Computer problems

(Alternate title: Linux saves the day.)

I like to think that I'm not afraid to tinker around with computers. Then again, I'd be the first to admit that if you wanted your computer fixed, you probably don't want to go to me.

Person #1:
David, my computer is broken. Can you help me fix it?

David:
What's wrong? Did you try restarting?

(Internal monologue: Wow, that is annoying.)

Just kidding. Your computer is broken. That's all I can tell...

Person #1:
Grrr....

There was a point to all of this... what was it... oh yes. Turns out that I'm not actually as useless as I think I am. Here's a recapitulation of all of my woes and success stories of the past few months.

My 3 year old computer so far has been fine, although it's been showing signs of aging: 1) The wiring in the headphone jack came loose, which meant that if you wanted to use headphones, it would only output to the left ear, unless you held the plug and pushed down on it. 2) One of the usb ports broke. 3) The LCD had a dead pixel line, though thankfully it was replaced (for free!!! Thanks Dell, for keeping me on the phone for 4 hours!). 4) The battery was dying, dying, and is now completely dead. It holds about 20 seconds worth of charge. Other mentionables: The hard drive was replaced, not because it had problems, but because I just wanted a bigger one. The ram was also replaced, because 1GB just wasn't enough anymore.

All of these problems/quirks I could live with, because the computer would, all in all, still continue to function. That is, until...

5 months ago:
Motherboard broken.
Symptoms: No bios. LCD sometimes wouldn't turn on. Hard drive would spin, and some lights blinked briefly before the whole thing shut down. Note: Holding down the power cable steady in the back of the computer would sometimes help. After a while, the computer would freeze up. Oddly enough, when that happened, the image on the screen would stay there, and the hard drive would continue to spin. Why that's odd will be explained in just a sec.
Diagnosis: Took a long time to figure this out, but turns out that it' a failing motherboard. Replaced just about every critical component, including the hard drive and ram, yet none of that helped. Because of the correlation with the power cord, I figured that it was a motherboard failure, probably localized to the power jack. The interesting question is why, if power was interrupted, the computer would freeze up, rather than shut down entirely. Why wouldn't it just go to battery power (however limited that might be). That must mean that something is still flowing to the computer in order to power the screen.
Solution: I like to think of the motherboard as the peripheral nervous system. It allows all parts to talk to each other. Without it, the brain can't tell individual parts what to do, even though functionally, there isn't anything wrong with it. After several rounds of exploratory surgery from when I was trying to figure out what was wrong, this time, I got my hands on a spare motherboard and replaced it. Serendipitously, this fixed the problem of the broken usb port and the broken headphone jack as well.
Overall notes: I was about ready throw out the laptop and get a new one. After 3 years, it still runs well, but definitely isn't keeping pace with the ones out there now. Worse yet, Dell had quoted me $500 for them to diagnose and service the problem. Though it was possible to fix for less than $500, it would still have been a pretty chunk of change. I actually hesitated for almost an entire month, because I knew I didn't want to throw good money after bad.


1 month ago:
Hard drive corrupted.
Symptoms: Bios would load, but after that, all that shows up is a dashed line. Nothing else.
Diagnosis: Corrupted boot sector. Took out the hard drive, put it in an enclosure, and viewed it from another computer. All my data was there. It's just that the computer wouldn't recognize that there's an operating system on the drive.
Solution: Backed up all my files (thank goodness they were still there) and reformatted. All was well.

5 days ago:
While out of town, got a call from my brother, who was trying to use my computer again. Probably to play his flash games.... sigh. Same thing happened as before, corrupt boot sector.
Symptoms: Same as before.
Diagnosis: Same as before.
Solution: Tried to back up my files one more time, but...
Wrench thrown into the machinery: This time around, Windows would recognize some folders, but not others. For some folders, it wouldn't be able to detect that there was stuff inside. Couldn't copy, couldn't open. Some folders were inexplicably spared, others weren't.... like all of my pictures. Fuck.

After mourning for the past day, and also brooding over how many of my pictures I could save from a previous backup, I realized that the files might still be intact, just that Windows doesn't know how to find them. And if Windows won't work.... Linux might. Ran Puppy Linux, and as we speak, I'm backing up all of my files. Sit, Ubu, Sit. Good boy. After all this is over, I'm getting rid of this hard drive. Or at least sending it back to Seagate for a new one.

Overall, I learned a lot. Not only about computers, but about myself as well. Since this post has been one long list, it's only appropriate that this, too, is a list.
1) Computers are simply a bunch of parts put together. If one part is broken, don't throw away the whole thing. Just fix the part.
2) If something is that important to you, don't give up until you've tried everything.
3) There's always something that you haven't tried. Although it isn't always easy, quick or cheap.
4) We've come to rely on computers so much, not only to store our photos and memories, but also knowledge.
5) Some catastrophe will happen eventually, so be prepared.
6) In light of 4) and 5), be prepared. Back up your crap.

In volatile market, only stable investment is porn!

Sadly, that probably isn't even true anymore.

I recently got into the stock market thinking that now is a good time to buy, in anticipation of the eventual recovery. And immediately lost $600. *Sad face* Things will get better though, right? ....right?

But young people need not worry, you see, since we're told that the prevailing trend is that the market will eventually go up, up, up. Which means those of us throwing money into the stock market now are either tremendously wise for taking advantage of the current situation, or are pushing on under blind optimism.

People who trade stocks for a living definitely operate with some kind of aplomb, cuz there's no way that the average person can manage, lest they suffer heart attack after heart attack. It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, especially with these ridiculous daily gains and losses every single day, so it's pretty easy to want to sell at the first sign of trouble.

