Hawks

If we already hold a 'staff' position (ie in TET, a mod, etc) we're allowed to apply for the Times, correct? I'm looking forward to applying. :smile:

With Christmas in less than a week, and since I've got a lot of time on my hands right now, I thought I'd write you all something to waste some time on. Since nobody told me what they wanted me to talk about on my last blog [except for some bizarre Engrish rock crusher comment...], I still haven't got any ideas. But anyway. There are a number of presents under the tree and none of them are for me; this is presumably due to the fact that I have wrapped all but one of the presents... That is, anyone who would be wrapping my stuff hasn't wrapped anything yet. :P I finished the papercrafts for my cousins [but don't have boxes for them] and eagerly await Ninjatoes' new Mario papercraft, which I think I shall tackle if he releases it before January. I'm going to be hopefully working on some interesting Lego minifig customs after Christmas when I receive my BrickForge stuff. I am currently ill and dunno what's wrong; I've got some craptastic upper respiratory crap going on and my neck kills. And looking forward to the finish of TS_Stormrage's fictional about the Fremminks! (definitely spelling fail.) That is all.

Fictional was epicsauce! :thumbsup: 'Eight years a noob' was an interesting perspective, I've never thought about it before. At 'All about the experience': I never look forward to updates, mainly because I'm f2p; it would be interesting to look at how f2pers look at the optimist or pessimist side, because I think we're more likely to just outright not care, since we get nice things so infrequently.

I wrapped a bunch of presents today, my brother's going to hate me when he opens his though; he's got a bunch of tiny toys that I wrapped all individually. :P Then I went to the store and we got 8 2-liters instead of the limit of 4 because I bought some too. I am now going to get pizza later and then the day shall be done. Must study up on some chem though, need to know properties of the groups of elements.

Midsummer Night's Dream for AP Lit, picked up Zombies vs. Unicorns and have read a couple of the short stories in it (is anthology of epic authors writing about zombies or unicorns or zombies and unicorns; is epic :thumbsup: ).

So. We have a number of computers in my computer repair class that are so ungodly slow, we can't install operating systems on them. The systems in question are XP or 2000, and the computers in question are Dell Optiplex Deskpro EN or summat. Designed for 98/2000 ish. Should have plenty of ability to run/install at least 2000. My current one won't get past the full-color Windows 2000 start up screen. The little bar that's next to 'Starting Up' at the bottom doesn't move at all, and I've left it on for hours at a time. Since that install hadn't even been set up yet, I said screw it and tried to reinstall 2000. It took the CD at least 30 min to load, and another hour to format the new partition. There is something wrong here and I don't know what. I can't put any new RAM into it, because the computers are so old they only have 2 RAM slots, and all of our old crappy RAM is only like 64Mb each [ie all the ram that fits in the comps is only small amounts]. My comp has 128Mb of RAM I believe. And there's nothing I can do to fix that. I believe I have tried installing 98 on it, but when I attempt to format the HD after fdisking it, it can never find the HD (says c: invalid media type) and I can't do anything with it past that. Another one gets to the Windows XP setup and freezes at naming the computer/workgroup part and has to be restarted to attempt to do anything. Hard drive was replaced, and it seems to work now, as it already had 98 on it. So any suggestions you may have on how to install OSes better so they actually work would be appreciated.

Drawing/nice pen: Staedtler Mars Professional Drafting Pen, except I can't find .5mm refills anywhere anymore. For general use I use Papermate pens in various colors and such. Mechanical pencils: Niceish Papermate 'Clear 0.7mm Mechanical Pencils' I have some that I've had for like 3-4 years now and still are in decent shape. The part that holds the top of the pencil on always breaks though, so I've got duct tape on most of them.

RIP Alduron. I didn't know him well, but he did a great many great things for this community, and his work lives on.

I was a little bit confused by the bacteria references in the second article, :P although I get Forsaken's point now. Loving the Fremennik fictional!

Humalog insulin 'cause of mah 'betes. Generic Claritin when my allergies are acting up, and melatonin because I can't sleep worth crap. And a large amount of ibuprofen... Because I've got crappy knees, bad posture, and a crappy bed.

Sounds like a plan. I'll have to try that, I believe I've got both on the laptop, one or the other on other comps, plus spare cables around. :thumbup:

Dun like it. I must now figure out how to get rid of it.

