eMachines keeps trolling me after so many years

I have been doing IT for some 7 years now, like I've mentioned a couple of times, in different fields which range from Call Center Technical Support, the cheapo and fancy version, up to personal support to customers and companies that range between your mom and pops business up to the thousands of employees Corporation, and never have I personally found something as disgusting or annoying as an eMachines Desktop.

Yes I get the point about building affordable systems for the common user but for the love of whatever it is that you praise do it right man and I am dead serious here.

All this comes here for one reason. Two days ago I bought this old L7VMM MOBO from the guy that gives me the old computers I refurbish and let me tell you that these two last days have been terror and horror to me but also they have provoked me to look for answers to things I had previously learned and with that I had forgotten since I never used them.

I couldn't quite remember how to format a PC from a floppy, yes I am serious about the floppy thing and I have a bunch of them stored in a box, and it has been a while since I saw a FAT32 Partition in something that isn't a USB drive. That said it's also been years since I've seen a K7 in use, an AMD Duron @ 650 MHz to be precise, and I wanted to put it to use since... well the codename of the processor is "Spitfire" and using a computer with a CPU named like that sounds killer although it turned out to be a complete bummer.

How did all of this really start?

First off I placed everything in a case, that ironically states outside that it uses a P3 Celeron 600MHz CPU and that this PC NEVER goes obsolete...

Next, I try booting straight from the HDD with no luck and I start working around with it. Then I notice, in horror, that this is one of those PC's that for the life of me won't boot up from the CD-Drive and I am not sure why this is even happening but it has me terrified.

My first alternative turned out to be a Windows 98 boot floppy with CD-ROM support, because maybe you don't know it but back in the day some things weren't supported like CD-ROM drives or Floppy Drives and USB was non-existent.

As mentioned further above it had been a while since I saw a full partition of FAT32 and from there on it just went downhill. I got the CD recognized and I ran the WINNT exe to get the installation going but at first it wouldn't do it mentioning something about not enough swap space. Some ten minutes later I figured that I had to delete the NTFS partition that was occupying 99% of the hard drive... yeah I kept forgetting how the commands work.

Next stop was trying WINNT and it partially worked, then died on me, then worked, then died again, then I decided to go for Nomad, the codename for a 4GB hard drive I got laying around holding Debian 6, and it went into a deep coma state that could only be prevented if I went into the recovery state which meant I had to mess around with it a lot more than I wished for it, openSUSE laughed at me too or cried, not sure at this point, but it didn't work, Windows XP from another machine didn't work either and I've had it with this PC that will only run floppy systems, nothing bad with them but if I try and sell it to the normal customer I won't get much out of it.

Then there's the suspicion that the CPU may be damaged but I have no way to prove this since yet again I have no way to load Hirens or any other tool to test this out, RAM is also an option but that would give me a whole different bunch of errors and from what I've read, seen and understood it seems the culprit is the motherboard which has to be flashed immediately after being bought because of buggy software on the BIOS ROM which can only be done inside of Windows.

Level of Patience, almost null.

One more alternative before I give away and ask for my 10 bucks back... Windows 98 2nd Edition. May work, may not work, I don't know and I don't care but I am not letting this bad boy go out without a battle.

And in the end that also failed... that sums it up after I saw Windows 98 getting stuck several times during the installation and having to force the "restart" physically. At this point I am pretty sure the culprit is the processor and well there's nothing much I can do about this except return it and get my money back and buy a soda or something.

Victim of the Box

I usually don't judge a book by its cover so when I tried this game out I knew I was in for some sort of surprise and it only took me 10 tries to find the real answer to the puzzle. Try it out!

QuickBASIC Modern Programs

Roaming around on the vast ocean that is the internet I found this site that offers QuickBASIC applications for old systems which can perform tasks such as sending and receiving e-mails up to TCP/IP traffic and HTML handling. While e-mail clients are not that uncommon in programming the Apache server is something I haven't seen, yet, in QuickBASIC so if you ever need to revive an old PC with dos then give some of this programs a try.

Facebook in a Spreadsheet!

No, it's not madness and no this ain't Sparta.

Go check out the app at the following link which allows you to check facebook in something that looks like an Excel Spreadsheet. How much more professional can you look at work while browsing Facebook?

Only limitation, from what I've seen, is that you don't get to see full-sized pictures but if you're addicted to Facebook you won't care that much, believe me, though in the future that may be fixed.

IBM: Why bother?

A lot of people, throughout time, have bad mouthed IBM hard. An example of this is the hatred against AS/400 (We're talking about the servers) and the programming language (Can't be considered one to be honest) RPG.

Then the prices are also something the normal user runs away from. The laptop I currently use was made somewhere around 2005 and from what I've read this was the top of the line for IBM and went for around 1500 up to 1800 depending on the configuration and the add-ons you decided to put into your purchase.

Is it worth it, should you bother?

Real simple answer: Yes.

Long answer: Even though IBM has stopped building laptops and desktops for the end-user, that is the business end-user or companies that had the budget for it, Lenovo continued this process and reasonably began to lower their prices and continued the "economical" line that tries not to sacrifice power but that is for the common user to decide in the end.

