After working with Java for years and years, I’ve realized the problem with the whole thing. It’s the catch phrase! Java just doesn’t sound like something I want to use. It definitely needs some help from marketing. I’ve thought long and hard about it and have finally come to a decision on the matter. Without further ado, I give you the new Java marketing campaign!
Java … because you didn’t need that memory anyway!
Closing it down and then returning a few hours later to find it still sitting in my process table taking 120 megs of memory. I love that. I closed it… it didn’t listen. The task tray icon is gone, it should be closed… it’s not. The main window is gone, it should be closed… it’s not. I especially love when I go to restart Outlook and it won’t because the old process is hung up and I have to go to task manager and kill it. That just makes me happy.
Thanks again guys, I didn’t like that memory anyway. I probably needed to upgrade… 4 gigs just doesn’t seem like enough for some reason. Especially for a 32-bit OS that doesn’t allow me to use it all anyway.
Do I seem angry or just beaten down after years of this. And yes, it’s patched up to the maximum. It’s Outlook 2003 on Windows XP. I don’t do any crazy stuff to the PC. It’s a work machine, totally standard installation. Nothing exciting at all.
Oh well… another day, another piece of crappy code. Tune in soon for my discussion on Linux ATI video drivers and display corruption!
After 5 years of fighting, I think i’m ready for a new desktop PC. When I built this PC, I decided to dump a ton of money into it. Here are the original specs.
This thing was amazing. Very fast machine at the time.
5 years down the road, the RAID controller has died and been replaced by an Adaptec with more cache. The video card died and was replaced by a GeForce 4 Ti 4600. Both of the original processors went super nova and had to be replaced. I’m running MP 2600+’s now. (Which the board doesn’t correctly recognize because of their stepping) Everything is now in a different case with better cooling and has a new power supply. So with the exception of the motherboard, RAM, HDs, and Ethernet cards, it’s all been replaced. 
Two days ago… it died again. Apparently the fan went out on the video card and took itself out in a matter of hours. No warning for me of course, I run Linux and it’d be too simple to send me a desktop alert and shut down gracefully. I’m sure there is some kind of super-techy alerting system that I neglected to wire up in Linux, but that’s another rant altogether. I was actually looking at the monitor when it died… no warnings, nothing.
So now i’m faced with the decision, repair it again or just replace it. I’m so sick and tired of fixing my PC. I can’t begin to explain my total disgust for this machine. When it runs, it’s still a great performer and does whatever I need it to do, it’s just that it doesn’t run that often.
Oh well, I guess i’ll join the masses and just buy a pre-built machine with a nice 3-year on site warranty! Just kidding, I’m sure i’ll build again. I’m just perturbed with the whole thing right now. The thought of some high school kid coming over to try and help me fix my PC just makes me want to gag, so yeah, i’ll most likely build.
I was just taking a moment to reflect on the fact that I just got an email alert from my fish tank. It was informing me that the pH inside of my Calcium Reactor was a touch too high. And to make it even more geeky, I got the email on my BlackBerry.
So anyway, special thanks to Neptune Systems for making the AquaController III so that I can get an email when my pH is a bit off. 
For you fish geeks out there, the AquaController III really does rock. It’s a great tool for managing your Aquarium while you’re out and about.
I’ve been running with Ocadia for a while now and it’s been a good friend, but it’s time to upgrade. Wordpress 2.3 broke the theme (notice the broken tags). Ocadia isn’t even listed on the compatibility list for Wordpress 2.5, so I take it that means I need to upgrade.
How about somebody linking me to a fitting (and free) WP 2.5 compatible theme, eh? I’m also looking for a Coppermine theme as well if somebody runs across one of those that matches somewhat.
Well folks, I got hit tonight. I was about to kick into some Rock Band and there was an update out for my Xbox 360… I downloaded it, rebooted, and the console worked fine. I grabbed my trusty guitar and went after it. Two songs into it, the game crashed and locked up the console. Okay, bad sign, it’s never locked up like this before. I reboot, it comes back! I hit the button to start Rock Band, the game freezes at the opening screen… console lucked up complete again. So now i’m thinking that it must be that the update broke Rock Band. I’ll be angry but I know they’ll fix it soon so no big deal… right? Oh wait, the console locked up again, this time at the green Xbox 360 boot screen. That’s not good. Not good at all. One more reboot and it finally happens.
Red Ring of Death.
The feared “General Hardware Failure”. I’ve checked the power supply, it has a green light and should be good to go. I’ve pulled all of the cables and reseated them. I’ve removed the hard drive. Nothing. It’s dead. No more Xbox 360 for me. Fortunately, i’ve never cracked the case and Microsoft has extended the warranty of the console. Oh well, if i’m lucky, i’ll get an updated premium console with the HDMI output. That’d be nice.
Anyway, thanks to Microsoft for ruining my night (and my successful Expert career in Rock Band!)
What do I have against Blu-Ray? SONY! That’s what. They own the technology, all of it. What does that mean for consumers? Licensing… lots and lots of licensing. Expensive players, expensive movies, etc. Sony knows this, most consumers apparently don’t.
