More dirty, dirty things

In my recent run of crustily grungy computers, I had the misfortune to find one which doubled as a 'mystery box o' stench'. Within moments of pressing the power switch, an aroma of frown filled the room. I took a LONG time cleaning it, then myself, then the room, then the things I used to clean the room. Oh and if you were wondering, there appeared to be nothing else wrong with it. It was a case of 'well it worked fine when I tried it'. The below image doesn't show the grot that fell off just by moving it around, and removing the front of the case.


Hold your breath!

IBM 300PL desktop unable to boot

I get asked to resurrect all kinds of ancient hardware, and this was no exception. An IBM 300PL desktop system with a strange error message on booting up.

The RF-ID Tag has changed
184 Asset control antenna not detected
System-Security Keyboard is locked.
System-Security Keyboard is unlocked.
176 The system has been tampered with.
Turn power to your system Off then On.
Your system is now locked.

Mysteriously 1984ish style boot message.

After lots of Google searches it appeared to come down to a couple of things. Changing the BIOS battery, resetting the BIOS, or malfunctioning capacitors on the motherboard.

Once you open up the case (and let all the ancient spirits similar to the Ark of the Covenant swirl around the room and dissipate) you may be lucky enough to find a sticker directing you to certain motherboard features.


This sticker was inside the lid of the case, which detaches completely, giving you an awesomely metallic one page book of instructional knowledge and power.


So according to this, the jumper is more or less in the center of the board. The sticker indicates the position to reset the BIOS. It's just a matter of moving the little plastic jumper so it connects the other two pins of the three, for a moment, and then putting it back again.



Here is the jumper on the board, yes, it's THAT exciting!


If after all that, it still just refuses to work, and all the cables appear to be connected (and you have removed the battery for a moment, or better still, replaced it entirely) then it could be the capacitors on the motherboard. I am so not into replacing these types of components, but if they are swollen or leaking they should be replaced.



The rest of the board appeared ok, but these looked jolly bulgy indeed to me. I have had other PC's die slow painful deaths from just this very issue.


And now a dirty and some might even venture, filthy, image for your delight...


If you know anything further, leave a comment.

People and Zombies - Somebody please make this.

Ok since getting addicted to Burnout Paradise, and recently trying Wii Fit, I believe there is a great opportunity to combine the two.

"People and Zombies"

A massively multi-player game where a group of people have to survive against a horde of zombies. Make it to the safe point, and you are good. Get bitten by a zombie, you become one yourself.

As a person you have to make it to a specific location which is safe. Being that people would play over and over, the maps contain multiple safe areas, but only ONE is considered safe at a time. Also on the map are medical stations which dispense serum to allow a recently bitten person to fend off the otherwise inevitable transformation into an undead zombie.

As a zombie you have to stop at all costs (and as you are dead, those costs are pretty low to start with) the people from all reaching safety.

People can;
Walk fast.
Drive cars (perhaps vehicles that can carry other people)
Get healed at stations.
Use weapons
Voice chat people within a very limited range.
They cannot;
Have a radar.
Survive long falls, car accidents, or other physics related antics.

Zombies can;
See everyone on the map
Sit in cars, but not drive them.
Survive otherwise deadly drops/explosions/car accidents.
A strong enough to drag items to block roads or doorways.
They cannot;
Voice chat
Drive cars
Use healing stations
Survive very specific head shots.
Cars can be driven by people, and not zombies. However, zombies can sit in cars, forcing people to check out a car before entering.
Cars cannot drive into buildings.
Guns can be used by people, but when a zombie carries a gun, it shoots randomly in any direction. So there is a slight chance of hitting something.

People can run faster than zombies, using the stepping board. Everything else is steered using the controller.

Zombies are stronger than people, and can survive certain things that people cannot. However this would be accumulative and the zombie would become slower with each incident.

To turn a person into a zombie, they have to be bitten, or splashed with blood. So if a person is standing around, and a car takes out a zombie, it would turn that person into a zombie through infection. The healing stations will delay the inevitable, but not cancel it out. So you have to dose up every now and again to be able to make it all the way to the final goal.

Voice chat is only available very locally, otherwise either side could organize themselves super fast and then it would become a case of who could get to something first and keep it, rather than any mystery as to what was hiding around which corner. Perhaps have the option to speak as a zombie, but it comes out all garbled, messing up short range communications with people nearby.

