Miscellaneous « That’s Arguable

December 1, 2008

Bleeding Edge

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: cpu, mobo, Quad — jnargus @ 21:00

I think I’m hemorrhaging!

I just picked up a pile of parts for a new desktop machine. I got the new Intel core i7 920 to go on the new ASUS P6T Deluxe mobo with 3G of Patriot DDR3-12800 memory. I had to get a video card for it as well as there is no on board video with the P6T Deluxe. I got the ASUS EAH4550/DI/512MD3 Radeon HD 4550 512MB 64-bit GDDR3 video card. I also decided to splurge and get a new case and 450W power supply.

The only problem is that after I assembled the system, which took about an hour and a half, it fails to complete POST and I can’t even get to the BIOS . I get a message that says Express Gate on the screen for about a second and then one single short beep and then nothing. The screen is black and the keyboard is dead. According to the P6T mobo manual the single short beep means that the VGA was detected, the quick boot has been disabled and no keyboard was detected. Certainly the VGA was working because I did get one short message displayed and the keyboard seemed to work for a while and then it fails so the single beep does make sense. I am thinking that there might be a problem with the mobo and the PS2 keyboard connector. The keyboard does work as I am using it right now to write this post. The mobo only has one dual purposed PS2 connector. It supposedly works as both a keyboard and a mouse connector but only for one of them at a time. I don’t have a USB keyboard to try so I will be taking the system in to PCCyber to see what they can do for me.

I really want this system to work as the i7 CPU is a quad core hyperthreaded CPU. This means that it should show up as an 8 CPU system when it works. It is also supposed to be a good CPU and mobo for over clocking. The i7 920 runs at 2.66GHz but it can be OCed to 3.85GHz according one guy I was talking to at PCCyber. I just might try that when the system starts to work.

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May 15, 2008

Weedman Strikes again

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: SPAM, Telemarket — jnargus @ 19:10

I just looked and the last time they called was in February. At that time I asked them to remove my name from their calling list. Today I got Two (2), count them TWO (2) calls within 2 minutes from them again. I told both of them that I wanted to be removed from their calling list in a way that was forceful but polite. The first one seems to have pushed the redial button instead. I asked the second one to put me through to his manager but he said they were all in a meeting and not available. I don’t know what I can do at this time but I will keep this log going and see what happens. There must be a way to stop them from calling.

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February 13, 2008

Boulder Pledge

Filed under: Dance,Miscellaneous,Site — Tags: Boulder Pledge, SPAM — jnargus @ 21:42

A friend of mine (bjb) posted this on her blog. I thought it was good enough to borrow.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_Pledge:

The Boulder Pledge is a personal promise, first coined by Roger Ebert, not to purchase anything offered through email spam. The pledge is worded as follows:

“Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.” –Roger Ebert

I would like to modify the pledge after the experience of the last post to the following:

“Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message or phone call. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.”

I had to leave out the part about the mass mailings because I still need to send messages to the Contra Dance mailing list. This is an Opt-In mailing list and I limit it to just dance related messages.

OK, At the urging of bjb I have re-re-modified the pledge back to something closer to the original. I failed to fully grasp the significance of the word “forward” originally so I think I can safely add the mass mailings back in. So here goes; I, John Argus do solemnly swear the following statement:

“Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message or phone call. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailing, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.”

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Telemarketing Frustrations

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Tags: SPAM, Telemarket — jnargus @ 21:25

I just got my second call in two days from The Weedman telemarketer after telling the last guy to have my number removed from their calling list. This time I asked for the manager after the guy on the line started to tell me how his system automatically calls numbers and that he has no control over it. It appears that they don’t train their guys in how to remove a number from the calling list as the manager said that there would be no problem in removing mine. I made it clear to the manager that I never wanted to get another call from them ever so I will see what happens.

I may just keep track of these unsolicited sales calls here so that I have a record of when they call in case I need to make an official complaint. What I would really like to see is a national No-Call-List like in the US. Although apparently that doesn’t work as well as people would like either.

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February 7, 2008

Happy New Year!

Filed under: Miscellaneous,Roommates — Tags: China — jnargus @ 8:15

Chinese New Year that is.

It’s going to be the year of the Rat for those that are interested. I’m not sure what that means but I’m sure there’s lots of woo concerning the Rat.

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April 17, 2007

iPod Nano

Filed under: Miscellaneous — jnargus @ 21:00

Well I’ve joined the world of solid state MP3 players. It was an easy choice as I already run iTunes on my PC. I got a silver 2nd generation 4GB iPod Nano and while it took me seconds to figure out the controls it does some things in non-intuitive ways.

The main point that bugs me the most is the way it handles Podcasts. One of the podcasts I download is Scientific Americans 60-Second Science. These are as the title says one minute tidbits of science information. Well the iPod has a section where you can play your podcasts but it only plays one at a time. So before I figured out that I could play the podcasts as songs every minute I had to go through the whole menu selection to podcasts and select the next one manually. If I select the podcast through the songs list it will play them all one right after the other. Maybe most podcasts are longer and playing consecutive podcasts does not make sense.

It also took me a while to figure out how the syncing works and I am still not one hundred percent sure I know now. I figured that if I added some more podcasts or music to a play list it would just add the changes automatically. It doesn’t. I tried deleting some podcasts to make more room for songs but it would not delete them from the iPod. I had to delete all the podcasts then add the shorter list of podcasts back. I must be missing something.

I’ve only had it for a day so I might figure this out later. That is if I don’t install RockBox first. A guy at work says that he uses this instead of the OS that comes with the iPod. Unfortunately it does not work with iTunes directly so I would have to use another app to manage all my songs. Apparently there is a third party add-on that does work with iTunes but I have not looked into this much yet. I have only had the iPod for a day, give me time.

I did however look up the instructions for taking the little thing apart. iFixIt has some really good directions with good pictures to show you how it’s done. Just in case you want to take your iPod Shuffle apart