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Blog ate my homework

Actually, computer ate my blog post. I’m having a hardware problem of some kind. Takes about six resets to get through a boot — after which, it’s usually stable. But tonight it spontaneously blue-screened in the middle of my unsaved illustration, and I just didn’t have the heart to do it over. I wasn’t liking it all that much anyway.

Meanwhile, Ace linked to my pudding t-shirt, so I’ll quit now and leave yesterday’s illo near the top to greet the bounce traffic. Dude is a traffic moncster.

Comments


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: January 26, 2010, 6:59 pm

What brand of computer?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 26, 2010, 7:15 pm

Homemade. It’s pretty old, but I like it (when it works). It’s my desktop machine and it’s always been a booger to boot. I used to leave it running all the time.

It’s got USB problems, and I think one of the ports might be shorting out.

The boot stops at a different point each time. First time, it gets past the logo screen for the motherboard and then goes black. Second boot, it may get as far as the Windows logo. Then it’ll usually hang while loading Windows. Then, it may get all the way through loading Windows, show me a flash of bluescreen, then reboot itself.

Anybody have a recommendation for a Ghost-type program? I’d be sunk if I lost the applications on that machine.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: January 26, 2010, 7:26 pm

Nothing specific, there is a ton of different applications available. I don’t know what software is available to you.

I would say, just keep the old hard drive with you, and you can copy the registry hives for your applications from the old machine to the new machine when you transfer. I’ve had some success doing that with various applications I was moving between machines…..


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 26, 2010, 7:35 pm

You mean, backing up and restoring the registry to a new drive? Does that work? I’ve just bought a 1.5 terabyte external backup drive, since both my machines are getting highly old and funky.

I’m going to be so screwed when they stop supporting XP. Or when Gates stops recognizing my right to use my copy with new hardware.


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: January 26, 2010, 7:42 pm

You might actually have to break down one of these days and buy a new (gasp!) computer.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: January 26, 2010, 8:02 pm

What I usually do is to go into the old machine and locate the registry entries in HKEY:LOCAL MACHINE:SOFTWARE and HKEY:CURRENT USER:SOFTWARE, export them, copy them to the new machine and run them to restore them to the new registry.

Then run the software and write down any errors you get, this will help to track down any additional entries you need to copy over.


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: January 26, 2010, 8:10 pm

sigh


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: January 26, 2010, 8:11 pm

h t t p:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX8yrOAjfKM


Comment from BuckNutty
Time: January 26, 2010, 8:29 pm

Describe what the illustration was. Paint a picture with words. You know; theater of the mind and all that…


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 26, 2010, 8:31 pm

Wow, Scoob — wouldn’t it be easier just to Ghost it, or whatever? I tried manually updating the keys on…Photoshop, I think it was. Or maybe Corel. Without much success.

Sorry about that, BBB. The current version of WordPress makes it hard to see when somebody lands in the spam bucket. And that was pretty funny. 🙂

Saaaaayyyyy…can I interest anyone in a peepoo bag?


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: January 26, 2010, 9:05 pm

Aside from anything else, it’s the baby talk that makes me want to rip them limb from limb with my claws.

That and being a badger, of course.


Comment from weirdsister
Time: January 26, 2010, 11:32 pm

BBB…that video was really freaking funny! Loved it!

Stoaty…re: peepoo bags, wouldn’t it make more sense to give the people a shovel and teach them to dig a peepoo hole? Wonder where all those plastic, filth-filled bags end up? Ew. 😛 Doesn’t sound very environmentally sound to me.


Comment from Gregory the First
Time: January 27, 2010, 12:40 am

DriveImageXML. They have a portable free version that would absolutely fit your requirements.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: January 27, 2010, 4:25 am

A Creative™ like you really oughtta get a Mac (ducks, covers head in anticipation of rain of brickbats*).

Anyway, isn’t Ghost a Ghost-like program? I just Ghosted XP on a $400 dual-core Pentium box† for a friend. Seemed to work.

* For all you Apple-haters: I got a 5th-gen iPod nano today and it is just beyond awesome. Say what you will, but Apple builds its stuff to just freakin’ work. The integration with iTunes, Address Book and iCal is flawless. Best $200 I’ve spent in a while.

