Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
If you remember back a few weeks, I told you that I got a new computer. There were a few hickups, but things are ok now.
When I get a new computer, I like to transfer my software to it, from my old computer. Basically, I just install the software that I have onto the new computer and then delete it from the old one. It usually goes along just fine.
A while back, I installed Quickbooks Pro 2007 on the new computer. The software gave me 30 days to register it. I waited the 30 days (because I kept hitting “remind me later”) and then I registered the software. When I registered it, I was asked for my business phone number and zip code. I remembered when I bought the software, so I plugged in our old phone number and zip code. Then, I said to myself, “I should really update this information, because if I have to do this again, I am never going to remember that old stuff.” The only way I could update the information was to call the company. I did that a few minutes ago.
I got a guy on the phone. He updated the information that I gave him, so they can send me more junk mail. Then, his system produced a new validation code. He gave me the instructions on how to apply the new validation code in the Quickbooks software. Upon doing this, I received an error, saying the validation code was no good. I asked him what to do…the validation code he just gave me was no good. He replied that I could either look online for a solution or sign up for a technical support plan for $75 per year.
I think I may have stuttered for a second because I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I felt myself getting a little red in the face and explained to him that this was his problem, not mine. I quickly found myself getting nowhere fast with him, so I hung up.
I am not even going to let this get to me. I am going to go about my day with a smile on my face.
Thank you for listening.
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Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
Just a word of warning, I really don’t know what I am talking about in this post. I gathered some fragments and decided to talk about them.
Ok, since I have been using this new computer, I have had a little issue. When the computer would go into sleep mode, things would be normal. When I would shake the mouse to wake the computer up, sometimes it would hang. After a while, I would get the blue screen that gave me an error. It was “kernel_data_inpage_error.” After the blue screen, the computer would automatically (after a dew seconds) go to the welcome screen and then start as normal. When it started, I would get the normal error box that pops up in Windows that told me the computer didn’t shut down properly and asks if I would like to report this to Microsoft.
Last night, I decided to call Dell support. I spoke with a guy who used a program to take over my computer so he could check some stuff out. He said that it was most likely a driver that was causing the issue. He then checked the paging file size. Reminder…I am running Windows Vista Ultimate. He said, “Hmmm, this is probably causing the problem.” I didn’t get a good look at it, but I believe the paging file size was too small. He increased it to 1000-6000 and things seem to be running smoothly.
After a few minutes, I realized that this computer is now much, much faster. I am assuming this has something to do with the paging file size. Now, it feels like I am working on the computer I bought.
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Saturday, July 26th, 2008
This is a very aggravating post to write. It’s a wonder I am sitting here and not in a mental hospital right now.
Let me offer some background. For the past few weeks, Laura’s computer has been showing the signs of hard drive failure. The computer is about 6 years old and has a 30Gb hard drive. It’s time to upgrade and get a new one. Last night, we ran out to Circuit City to pick one out. Upon looking at Circuit City’s selection, I was shocked to see about 95% of the computers now come with Windows Vista 64-bit. I asked the very new salesperson about that and he told me that’s the way they were coming now. Since I put my utmost trust in Microsoft, I figured that this is the way things were going to be and everything was going to work out fine. We picked out a HP Pavilion a6500f Desktop PC (KQ495AA#ABA).
When we got home, I started it up and did the things you do to a new computer. Then, I shut it down and put the old Linksys wireless card in and tried to run it. It didn’t work. I decided that I needed to find the Linksys 64-bit version of the adapter driver. Nope. No where to be found. Apparently Linksys hasn’t yet realized that this version of Windows is being sold to the masses. Oh well, I did some research and found that trying to find a wireless adapter for a 64-bit operating system is not all that easy. I finally narrowed my search down to a D-Link DWA-552 Xteme N Desktop Adapter. I chose this because it was available at Circuit City and the clock was ticking. We had work to do. We were now backed up a half-day. Also, the only reason I knew about this wireless adapter card was because I read about it on some forum discussing the issue. D-Link doesn’t officially support the 64-bit driver, yet they offer it. I had to download it from their website.
I ran up to Circuit City this morning to get the card, which wasn’t a problem. I came back and installed the card and had to call D-Link tech support for assitance installing the new driver. As I was on the phone with tech support, the computer froze. I restarted it (by physically pushing the on/off button) and continued to set up the driver. Everything set up fine without further event. I was able to connect to the network. Then, the computer froze again. I told tech support about this and she said there have been a few problems with this and I might need to update the BIOS. First of all, I don’t even know what a BIOS is, nor do I think I need to. It has nothing to do with my line of work. I tinkered with the computer for a few more hours and then called HP tech support. By the way, the computer kept freezing up (or crashing, whatever the difference is) about 25 more times during that few hours. It seemed to do it more when I was shutting down the computer and sometimes it got stuck on the welcome screen. The lady on the phone was nice and suggested that we burn some backup CDs and reintall the operating system. I told her thanks but no thanks. I really don’t think I will be reinstalling the operating system of a 12 hour old computer. Seriously, this is not my problem.