Back when I worked at a Factory we used only IBM for our end-users. During my time I had 5 laptops assigned to me and all but one were IBM products going from a T41, a T60, a G50 and finally a T500, not included a Gateway laptop that I hated because it was heavier than most laptops I ever used and that is including the G50 which is a monster. The reason why I mention these models is because they were, at some point, the main mobile army of IBM for the businessman which even though light were powerful enough.

Desktops and Laptop alike, IBM made some really tough material back in their prime days that can still be found in many recycling shops and computer stores and it's guaranteed that even though most of them had seen a lifetime of abuse that they'll continue to last for another couple of years before finally giving up and going into eternal slumber. If you ever have the chance to find a T40 or her lesser cousins or maybe a T60 and you are in need of something powerful then do not hesitate to give it a try.

E-Smart, make money while recycling old equipment

Remember what I said about being smart and using old hardware that you got laying around your home?

Well how about this for a change. Go to the PC Repair Shops in your local area, ask around for old computers that customers never returned for or that have been left there, discarded, because they are obsolete and the customer doesn't have a need for it. Another option is going to recycling places and picking up mostly working electronic equipment or pieces to build a nice one.

Before, or after, rebuilding some computers you'll need to find that market segment who's in need for a cheap PC to check their e-mail, news, social networking, etc. This section of the population is usually in the lower end of the market that not even companies can reach into, and with the current economy it's even lower at this point, so that leaves the independent guy with a chance to get a quick buck while putting some old hardware back into circulation.

That's three things right there.

Maximizing the use of old equipment and putting them back into use.

Less trash.

Money in your pocket.

It's all good, it's all smart and it's all for the benefit of a lot of people and the planet and it works, believe me, as I've sold a couple of those to that small market I'm talking about.

If you ever want to play DVDs on Debian Squeeze

Here's how you do it!

# <-- Are comments. You can actually copy all of this, below the sources.list link that needs to be added, into a bash script and it'll theoretically run.

#Add this to the /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main

#After doing that go into the console and use the following commands

sudo aptitude install update

sudo aptitude install debian-multimedia-keyring

#Update list then install libdvdcss2

sudo aptitude install libdvdcss2

#Don't forget to upgrade!

sudo aptitude upgrade

#You're good to go!

If you got any issues with it let me know with a comment on this post since this all worked fine for me.

Revisiting Old Games: Duke Nukem 3D

Remember this?

If you do then welcome, you're probably as old as me although let me tell you I wasn't of legal age to be playing this game which is why I wanted to review it in addition to all the hype that's been recently going on about Duke Nukem Forever and whatnot.

Back in the day being 3D in a FPS involved having a pasted plain "enemy" in front of you that would "rotate" as you walked around which kinda sucked but at least you were indeed walking in a 3D mazed world which defined the FPS genre as we know it today.

Now here's the deal. Back then we had Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Hexxen, Heretic and Quake, to mention a few, which all were as violent as you could get back in the day but the catch was that you were either killing Aliens, evil Monsters, Demons or Nazis... and then came Duke Nukem 3D.

Duke Nukem 3D was crude as hell, in the obscene and morbid sense, and pushed a lot of boundaries back in the day such as kicking the crap out of things, pissing to gain health, dropping cash on strippers so they would show you their pixelated boobs and this was all back in ol' '96.

Playing this game in '96 really made me laugh and at the same time made me think that society was screwed up, really screwed up. Killing pig cops with the word L.A.R.D. on their uniform was interesting, blasting away aliens with a shotgun was also fun, going into a strip joint ensued hilarity, pressing the self-destruct button on everything at the end of each level also made me laugh like that time you blow up a submarine and Duke complains that he should have waited before he did it and obviously the one-liners, ohhh the one-liners!

What else can I say about Duke Nukem 3D?

That you should give it a try by downloading eduke32 which is available for all platforms. Try it out and enjoy it, feel that old FPS love, and laugh a bit damn it and stop taking the FPS genre so serious.

There was a time when an FPS was all about being scared to death while you lurked in the darkness and fired at who knows what, where your heart pumped really hard trying to get the hell out of there alive and most importantly was that you would laugh at the end of the day because you know it was all for the fun of it.

Yeah there's the whole Columbine and that Brazilian dude that went nuts on a Movie Theater but in all due honesty I just got something to tell ya...

Stop blaming it on games and start blaming yourself because you failed to raise your damn kids for letting them play a game that's supposed to be for adults!

The HP Problem or why the All-In-One series made me lose my faith on HP

Back in the day, the first printer I ever owned, was one of the very first HP LaserJet printers, some of the first commercially available laser printers, and it was blazing fast back in the day.

It took some time to print even back then since the spooler would jam up constantly or in times would find itself continuously sending information to the printer until that job was done and I had to print another batch of jobs which would take me around half an hour, man those were the times...

Nowadays I don't own a printer for several reasons.

