Saturday was a lazy day for me. Cleaning my apartment was the most work I did for the day. It is still a bit messy, but it is allot better than before.
Month: November 2004
Painful Shoes
Last week I went shopping and replaced my really nasty old Doc Martin’s. I got another pair like the ones I was tossing. My feet have been hurting like hell all week. It takes forever to break these shoes in but when done they feel great. If I tried on any other pair of shoes and they felt that bad, I would not buy them. With Doc’s it is expected.
Turns out according to Best of the 80’s Strikes Back if I was living in 1987 I would have street cred with my new Doc Martin’s. I thought that was funny when I watched that the other day.
I shouldn’t complain that much about painful walking. Gretchen had toe surgery Friday. She was limping around today.
We (Jay, Gretchen, Cari, Danny, & I) went to see the incredibles today. It was funny. We had to goto 2 different theaters before we found one that didn’t have a huge line. Thankfully we live in Manhattan
Road Trip 2
Yesterday Gus, Dan, and I were off again on another road trip. This time one of our account rep’s drove us all down to Philly. We visited a cool client of theirs (names of vendor’s and clients are being obscured, sorry it is confusing to you). We checked out their ACD system and the phone system they use. I liked what I saw. it was a nice operation. I learned a bunch about the product we were looking at. Since we were in Philly I had a Philly Cheese Steak. it was good. I wanted a nap after it!
My problem was the really long drive there and back in the rain. I don’t like long car trips. I don’t mind the train or the plane as much.
I was also out of the office 3 days last week. I will be out again at least 2 days this up coming week. I am busy. That means jayson is over worked since he is alone (danny is helpful, but he has releases as his first priority). Then all the work I need to do is piling up for me when I return on monday.
After work I went back to Dan’s to hang out. Alyssa, Dari, and Jennifer came over also. I fixed his wifi point. Dan, DO NOT touch the dam point again. It didn’t take me that long, so no biggie. We hung out and played scatigories. I think that was the name. I won the first game, but sucked on the second game.
Road (Train) Trip
Today I took a train trip with Dan, & Gus to the Boston area. We visited a site that is running a call center software package that we are looking to buy. It was a productive day, sort of. We learned allot. But I like doing, and not talking so I get bored sometimes doing this sort of stuff. We did go over really cool stuff, so I was interested.
The travel was boring. We took Amtrak’s Acela Express to Boston. I have taken the old meteorologic before but the Acela was nice. At least I got to do some work for allot of the trip. From NYC to the Boston area it was about 3:20 minutes. We didn’t go to the end of the line though. As Jayson put it today "I spent an hour less on the train than he worked all day". Very true, unfortunately.
This was day 2 out of 3 that I was out of the office. I stayed home yesterday from an overnight I did. Today was travel, and tomorrow is more travel. We are going to Philly to visit another site. Tomorrow we are driving, or being driven down. I would rather take the train, but Philly is closer than Boston.
More news about that trip after it happens…
The “Official” Cut Over To My New Computer
I have been spending less time on my move to a new desktop (see past posts), but I am almost done. I think I am past the point of no return. Or shall I say I am now officially working off of that computer. What fine line did I cross to let me say that? Not sure. I am doing almost nothing on that computer yet. I think what did it was moving off 90% of what was on my firewire drive (plugged into my powerbook) over to the new computers drive. The final straw was importing my MP3 collection into iTunes for windows on the new computer. All 28gigs are now working on the desktop. Fear not, I can still listen to all that music on my Powerbook. I just shared out the itunes on my desktop. Now I can listen wirelessly anywhere in my apartment.
Like I said I am still using the Powerbook as my primary machine, but everything is now a network share off of the new desktop. I am also using the desktop as the DVR I originally planned.
I am also reformatting my iPod as we speak. I am setting it up so it will sync with my PC. I have never used the iPod with a PC so lets hope it is as easy as with my Mac? With it formated for a PC (FAT32), I can use it as an external hard drive and shuttle data back and forth between work and home. I can also use it to plug into a Mac or a PC. The limitation I had with it in Mac formatted mode is that I needed to plug it into only Mac’s. It was a pain to do that.
Once the iPod cut over is completed I will need to continue to install all the needed applications on my desktop. Now that most of the data copying is over, I can focus on configuring the machine more. New computers are time intensive to setup:(
Well the format of the iPod to FAT32 went ok. I am now installing my music again using my PC copy of the files. it looks like it is taking longer than on my Mac. Not sure what is up with that.
Play Date
I had a play date today. I went to my sisters (AKA Morgan’s Mommy) for dinner. They are going to Florida tomorrow to see the grandparents, so I wanted to see them before they went. Kids have a way about making you not want to leave them. All night morgan wanted me to play with her. My parents were over, and she usually gravitates towards my dad, but all she wanted was for me to read to her. I think I read He bear, she bear like 20 times in a row. It was very funny. But I figured if she wanted to sit still on the couch next to me for a while reading, who was I to complain. She showed me her dancing monkey. that was cute. She also vacuumed for me.
That kid was in rare form. She was not stingy with the hugs and kisses either. Some visits you have to beg steal and borrow to get 1 hug from that little girl. Not today. I know I am not impartial, but that kid is fantastic. So funny, and fun to play with.