I brought the computer back to Circuit City this afternoon and traded it for a less expensive (and slower) HP Pavilion A6400F Desktop PC. I just finished configuring it and (knock on wood) everything is good. It has the 32-bit version of Windows Vista. What a pain in the $%^&.
What is the moral of the story? Stay the hell away from Window Vista 64-bit, unless you want to sit there and try to get it to run. Can you imagine I tried to install two things?
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
One of the things on my task list today was to order the new computer that I have been considering for the past few months. Laura’s computer started acting up yesterday and that gave me the push to get it done. We can’t be without these kinds of things.
So, here is what I got:
1 Dell Precision T7400 Mini-Tower, Quad Core Xeon Proc E5405, 2.00GHz, 2X 6MB L2 Cache,1333MHz
1 2nd Processor, Quad Core Xeon Proc E5405, 2.00GHz, 2X 6MB L2Cache,1333MHz, Dell Precision T7400
1 4GB, DDR2 ECC SDRAM Memory 667MHz, 8X512MB,Dell PrecisionT5400 (I couldn’t go to the 800Mhz with these processors. Bumping up to faster processors added thousands to the cost.)
1 Entry Level, USB, No Hot Keys keyboards, Dell PrecisionWorkstations
1 nVidia,NVS 290, 256MB dual DVIGraphics Card, Dell Precision T3400
3 146GB 3Gbps SAS, 15K RPM Hard Drive, 3.5 Inch, Dell Precision T3400
1 C23 All SAS Hard Drives, RAID 5 for 3 Hard Drives, Dell Precision T7400
1 NO FLOPPY DRIVE, Dell Precision 490/690, Factory Install
1 Vista Ultimate SP1 with Media 32 Bit English Dell Precision (I decided to stick with the 32 bit operating system. I don’t need any surprises at the moment.)
1 Dell USB 2-Button Entry Mouse with Scroll for Dell Precision
1 16XDVD-ROM, Data Only, Dell Precision T3400
1 Cyberlink Power DVD 8.0,with Media,Dell Precision
1 Internal Chassis Speaker, DellPrecision T7400
1 Dell Wireless 1505 PCIe WLAN Card, Dell Precision Workstation
1 Resource DVD contains Diagnostics and Drivers for Dell Precision T7400
1 PERC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card - For Connecting Internal Hard Drives, Dell Precision
7400
1 Norton Internet Security 2008 English, 2 Year,Dell OptiPlex Precision and Latitude
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service Initial Year
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service Extended Year(s)
1 ProSupport for End Users: 7×24 Technical Support and assistance for end-users, Initial
1 ProSupport for End Users: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response Initial Year
1 ProSupport for End Users: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response 2 Year Extended
1 ProSupport for End Users: 7×24 Technical Support and assistance for end-users, 2 Year Extended
Basically, the reason for this new computer is get some beef in the processor department as well as the additional and faster hard drives. I added RAM to my current computer and while I got a minimal performance increase, I don’t think RAM was the issue. I also thought that getting the on-site support was important.
I should get the system next week and will continue to use my current computer for other, non-critical tasks.
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Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
Boy, that title is pretty long.
Yesterday, Laura and I went shopping. We first went up to Home Depot in Enfield, CT. I got a bunch of stuff, most of which I can hardly remember right now. I am sure I’ll write about it when I start using it.
Then, we went to Circuit City and got some stuff. After that, we went to Costco for food shopping. Just to let you know, Costco in Enfield has a gas station for members. Gas around here is $4.39 per gallon. I paid $4.05 yesterday at the Costco gas station. It averages about 30 cents less per gallon than regular gas stations.
Back to Circuit City. While there, I picked up some Sony bookshelf speakers that I am going to use for the new downstairs. I also picked up some new computer speakers. The computer speakers I was using up until yesterday were Altec Lansing and getting pretty old. I gave them to Laura as a hand-me-down. I got a hand-me-up to the new Bose Companion® 2 Series II Multimedia Computer Speakers.
When I was looking at them in the store, I kept asking the guy (kid) if they had an amp in them. I was worried that they might be like those cheap Dell speakers you get with a new computer. You should probably have someone standing next to you hitting two pans together than using those Dell speakers. Man, if I had a nickle for every pair of them I threw away.
He never gave me an answer. He just kept saying that these Bose speakers were the best brand they had in the store. Since I never quite got an answer out of him, I just bought them and decided that I would return them if they were horrible.
I got home and hooked them up. Right after that, I hooked up the Altec Lansings to Laura’s computer, which made her very happy. Now she can pump the bass. Back to my speakers. I turned on Media Player and was quite impressed. All that stuff Bose says about themselves is pretty true. The speakers are very clear and I can now hear sounds I never heard out of my old speakers. It’s pretty amazing what they can do with half the size and weight of something.
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