The safe point for the people could perhaps be one randomly chosen point on the map, out of a set. Zombies cannot enter safe points, but they can enter any safe point which is not active for that particular game. So a person can enter the safe point, still to find zombies inside. This could encourage lots of bluffing by zombies hanging around outside a safe point, to imply that it is the final goal. The safe point could be a randomly dropped thing like a truck or some other supposed portable medical facility. Safe points would be made so that the doors couldn't be blocked by zombies dragging large items in front of the door.

More to come....


Who doesn't like anything with zombies in it?

Quickie - Computer Wipes Battle

Occasionally on one of my many trips through the hallowed halls of Best Buy, I pick up a container of Falcon monitor wipes. They deal with the unmentionable mystery grunge that builds up on, and inside the computers that I deal with. Even the migratory blorg that ends up on the table after venturing inside to check dark and dusty innards, can be contained. They do much more than just monitors it seems.

Falcon wipes are actually wet, and useful. But on this occasion they were out, and Office Depot nearby had a similar product. It's only wipes, what could be the problem there? The Office Depot brand are very dry and not very useful. You cannot really clean anything with them, just brush things around. I suppose if you were super paranoid about damaging a surface these would do, but the material is not even very soft, so you could end up scratching what ever it was anyway.

Both sets are usually around $7 a pack. I never buy them when they come with the compressed air container, as I don't want to blow pieces off the motherboard by accident. I prefer the close the eyes, blow hard, and try to convince yourself you have not inhaled all manner of someone-else's-prehistoric-household-airborne-crapola induced lung death method.


Brought to you in association with "This didn't seem like it would take very long when I first thought of posting such a small thing" department of Work Avoidance.

HDTV over the air antenna horror story "The TV24746 Chronicles"

Bought a GE Branded, Futura TV24746 internal HDTV antenna, along with an external Futura TV24769 (there was no information regarding this model anywhere that I could find) to power some of my HDTV screens. Getting rid of standard definition DirecTV Tivo means I can have full HD programs for free, rather than pay a fee (extra for local) for TV which I am not currently watching anyway. But that's another story.

To get to the point. The GE Branded Futura TV24746 antenna is terrible. I tested on three different TV sets, in three different locations, three times. Every single time it was worse than the old $12 RCA ANT121 that I had a few of lying around.

Not much more to say really, except I am not even going to bother unboxing the Futura TV24769 because it is nearly the same exact model, but it's supposed to go outside. I don't want to kill myself while trying to hang this thing outside somewhere, just to get crappy TV non-reception at my own funeral. Sorry GE, these are poopy.

The test I did was as follows. Attach the antenna, do a scan of the channels, try watching the channels. Repeat three times. Then place the other antenna in exactly the same place and do it again. Every time the old antenna performed better. I even tried to give the TV24746 a break, by scanning using the ANT121, then swapping them over, so there were potentially more channels for it to try to receive. No good. To make things worse, a lot of the channels the TV24746 did 'find' when it was used for the scan, were simply blank when I tried to watch them. Like it knew there was something there, but wasn't able to make it out. With digital being pretty much an all-or-nothing way of viewing, I was surprised to see a large percentage of even the channels that the TV24746 did claim to find, freezing and messing up. No ghosting and fuzzy image, just large green squares and partially updating images (as is normal with poor HD reception). Reminded me of a crashed arcade machine.

Another thing to note, is that the ANT121 wasn't made for HDTV reception. It's not magical, as any antenna will get you SOME HD signals, but it just goes to show how terrible the made-for-HD TV24746 antenna really is in comparison. The quality of the analog channels was completely useless too. When it (quite often) failed to find the digital version of a local station, it left you with a totally unwatchable fuzzy mess. Every analog station I found using the TV24746 was not watchable at all. Now I know that like wireless internet reception, TV reception is very dependent on your environment, but this antenna just has no redeeming qualities. So before you rush out to buy that latest and greatest antenna, go get that old set of rabbit ears and give them a try, you may be surprised.



The TV24746 failed even against the ANT121, which costs a fraction of the price.


Futura TV24746 connectors. Even powered, and being able to connect a higher grade cable, it still just fails.

Little Gaming Consoles

How about a PS3 for $2.99, or a Wii, or an Xbox360, maybe even a PS2? Now you can thanks to the jolly chaps at Gamestop.com.

They are supposed to be gift card boxes. You can put gift cards inside, and they are transported in a safe black felt enclosure, surrounded by globs of geeky gaming nerdiness.


You can see how tiny they are with the real PSP at the back.


