nothing edifying » tech

the Small Things

mim — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:12:14 +0000

When someone sends a UPS tracking number to my Yahoo email account, there’s this feature called Yahoo! Shortcuts (which heretofore I thought was useless), that automagically makes it a link which takes me directly to the tracking page for that number (as in I don’t have to type anything). It’s awesome! I know, I know, a lot of vendors include a “track my package” link that does the exact same thing, and anyway it’s not that hard to go to ups.com and copy and paste in the tracking number, and I don’t actually need it all that often anyway. But dude, it’s nice — my eyes hit the tracking number, and then my mouse, and voila, info at my fingertips.

Speaking of email though, a couple of nights ago, I had about 5-10 minutes when I just couldn’t log in to my Y! mail account. It was really random, kept telling me my username or password was wrong when I knew both were fine. Yut was able to log in on the same computer, so I knew it wasn’t something to do with my computer (caps lock or whatever), and then however many minutes later, it was all fine again. Scary! I really wish Yahoo would allow me to use an email application (like Thunderbird) to check my mail and save a copy on my computer (via IMAP or at least POP). I know it was only 5-10 minutes, but what if it hadn’t fixed itself? This is one area where Gmail is superior (not that Yahoo! is superior everywhere else, more that both are whatevers to me), only I am pretty sure most people don’t keep a backup of their Gmail either. :D

Updating

mim — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:37:42 +0000

OMG, they totally did! It hasn’t been a month, and now there’s Wordpress 2.6! I know that continuously updating software to fix security flaws is actually a good thing, but it’s a pain! And also, after my previous post, I discovered a user I didn’t create in the users table in my database. So… I felt like I still had stuff to do and I didn’t feel good about posting until I fixed it, but I was lazy. And now I’m glad I didn’t cos I had to update to 2.6 anyways, so at least I did it together.

So… I think it’s pretty much cleaned up now, but I have to re-do all of my prettifying and figure out what plugins I want to use now. I’m too tired! And I know that most people thing that dark text on light background is best, but this default theme is way too glarey! Or I’m getting old. Or something. Gaaaaah, there needs to be 1 button upgrades, even easier than it is now! And I’m ranting but it’s my blog and it really was annoying, SO THERE! :p

Hax0red

mim — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:44:39 +0000

Dooooood, so evidently sometime last weekend, or maybe before, I’m not really sure when, my poor little blog was hacked. Well, something happened to it anyways. I didn’t even realize until neb asked if my blog was ok… which it wasn’t! Anyways, so I’ve been backing up and updating things and I’ve a ways to go. Actually I barely know how much I have to do to clean it up. Or maybe it’s already cleaned up. Grr… Guess it serves me right for not keeping up with the updates, but there are so many! Actually Wordpress is relatively easy to upgrade, relatively being the operative word. And also, last night I fell asleep at like 8pm, right after dinner. (Yeah, I got all sorts of good habits. :p) Gawd, I know it’s good that the program gets updated, but at this point I would be mad if Wordpress 2.6 came out next month. >:(

Okay and since I’m doing this upgrade and all, I think I’m going to stop using Disqus. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do actually, but it’s like 1 more thing to think about and deal with and right now, I don’t wanna! So I’m not totally sure, but I don’t think I can import the comments back in, and they weren’t mirrored, so they are sort of lost. I mean I can still see them on disqus, but not you. Like you care!

A New Computress

mim — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:57:41 +0000

Yut’s old computer was getting on in years — 5 to be exact, which in computer years is definitely time for retirement. We thought about just buying one, but building mine was pretty alright fun, so we decided to look into parts instead. Although honestly, I think I saw a Dell ad for a $299 computer, which after some RAM (no more than $50 nowadays) would’ve been fine for most people. It’s crazy. Anyways, Yut’s not too into picking parts so I picked all of his parts. The research and ordering and shipping &c have taken up like 3 weeks! And finally everything came so we spent 3 hours tonight putting it together, and now we’re installing Windows.

So here it is, all the parts for the new computress, all set and ready to go:

I meant to take a bunch of photos, but part way through when things got more complicated I forgot.
Specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2 Cache
4 GB (2×2GB) Mushkin RAM (32 bit Windows systems can only recognize a little over 3 GB but it was a good price)
750 GB Western Digital hard drive — I’ve heard really good things about the Samsung Spinpoint series also, but pricewise, this was better
XFX GeForce 8600GT 256 MB GDDR3 OC video card
Corsair HX 520 power supply (same as mine, we love modular power supplies)
Antec P182 case (gigantic!)
MSI P35 Neo2-FR motherboard
Zerotherm BTF-90 heatsink/fan (pretty)
etcetc, total: almost $900 after rebates. It was as little trouble to put together as any computer we’ve ever tried. :)

Comparison

mim — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:46:24 +0000

I dunno if all that many people are interested, but I thought a comparison might be interesting. I think I could’ve bought a Dell or HP or whatever with similar parts (maybe a bit less RAM, a bit better processor, but with a DVD burner and whatnots) for about $600 or so (assuming no tax). When we bought the parts for my computer, we spent a bit over that, but used my old case and CD burner. Computer and computer part prices change pretty fast so this wouldn’t be the exact same price today, but anyhows, for comparison’s sake:

Intel Core 2 Duo Desktop Processor E6400: $161.49
ASUS P5KPL-VM Motherboard
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) (-$40 rebate)
Western Digital 320gb SATA hard drive (all four ordered together): $301.94
MSI GeForce 8600GT PCIe Video Card: $115.68
Corsair HX Series 520W Power Supply (-$20 rebate): $117.34
Total: $636.44

So the company-built computer would’ve been cheaper, by a hair! But only cos I had my old case, otherwise the cost of a new case would make building one more expensive for sure. Still, I think that it’s definitely easy to pick different pieces and build a computer for around $500. But besides price, buying a pre-made computer from some company means that everything’s new and the operating system is installed and everything, and there’s someone to call if there’s a problem for a year at least. On the other hand, by building it ourselves, I got to choose a yellow motherboard, RAM with black and purple heat shields, and a red video card. SO THERE!!!

To be perfectly truthful, I never look at the computer cos it sits under my desk, so I don’t use my see through side panel or look at the colors of the parts inside. At all. So I’m not sure I’m necessarily recommending this route. :P