1. Prices: At some point the companies that produce printers and the ink thought it would be funny to raise ink prices at obscene levels, so obscene that I've seen cartridges valued in 200 dollars... this is not fair for the consumer and it makes for an unbalanced market.
2. Quality: Printing quality can be horrible. I used to so super draft because I was only doing black and white and that was fine, I could read the paper, and that was the end of it. But when you're printing color, oh boy, it's a whole different story. I've used a bunch of printers in my day going from HP, Canon, Lexmark, Samsung, Dell (I didn't knew Dell made printers by the way so when I saw one I was baffled), Sharp... and a Ricoh. Quality varied between them, some sheets would have ink running all over the place and some other times I would find sheets FULL of ink, everywhere, geez talk about a waste of money.
3. Technical Issues: This, this is what killed it for me. Let us put prices and quality aside, since back then I could afford it, and let us go into what the user really wants. YOU need IT to be reliable, you don't need it BREAKING every time it is critical for you to get a job done, you don't need it to FAIL a job, you don't need it to tell you the whatchamacallitspoolerthingy is not working, you don't need it to give you RANDOM ERRORS on screen and on the printer display, you don't need this at any point. You also don't need cumbersome 1GB software to run it, Windows itself can do all of it nowadays, but HP, this case we'll be talking about the company that I've had the most experience with, decided to make specialized software together with their drivers to bring you efficiency. This software tends to break down at some point and when you lurk the internet it gives you thousands of possibilities. You can go into the HP website and find hundreds if not thousand of patches for every single little detail like a Windows update that won't let you run things. I understand why this happens but for the love of GOD people let us all be reasonable and get on with it, we just need the damned thing to print and not gouge me an eye every time I try and do it!
4. Multifunctionals: The last bit I want to talk about but I need to, I have to, it is a must. Multi-functionals is the last thing anyone needs at home and I'm dead, freaking, serious about it. You can get a scanner and a printer for way less than a multi-functional and you'll save yourself from a lot of hassle. So far and in all honesty I haven't found a situation where you can't just print or scan from different devices unless you are really short in space and if you are, please, do not buy the cheapest multi-functional device you can find in a store. Also try and avoid installing the full software, there are people out there who have managed to obtain the drivers from the installation packages and have spread them throughout the internet and this, in all honesty, is the way to go as again you don't need all the bloat-ware that comes with your CD. You also don't need to be reminded that your printer is running low on ink after X or Y print outs but hey that's just me, if you like being annoyed by a floating box be my guest.

Upgrade is a keyword

I've heard countless times from many customers coming towards me with their computer that it is either last year model, or maybe even last decades model, and that it's slow and it won't do the job anymore.

Mind you, most people think PC's are just a thing you throw away once it doesn't work and that is a horrible mentality as we've mentioned before on this blog that you can do a lot more to get that old buddy of yours to do an extra thing or two.

Here is a clear example.

My sisters old computer was passed to me since she got a netbook, Dell by the way, and I looked at it because she complained it was always slow.

There were several reasons why this computer and I will list them below for your commodity.

1. Unknown software running in the background. See that flashy banner on the sides or on the top, do not click it. You receive random files from people or links telling you to click on them and you decide to install whatever it asks you to, this is wrong and you should ALWAYS read what the prompt boxes always bring to screen. Running Ares and Torrents, definetely a big no-no and a bigger NO-NO with wireless.
2. Clogged hard drive. Full of songs and pictures. Yes I understand we all love music but really people you don't need THAT much music in your computer and I'm pretty sure twenty days worth of music is not something you need for your everyday enjoyment. Movies? Get Media for that like a DVD, Blueray or a USB Drive or if all this troubles you too much get an online backup software that you can access at anytime or get an external or second internal hard drive, your operating system will thank you for that.
3. Processor. Don't expect a Pentium III to do the job of an i3, i5 or i7 and let alone a Dual-Core or a Pentium IV. Old processors are not old, they are just simply part of a family and a generation that have become discontinued because mathematical operations from programming languages become more and more demanding as the industry grows. So if your PC is running a bit sluggish this could be a big factor and if it's ever possible a processor upgrade won't hurt you at all unless the motherboard doesn't support it in which case you're going to need an alternate operating system or...
4. RAM. RAM is an important part of a computer and the more you have the more things you can run and load at the same time without having to hassle your hard drive to get that going. Cut your machine some slack if it's running Windows XP with only 128 MB which is the "legal" minimum requirement which then got moved to 256MB. Add another stick to it, 128MB is decent, 256MB is an improvement, 512MB a blessing and 1GB should be enough to run Windows XP and his older brothers in a decent state or any Linux distribution.
5. Video Card. Surprisingly this can also be a big factor if you're doing media like movies, photo editing or you are a gamer. An upgrade from 64MB to 128MB is noticeable and obviously anything higher than that is better although it could not be good for your gaming tendencies or 3D modelling as it may not support 3D graphics or heavy vectoring. Check the specs on the video card you want to get and see if it'll cut it.

Hope these little tips can help you out on understanding why your PC may not be exactly doing it what you want it to do and that maybe by spending an extra ten or twenty dollars you could get your computer working just fine without a problem.

X-COM: Terror from the Deep and Family

X-COM: TFTD

I remember this game fondly and with fear at the same time.