Sorry to break the magic, but they are just boxes to put gift cards in.


The rear even shows details like network, and power sockets.


These dudes really did the business with the PS2, and included the little logos on the edge. And yes, I forgot to clean the crud from the edges.


They cost just $2.99 a piece, made of thin metal, and really have a lot more detail that you are seeing here. Any real gamer would love to get one of these, and you could confirm their gamingness by learning that perhaps in six months time they still didn't know there was anything inside them, but they would be in pristine condition still.

Nintendo Free Stuff

While reading through the stuff at mynintendo.com I noticed that in a similar way that most PC games require a serial code to install the game, Nintendo have serial numbers included with your games (and consoles) to register them. No big deal until I saw that just by registering you can extend your Wii warranty by 90 days.

Also by registering the DS Zelda - Phantom Hourglass game, they send you a free feather stylus*. So from now on I will be taking note of all that paper that usually is covered in FCC regulations, and epilepsy warnings, to see if there is a registration code in there somewhere. It just turns up in the mail, but sadly doesn't make the treasure discovery sound just like the game, when you open the package**.

As far as I know, it's only Nintendo games that come with the codes in the box. So for now, registering the DS games, and PSP system has produced booty. The PSP one was a demo UMD disk of Killzone which arrived in the mail.


*Ok I know, it's not complicated but it IS very Zelda.

** But you never know, yours just might.

Wii

Ever since the Wii was supposed to be in the stores here in America, I have been asking at my local Best Buy if they have any in stock. It finally paid off during my last visit, when one of the staff there who remembered I kept asking, remarked that they currently had three in stock. Of course I thought they were joking, because this was the VERY FIRST time I had NOT asked about it. But sure enough, there were three on the shelf. As negotiation* over accessories began, the others were snapped up by passing families.

Buying extra controllers and chargers (and of course a couple of games) brought the price up from the standard $250, to unmentionable levels. You do get one set of controllers with the console, but right now $60 gets you another set of controllers. Being the console that supposedly brings non-gamers into gaming, only having one set in the box, means you have to add that $60 to the $250 before you even start to think of all those 'must have' accessories for it. Ker-ching!

I plonked down the bucks for a 4 Wiimote recharge station, that comes with 4 rechargeable battery packs. So you don't have to keep buying two AA batteries for each one, or even worse, buying expensive rechargeables and charger**. If you do buy this one (which the Best Buy dude tells me I need because the Wiimotes eat through batteries at fearsome rates) you can't leave the included rubber jackets on because they obscure the charging contacts on the back. Instead of a battery pack, you get 4 replacement battery doors, with the rechargeable packs molded into them. So when you want to charge your Wiimote, you just put it in the charging base. When seated they are quite wobbly, but the normally blue light on each slot turns red until the charge is complete. It is totally worth it for the overall blue neon lit round base.***

Next morning the game disk slot was pulsing and flashing blue. I suspected it to be speaking to the recharging base about something to do with nanobotic** legs. This wasn't true. I had connected the Wii to my wireless network so it could get updates etc, and it had been gathering messages from the Nintendo mother ship. This blue flashing was to tell me there were unread messages, and there were a LOT. Nothing of note, but all to do with the strange Wii 'channels' I had looked at. One was a voting channel, where they asked you simple questions like "If you won the lottery would you still work?" or "Do you turn your PC off at night?". You could answer them, and then predict what you considered to be the most popular answer. Remember kids, popular rarely equals right. Not to give too much away, but more people said they WOULD continue to work if they won the lottery! So the blue flashing was letting me know there were more questions to answer, and poll results from others were in. One handy feature for anyone who needs to make sure younger household players are not spending too much time with the Wii, is the daily calendar of what, who, and how long the different members of the household have been playing.

One REALLY smart move, was to charge for the internet browser. The Wii has no user log in as such. You can create a personal character, called a Mii, which you can model on yourself, and it actually appears in the games you play. So when you start a game you say, I want to use my Mii. The score and records for that Mii change accordingly. So if your kid plays a lot one day, it shows up in the daily messages. Also the mere fact of charing 500 points**** for the web browser, means this is one less piece of network connected equipment you have to worry about your children using (so much). There are parental controls but to use them, you have to point at the code on screen***** and that's going to last about three seconds when the kid finally persuades you to let them get online for something.

Most of the Wii games were great fun, just flinging your arms about in some vaguely realistic manner depending on what activity you are doing (cow riding still to be confirmed), is all great fun. So far nothing broken although not for lack of trying on a nearby table top, chair, and a stunt breakaway lamp. Shall I save grandma's ashes, or get that backhand in properly?

