Yesterday was a day of electronic failure. I had to go home early to meet a technician about some cable issues we’d been having. We got a new DVR box since the old one wasn’t recording properly, and learned that we had lost certain channels like MTV because Comcast had switched to digital signals and this interfered with the channels that the building’s security feeds are on. Since Comcast is a notoriously slow bureaucracy, it may be weeks before this issue is resolved. The technician did give us a hotfix to allow us to watch the analog signal for MTV by switching inputs, but all the analog channels cannot be DVR’ed.
In other wonderful news, my computer’s motherboard is completely fried. I can’t even get to BIOS; I just get a string of beeps and no signal to the monitor. I suspect that the fan on the motherboard has been failing and this led to some overheating issues. Either way, my computer won’t even turn on. Since I had been considering a new computer, I think I may choose that route instead of attempting to swap in a new motherboard.
Again, I don’t really want to spend that much for the computer, since I’ve found that I typically end up just replacing computers instead of upgrading them. I’m looking for a reasonable processor, 2 Gigs of RAM, and a reasonable video card (something along the lines of a GeForce 7900 GS perhaps?). I don’t want to build the computer, and I think I want to stay away from AMD after some input from Octos. I suspect that Dell might have the best package, and I could get a cheaper computer from them and buy the graphics card from another vendor, but any suggestions would be welcome. I have to admit I have had some issues with Dell in the past, although Velius vouches for them. I don’t need any special CD/DVD drives, monitors, or input devices, but that’s probably all I can salvage from the dead PC. This looks like as good a time as any to try out Vista, so I will need to buy the OS, and I want to make sure that whatever graphics card I get can utilize DirectX 10.
Of course right before I went to sleep, I went to turn on a light, and the bulb blew out. It really was just that kind of day.
It’s been a busy, stressful week at work, but at least I’ve been going to sleep earlier and getting more rest. Oh wait, no I haven’t because Bunky’s Blackberry of Doom always goes off at ridiculous hours, and she makes sure I have to suffer when she has to suffer. I swear it’s like having a new baby, except that Bunky’s the one crying when an email comes in at 3 AM.
That noise the Blackberry makes when a new email is received has officially been equated with DOOM in my mind. Every time it goes off, it has an 85% chance to bring bad news.
Ugggh, Bunky had ordered 3 identically sized frames to hang on the wall and it was my job to hand them over the TV. The frames were to be equally spaced out and the tops of the frames were to be on the same line as the top of the door frame. Of course I quickly sketched out how it would work and made some pencil marks on the wall, confident that it would come out perfectly.
Unfortunately, the give in the wire on the back of the frames totally messes everything up. Even just a little bit of difference made the pictures look uneven, so I must have spent forever making holes and adjusting the frames. Who would have thought such a simple task would be so difficult?
Well, the new computer is more or less set up in the living room. Vista is having some driver problems, but nothing too monumental, and everything seems to be running smoothly. Bunky likes having the icons and font set to gargantuan sizes (like the huge E that you hopefully see on the eye doctor’s chart), and the computer is great for surfing the web. It gets a bit trickier when working remotely, because her job’s remote site doesn’t allow the end user to adjust font sizes and display options. Fortunately, Word itself allows for zooming, but it’s a bit tougher to navigate the remote desktop.
The main problem so far is the interaction of (what I believe is) the wireless mouse/keyboard and the cable box. The computer is unaffected by the problem, but the crappy remote that came with our DVR goes nuts while trying to navigate the channel guide now. Basically instead of just scrolling down one page, it gets stuck scrolling; this makes it very difficult to use the channel guide. Even more annoying is how the new remote that came with the TV refuses to work on the DVR. I used those codes, and basically tried every single code in the book after the suggested ones didn’t work. No luck. I’m not sure if a new universal remote controller would help solve both problems.
Oddly enough, unplugging the wireless receiver thing from the computer did not solve the problem (perhaps the mouse/keyboard was still transmitting). Also, using the arrows on the DVR itself to navigate does not trigger the scrolling problem.
General | Kabitzin 3/27/2007 | 
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