tjameswhite » Computer

Raising a Child with Computers

Tim — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:19:58 +0000

While looking through our Atlas of the World this morning, I pointed out a beautiful satellite photo of Mt. Etna. “Look Olivia, this is a volcano,” said I. “What’s a volcano?” said she.

We then spent the next ½ hour on YouTube looking at volcano eruptions.

Having instant internet access and rich media sites helped her understand a volcano better than I was able to describe it, and we had a great bonding experience watching lava flow.

Thank you 21st century.

Image Searching

Tim — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:05:05 +0000

This shouldn’t come as a surprise: using Yahoo! Image Search, photos from Flickr abound; using Google Image Search, not so much.

For example, a simple search for “Tilley hats” yields two Flickr photos on page 1 in Yahoo and more on every subsequent results page. Missing from the results (at least the first 5 pages) are any images from Picasa Web Albums.

The same search on Google doesn’t yeild a Flickr photo until page 3. The surprising thing is that the first Flickr photo is only two spots behind the first Picasa photo.

(Perhaps the most surprising result of all is the photo in the second row on the first page of Yahoo!s results.)

(Search results are based on a search conducted May 7, 2008.)

Computer Update

Tim — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:25:30 +0000

While I had no intention of replacing 7X, our household computer, our recent lightening episode had made it a necessity.

After enough attempts at resurrection, I have arrived at the conclusion it is just dead. Not the whole thing mind you, just any connection to the internet. I can not get the on-board or external NIC to connect to the world at large. Since I live online, this is a problem.

So, a new motherboard bundle has been ordered from TigerDirect. I was hoping to reuse components from the current system, but, being an ancient 3 years old, those components are not compatible with the new system.

The shipment includes an MSI motherboard with Intel Core 2 Dual processor (2.20 GHz), a GeForce 7300 PCI Express video card and 2 GB of Corsair 800 MHz RAM. I’ll repurpose my case, fans, power supply and drives.

7x was a good computer. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it now. Any ideas?

(And yes, I name my technology. 7x was 7 times faster than my previous computer, hence the name. The new one will most likely be named Huginn to compliment Muninn, my digital camera.)

Computer as Paperweight

Tim — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:51:08 +0000

Well, remember a month ago when we had a lightening strike near our house? We lost the internet at the time — dead router.

Having bought new parts, the desktop has refused to connect to the internet’s tubes. The new wireless router is in place and working — we’ve been carting our laptops to-and-from work — and I have slowly, agonizingly slowly, picked away at various Windows settings.

I have installed a new ethernet card. No luck
I have rolled back Windows to before the strike. No luck
I have been through every network setting I can find. Multiple times. No luck

Today, I tried a Windows repair.

I know.

The repair install seemed to work just fine, until I tried to log in. The process goes something like this:

Windows: I need to activate the product.
Me: OK, do that.
Windows: [working] Product is already active.
Me: Great. [click OK button]
Windows: I shall now log you out.
Me: Um? OK. [log in]
Windows: I need to activate the product.
[go to top]

I suspect it can’t accurately activate because of the lack of internet connection. Which means I can’t log in. Which means I can’t use my computer. Which sucks.

Yes, I have all of the data backed up. And it is on a separate drive.

So what’s next? Any advice? New motherboard? New PC? I hate the idea of a new PC simply because I have:

a newish video card
a brand new gigabit NIC
new memory sticks (that may not be able to go into new PC or new motherboard)
new drives (yes, they can move to a new machine)

So perhaps I will look at motherboard combos. Any idea what I should get?

Social Networks

Tim — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:48:31 +0000

I’ve got accounts on various social networks now. Honestly, I’m not sure what or how to use them, and some, like Twitter, I don’t see a lot of value in.

I’ve grabbed accounts though partly to claim my online ID, party to see what all the fuss is about. In fact, I set up a Twitter account just so I can SMS to My Mile Marker.

Here’s were I’m located:

I’ll probably try to set something up in the sidebar. I’d really like to integrate everything together. Facebook, for example, lists the other networks; I’ve got a LibraryThing plug in on this site already, and I’ll probably do the same with Twitter.

620

Tim — Thu, 17 May 2007 16:35:43 +0000

That’s the number of gigabytes now in our main computer.

When I rebuilt the machine a couple of years ago, I included a 120 GB Samsung SpinPoint SATA drive, which I partitioned it in a ridiculous manner. All of the partitions are fine for organization, but have caused a space problem. When a partition fills up, what do you do? I’ve moved some data around and reallocated some space, but it still isn’t perfect.

Plus, I need to reinstall the OS as Windows is acting up (it created a second Administrator account all on its own). A nice clean install is in order.

With the new digital camera and digitizing all of our music, extra space was needed. So, I’ve added another Samsung SpinPoint drive, this time a 500 GB model. It is way more space than I need now and for the next couple of years, but it was only $120. And at least now I know I’m not going to run out of room any time soon.

I bought another Samsung because, frankly, I’m very happy with the first one. The biggest attraction: they are almost totally silent, even when in full seek mode.

To Upgrade or Not

Tim — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 21:07:06 +0000

I’ve not been in a hurry to upgrade from Windows 2000 / Office 2000 to any other Microsoft system, but this one fact may bring me along: Clippy is dead.

Holiday Wallpaper

Tim — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:11:35 +0000

Now available for download:

1024 X 768 | 1280 X 1024

Free to a Good Home

Tim — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:41:38 +0000

For my local friends and readers, I offer up:

Maxtor DiamondMax 3400 11.5GB hard drive; works fine, no known errors
American McGee’s Alice video game (PC)
2 sticks of Elixir DDR-400 256 MB ram
Thrustmaster Super Sport Racing Wheel, hardly ever used

I’m tired of storing them. Take them off my hands and save me the trouble of selling them on Ebay.

Resolution

Tim — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:52:27 +0000

With my new, expanded resolution and reviewing a number of posts* on designing for various resolutions, I decided to chech the stats for this site. According to Analytics, for 2006 only 3.6% of visitors to this site have had a resolution of less than 1024 X 768. That resolution accounts for 49.57%, meaning that 46.83% of visitor have even more screen realestate.