Old School Virtual Machines

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I am in the process of installing into VMWare Workstation 4.0. Win 98 went ok, so I am working my way backward now. I am building up to trying Windows 3.1. I got the install files for 3.1 off MSDN a few years ago but haven’t been able to get it to install. I am on a role so far with older OS’s, so maybe I will get 3.1 to install ok. I need to track down an old version of DOS 6.x or 5.x also.

I wanted to get an original Windows 95 install, but the only legal disk I have of original windows 95 is an upgrade. So I am sticking to the Windows 95b flavor since I have a ton of licenses for it that I have not used in nearly 8 years.

I can safely say that Windows 95 takes less than 30 minutes to install on a new computer. I was surprised how quick the install took.

What does suck is having an OS (Windows 95) that doesn’t support network devices out of the box. It was easier today to install a newtwork driver on 95 than I remember it. But it was still a pain in the ass. From what I have dealt with on 95, I am not 100% sure I will want to get Win 3.1 up and running.

Break Fast

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I didn’t really break my fasting since I didn’t fast, but it was still nice to see all the friends and family. We went to Amy, Jared, and Riley’s house. Got to see Morgan for the second time in two days so I was happy. The usual suspects were there. My parents, carrie, mike, Chery, David, their kids, nieces and nephews, and their kids, etc. It was nice to see them since I missed them last week on the second night of the new year. I spent that on a plane.

I got a ride back to the city with Carrie & Morgan. Carrie is going upstate with her sister in law loren and her husband andrew tomorrow, so she is staying over in the city. Andrew took Carrie’s truck and drove me home. Saved me from catching a cab. Ms Morgan was not wanting to sleep so they probably are having a grand old time getting her to lie down now.

It is a small world. Turns out that Andrews friend is high up in a volunteer EMS squad in the city. I am just taking the EMT class, but he said to get in touch with him so I can get an application in and become a member before I pass my test.

Windows 98 Basic

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Did you know you can’t even access windows update with the out of the box install of Windows 98? I am downloading the latest IE that you can get. Hopefully I can patch this thing up to make it almost usable.

Not sure what I am going to do when I install Windows 95 and it doesn’t even have IE 4 on it. I think it comes with IE 2.0, but that browser sucked even then. Who knows if I will even be able to get something newer installed. All this classic OS installing brings me back. Not getting that many good memories about dealing with this OS. I am so glad I am writing this from my Mac running OS 10.3 you can’t imagine. To think I was actually excited when Windows 98 first came out. I guess it was “good” back then, but look at what we have now, it was a joke. To be honest by the time 98 came out I was using Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. The only problem was almost no hardware peripherals worked with it, so I would always duel boot with the latest 9x flavor until Windows 2000 came out.

Windows 98 As a VMWare Virtual Machine

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I solved my boot disk issue that stopped me from installing Windows 98 into VMWare. A few months back I tried to put Win 95, and Win 98 into Virtual Machines using EMC’s VMWare. I had to play around with the boot options but I finally got one of my old Windows 98 CD’s to work. I took me a while to find what key code worked with the CD I had decided to use, but everything looks ok now.

Once this is build I plan on taking on Windows 95, and Windows 98 Second Edition. I want a basic Virtual Machine image of all the windows OS’s. You never know they will come in handy. I already used a Windows NT 4 Workstation image I made at work for troubleshooting a problem we were having.

On another Virtual Machine note I convinced Gus to evaluate the cost benefit of having a VMWare server (probably GSX Server) instead of buying hardware for some of the more obscure QA tests we run. It fits into our plan to emulate our production environment as much as possible, but why would we buy hardware for an ftp server in QA if we only use it once every few weeks. If we just built a virtual machine and used it when necessary we could save a bunch on hardware.

The Holiday’s

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Today is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. I am not a very religious person, but when you say it is the most holy day of the year even I stop for a minute. It is a day where you are supposed to atone for your sins and fast. I am not a big fan of temple. I get that from my dad. So we don’t go. I don’t fast since I don’t like getting migraine headaches. If I don’t eat for an entire day I will get one, so I have to eat. I am told that it is ok if you have a medical reason, so I feel guilty for eating but not that guilty.

People who know me laugh when I leave early for the religious holidays. The reason is as I said, I am not very religious. But not believing and not observing are two different things. I may believe in the religion I happen to be born into, but I don’t find it necessary to spend time observing it in an organized fashion.

Wow, that was deep. Don’t expect that kind of somber writing too often. I promise the next post will be some nonsensical post about some dumb-ass at work or some cool technical thing I am doing.

Updated The Blog Layout

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I updated the layout and color scheme of the blog today. I wasn’t really looking to do it, but when I made a small layout change I lost most of the color settings I had. I couldn’t find the template I used to originally create they layout, so a new color scheme and layout was born. I think the old blue color was a bit to “pastelie”. I like making up words.

You would think I have nothing else on my mind to write about (or get up from the computer to do for that matter), but I am here writing about changing color schemes. I actually have a bunch to write about, and even more to do once I finish working on the computer. First up, I am off to make dinner.

Everyone is Blogging

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Gretchen setup a blog a few days ago. She has a few posts up there already. They are pretty funny. Allot of the time I aim for my blog entries to have that kind of tongue and cheek comedy to them. I have no clue if I actually come across that way or not. the other part of the time I am just bitching about one thing or another. That aspect of the blog is most likely painfully obvious when I do it.

The Blog URL

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I have given up. I have given up on what url to give this blog. I am taking the cop out approach and just using my main website address and pointing it to the blog. I will use some other URL for my “regular” site.

To be honest, besides my photo album there is not much left on my website. Over the past year I have been spending more on the blog and less on designing and putting content on my website. It will now be harder to find the “regular” site. Sorry to all that were looking for a 4 year old copy of my resume, or other outdated content.

Delta Airlines Sucks

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I hope they go bankrupt. I dare any Delta Airlines executive to email me and want to know why I dislike them. They hide behind their dumb-ass rules and even if there are extenuating circumstances they continue to screw the passengers. When did the customer become cattle, and no one care?

I got a response to my generally angry, but civilized email to them. They told me in the nicest way possible to go F myself. My account of the ordeal is here. If my company treated customers like I was treated (by supervisors and everything) we would be out of business. I am going to upload the letter I wrote (minus the date and flight number) and you tell me if situation I endured was not out of the ordinary enough to warrant some compensation.

I even had one moron of a rep tell me that it was my fault for not looking at the weather report before I went to the airport. This is after I told him that I asked the delta ticket agent at the airport if everything was fine. I even volunteered to not fly if the weather was questionable. I was assured things looked fine. Their response was weather shifts and things change minute by minute. How the hell do you go from no real delays to massive hurricane closing airport in 2 hours with out anyone realizing that it will happen?

My goal of getting back the points and / or getting a free ticket to compensate me for my messed up ticket is looking bleak right now. My last resort is to write to the corporate office, and plead my case. They will most likely be assholes like the rest of their company and say nothing, but it is worth a try.