My parents came over and we all had dinner. My sister (Morgan’s Mommy, as Morgan likes to call her) packed. I wont see them for a week or so until they get back.
Updatathon Set
I am still moving files around on my new desktop. I decided to move everything off of my old 160 gig drive so I could format it fresh. It is taking forever to move stuff. I assume it is due to the age of my first IDE drive. Also I am moving hundreds of gigs, and ten’s of thousands of files. Oh well. It is almost done. If I listen to windows, it is only 15 more minutes. Once I format my first 160 gig drive I can move all the data off of my Firewire drive and format that. Currently the firewire drive is formated for the Mac. It won’t work when I plug it into a PC. If I format it with FAT32 I can use it with both my Mac and my PC’s. The only down side of that is will have to partition it logically as 2 disks. Dam FAT32 and its partition size limits.
Once all that fun stuff is done, I need to install all my applications I want on my new machine. that will be a fun and time consuming updateathon.
I know I have been droning on about a piece of metal. I have no life right now, so a new gatget or some crazy thing at work is all I got to write about. Sorry poor reader… You could be reading the news. This site is way more uplifting that the news!!!
SAW
Today I spent time moving files to my new desktop. That is still going on. it will be a while before that machine is fully configured. Tonight I meet up with Cari and went to Outback for dinner. I tried their fried shrimp entr?(c)e. It was good.
We then hit the heartland brewery to wait for Gretchen and Jayson so we could all goto a movie. We were originally going to see the Incredibles. Unfortunately we are all retarded and didn’t buy tickets ahead of time. All the shows were sold out. In my defense I did say we should order them online before hand but got mocked by Cari for it. We ended up a different theater to see Saw. That movie was just disturbing. it was a great plot. Some of the acting was terrible though. Some crazy stuff in that movie. I won’t ruin it for anyone but it was just disturbing, but a cool kind of disturbing. Kind of like From Hell. it was crazy, graphic, and yet you sat there and took it all in!
Plan for later this week is to try and see the Incredibles.
HP, Vs Dell, Vs Gateway, Vs Etc…
So for a while I have been thinking about if / when I should buy a new computer. My desktop has been causing major issues for me over the past few months. I have really not used it that much since I got my iMac last November, but recently I have had uses for it. It just keeps wigging out on me. I have debated going with a Powermac, another Powerbook or some combination of machines. Cost concerns prevailed and I ended up going out and getting a new PC. I still have my powerbook (writting on it right now) but my new desktop at home is an HP Compaq Presario. It has the glamorous name of the SR1230NX. This new box replaces my aging custom built AMD Atholon XP 1500+ machine that will be 3 years old next month. The new Presario is another AMD Atholon, running at 3200+. Not the fastest thing out there, but much faster than what I had.
I was shopping around on the internet, and just decided to goto best buy and get something in my price range. I got everything I needed, DVD-+R, 160 gig drive, media reader, etc. I also purchased a ATI All In Wonder Radeon 9600. A major reason for the new computer was to do DVR functions, so I needed a video capture card.
A new computer is a new thing for me. I haven’t bought (built) a computer in 3 years. Before that I was upgrading every 1-2 years. What is different about this purchase is that I went out to the store and bought a Compaq (HP) from Best Buy. I usually build them. Now a days it is just easier and sometimes cheaper to buy a model from the store. I only had 1 specific requirement for this machine. I wanted a video capture card as I mentioned. So I just bought a ATI All In Wonder card and put it in the new box. I also took my 160gig IDE drive from my old desktop and put it in this new machine. Now I have 2 160 gig drives, plus an external firewire drive on my powerbook. Man that is allot of drive space. I don’t know why I am actually using so much of it. The only thing I am really missing is more ram for the new desktop. it came with 512megs. I will upgrade it to at least 1.5gig or maybe max it out at 2 gig next week. That way I can use VMWare without a performance problem.
So far the setup of the new box has been going OK. I had a bit of trouble getting the extra drive in the box. These new machines are so small and they make it so hard to maneuver in them. I wiped the Windows XP Home edition that came with the machine and put my copy of Windows XP Pro on it. Right now all I have is a fully updated windows xp box with nero & VWMware on it. I am coping my data from the old 160 gig drive to the one that came with the box. Then I will format the old drive to start fresh. Oh I almost forgot. I also have the ATI media center installed. It has a TV program, viewers, etc. So far the software is great. It is allot better and more stable than the last version I used way back in 1999 with my original ATI All in wonder card. FYI, I still used that old 16 meg video card in my last computer. It lasted forever, but I couldn’t use the TV function because it was so buggy. I have high hopes for this new card.
Now I am off to do an updateathon of software installs on this new machine…
Blog Cleanup
Last weekend I spent some time cleaning up this site. I went back and broke out allot of entries into more categories than work and personal. I also cleaned up the allow comments or not to allow comments options on my older posts. Now I hope not to get stupid comments from casinos or other spam comments.
By now I have had my Typepad site up for a little over 2 months. I think I am happy with how the site came out. I have refined the layout enough that I won’t tinker with it all the time anymore. The only think I don’t like is the color pallet. The original one I had I liked better. The problem is I cannot remember how I got to that color scheme. These are the stupid things I fret over in my free time:)