I originally bought Terror from the Deep, somewhere around 2000, and by that time and due to my age it was one of the most terrifying games I had played, even after trying my hand at Diablo and coming out alive of that one.

It was always pitch dark, and forget about grues because there were deadlier things underwater like a giant jellyfish, some sort of squid or even a T-Rex!

If you couldn't see you couldn't fire at your enemy and your enemy had night vision so in other words it didn't matter how accurate your soldiers were, if you couldn't see it there was a high chance you were going to die.

Sonic weaponry turned you into a puddle of jelly, yes you heard me right. Screw your lasers and other crap, we got weaponry that'll turn your bones into nothing in a second.

Then the screams... sweet mercyful Lord the screams... even though this was a computer game the screaming was so surreal it made me jump once or twice from my chair as I sometimes had the tendency to use headsets so I wouldn't disturb my parents with the infernal blasting, at least that is how they called it.

How was the game though?

Hard, it was damn hard and I loved it for that. I spent hours playing the game and it took me some time to get used to it and actually get somewhere with it, specially since I wanted to understand how the damn thing actually worked and why some of the research trees died at some point which would be later explained to me as a horrible bug that Microprose would never correct.

A lot of people have complaints about this game because it turned out to be a copy cat of X-COM UFO Defenses but since back then I hadn't had the chance to play it, only seen it once and it was in a floppy, a floppy by the gods a floppy, that would be my first and last contact with the original until somewhere around 2002 or 2003 when I would find the X-COM Collection and play the crap out of it... and Apocalypse.

Being fair to the game it was decent, not the best, but you'd have a good time playing it, unless aliens were hiding in one by one spaces in which case you were screwed trying to find the bastard, and the music added a really nice bit to the game which really immersed you into it.

To close out I have only one more memory to deliver here people, one more painful and aggravating memory that has been hiding deep in my cerebral cortex and just a few days back came to me...

T'LETH.

A fair warning for those who haven't played or never finished any of the X-COM games, there will be spoilers delivered on the next few lines.

If you ever, EVER, made it this far in the game you were either super-gifted or a genious. I am not joking, ask anybody who played TFTD and they will tell you about it, getting past "half" the game was already hard enough with the damn multi-level missions like the ships, the relays, the bases, but T'Leth has this piece of my heart and all of my hatred.

Cydonnia, the last mission of X-COM UFO Defenses, was hard if you weren't properly prepared. It had, if I recall correctly, two levels and in the last one you couldn't save. That wasn't so hard as you had good chances of making it at least with more than half your squad, which was approximately twenty something men, into the second part in which it was balls to the wall to find your target and end the menace.

T'Leth on the other hand was a massacre. Not only would you not make it through the first level with your full squad, that was a fact, but you had to go through three levels to get to Cthu-- I mean the Great Sleeping One and destroy the orbs or whatever the hell they were that kept him alive. Mind you, in the last level you couldn't save, mind you the aliens pounded you worst than if it was 1984, mind you the aliens deliver their best of the best on this one, mind you, YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL AND DIE IN THE END. Don't take the last line personal, your soldiers actually fail to return back alive as the explosion from T'Leth is far too powerful and if you ever played Apocalypse you'll know that the Aliens did somehow manage to win the war as the explosion from the giant underwater city contaminated the surface and destroyed a good part of the ozone layer which provokes the construction of Mega-Cities, as known in Apocalypse, in which you'll play in due time.

And there you have it, a little bit of everything rolled in and delivered to you in a pancake.

If you can buy it then do so, or if not you can try your hand at downloading it from the underdogs site.

Enjoy!

One job done

Indeed, cable disconnected, CMOS battery dead, misconfiguration on the BIOS, bunch of little awkward things going on there.

To prevent any future issues I installed Dropbox, yes I know I posted an article about it saying it's not safe but I had a really short span of time to get it done, and then installed it on a Laptop then synchronized files and like magic it's all there on the "cloud"!

At least it turned out to be easier but still there are pending issues with that PC and I see it returning at least one more time this year...

And I take it back!

Aha!

So I knew that hard drive that was just laying around the case wasn't some kind of adornment. Turns out the PC had Windows 7 installed and not XP, which is what was trying to boot up, so somehow, somewhere along the lines that HDD got disconnected before it reached me.

Point and case here, patient goes back into the table for another operation, a quick and painless one this time around.

That was odd...

Well the patient shows strange behaviours that I thought were related to Windows, in some way it is, but here is what happened.

Windows XP on a SATA HDD won't boot up... Windows Vista on SATA won't boot up... I couldn't install Windows XP on an IDE drive... Debian 6 booted up just fine...

Conclusion?

There's either some incompatibility issue going on or the motherboard has a problem with SATA, period.

The desktop was sadly returned to its owner with no true solution aside from going for Linux or Windows 7, yet again no guarantees on the functionality of Windows 7 though, or backing the information up and sending it over into another PC.

Sad but true, some PC's don't like windows at all!

We got one in the table

And today they brought a computer in showing a fascinating amount of errors.

First off they told me the PC was turning off by itself and this was happening because apparently the power switch cables were broken from the front panel and were short-circuiting, turning the PC off.