Lost Symbol is pretty epic. Finished up Brave New World, wrote the paper on it. My mom picked up the newest Ranger's Apprentice book (don't remember title, #7 I think) and I'm going to start that soonish. Also reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in AP Lit.

I liked all the articles, 'Baby's first MMORPG' seemed particularly relevant to me because I play RS because it's free and doesn't require specific software or nice graphics cards and junk. Also enjoying the fictional!

Yeah 222 floppy sized archive pieces. Not worth doing when there's only 3.05 Gb of stuff on it anyway. I took it apart, and tried to IDE it but it's not IDE, I think it'll fit on the floppy cable though, which is smaller (duh). I was worried about getting power to it but I think the floppy power will work too. Didn't get a chance to discuss it with my teacher today as he was gone, so I gutted another computer which is now not even turning on; going to replace PSU and hope it works. It's the most convoluted PC design ever; they tried to cram as much stuff in as little space as possible, I think.

Ergo I have another computer on the network that is online. Laptop is crap. I don't have a cable to directly connect laptop to router. Does not have a wireless card. Is not attached to internet. Currently archiving file to see how big it is, per Guy's suggestion.

Not currently on a network, network was dialup anyway. Going to try to stick it in a comp with IDE cable tomorrow.

Current developments: I have a Direct Cable Connection set up on the 98 and it works. I can't set up a guest direct connection on the XP desktop, only a 'incoming connecitions' connections (ie host). If I try to set up the connection 'backwards', the 98 can't find the XP computer. I have both a serial cable and a parallel cable, from the LapLink thing, but the XP comp doesn't recognize the serial cable. I've gone into the bios and changed the parallel port to EPP and ECP to no avail. [hide=original info]I have a 14yo laptop, with Win98 (not SE), a 6.8 GB mini hard drive, a floppy drive, and a CD drive (128MB RAM ftl). My grandmother is insane, and she would very much like to have some 8 years of emails taken off of it [it is her laptop, currently in my possession]. She uses Outlook Express as her email client, as her email is provided by her ISP. So far I have achieved: Export emails from Outlook Express to Outlook Export from Outlook to a Personal Folder File (.pts? Dunno if this is right filetype) Copy those files to another folder in preparation for removal to another computer Find settings folder for Outlook Express and decide it would be good to copy that as well STOP. Can't get files off comp, too big for a floppy, I can't burn a CD or use a flash drive. The settings/pst files are like 150MB. I may try to copy the entire program to ensure working order though. At the moment I am unsure which program her computer has, and/or which she's using for her email atm. Quick Google search later; her current comp (win xp pro) has Outlook Express on it. So questions: 1. Anyone know about compatibility of Personal Folder Files with Outlook Express and would it be possible to simply copy those files/import them into Outlook Express? 2. If not/otherwise are there other filetypes shared/compatibile between Outlook and Outlook Express or old Outlook Express to newer Outlook Express (I think it's v6 on the XP) 3. Is there a way to transfer those files without removing the HD? I can't put them on a floppy (too big), I can't load flash drive drivers, and I can't burn a CD. ----3a. Anybody know how big the file for WinZip is, or know a more compact file archiver/compressor? This is the best way I can think of at the moment to get this off. Additional information: Everything will come out of this computer, the floppy, the CD, the battery, and the HD. It's about the size of the floppy drive, says 6.8 Gb on it. It's in a weird harness that enables it to plug right into a slot in the computer, but it says it's an ASA/IDE drive. I have access to a number of machines with Win98SE that I could theoretically put the laptop HD into, copy (even the entire contents of the HD probably) on to a flashdrive, and be done with it. However, the HD may have viruses on it. The Win98SE comps have old AVG on them, that run a bootup scanner. Would this probably find any viruses on it? She has dialup, and for the time it was able to connect to the internet, it had Norton AntiVirus 2004 (which I uninstalled because it ate RAM). Or is it [this is more likely] that the OS is just a piece of crap, the HD is totally fragmented, and there's so much crap on it it runs freakishly slow? (I thought so). Thanks for helping with my crazy old slow computer problems.[/hide]

I'm saving up to buy myself a bass guitar, so I'm hoping I get cash/gift cards for the most part. My parents got me a camera (Canon Powershot A470) already and I know I'm getting that. Besides that, I'd like Tetris Party Deluxe for the DS, a Lightsaber Pen from ThinkGeek, and Origin of Symmetry by Muse. I'm making my cousins little papercraft things for them for Christmas. One is into Star Wars, so I made him a Darth Vader Cubee, one likes Yu-Gi-Oh, so I made him a Yami Yugi Cubee, one likes cats, so I made him a Long Cat Cubee, but I'm considering making him a little cat papercraft I found that I like better. I'm making a bear on a cupcake papercraft for my other cousin, since I couldn't find any ballerina papercrafts. I'm making my brother a couple of epic MTG papercraft deck boxes.

