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Monday, August 16, 1999
I think I am about to begin having problems with my SCSI hard drive in BamBam on the network.
A few weeks ago Katie and I plugged something (she was drying her hair in the computer room-- lesson learned) into the power strip that connected to the APC BackUps 500. Evidently this appliance took a bit more power than we anticipated and it set the APC off, so I immediately unplugged her hair dryer. The APC was still chirping, so I looked on the back of the APC and pushed in what appeared to be a reset button. Everything appeared to power back up normally.
It was not too long after this that I started to hear weird noises coming out of BamBam. The Seagate SCSI drive in this machine makes a loud noise when it is either spooling up or spooling down. Suddenly the drive started to spool down while the computer was running just fine. I listened to this a few times and then decided it would be best to shut the machine down while we were on vacation and then again when I went on my trip to Watkins Glen last week. This morning I performed the simplest of tests. I wanted to determine whether the drive was the problem or I had a power supply going bad, so I pulled the cover off BamBam and unplugged the power cable from the drive. I have not noticed any power problems since doing this, so I am beginning to think this brown out that I mention has somehow hosed this drive.
The next test will be to pull this drive out of BamBam and put it in WILMA for another test. WILMA also has a SCSI card and currently the only SCSI device connected to WILMA is my scanner.
I suppose if the drive acts the same in WILMA I will need to have a conversation with APC to try to determine what may have happened.
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The Winston Cup drivers weren't too excited in Watkins Glen when they got a chance to try out honest to goodness rain tires. These daredevils, who are used to tailgating in the highest form, must have been spooked when they couldn't even see the car in front of them. Roostertail city. After a morning practice there was much conjecturing about the use of rain tires in competition. NASCAR had decreed that rain tires would not be used in qualifying, but should it rain on race day, then the event would be run on the new rain tires. After two days of intermittent rain, it was a beautiful day on Sunday and the NASCAR Winston Cup heroes escaped this new twist to their sport. They shouldn't be crying so much. I think most every other major auto racing event (sans Drag) uses rain tires to combat inclement weather on road courses. According to this morning's Winston-Salem Journal, there was so much whining from the drivers and crews that Goodyear is considering scrapping the rain tire program altogether. Of course NASCAR is encouraging GoodYear to keep up its work so they can potentially pack more dates into the already cramped schedule without the fear of rainouts.
If you are interested in purchasing books online there may be a better alternative to Amazon. In a quick research I found that Wal-Mart was less expensive than Amazon. To test the two I chose a paperback book I read while on vacation, Sidney Sheldon's Best Laid Plans. Wal-Mart offers this paperback for $5.99 while Amazon offers it for $6.39. Wal-Mart claims to offer shipping for $3.00, no matter how many books you order. I can't remember Amazon's shipping charges right off. The next test would be the shipping time. Amazon claims to ship most books with 24 hours. It appears that Wal-Mart may only be the choice if you want to buy mainstream books. I also searched for computer books written by my friend Bob Thompson on the Wal-Mart site with no luck. His books are readily available on the Amazon site. Conclusion: If you want the latest Grisham or Clancy and want to save some bucks, then Wal-Mart might be the place. If you want a computer book or something more obscure, then you'd better stick with Amazon or Barnes and Noble, etc.
This is one for "Has technology gone too far" or "Is the internet craze completely out of control.
While surfing through the The Screen Savers website I ran across a story where BP Amoco and Tokheim have dreamed up this idea to put a Windows CE terminal at the gas pump. Are they crazy? I don't know about you, but it only takes me a few minutes to dump about 16 gals of petrol into my ride and I have NO time to begin a internet session. I can see the scene now. Some dude is lazily surfing the web while I want to get at the pump and be on my way, only he's blocking access while diving into a chat session. Are they trying to bring highway rage off the streets and to the pumps or just looking for another profit center. I am sure these sessions would not be gratis.
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Also from The Screen Savers. If you run your own website here is a link to some webmaster tools that may be of interest. My Computer.com will host your guestbook and more.
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For some time now one of the best FTP clients on the web has been CuteFTP. Version 3.0 has just been released and is available from Download.com. Some of the new features include CuteMP3 and File Finder, New "Drag & Drop" functionality and Persistent File Transfer and Auto-Reconnect.
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C|Net has put out a consumer alert on the cons of overclocking your PC's processor. I've never overclocked any processor, although I must I admit the thought has crossed my mind.
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Johnny Bowser is among the first "Southern" fan to have a shot at the Winston No Bull 5 million dollar bonus. Here's a page on bonus set for the Pepsi Southern 500 at Darlington. Darlington is celebrating its 50th anniversary with this year's Southern 500
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Following up on the book search, I had a chance to search Barnes and Noble today for the Sidney Sheldon title and their price was comparable to Amazon. Once again, if it's a mainstream book then I guess Wal-Mart would be a good source to at least check.