That would be the first issue at hand which can be easily solved by soldering the thing back into the front plate although unfortunately I don't have the tools for that but nonetheless I'll find a way.

Next stop is the BIOS. For unknown reasons, at times, the POST won't finish which brings me to believe there could be a bigger issue going on that I'm unaware off and it scares me to think about it because it could mean that the processor could have an issue, like that Coppermine processor that was giving me a headache because it would stop working and the computer would die on me while doing an important operation.

Next visible issue. Error 0x000000B7 on Windows, either this is an issue with a damaged block or there is something that swam into Windows, nested and now it's bugging it. I did run a HDD repair tool that comes with the latest version of Hirens Boot CD, praise be to you oh mighty Hirens that thou hath saveth me a thousandfold times, did finish and said it had repaired the "bad" block and I thought it was all done...

Not the case, it continues to reboot when trying to boot up.

Unfortunately I couldn't do much else to it since I had to go to work but once I'm back in action I'll keep going at it to see what exactly is going on...

Linux Tip: Oracle Virtual Machine

If you're trying out a VM, Virtual Machine, go for Oracle Virtual Machine.

So far the only issue I've ever really had was trying to install Puppy Linux, which is a known issue, and some resolution issues but well that has something to do with the VM Guest Additions, if you don't install it you can get good resolution but the integration won't be available which makes it a little harder to be working around with it.

I take it back on Dropbox!

So it seems my original assumtions were right after all!

Dropbox apparently has been misleading their client base with false advertisement about how Dropbox actually works.

Theoretically what they're saying now is that even though the info is somewhat encrypted, under AES-256, it can still be read by some employees at Dropbox because the keys are stored somewhere in their servers.

If this gets hacked it's all schnapparoni!

More on the links below:
Full Note - Link
FTC Complaint - PDF

Addendum: 3 things we think our PC can do, but it can't

I'll add my part on what Brian said on the previous post.

First off, he's right about computers not been able to think for you, they're handle mathematical operations and are waiting for an input which in turn will transform into an operation the computer can handle to give you the result that, most of the time, you're expecting.

He's also right about cleaning up, most people will never clean their computer and it turns them into a nasty infection hold that could not only affect your computer but also your health. Clean it once in a while and also remember the clean software that you don't use in your computer, defrag it every once in a while and if you feel that ain't cutting it then back everything up and go for a format, which I've always said has to be done approximately every year but I'll speak more about it on another post.

Here's the most important part to me and I'll quote Brian on it "an average user won't need more than 720GB and 4GB RAM on their PC."

This is exactly what I've always told people and that's why I went for Linux. Let us go hyphotetical here for a minute or two.

You got this old junker stored, let us say we're talking about that old PC I've talking about recently, and you suddenly get this crazy idea to get a new computer because this one won't cut it anymore with XP, Vista or 7. Question here is, do you really need a new computer?

What are you doing with it?

The average PC user will only go into his computer to check his e-mail, read the news, check pictures of cats or maybe their grandchildren as cats, make some documents, check Wikipedia or Google for some info you'll need for a work, etc.

These are pretty basic functions and you don't really need the latest and greatest for this task, you don't need a Lenovo W500 for this or the latest Apple product, your old one, if it's not broken, will just work fine people so do yourself a favor and save the planet, save some money on your pocket, because on this time and age we all need it, and you won't need to pay additional money for licenses and whatnot, OK I know most of the planet pirates their stuff but come on people give it a chance.

So in brief, save the planet and save some money to your pocket. Key words. Get that old PC or laptop out of the closet and get it working again, it won't be the latest or greatest, probably won't be pretty, but yet again you're doing a favor to the planet in which you live. It's not that hard to get Linux to work on a computer nowadays and Ubuntu is really friendly on it but I'd recommend going for Xubuntu if you know your PC has been in a cave for the last 10 to 15 years.

3 things we think our PC can do, but it can't

Hello, world! My name is Brian and I'm the new co-writer of this blog, and as my presentation post I'll tell you the 3 most common things we think our PC can do, but really, it can't.

1.- Your PC can't read minds: I know it sounds funny, but it's true, and it's a shame (just wait for it... in 2012). In my few months as a computer science student, I've come across a lot of people that think their computer is going to know exactly what they want, be it by searching something on the internet, or by trying to install some new software. I'm afraid it ain't so. Starting by the fact that it isn't going to start up if you don't "tell it" to do so, your PC becomes completely useless if you don't make it do what you want it to do. So, remember the next time you're googling FUNNY CAT IMAGE, or trying to install the latest anti-virus of your choice, and your PC seems to ask a lot of questions: Don't get mad, it's just trying to make your life easier, and of course, trying to make it easier and more precise for itself.

2.- Your PC can't solve everything: This is where most young people fail (and I include myself by saying so), and because of this, we've gained fame as "technology-whores". We think our PC can do anything in the world: Make our homework, keep our friendships alive, keeping us "in-touch" with the world, make us better persons... oh! And make us lose a few pounds in the process. As awesome as it would be, we're still far from that point, and due to that, every day we're searching for the newest technology, craving for more and more power, more storage, more everything, while in real life, and talking about PC specs', an average user won't need more than 720GB and 4 RAM on their PC. But we seem to forget that most of us are average users, and we strive on the fact of being part of that elite culture we see on adds or on every computer 'zine, we lose a sense of reality and start living off those ridiculous expectations.

