Longklaw.com

Technology is great, except for when it’s not.

One day I came to work and I couldn’t sign into my PC. I went and got one of the user support people. He logged in as an administrator and determined that something had turned off the services on my machine. He, of course, thought that it was a virus. I’m not sure though. I’m pretty careful, but I do sometimes click on links that people post on Twitter without thinking. He turned on the services that he thought needed to be on and ran a bunch of scans, which turned up nothing. I couldn’t get any work done that day, but at the end I got my PC back. It has really been the same since. I wish I could get a new PC.

The weekend before this past weekend, DirecTV came to install a 2nd receiver. This one went in the bedroom. From what I understand, the DirecTV installers are usually people that work at third-party companies that DirecTV hires to do the work. The installer got there at the beginning of the 4-hour range they gave me. He did all the wiring and connected the receiver in a decent amount of time. However, he couldn’t activate the receiver because DirecTV’s systems were down. He didn’t know how long the wait would be. He said that his supervisor (I’m assuming the one at whatever company he works for) wouldn’t allow him to leave a receiver that wasn’t activated. He would have to take the receiver and reschedule for another day, which would be 2 weeks later. Of course, I was angry because I had already waited 2 weeks for him to come in the first place. He called DirecTV to reschedule and they said he couldn’t reschedule for that reason. After sitting on my couch for a couple hours, he finally got approval to leave the receiver with me. He told me to call in later to activate it myself. He finally left after about 3.5 hours. I finally have satellite in my room. It’s great to have another option for TV viewing. Sometimes I get tired of sitting on my old couch. Also, I can sit in bed and watch Golden Girls reruns.

It’s a good thing I got the new receiver in the bed room because my big living room TV is dying. On Friday when I turned on the TV the screen was flickering rapidly. I could hear a clicking noise every time it flickered. I’ve only had this TV for 3.5 years, so I was mad that it was malfunctioning. It’s a cheap Vizio, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It was my first HDTV, and at the time I couldn’t afford to get anything more expensive. After talking to Vizio and the company Vizio uses for repairs, we determined what the problem was and that it would be better to buy a new TV than fix this one. When I bought this TV, I also bought an extended warranty. I remember that I didn’t want to, but my roommate at the time convinced me to do so. Well, all of my warranty coverage expired on January 31, 2011, which was less than 6 months ago. If it had done this before January 31, I could have gotten it repaired or replaced for free. Oh well. I’m getting a new TV. It definitely won’t be a Vizio. I’ve already picked out a Samsung that I like. I’ve had great luck with Samsung products in the past and they’re not as expensive as Sony products. I’m going to wait until after my vacation this week to order so it won’t be left outside my door and stolen while I’m gone. Sometimes the Vizio will come on and not flicker, but when it does flicker I can go watch TV in the bedroom.

These are first world problems if anything.

I’m seriously annoyed with my desktop computer at home. The computer, which is only about a year old, recently started shutting down on its own. I noticed after the big April Windows Update, my icons weren’t showing up in taskbar. Maybe I should’ve done a system restore then, but I didn’t. The shutdown problems started soon after that, so I figured the update might have been causing my computer to act crazy. Now I’m not so sure about that.

Using software that came with the motherboard, I checked the CPU temperature. Mostly it runs around 180° F, but if I open up a browser or start playing music, I’ll see the temperature jump to a cool 220° F. Ouch! So, I think that may be why my computer is shutting down. All the fans inside are still working, so I don’t know what could have changed.

I have also noticed that some of the decorative lights on the computer case are no longer working. Maybe this weekend I’ll take the time to look at it more closely. I’m not really a hardware person, but maybe I can figure something out.

I can’t do anything intensive on it without it shutting down, so for now it’s mostly just a really large mp3 player.

Any suggestions?

Update, 5/10
I replaced the CPU fan and heatsink and I also added a second case fan. Now the system temperature is around 75°F and the CPU temperature is around 100°F. It’s a little louder than before, but at least it’s cool. A cool computer is a happy computer.

I’m making this entry from my brand new desktop computer. I had planned on having this new machine built weeks ago, but I was delayed by slow shipment times and some complications. I tried doing something like this several years ago but I didn’t really know what I was doing and I ran into so many issues that I just ended up ordering another Dell.

I bought a new video card and processor. I used the DVD-RW, CD-RW (not sure why I still have both), RAM, and hard drive from my previous desktop. I’ll probably be upgrading the RAM very soon.

I learned a valuable lesson during my computer project: you get what you pay for. I don’t know what I was thinking. I bought a barebones kit. I was trying to be cheap and not spend a lot of money on something that may not work out right. Of course, it didn’t work out. After all the diagnostic tests, reading the manuals 50000 times, and seeking advice from others I realized that the problem was most likely crappy equipment. The good thing is that it didn’t cost much to learn that lesson. The second time I ordered more reliable parts. So far so great. The only complaint that I have so far is that the machine is a little loud.

Hopefully, I’ll be playing Oblivion, Titan Quest, or the full version of Prey for the first time tonight. I still haven’t decided. Check out my Xfire profile to see if I’m up to something.

I am enjoying my time in Azeroth. Somehow, it’s better than Starkville. I like the paladin and druid equally at this point. My only problem is that sometimes I have trouble getting into the game. From what I’ve heard, that is a common problem.

I signed up for a one week free trial of DDO. I just have to download it. Unless it takes an incredibly long time to download, I’ll be playing it sometime this weekend.

It looks like Xfire is being bought by Viacom. I remember when I first heard about it on TechTV, back when it was still TechTV. It couldn’t have been too long after Xfire first started up. If only I could remember to run Xfire every time I play a game. If anybody uses Xfire, my screen name is longklaw.

I decided to try Internet Explorer Beta 7 for a little while. I know it sounds risky, but I wanted to try it. I’m ok with IE’s new look. It reminds me a lot of Netscape 8 for some reason. I’m really glad that it has tabbed browsing. That feature is the only one I wish IE6 had. Of all the web sites I went to, there was only one that looked weird when I viewed it using IE7. After using it for a little while I decided it was time to uninstall IE7 and course IE6 froze up every time I tried to use it. Thank goodness for system restore.

Final Fantasy VII – Advent Children finally came out on DVD yesterday. I went to Sam Goody and picked up a copy. I’ll probably be watching it in the next few days. The manager at Sam Goody told me that I had been shopping there as long as he had been manager there, which is a long time. He said that I was one of those customers he expects to see there at least once a week. Though that used to be true and I have started back shopping there recently, I don’t go to Sam Goody nearly as much now that we have a GameStop here in Starkville. Still, it was nice to know that he appreciated my bu$ine$$.

The spambots have found me in my new home. [sarcasm]I am so thrilled about that.[/sarcasm]