On this subject I received the following from Jan Swijsen [mailto:qjsw@oce.nl]
You checked the prices for books online. Now I wonder if buying online actually is cheaper than buying off-line, in a real shop.
I have a problem with online shopping (not just books) in that I have a full time job. The result is that during the day nobody is home so either the postman drops the packet on the doorstep which is not safe because anyone stranger passing by can pick it up and with the frequent rains we have ... . Or I find a card saying that there is a packet in the postoffice, to be picked up during normal office hours, of course not in the weekend, within 7 days.
Both methods are inconvenient so while visiting a real shop may cost a bit more it offers something for the money. For most hardware (disks, mainboards, etc) the difference is not big enough for me.
So it is worthwhile to check the price difference not only between online shops but between all shops. For me at least.
Thanks for your comments on purchasing books and other items online.
I have been able to save substantial amounts on some items when purchasing them on the web versus buying locally. However, I must admit that I can buy some computer parts locally for close to the same amount as on the web. One of the major advantages to buying online is immediate availability. I may ponder buying a certain item for a while, but then when I make up my mind that I really want it, I want it yesterday. Many times I go for the overnight shipping option. I will admit that I am learning to have a little more patience in this regard.
I have purchased a few books from Amazon and in the future think that we will purchase even more books online. My wife is quite the reader and we have been members of book clubs for years. However, the book clubs seem to think shipping is a profit center, so I have asked my wife to compare book club and online prices when she sees a new title that she wants. I think we will end up saving in the long run.
There really hasn't been a problem with delivery services (we have United Parcel Service and several overnight delivery services here in the USA that are quite reliable) leaving parcels at our home. In the few cases where a signature is required I usually will try to make arrangements to have the item picked up at the delivery service office the next day. I realize this may be inconvenient, but in the long run it has worked for us.
Saturday, August 21, 1999
We used to have a 55 gallon (you can compute the liters) tropical fish tank in our basement/family room. We've run through a variety of fish. The tank has been shutdown for almost a year because I bought a catfish who proceeded to eat all of our other fish. He really ticked me off and we sort of lost interest in the fish tank. However, a week or so ago our daughter, Katie, asked me if we could bring the fish tank back to life and I agreed.
There wasn't much happening at the office on Friday afternoon, so I decided to stop by her school and have lunch and then went to the local pet store where I purchased a device that would make it easier to clean the tank and change water. This is a really cool and fairly expensive device. It has a gizmo that connects to a water spigot and has a fill and I call it clean mode. In the clean mode the water passes through the device and creates a small vacuum on the 25 foot hose which allows you to siphon water out of the tank, clean the gravel and get rid of the fish yuckie. It really works great.
Before when I wanted to clean the tank I had had siphon device that would empty into a five gallon bucket. I was always getting water everywhere, in the draining as well and filling process. To fill the tank I had to fill the bucket with water and juggle it over the tank and splash the new water into the tank.
So we spent most of yesterday afternoon and some of last evening emptying and filling the tank and cleaning the filtering system to get ready to bring some fish to a new home. I'll have to remember to not introduce too many fish at one time so nature can get the ammonia level regulated. As I remember I can plop about seven or eight of the little swimmers in at one time and not set things out of balance.
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I mentioned last week the problems with my SCSI drive. The first move was to disconnect the power from the drive and that seemed to sure BamBam's problems. Before I chucked the drive I wanted to move it over to Wilma and see if the same thing happened there. I attempted this move last night and encountered a different problem. Wilma has an AdvanSys SCSI adapter which has been running my scanner just fine. However, when I put the drive online the system now wants to boot from the SCSI drive (must be automatically configuring as Drive 0) and of course comes back with the nasty message that no operating system is found.
I think I am going to be better to stick with IDE. With the size of IDE drives these days there is no reason for me to even be attempting to use a SCSI device. I have the drive and want to use it. I can't stand be semi-defeated by a computer part. I shouldn't really say defeated because I don't know about SCSI to have even gotten this far. But, I had the drive, so I wanted to use it.
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Now here's a screen saver that I'll bet eats up your drive and processor time. The AVI Screen Saver found at ZDTV's hotfiles site allows you to play movies as a screen saver. This free utility lets you put together savable playlists of your favorite .avi, QuickTime, or MPEG files and can also cycle .wav, .mp3, and MIDI sound files. It's 32-bit so it should work with Windows95 or WinNT. Fillu p that new hard drive.
And on the subject of free stuff from ZDTV, here's a link for AnalogX’s Proxy Server. Don't know how it compares to WinGate, which I have used int he past, but I might check it out in the future. That is if we ever get the promised cable modems to BellSouth's ADSL service. I hear it's been rolled out in parts of Winston-Salem, but unfortunately not on on the digital dirt road where I reside.
If you've been wondering to do with that old computer that's collecting dust since you got the new high speed model...and the local school uses only MACs, then maybe you would want to check into the Recycle Old Computers for Kids (ROCKS) program.
Email Steve Tucker