3.- Your PC can't clean itself: This is by far the most common mistake we, as users, tend to make, even if it's just for lack of knowledge, or plain laziness, we like to think that our PC is going to grow some magical hands and start scrubbing itself, and in a couple of minutes it'll be good as new. Well, bad news for you Jimbo (sorry, I don't know anybody named Jimbo, don't take it personal), your PC isn't going to do that, and you'll have to clean it by yourself, or by somebody that knows how to do so. It's really simple actually, you'll just have to take a look at a couple of tutorials running around the internet, and with basic cleaning-knowledge, you'll be good to go. And remember, prevention is the best medicine, so if you can do anything, and I mean ANYTHING (starting by moving your case out of that rat-hole where is hidden), then by all means do so.

I hope these 3 points I mention here make you think a little more about your PC, about yourself and about your life around a computer. Don't make your computer your life, make your computer part of your life, and as the most needed tool on today's workspace, it needs to be understood as that: A tool to make our life's easier, but not to the point where we're not going to do anything. Remember, take care of your PC, and your PC will take care of you. Cheers!

The promised picture

Meet oldsnake

This monstrosity above is known as oldsnake. Unintentional pun, I love to play with it... you figure it out.

Regardless, just today when I arrived I decided to put the old motherboard to rest, the one holding the Coppermine processor, and decided to remove it. Once done I remembered that somewhere around my old stuff I had another processor lying around and lo' and behold I found it, tried it out and now we're back in operations with a 500MHz processor and the old motherboard. Believe it or not I can notice a LOT of difference from the AMD K6-2.

Sad as it may be it's a frankie computer and if I can get more juice out of it then so be it.

Fan stops working? No problem just adapt another one!

As ghetto as it gets...

So... Mr. Da Kid has some issues with his video card and noticed the video card was kind of overheating and the PC was going offline. Well turns out the fan on the video card died and he only had a huge fan, but hey it works just fine so a round of applause's for actually getting it to work again!

Me and Bluetooth

Some will actually bash me for saying this but I despise Bluetooth.

I've never liked it, never actually have owned that many things with Bluetooth anyway aside from a headset and a couple of phones here and there.

Last experience I had was back when I was using Windows 7 and it occurred to me to get a Bluetooth dongle for my ear-piece so I could chat while I was playing or writing. Back then it sounded like a cool ideas, which it was actually up until the installation.

Apparently the program that I got back then with the dongle had some sort of data license which only allowed me to do so much with it and I had to pay some such amount of money to use it.

I was not paying a single cent, why?

Because I already bought the damn thing, most phones have it integrated for the love of god, or whatever entity or thing you believe in, why do I need to pay an additional amount of money?

I forgot about it, completely, and it just occurred to me the other day to try it out with Debian thinking, what's the worst that could happen. Worst thing that happened was that it took a bit to sync with my phone and ear-piece but aside from that I had no problem at all and most importantly I didn't pay a single cent for it. Now isn't that great?

I'll personally have to thank the volunteers at Debian for this one and for actually peeking my interest again into Bluetooth technology.

Cheers!

Recommendation of the Week: Dropbox

From way back in the day someone, a real enthusiast of Open-Source software, had recommended that I should try Dropbox for cloud storage and I recall telling him that he was mad as hell if I ever thought of trusting someone with my information.

That was when Dropbox had just recently popped into the market.

Just recently, approximately 4 months ago, I decided to give Dropbox a try and I was surprised to see a 2 GB free option that could literally synchronize with every major OS and Smart Phone on this side of the planet.

The reason I mention this is because back then I was working as an IT Manager at a College and my computer was so resource limited I had to go for Linux, Debian with XFCE as a matter of fact so you can get an idea of how limited I was but putting it in Windows terms let us say that running Windows 2000 was my closest option to a stable and fast OS.

Back then I had this need to have files available on my computer back home, running Windows, and my computer at work, running Linux, and doing so with a USB was becoming a drag since I didn't want to lose important information, which has happened to all of us at some point, so I needed an alternative to this.

And I asked this friend of mine who reminded me Dropbox was an option and I can honestly say that so far it has been the best backup/cloud sharing software I've tried and believe me I've done several like Norton Ghost or Acronis up to Tape Backup, Zip Drive and USB and none had come in as easy as Dropbox.

Literally, just drop it on the folder and it synchronizes and you're done. It will appear on other computers you add to synchronization.

Best of this is that you get an additional 250MB when you finish doing the introduction steps and an additional 250MB for every person you invite that finishes doing their introduction to Dropbox.

So there I had it, Windows PC, Linux PC and my Blackberry, I had the files even on the go!

Only issue I ever had was trying to compile from source on Debian 5 but as soon as Debian 6 came to play, a month later after I began to use Linux as matter of fact, I just needed to install two more packages and I was ready to run the thing or even better, if you're running a console only box then you can use the script that they provide you, add it to the startup and as soon as you confirm you want to synchronize the PC it will do so. Neat!