I figure that we’ve got one shot left for HD-DVD and to not be stuck with Blu-Ray. That shot is to buy HD-DVD. Everybody, go find an HD-DVD player… buy it. Go find HD-DVD movies… buy them. Then wait. The technology is open, somebody will pick it back up and make it.
Let’s take our market back! If Sony REALLY wanted to do something good, they should give Blu-Ray to the DVD forum. Then i’ll buy one. Until then, forget it.
GO HD-DVD!
That’s it… I want the idiots off of my internet. I want my internet back. I’m so sick of all of the whiners on the internet, talking about their “right” to surf at work, their “right” to a safe, clean internet. I say to them, you have no “rights”. You have the “right” to keep yourself off of my internet and go back to AOL where they’ll offer you a “safe” (read: restricted) internet. Me? I’ll put up firewalls in front of me, choose to only run secure operating environments, and keep my sensitive data off of the internet. Go ahead, compromise this terminal… all of my valuable data isn’t here.
I want my internet back! I recently read an article about a Chinese hacking group that was boasting of no web sites being safe and how they even hacked into U.S. government web sites.. I thought to myself, why would the government have that crap connected in ANY way to the internet? Oh wait… because some idiot thinks that all computers should be on the internet! I say no… no, no, no, no, no! GET YOUR SECURE INFORMATION OFF OF THE INTERNET. IT IS NOT SECURE. Physical security is the only way to truly keep information off of the internet. If it’s connected to the LAN, it’s vulnerable… period. Not that anybody actually cares what my opinion is or anything, but we need to get our sensitive data away from the internet completely. Attention Government : The internet is NOT safe, pull the countries’ data away from it. Those machines (with my social security number and such) should NOT have public addresses or any form of address translation. Access to them should be controlled through a secure gateway with (at least) two-factor authentication. That gateway ought to be at least 2 or 3 firewalls away from the internet with no path back. NO ACCESS FROM HOME. COME TO WORK YOU LAZY MORONS. No copy/paste functions should be allowed on machines that connect to the secure area. No screen captures… nothing. Consider seriously that people who access those machines should not have access to the internet while at work. They don’t NEED it… it’s not their “right”. Prisoners don’t need Cable TV and internet either, but that’s a whole new rant.
I want my internet back. I say this to these morons who can’t seem to realize that the internet is NOT a safe place and it never will be as long as it’s connected to the rest of the world. This goes back to an old rant of mine… People have this need to believe that all other people are basically good and if given the choice would do the right thing… it’s definitely not true but i’ll let that one lye for now. But on that note… I want my internet back.
Occasionally in life, I am reminded of the reasons why I believe what I believe. I have always believed that UNIX and Linux are unstoppable server OS’es and the only choice for hardcore enterprise duties. Maintenance required is very little (if any) and they’re easy to manage remotely. Windows administrators will argue about the lack of a cool global policy editor (which is admittedly very cool) or a remote GUI tool as fast and usable as Remote Desktop/Terminal Services. Those are very valid arguments… but let me tell you about one thing they don’t have. A decent serial port administrative interface…
For those of you who didn’t notice, the ID server bombed out the other day. I was at a customer and unable to get to the internet to fix it. It was out for around 8 hours! When I finally did get to a machine with SSH access, the server was apparently down. I couldn’t ping it, none of the sites were up, etc… So then I SSH’ed over to the serial terminal server that’s connected to my machine. Sure enough, the machine is up and running, it was the upstream DHCP server that had given me the wrong IP address. Something went very wrong on that subnet and i’m not sure exactly what. The point is that I got to the machine via a serial port and fixed it. Everything but GUI is available via that serial port, not a reduced subset of commands.
Gotta love UNIX and Linux. The legacy of the serial terminal has saved my tail so many times it’s not even worth counting any more. Try that with your Windows box! You might also want to factor in that this machine has been down only twice in over 5 years. Once for an OS upgrade and once because of an upstream problem. How’s that for reliability and track record?
What did I do before Portal? How did I survive? Why am I at work when I should be playing Portal? I wonder if I can get away with playing Portal at work? Questions like these are in your immediate future once you purchase the Orange Box.
I recently bought the Orange Box from Valve to get Team Fortress 2. One of the crew who’s playing TF2 got me started playing “Portal”, a game that comes with the Orange Box but definitely did not get the hype that TF2 did.
Imagine, you’re in a “training center” with a sadistic computer that needs your help “testing” a new weapons system. Too bad that some of the “tests” can be fatal if you’re not careful. Take that concept, toss in the gravity gun from HL2 and multiply it by the ability to throw portals, toss in a physics engine and you’re at pure hysteria. That’s Portal. Slow at first but once you throw a portal on a wall and then another down the the bottom of a pit and then jump in, you’ll be hooked. You’ll have to take my word for it, but wow… just wait. The HL2 physics engine really shines in this one.
So here it is, your official ID.com bullet list for this game.