This gives me hope for the world. To your sig: I think it's a good start, especially considering you didn't copypasta a bunch of C4Ds/fractals in there and just mess with the opacities/modes, it looks pretty good. The text doesn't go with the tag though. Underbanner: It's good, I think the background doesn't really fit with what you put on top of it... But it does look cool.

Wut... Necro. I think I count as an old person now. Because I'm lazy and cba to find another forum that people actually are generally nice and don't flame constantly. And of course the bizarre conversations and things OTers do...

We've had 3 Dells: Inspiron laptop that the video card overheated on because it's not designed for laptops (CD/DVD went shortly before), a refurbished dell optiplex gx-something which the BIOS battery died in, but is otherwise fine, and a replacement for the laptop which is a Dell desktop of some sort... So as long as you know what you're buying, I think Dells are okay. We've got a near 15 yo Micron that has blown up a couple of times but we've fixed. Still works, even though they're not in business anymore. Canon cameras are PWN. My mom's got two, an older Canon Powershot (not sure what model, it uses CF cards which is hysterical), and a Canon Powershot A470. I personally love the A470, it's a great point-and-shoot and I'm actually getting one for Christmas. I personally do not like my dad's Nikon point-and-shoot, mainly because the Canons are so much better (imo). It's still good quality and works well. We had an HP laserjet for some time, after about 5 years it'd start getting a 'smiley gunked up in the works' and would randomly spew [print] garbage, but when you fixed that it still worked great. We also had a Brother MFC for like 15 years and the drum finally got to be suckish (so it used up toner really fast) and we bought a refurbished drum, but toner for it got so expensive we bought a different Brother MFC, which works awesome except our wireless network fails at keeping the printer always working. We have the world's most awful laserjet now, an Epson Photo RX600 or summat. We've had to have it exchanged at least three times, and the cartridges are freaking expensive. The $3 BlueDog Ink ones we got seem to be working okay for the time being. The scanner works but their software (besides the TWAIN driver) sucks. I am anti-Apple to begin with. So no Macs for me. For mp3 players: The Sansa Clip can't be beat. I've had mine for 3ish years now and it's only freaked out on me once. My brother's put his through the washer and it still works. Plus the newest version is only $30 when it's on sale. I've got a Nintendo DSi and love it as well.

I've been up to a lot of naught lately. News: Our washing machine is DEAD. So we can't have the new one delivered until Dec. 10 so we've got to go to the laundromat a few times before then... Plus the new one is way better and cost half as much as the original. Never buy a GE appliance. Oh, and I can't take it apart. :( Thanksgiving was suckish. Nothing to report. I decided to make each of my cousins a papercraft thingy for Xmas. Three of them are simple Cubeecrafts (Darth Vader, LongCat, and Yami Yugi) and one is a bear on a cupcake that'll take me a bit. I also found some awesomesauce Magic TG deck box papercrafts, so I'm making one for my brother and one for myself (even though I don't play MTG). Reminds me, I forgot to print out the spine label for his... Will do that later if I can. I've been messing with my sig. I like TS_Stormrage's fictional articles for the times, you should go read them. You should also go check out upcoming TET events. 'Cause TET is full of win. I believe that is all. What do you want me to talk about in my blog? I haven't ever got anything interesting to talk about.

If you're not trying to use it in the rain, I think a ziplock bag or other such thing ought to work fine, especially if it's being kept in a backpack. It might work to use in the rain/damp in the bag too, but I doubt it. There's always duct tape + plastic bag.

Awesome fictional today! It was long though. I thought Rach's article on unbalanced maging in dungeoneering was pretty spot-on, I never use runes because it's not really time/cost effective to do so. Article on not doing fun things because they're not worth it echoes sentiments I've been hearing lately. EDIT: Wewt! First post!