I’ll be honest. I hate computers. I loathe them. All they do is cause headaches and annoyances. Software updates, bug fixes, things going wrong, accidentally deleting files, corrupted backups, bots trying to convince you that you have a small penis and pushing viagra on you. I hate it all.

Two weeks ago the server I built a year ago and co-located at a datacenter decided it was a great, swell time to kick the bucket.

Now, I knew it had issues from about 10 months ago. Threw ECC (Error Correcting Code) errors. I figured I’ll replace the ram someday. Kept putting it off, and off. Server ran fine for a bit over 12 months.

Then, catastrophic failure of the ram. At first, I thought it was a hard drive death. So I bought two brand spanking new hard drives, as well as replacement ram, and sent it all off to the datacenter to install in the server; and they were to send me the old parts back so I could replace it all.

They did their job well, installed everything, got it up and running. Within hours of me setting it up and tinkering with it, BAM, more errors from the primary HD. Told the datacenter to switch over to the spare drive (which is also brand new and identical mind you) and start over. They did it, and again I was happily on my way with setting it up again. 12 hours later, BAM, more HD errors on the spare drive! Joy is me!

At this point, I’m utterly defeated and tell them to just send everything to me. I get the parts, and start testing each drive one by one. First the original drive. It had a few errors, only caused by shutting down improperly. Besides that, it was perfectly fine. ugh.

The two brand new drives, each were lemons. I ran extended tests and they were both functioning, but not usable due to errors on the drives. Brand new drives, identical make/models, both duds. Their serial numbers were about 100 digits off. God…

So, here I am now. Finally got a dedicated server setup. Should of had a second server long ago for fail over purposes. If anyone actually noticed the blog was down, this is why.

Man, do I HATE computers. (But they’re sadly an essential necessity anymore.)

Categories: Computers
Tags: Computers, servers
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Well I finally got my new laptop last thursday, been too busy working and stuff to post about it. Finally got a few minutes to snap some quick pictures of it.

This thing is just awesome, such a major upgrade over my last laptop. It is so much faster and much more powerful. The screen is just amazing on it. It is so bright, so crisp and the colors are just brilliant.

The part I can’t get enough of yet is the keyboard. It has ambient light sensors in the speaker grills and will automatically dim the screen and turn the keyboard on. No more excuses for night-time typos. Sexy eh?

In all, this laptop is just the best. Time will tell if it can take what I throw at it.

Categories: Computers • Photographs • Quick Post
Tags: macbook pro, pictures
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…and in with the new. Such is the way of things with cars, electronics and computers. My laptop has finally kicked the bucket for good, sadly it is no longer finically feasible to keep fixing it. Time to get something new.

Had a long life, especially for a laptop. This November would be four years I’ve had it. Thing has been used daily since day one, almost never turned off. Web surfing, email, video watching, notes, photography, photoshop, papers, emulators and more it all handled for four years.

It’s a shame to finally say it isn’t worth fixing, I’m bad when it comes to giving up possessions. Time to replace it with a bigger, badder and faster beast.

In the end, all I gotta say is Apple makes damn good computers that last and stand the test of time; something I don’t see owners of other manufacturers saying much but I don’t want to start a flame war here. I expect this new one to be just as good and if you’re shopping for a new computer, give Apple a look. They’ve got my seal of approval for years of reliability in their products.

Categories: Computers
Tags: apple, ibook, laptop, macbook pro
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