1", 12GB hard drive? Cool!

Hard to believe but Seagate has released a 1" hard drive- currently for use in cell phones- but I'm sure this will have other uses, as well.

Imagine pairing this with an Epia nano-motherboard for a truly, tiny, small form-factor PC?



Read this

Odd PC troubles & a "comatose Xbox"?

I'm not quite sure why, but I seem to be given the strangest PC's for repair? I mean, what is reported as "the problem" always seems to be the tip of the iceburg, as they say...

Trouble reported: CD-ROM doesn't work. "Ok", I think. Probably a screw up in device manager- something out of sorts. Nope- as always, device manager finds no issues to report.

Additional PITA issue- this is a Gateway, desktop PC (old-style that sits on the desk & designed for the montior to rest atop it) with NO PS/2 ports, whatsoever?? Now, this is a new one on me. All righty then- no prob, because there are 2 USB ports front & three on the back. Non-issue, right? Wrong.

Out of the rear three, the uppermost is taped off ("broken" say the owners). So, for the time being, I'll simply move some of my utilities to this PC via USB thumb drive. Here's the good part- any time I plug in the thumb (or anything USB) to the rear ports- the entire thing shuts off! ...sigh...You know what this means, of course? The front two USB are being used by the KB & mouse. Yep, I'm fresh out of ports- lol. You have to laugh so you don't take a sledgehammer to the unit.

I unplug the KB so I can transfer the utilities. All goes well. I'm thinking that I can temporarily use Daemon Tools to help this guy run the one program he needs running. Nope- Daemon won't run the software- gah!!!

Back to the drawing board on that one. I'll have to open it up & see what's going on in there. Maybe I'll luck out & find an errant screw making contact in the case somewhere- otherwise, I'm starting to suspect the mobo.

On to the dead-ish Xbox. I'm called by a student to ask if I could have a peek at the grandson's Xbox. Symptoms are: no screen, no audio, disc drive will not eject. I swapped for good cables- no go. Opened it up to check for bad/burnt cables, wires, caps. Nope. Off to Google, where I find a very informative site all about Xbox- llama.com.

This appears to be what is described as a "coma console". Sounds bad & is. The "fix" is straightforward enough- make a wire bridge across two points on the mobo back. Except! The points are so tiny that a strong magnifying glass is needed to even be able to tell that these are circles...I returned it with the recommendation the people locate an electronics repairman who does fine electronics soldering. I have a solder gun & know how to use it- but really don't have the expertise to drop a microscopic dot of solder onto something that small...Ah well, it was interesting to dis/reassemble & to see the innards of an Xbox.

Where does the time go???

How could it have been 12 days since my last post?

It's called life & having everyone in the house catch a cold, simultaneously.

Time to play "catch-up"

Busy with PC work- & a new "Puppy"

That's how it always goes, right? "Feast or Famine".

I sometimes go a week without one phone call & then will get hammered with 4-5 jobs at once. I'm venting- but not complaining!

This past week, I was given three PC's to overhaul: two were so viri/spyware infested that the ISP called to tell the people to take them offline (!!!)- ouch! The laptop wouldn't boot & someone had given the woman the idea that the hard drive or motherboard had fried? Whatever...

I went ahead & worked on them, simultaneously, whilst doing all the rest of the household chores & child-refereeing- as per normal.

All three computers were cleared, tuned, & returned the following day (in your face "GeekSquad")- lol...


On to my next adventure in Linuxland: Puppy Linux.

Puppy is a live CD offering from the open-source world of Linux. Basically, you download the .ISO image & burn it to a CD. Then, pop the disc into the CD-ROM & reboot the PC. Puppy will load itself into the system's RAM (assuming 128mb min.) & you will be looking at a very clean, attractive desktop in a matter of two minutes. Because it runs in the RAM memory, it is extremely fast. By default, it adds in a file (to the hard drive) to retain your settings. That way, anything you set up remains set up the next time you boot it.

I did a walkthrough of the programs & utilities & then went to the Puppy forum to read what others had been doing with this distro (distribution) of Linux. I found that it could be loaded, alongside Windows 98, without affecting the MS OS. Sounded interesting, so I did it. Worked very well & is actually much more responsive than the 98 install.

However, trying to do the very same with my uncle's PC has proven problematic, & we are still hard at it- trying to figure out why the same instructions aren't working for him?

Puppy Linux is a great OS- even (& especially) as a live CD. Works very well on old hardware. Everyone loves a puppy!

...between XP & music, once again...

...ahhh, the joys of reinstalling Windows XP~ :^P It ranks right up there with bamboo crammed under the fingernails. Somehow, my pristine, mirror-like CD is not being read properly & is being spit out of the DVD player. Perhaps the player is buggy? Simply hasn't "approved" my CD offering? Or perhaps it's the way I've slipstreamed SP2?

In any case, as I wait & reinsert & wait some more (ad nauseum)- there's always music to sooth the savage beast in me (& prevent me from otherwise throttling the DVD/player/Bill Gates...).

I've been cruising around the 'net- checking out video/audio offerings from some of my fav artists. Man, it's so refreshing to hear good music that isn't being over-played on the "Top 40" shows (replete with more commercials than music).

Such as:




Painkiller video - by Turin Brakes





Know-How by Kings of Convenience

Whatever happened to the free XP SP2 download?

For some odd reason (only MS knows for sure) XP Service Pack 2 was removed from it's original & prominent spot at MS.

I had found the link at the time they were not only offering the free download (it's big!) but also the free shipping, CD-ROM version.

For those of you who happened to miss out on all of this, here's the XP SP2 download link once again- enjoy!