So, last night I finally extracted my two nVidia 6800GT cards out of my liquid cooling project box. Everything in the box was salvageable except the Mainboard — it had a hole the size of a quarter in it.

Anyone out there in the market for a nice couple of video cards? I used this card and a twin for SLI gaming. Oh my god, SLI is badass. The new box I have (A Dell, dude!) has a nice card in it, and since I think I’m out of the hardware tweaking business I’m getting rid of these cards. They are still quite viable and good performers. Hit me with an offer if you are interested in a new video card. I used them only for like a month before my mainboard fried. Good times.

Yep, I’m installing Windows at home again… Fret not, it’s just for gaming. I mean, that’s what winders is for, right? I need some gaming fix and I need Windows in order to do it in a non-stressful fashion. So, here we go.

First XP CD I found produced a blue screen when trying to start the Windows GUI for installation. Not a good start. Though, I thought it an appropriate welcome back to the neighborhood.

The second CD I found installed just fine. But, look at this, no video driver, no ethernet, no SM Bus, no “PCI Device”, no “USB Device”, and no 3D video controller… So much for plug and play. But again, I imagine it would be much the same as returning to Korea after all these years and smelling the wonderful open sewer system again. Oh yes… I remember that…

Ok, now we’re in driver hell. Yes, folks, no matter what Billy-boy would have you believe you do need to fetch drivers for XP most of the time. Kinda sad that it didn’t have the network driver built in, however. That little bit of fun makes it particularly difficult. So, I use my trusty laptop to download the necessary drivers. I installed the video, network, and chipset drivers. I was installing the video drivers lastly and when it came time to be done it asked me as per usual, “Restart Now?”. To which I was going to say yes. But, no… USB had died. No PS2 ports for keyboards, or and don’t you love how there is no CLI (especially a remote CLI) to enable a graceful shutdown. Looks like this reboot will be medieval style.

Well, FINALLY all the drivers are good. Had to step back the nVidia driver because the newer one was borking up. Other than that, we’re good. Doing the Update – Reboot dance now. Rhys is begging me to install the Sims…. I can’t wait to install some Counter-Strike tho. ;)

I went to Ike’s Coffee Shop for the first time today. It was nice! The barista knew her shit, and the coffee was prepared properly. I was there to meet someone about a possible contract work, and I think it went very well. We’ll see how things pan out going forward. What really caught my eye at Ike’s was the gauntlet of laptop power cords criss-crossing the floor! I sat there while I waited for the meeting to start, and just reflected on what it would be like if THAT were your office. How cool would that be? Well, one day it will happen. I won’t take no for an answer. Just have a hill to climb yet.

I just love shit like the Flo Control. Other guys dream about project cars and putting on a second story for their house. I dream about computerizing everything from the blinds to the flushing of the toilets. I mean how cool would it be to have a PA system in your house, connected to a voice activated computer that would provide you with all kinds of data and help.

Things like checking if it’s raining, and if it is, not watering the plants. Is it cold inside the house? Check the time and see if the sun is in a good position to allow for natural heating and open the corresponding blinds. Are the lights on in a certain room and there are no humans in that room? Turn off the lights… Shit like that.

As with project cars, you need money to do these things… One day I’ll get to indulge my inner mad-scientist. :)

One of my most favorite project houses is linked here. I can’t wait to get something like this setup at home.

Happy Saturday peeps! I’m stuck at work today. Not as bad as it sounds. We are having our big sales meeting this weekend and being one of the two geeks on staff, I’m relegated to the A/V Club… If someone would have told me about the curse of the A/V Club when I joined it in grade school, I never would have done it! ;)

My official job for this event is to basically ensure that all of our out of town sales reps get the new software installed on their machines. So, my counterpart and I sit in this training room and the reps drop their laptops off and we install the software. Additional to that, we are also crisis runners in case of any electronical acts of god…

Today is the continuation of the training from yesterday, so my counterpart and I should have a relatively quiet morning as most of the installs were done yesterday. So that’s gonna be nice. I brought my book and will just hang out in back and enjoy. ;) At least that’s the plan.

Well, I missed a couple days there. Mostly due to a massive Linux crash that I had to recover from. Just one of those things where I was tweaking shit, and it created a cascade of seg faults, and I finally gave up and blew the system out. The best thing about Linux still remains its biggest curse. Tons of choice. Unfortunately, this means Linux does a really poor job of protecting you from yourself. :) Mac does a great job at it, and unfortunately really limits the choice you have, and Windows is in the middle ground somewhere I think. Blessing and a curse.

The one saving grace is Linux isn’t cursed with a registry. So, restoring a fresh system is as easy as reloading the files to the / partition, and my /home partition just seamlessly integrates back in. Keeping all my prefs and what not.

So, I’m back, and will be posting again! YAY!