shredded by the incredibly devastating attacks that eight arms can do. New character! Dwarf Wizard. ;)

I also tried to ressurect my old project of getting Red Hat 9.0 installed on several older IDE drives I had lying around. I took the Dell 500SC with the 80gb drive, removed the drive (I'll be putting it in my main computer soon as a mirrored drive), and installed an 8gb IDE, a 2gb IDE, and a 340mb IDE. I figured this would give me a decent /, /usr, and swap partition for Red Hat 9.0.

The 340 failed on boot - the bios hung on it. Disconnected it, rebooted. The 2gb failed the Red Hat error check. Disconnected it. Then the 8gb failed as well. *sigh*

This marks the second time that these three drives have failed - in different chassis with different cables. I think the drives can safely be discarded as trash. Sad. Luckily I have an old 9gb and 2gb SCSI drive, as well as a AHA-2940W scsi card that used to drive them! I'll likely play with that configuration at some point this week if I have any time.

I need to clean out my junk closet - there is no room for a guest's clothes and such in the guest room closet - I have taken it over with all my tech junk. I have an old full tower with a P240MMX and 128mb RAM - no HD, 6x CD-ROM, Matrox Millennium 4mb video card, etc. Might end up giving it away or throwing it away. The tower case isn't worth that much - old 250w power supply. I hate throwing things away, but sometimes the value is so low that shipping costs more than anyone would be willing to pay for it. I may just toss it into the attic. If we ever move, it would convey. ;)
posted by MikeM at 12:17 PM    

 
Some capitol investment group just invested 50 million dollars into SCO. You can read the SCO Group SEC filing 8-K here. It mentions, among other things, that the lawyers working for SCO now will get 20% of the take from the intellectual property issues now in the courts...

I can't believe that any company would have any dealings with SCO on any level. Anyone that would invest in it or buy their software or services needs to have their head examined. This is a company on the way down, and determined to inflict as much damage to everyone else as possible. I believe the word 'Pariah' would fit.
posted by MikeM at 4:00 PM    

 
Well, the pain in my jaw is much less, but things still aren't perfect. From the rate of progress, a few more weeks and I should be back to normal. At least now there is no pain! The occasional flash of pain when chewing and I forget to take human bites, but no more of the constant pain and agony chewing!

This weekend was relaxing, even more so getting monday as a holiday! We watched "The Italian Job" on video - very good, I'm glad we got it! We also went to see "Under the Tuscan Sun", which I really liked. No explosions or car chases, but a very well-written story.

I'm currently reading Charles Moose's new book "Three Weeks in October" - it is well done, with alternating chapters on his life and times and the events surrounding the sniper shootings. For those of us who lived through it, it is good to read it again just as we watched it unfold originally, and for those who only saw it on TV, it would be a great way to get a feel for what it was really like. Very good reading!
posted by MikeM at 7:33 AM    

 
Well, my jaw doesn't hurt quite as much, but I still cannot chew correctly - can't force my back teeth to meet as they should. I'm getting by, but I think I may have to see a doctor soon. :(

Tonight is the showing of Charley's Aunt at the Olney Theatre - sounds good!
posted by MikeM at 7:49 AM    

 
Thursday I did something to my jaw - the pain became intense saturday, and eating was no longer a pleasure - when relaxed, it felt fine, but any biting or clenching of the teeth caused agony in the right side jaw hinge. I think I dislocated it or something. It felt better sunday morn, and better still this morning, but I still don't want to eat anything hard or chewy. I'm hoping I just pulled a muscle and everything will be back to normal in a few more days, as long as I avoid forcing the issue.
posted by MikeM at 8:26 AM    

 
Saturday we went down to DC to the huge book fair on the Mall. I was dissapointed - it was crowded and there were very few books to be seen. There were a bunch of pavilion tents set up, with crowds inside listening to people read aloud. There was ONE TENT with books for sale, about 50x50, and over 300 people inside easily. The crowd was so thick I couldn't get near the books, and I certainly didn't want to stand in a winding line to buy anything at the single checkout counter. We left after just a few minutes, walking down to the Museum of Natural History.

There we were treated to another line, which while it wasn't very long was moving very slowly. When we got inside, we saw security worthy of an airport under a code red alert. Full body and bag searches, metal detectors, the whole deal. We bailed out rather than go through all that just to see stuffed animals. I understand a certain need for security, but this is ridiculous. I wonder how much their patronage has gone down since they instituted such intrusive measures?

We had a hot dog and went home. The hot dog was good, at least.
posted by MikeM at 8:24 AM    

 
The Windows Update website now has a patch that they claim will correct the vulnerability that allowed the trojan I mentioned Thursday from affecting your system. Update your system as soon as possible! I will be switching to Netscape 7.1 due to this latest failure in a long string of failures of Microsoft to patch their software in a timely manner. There are a few websites that I still need MSIE to view, so I will be using it a little, but the vast majority of my internet browsing will be done with the far safer Netscape software. You can download the latest version at Netscape.
posted by MikeM at 8:19 AM    

 
Trojan.QHOSTS / QHOSTS-1

This new trojan/worm is spreading around fairly quickly - I just had to clean it off of my box here at work.

There is NO PATCH - and as of right now, nobodies' Anti-Virus software detects it.

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), the only way to protect yourself (at this time) is to disable active scripting in Microsoft Internet Explorer. The way to do this is to right click on the MSIE icon on the desktop (big blue e) and then:

click Tools - Internet Options
click Security - Custom Level - Scroll down almost to the bottom to find Active Scripting, and select DISABLE.
click OK to exit and save, then OK again. When it asks you if you are sure you want to make this change, say YES.

This will protect you from this new trojan/worm, but it may also prevent certain websites from working correctly. Hopefully Microsoft will put out a patch soon.

Oh yeah, the Microsoft Update website requires Active Scripting. How nice is that? When a patch comes out, you have to re-enable it just like you disabled it. Then hopefully once you apply the MS patch we won't have to keep it disabled.


Norton AntiVirus claims 10/8 for LiveUpdate to detect it, so unless you are using the most recent version which has IntelligentUpdating (not LiveUpdate) you will have to wait.

McAfee may have the dat file sooner - don't know yet.


A quick way to tell if you are infected is to check the c:/winnt/help folder, if there is a 'hosts' file, you are infected. Check below for more information.

If you aren't comfortable with this removal method, you will need to call someone to help you.


Norton AntiVirus

for a very good write-up with manual removal instructions


McAfee AntiVirus

for another write-up with some more details, and a slightly different manual removal process (the Norton one is more thorough).

posted by MikeM at 12:41 PM