† dual 2.6 Ghz Pentium, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, Foxconn MB with SATA 300 and gigabit Ethernet, DVD burner. $375 cash. Would’ve been even cheaper in the States. Computers are virtually free these days.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 27, 2010, 7:41 am

It’s a kind of fluke that I ended up an IBM person, David. Our very first turnkey graphics system (circa 1985) was built around a 286-12 (with a buttload of extra hardware bolted on). Back in those days, that was pretty unusual.

Later, we had a few Macs in the mix. I really didn’t care for them. They were more reliable than the IBMs, but not as gold-plated reliable as their acolytes said they were. If I had a nickel for every time a Machead told me Macs never break — while standing in front of a broken Mac.

I will say this — I once stuck my hand inside a dying Mac to try to goose one more boot out of a dodgy hard drive, and the damn thing belted out the most amazing musical chord. Back in the days when computers didn’t do sound all that well.


Comment from Blast Hardcheese
Time: January 27, 2010, 11:12 am

If I may threadjack for a moment, and give Weas a topic for her next masterwork…

Remember Chris Buckley? He was just fer suuure the smartest guy in the room? Son of William F.? Remember him? Well, he just wrote a satirical version of Obama’s SOTU speech. Lo, the snark does flow freely.

But not once in the bloody thing does he give any sort of mea culpa, or admit that he shilled for Teh One because he just couldn’t stand That Woman, the horrible plebian that McCain had the bad taste to pick for VP.

I remember that Weas had a picture of CB, with his precious little hat and him biting on the earpiece of his glasses just so. Well, it would please me greatly if Weas would go forth and Do Her Bidness on that!


Comment from Sporadic Small Arms Fire
Time: January 27, 2010, 1:35 pm

Everytime I have computer hiccups I take a can of compressed air, insert the nozzle into any small crack and give it a blast. There is usually a scream, rapid commotion and a bunch of otters and other assorted ermines flee for the nearest exit.
Them mustelids are sneakier than a game warden.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 27, 2010, 3:41 pm

Mustelids in my computer? Never! We have a mutual not-screw-with-each-others-stuff pact.

Incidentally, this area must be lousy with the little bastards. Most people can go a lifetime hiking in the woods and never see a weasel. Uncle B has spotted three, dashing across the road.

We also saw a badger (technically, the woggling ass of a badger disappearing into the ditch). But that’s not so special; badgers are kind of slow.


Comment from bhawk
Time: January 27, 2010, 5:23 pm

Three words… get a MAC!… stable, bug free, bulletproof!


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: January 27, 2010, 9:04 pm

I work with PC’s running Windows and Linux for my job.
I have a Mac at home and I can honestly say that I hate each each and every f*&king one of them.

BBB (now with less explicit profanity and 20% less
crazy)


Comment from David Gillies
Time: January 28, 2010, 2:46 am

BBB: oh, fersure. Add BSD to the mix (and VAX/DCL, DEC Cyber NOS, plus, if I recall, the maddeningly laborious way that the Rutherford-Appleton Lab made us code our number theory job to run on their Cray X1). Computers suck. All computers will drive you crazy eventually. But with my Mac I still have a love/hate relationship – like being 32 and living in your parents’ basement. With my Linux box it’s one of those Wes Anderson relationship dramas where nothing happens for two hours and everyone basically gets out alive but carrying a bunch of psychic angst, and with Windows it’s like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre crossed with that shark movie where the sharks are smarter than Rachel Maddow (The Magnificent Ambersons). When OS X and Linux fuck up, it’s cos they’re dumb. When Windows fucks up, it’s cos it’s evil.


Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: January 28, 2010, 9:35 pm

David Gillies, I applaud your acumen on this topic.
I shall add “handles computer induced psychic angst”
to my ongoing employee review.

I went on a three state “killin” spree
after being imprisoned with all 1205 volumes of the
IBM JCL reference set, a card punch, and butch PolySci
grad student named Odile for about three months. It was just like thunder dome except my car sucked and Odile was
no Tina Turner IYKWISAITYD.

It wasn’t really a “killin” spee. More like a burbon
fueled jihad waged on my liver.

BBB


Comment from Sockless Joe
Time: January 31, 2010, 5:21 pm

Last time I had random errors it was a bad CPU fan, so in my mind random errors == heat problem. Of course, if your USB ports are funky then maybe you have bigger problems of the motherboard variety.

As for Windows XP, you might want to look into a virtual machine setup at some point.

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