If you can find one, it's a must buy. If you can't find one, pretend.





All the Wii hardware so far reminds me of medical supplies from the future.
*Not actually any negotiation. Just the heart stopping realization of the cash total at the checkout, which you feebly try to cover up. Of course, everyone ELSE in line knows exactly how much their pile o' booty is going to come to, and will scoff at your inability to add up. Even though they too are locked in the Sauron like gaze of consumerism.

**Which you instantly lose all the batteries after leaving them unattended for more than 2 hours. Rechargeable batteries share the same hyperspace as balls of string, retractable measuring tapes, rolls of sticky tape, and little headphones. I think they make them from special nanobotic plastics, which grow little legs in the dark, and just go home.

***If you are 8.

****1 point, 1 cent. Did you hear that Microsoft? PS3 owners are even better off because they just get the price marked on screen. Microsoft Points (with which to purchase Xbox content) have a algorithm known only to people long dead, as to how many points is one dollar.

*****Something Microsoft DID do right, by making the pass code, be a sequence of buttons you press on the Xbox360 controller. With the Wii you have to enter on your 8 feet wide TV screen, with exactly those people you don't want to know it, er... knowing it.

Amazon Kindle

I am not someone that reads a lot of books. I go through phases, and recently got back into reading completely not-in-any-way-ever-contributing-to-the-quality-of-my-life books. A long time ago I was reading using a Dell Axim X5 PDA. I really enjoyed it, and to have something that automagically downloads books directly to the device, like the Kindle, would be great.

I have found a few times I have settled down to read a book and then discovered I was closer to the end that I thought. Usually at that point I would have to haul my saggy, pale, sorry backside out of what ever I had draped it over, and go back to Amazon and find either the next one in the series, or worse still, try and find a book that is similar.

WAIT!

I am not moving from where I am to browse Amazon.com for similar books and then play the 'Do I want to pay for super-speedy shipping that never actually delivers it in super-speedy times which would have been a $3 saving by just ordering standard delivery?'. So being able to find it from the book (meaning the device I already have in my pudgy fingers) I am already looking at is kewl. To have the Kindle deliver content over the cell network works for me. No computer needed, no expertise of any sort at all. Just (say this in your best drooling idiot voice now) "WANT BOOK, PRESS BUTTON, HAVE BOOK NOW". Then you can get back to reading. Some bright spark decided that SD Cards can be added for extra storage, plus adding a USB cable to the included stuff in the box means you can put what ever you like on the thing.

I would definitely purchase one of these readers if it wasn't so expensive, maybe $200 and I would have purchased it on pre-order, but $400 means I will have to wait for my workplace to be convinced (by yours truly) to purchase one for every student, in a way to save on books, and administration. Shipping and then tracking all those dead trees really gets tedious after a while.

I don't tend to care too often about the look of a thing, because most of my life is spent within secret hidden fortresses of solitude/secrecy/lots-o-expensive-stuff, and so nobody else ever sees the equipment. For me to shudder uncontrollably about the look of the Kindle means it could actually be pretty hideous. It comes with a cover, designed to be left on while you're reading it, or carrying it around, and maybe that's enough to be able to quickly flap shut before the whole room shows you using something that isn't an IPhone. Certainly enough to be able to quickly stuff it in a bag without fear of keys or pens ruining the screen. You KNOW you want to stuff it in a bag with broken glass, shards of metal, miniature versions of that friend of yours that likes to tell you how your gadgets should be set up and break it faster for you without telling you, on a plane with the flight attendant using the smush technique for getting obviously too-large items into the overhead storage compartment, and then sit on the bag. Not sure if the cover would actually protect against all that, but normal hauling should be ok.

The batteries last for days, you don't need a computer, and you can use it in ordinary lighting. I am sure any geeks reading get tired of informing people that putting a PDA, laptop, or phone, under a desk lamp will NOT enable you to see the screen better (in fact the darker the room the better for those). It looks like a book, acts like a book, just doesn't weigh the same as a book. It even has huge flaps on each side for you to turn pages. You can make notes on the pages, as well as bookmark sections etc. I think it's great, but I am nobody.