Give it a try, you won't be dissapointed!

The Browser Wars

It is interesting to know that even though it's been publicized and claimed that Firefox/Chrome are gaining, or have gained for that matter, a lot of market over Internet Explorer, is that actually true or just some myth made up by the competition?

Let us see what the visitors stats of a sister blog say about this.

I'll post some info from the stats:

Last Month Operating System views:

2,255 from Windows OS, any kind of Windows OS, which represented 83% of the viewers

328 from Macintosh which represented 12%

5% was just a bunch of random OS ranging from Linux/Unix to iPhones, Blackberries and Symbian based phones.

There is no surprise there as we all know that Microsoft is the owner of the market and that ain't changing anytime soon from what we can see, unless cloud computing takes on sooner than expected if ever.

Now, here comes the important part.

Pageview by browser:

930 views came from IE which represent a 34%

898 from Firefox which represent a 33%

490 from Chrome which represent 18%

304 from Safari which represent 11%

54 from Opera which represented 2%

And the rest are the rest.

From this we can see that even though IE is still reigning it is no longer doing so supreme in the field. Firefox is still the better choice for Windows users, from what we can understand from the stats, and Chrome is a little way too behind the competition in third place but I'll put my money over the latter since I trust Google more than Microsoft.

Funny that is...

So I'm playing around with oldsnake, went with that name because the thing somehow reminded of the character, and a couple of things have happened since last time I posted.

Turns out some programs won't run on the AMD Processors and this is due to the fact that there's some support issues here and there for the older versions. To me that is totally reasonable as a matter of fact and yet again it adds more flavor to the battle ahead.

So far I've tested out the little thing and I'm surprised to see that it has managed to stand a bit of heavy work in a reasonable amount of time. Installing packages wasn't a bliss but it went way better than expected.

Also I found, by mistake, my internal ZIP-drive and have been playing around with it for old sakes times... feels funny to be using it since I never had a chance to own one back when the whole thing was considered to be the end of floppies and the beginning of faster and better portable media. As we now know that never happened and ZIP drives died with the 90's.

As a final note Apache with PHP and MySQL are now installed and running just fine, pending is the NoIP software and off we go with a test environment!

We got a live one!

I like to play with old hardware and I'm talking dirty here, I'm talking old school.

For some time I had this Coppermine that was giving me issues due to the fact that the thing fried at some point, incredibly the bastard kept on working.

Then Mr. Da Kid was ever so kind to provide me with the old brain and heart of Lavos, now Neo Lavos, which was a tiny Celeron Mendocino. Unfortunately I like to play around with things way too much and in between fighting to release the tiny thing from the socket and trying to put in a new one, which wasn't compatible by the way, I broke the socket bed... again don't ask me how it broke in two but it happened.

This left me without a computer to do my evil deeds, and I do like to make evil deeds with old hardware because it feels like you're making an effort to make the thing work and it becomes a challenge which ultimately leads to satisfaction, but let us forget about masturbatory geek fantasies and let us go back to square one.

I'm without a test computer... until today.

Back on friday I got around to do some stuff and one of them was getting a Socket 775 MOBO for a desktop I'm building for myself and I was also looking for a test environment which could be anything from Pentium 3 to Pentium-Not, AKA 386/486 land, but I hadn't had much luck, with either, until someone pointed out an old swap meet that handles that kind of stuff.

In I go and five minutes later and some bargaining I got this tiny, tiny for the 90's, ATX Motherboard with what I was told was a Pentium II processor of unidentified source since the BIOS lacks any useful information.

Not only did I have to rebuild the desktop from scratch, since I had to take everything off including the power supply unit, I had to reset the CMOS to get video working since it simply wouldn't bulge. Once finished it was the turn of Debian 6 to do its magic which took some noble two hours to fully install, fully means installing Base and SSH.

My biggest surprise was getting to know what kind of processor I was running on this little beast. Turns out the thing is running with an AMD K6-2 3D Now! processor which is fine with me as I had the chance to work with a K6 and many members of the AMD family many, many, years ago and I honestly can't complain.

This is how the thing ended up looking like (I'll take a screenshot later of how that looks inside):
1 x 128MB PC 133 RAM stick.
10 GB Seagate HDD (Won't boot the 40GB which leads me to believe this motherboard has issues going in for the big guys)
CD-RW/DVD-ROM (Which I had given up for dead but apparently works just fine!)
Floppy and Zip Drives (Floppy is going straight into MOBO and Zip Drive is through USB since I lost my internal 100-Zip Drive)
AMD K6-2 3D Now! Processor @ 350 Mhz
PSU @ 300 watts

Great projects are coming for this little one but that is for another time.
-Vico

And we're better off now!

Last tuesday drew the final line with Windows 7 and the Microsoft Windows line in general. I've used Windows during my entire life and I've transitioned from Windows 3.1 up to Windows 7, learning a fair amount of tricks, but I've grown tired of bloatware and in general Windows tendency to lose compatibility between versions.