For those that don't know what this piece of $400 equipment is. It's a small screen which displays the text of complete books (but you CAN make the text huge if you don't want to bother with your glasses), page by page, allowing you to flip through it just as you would a real book. It keeps your place automatically, and weighs much less than a small paper back book, but can hold the equivalent of 200 (even more if you put an SD memory card in the thing) without you having to really carry all those books. No computer needed (or smug know-all friend that insists that they didn't break it, honest) because it works completely by itself. Once you work out which thing to press, there is nothing more to worry about, except maybe which books you want to read on it.

Isn't this one of those weird things that Android could be used for?



Someone, please buy me one :)

The same Itunes library on multiple computers in your network

If like me, you are often at multiple computers you may want to have your Itunes library available to you where you are. This method works for me, as I never use ITunes to purchase songs, but I do use it for keeping track of podcasts.

I found that I could simply move the ITunes folder from the one PC I was using to sync up to the Ipod, onto something shared on the network. I used a 1TB World Book NAS which is always on, but I imagine you could use any shared folder on any computer on your network. Of course this folder has to be accessible to you when you are at the other machines. Now the weird part was I didn't have to move the photos and games (ok so I purchased TWO games for the Ipod) from that computer, because it just happens to be the place I sync up my Ipod if I need to. I could have, but I forgot to do it at first, and found it just worked anyway so I never bothered.

I went down into my MY MUSIC folder on that PC, and found the ITunes folder. Now it seems the file that does the work is the Itunes Library.itl file. So one drag and drop onto the shared network accessible folder, and part one is done.

The Itunes folder on a network drive showing the all important Itunes Library.itl file

Now to get the other computers to use the same ITunes library. This is hard so you may want to print this next part out and stare at it for hours. Hold SHIFT and double click (or single click if that's how you are set up) the ITunes icon. When ITunes goes to start up it will ask you for the location of the ITunes library you want to use. Just browse to your network folder that contains your freshly moved ITunes library and more importantly the Itunes Library.itl file because thats the one that it's actually looking for. Then when ITunes starts up you will see it exactly as you left it last time on the previous computer. I tried opening it at the same time on two different machines, and I was told that the Itunes Library.itl file was locked/in use and couldn't be used until it unlocked/not in use. So as long as you only run it on one machine at a time it's no problem. Even if you do by mistake, it won't overwrite or mess anything up because it stops before it does anything at all.

You can even sync your podcasts using ITunes from ANY of your computers, as it saves them all into the same folder on your network.

The reason I did this was because of the crappy library sharing feature in ITunes. Some videos were ok but way too many just refused to play on the 'other' machine. Also doing a shared library meant that if I had watched or listened to one on the main computer the library was stored on, when I got to the other computer, because it was a shared library it assumed I was someone else and played everything from the start. Endless fast forwarding to find the right spot each time. Upon return to the main computer, some podcasts which I HAD listened to remotely, of course were listed as unlistened to. This became an issue over time as the list of podcasts became more inaccurate. Which ones had I listened to, and of the ones I had, which ones had I listened to all or merely parts of.

Sharing the library this way, means that going from one computer to another dispenses with wondering which shows were new and which were already listened to. Also the video just works because it's all coming from the same folder.

So drag your ITunes library folder to a network available folder, hold shift when you run ITunes, and select the new library location. You are done. And you can add as many computers as you like, so even visitors can peruse your collection of what ever it is you collect in there.

Something else I found useful and possibly life saving for the Ipod (or any other portable music player). If you have purchased a new computer and gotten some of those excruciatingly awful speaker sets with them, now you can use them. Any speakers that are not powered (meaning they do not need an external power supply and only have the speaker attachment wire coming out of them) are great for your Ipod. Don't go spending $50 on some 'Ipod Compatible' travel speakers, just use these. In fact it's hard to find them available anywhere outside of the purchase of a new computer, and even that is becoming less popular these days. Now back to the life saving part. What these speakers allow you to do, is to listen to your Ipod when you are in the shower, in the garden, or just somewhere where it's not convenient (or safe, or you can be bothered) to put a computer. They are plenty loud enough (unless you have already spent years with personal audio ruining your ear drums at mega-decibels) and this means you don't have to go around with headphones on, which I personally never could get used to, because of not being able to hear other normal sounds around me, as well as constantly yanking them out because I moved in a certain way. Don't forget that they will work with any music player which has the correct sized headphone socket on them. Now you can leave music and podcasts in places that typically you wouldn't want to, for fear of breaking them or even death by electrocution. But you really have to look hard for these types of speakers, because they only seem to sell the ones with power supplies, which would be louder but deadly! I did track one set down at a dollar store, and will get more if I find them.