Yeah I'm probably an old dog, not that old though, but those are the little details that piss me off... and the drivers which is what took me to fly into Linux and say good bye to Windows.

This bad boy over here is an IBM/Lenovo T61 running an Intel Centrino Core Duo at 2.0 Ghz, 2 GB of DDR2 PC-6700 and a 500GB Hard Drive, which I got from somewhere else. Even though modest in this time and year, considering these were built back in '05. Interestingly this machine had issues running Windows XP, I somehow felt there was something wrong, and even though I went for Windows 7 it still felt the same way and it wasn't until at work, while trying to fix a T500 I had been assigned, I realized that the T60/61/500 line had SERIOUS problems with driver compatibility. So bad it was that if you tried to format the computer with a Windows XP CD it wouldn't let you and if you didn't have the recovery discs then you were in for an ugly ride until you yet again realize you have to mess around with the BIOS to get it working and then after the install is done you have to mess with it again... not cool Microsoft/IBM/Lenovo. And I'm not going to talk about my experience with Windows Vista and the T500, believe me I have NOTHING good to say about it.

So it all comes down to this, Linux. I had intended to do this transition earlier but for X or Y reason I just wouldn't, OK I procrastinated, but in the end it is a change I don't regret at all. In comparation Debian 6 "Squeeze" is running way smoother with the Gnome interface at a noble 300~ MB when it has completely finished booting up into the Desktop, after 30 seconds, which in no way was happening with either XP or 7. Oh joy, Windows Security Updates, Windows Driver Updates, Windows Something Updates, sorry what's that? 300MB patches? Windows Genuine Advantage Mathingy? Resource Hogs at the turn of every corner?

Things like that always made me cringe in terror but fortunately that's all in the past and if I ever need to run anything I just go for WINE or fire up the Virtual Machine which contains an original version of Windows XP. And for those telling me that's not true remember that all branded PC's contain a label with the key and I'm using mine for the VM XP so Microsoft can go and kiss my ass with their retarded policies.

And as a final note the only issue I had with Linux was the Wireless Driver which took me around 5 minutes to find, which unfortunately with Windows XP was a whole different story because the property drivers are NOT included in the installation disc which literally consists of most components in the laptop except for the motherboard, monitor, keyboard, mouse and the USB hubs... aside from those it could vary and if you weren't using a Windows XP SP3 CD then you weren't going to find the Hard Drive, EVER, since there were no SATA drivers included or if you found 'em it was minimal.

Yes Microsoft, quite a joyful time I had with your operating systems...

Greetings... and some Windows Bug you can easily fix!

Welcome to The Surge Tech Blog!

The purpose here is to talk a little bit about technology and also give out some useful tips to fix really, REALLY, awkward Windows Errors, some interesting projects, Linux and tips, or "pro-tips" and some other random curiosities.

To start this blog I'll post some awkward errors that I've found during my time working at a Medical Disposables Factory. These were a pain to fix but with time and dedication, AKA Google, we easily removed/fixed all the issues.

As a quick side note remember that you MUST be an Administrator to run this commands, no guarantee on power users or limited users here.

Error 0x000022:

This, from what I recall, was caused by not having enough permissions or because the Read/Write permissions on the Windows DLL/OCX files is incorrect for a designated user/group.

CACLS %systemroot%\System32\*.dll /E /G BUILTIN\Users:R

CACLS %systemroot%\System32\*.ocx /E /G BUILTIN\Users:R

shutdown -r

Error 0x80004015:

This error can be the result of a security decriptor error on Windows when trying to use the Windows Updater, usually happens in Windows XP but I recall seeing this on 2000 also though I don't know if it works or not.

Windows Batch:

sc sdset bits "D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)"

sc sdset wuauserv "D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)"

Windows VBS:

Option Explicit

on error resume next

dim oAU, oBITS, oComputer

dim oCommand, oFSO, oShell

do while lcase(oComputer) <> "quit"

' gather input

oComputer = InputBox("Enter the workstation's name, or type quit to exit")

' stop services

set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

set oBITS = GetObject("WinNT://" & oComputer & "/BITS")

oBITS.stop

set oAU = GetObject("WinNT://" & oComputer & "/wuauserv")

oAU.stop

' delete old jobs

set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting,Filesystemobject")

oFso.DeleteFile("\\" & oComputer & "\c$\Documents and Settings\All Users\application data\microsoft\network\downloader\*.*" & chr(34)), DeleteReadOnly

' set security descriptors on services

Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.shell")

oCommand = "sc \\" & oComputer & " sdset bits " & chr(34) &"D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)" & chr(34)

oShell.RunoCommand

oCommand = "sc \\" & oComputer & " sdsetwuauserv " & chr(34) & "D:(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;SY)(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;AU)(A;;CCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRRC;;;PU)" & chr(34)

oShell.RunoCommand

' start services

oBITS.start

oAU.start

loop

Rebuilding the TCP/IP Stack:

Yes, from time to time every solar/lunar eclipse, you may need to use this. Be warned that this should only be used when you've discarded hardware issues and you know Windows is still not a lost cause... heh, right.

@echo off

echo Resetting...

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

echo Dumping...

netsh dump

exit