As far back as memory serves, we've been in recessions every 7-10 years. Surely since the cycle is so predictable, we can take advantage of that, right? Buy when others are selling and prices are low, sell when others are buying and prices are high? Isn't that conventional wisdom? I've always thought that the stock market is like a two year old, prone to tantrums when it's sad or scared, happiness and giggling when it gets something it likes.

On a related, yet completely unrelated note, BofA has been calling to pitch this credit monitoring service for months now, and I finally caved in to their 30 day trial. This was 28 days ago, so I called to cancel. Not because I didn't like it, I just didn't want to be charged $13 a month.

It's like a gym membership. Once they take hold, and they have a claw-like grip on you, and they don't let go until you pry their desperate fingers off, one digit at a time.

The three tactics they use:
-First, the endless questions. He was pretty courteous, asking all the standard things.
"Was there anything you didn't like?" "No, I just to opt out."
"Do you already use another service?" "No, I just to opt out."
"Is there anything we can do to improve..." "No, I just to opt out."
(Internal monologue: Poor poor fellow, he's probably gotten to the point where we repeats this script in his sleep.)
-Two, the tough guy approach. Spouting off statistics about identity theft, warning that it happened to him, it could happen to you. You have good credit now, don't like anyone ruin it, since it could happen to you. 900 millions incidents of blah-blah-blah, especially during the holidays, so it could happen to you... Stores aren't making as much money, they'll sell all of your private data, and it'll happen to you... You hear it in the news, so it will happen to YOU. I stayed silent during his entire 10 minute spiel, just figured that the more he talks, the more he's just wasting his time. (Internal monologue: God, this guy is desperate. Oooo, look! A bird just flew by the window... Is he done talking yet? Hmmm, I'm kinda hungry. Can't he just shut up now?)
-Three, the clingy friend trying to guilt you into not dumping him. Giving away concessions and all that stuff. "Would it help if it was $8.99 a month instead?" Frankly, sometimes it just turns me off, the more they push, the more they try to persuade. (Internal monologue: Good, he's almost done talking.)

It's not that I don't want to protect my credit. I mean, I take all the little steps needed to make sure that my info is protected, like shredding sensitive documents and not freely giving away my social security number (by the way, it's 555-12-3456).

This sorta reminds me of Lisa's Tiger-Repellant Rock.
Homer: “Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!”
Lisa: “That’s specious reasoning, dad ... By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.”
H: “Hmm, how does it work?”
L: “It doesn’t work, it’s just a stupid rock!”
H: “Uh-huh.”
L: “… but I don’t see any tigers around, do you?”
H: “Lisa, I want to buy your rock…”

Oh man, Simpsons taught me everything I know about life. Too bad they don't make them like they used to.

Freedom fries

I know I'm three or four years too late on the freedom fries bit, but I still thought it's better than the other one I had in mind: "Feel free to shove fries in your mouth however the hell you want."

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Whether you get yours from McDonaldas, In-N-Out, or even make your own (I'm going to buy my own deep fryer one day), there's a certain charm about the classic American side dish, French fries. While not exactly comfort food in the same way that mashed potatoes are, it is for people who spend a lot of time out on the freeway, as I've been doing the past few months. While fries are basically the same everywhere, variations on condiments/accoutrements run the gamut from seasoning salt, pepper, mayonnaise, even ice cream. (Try having a Neapolitan shake and dipping fries in it.) Nothing beats good ol' ketchup, though.

Believe it or not, how you eat your fries can say a lot about you, or at least I'd like to think so. (Who knows, perhaps subconsciously, I judge people based on their fry eating habits.) Do you squeeze a whole packet of ketchup on one side of your tray of fries and dive into your ketchup reserve? Or do you tear open a tiny corner of your ketchup packet and carefully apply it one by one?

The suicide drown
The suicide drown is a savage free for all, best for getting the most amount of fries and ketchup into your mouth in as short a time as possible. Step 1: Pull out your entire tray of fries from your take-out bag, as well as several packets of ketchup. Step 2: Rip open each packet and squeeze directly on top of the entire contents of the tray, preferably smothering the fries in an even manner. Bonus points if the entire surface of the tray is covered in red. Step 3: Dive in, fingers first, into the sticky, sweet and sour mess.

Analysis: This method works well because it's fast, and all the prep work is done at the beginning of the meal. However, do note that only the top layer of fries receives a coating of ketchup, leaving the bottom dwellers bare. Works if you think it's all the same once it reaches the stomach. If you believe in the trickle down theory, some excess ketcup may trickle to the bottom of the tray, but we all know that that's a pile of BS. Messiness factor is high, as you WILL reach your hand into a pile of ketchup. Lick clean and proceed. Another con is that if fries are not finished on one sitting, they'll get all sticky and soggy.

Squeeze and dip
This method is similar to the suicide drown method in that all of the leg work is done at the beginning. Step 1: Pull out tray of fries and several packs of ketchup. Step 2: Shove fries aside, forming a well or a corner pocket of the tray which will serve as a depository for ketchup. Step 3: Squeeze the entire contents of the ketchup packs into the space specially created. Alternate: When no space is available due to the running over of fries, you may opt to use a napkin or torn off piece of the takeout bag as a tray for ketchup. Fine dining establishments like In-N-Out provide small disposable cups for this purpose, which also saves the extra packaging needed.

Analysis: Again, the legwork is done prior to chowing down, so all you have to do is dip and enjoy. Compared to the suicide drown method, this is cleaner in that you will not have to stick your hand into ketchup. Fingers will still be greasy, though that's always expected. All of your fries will receive at least a small amount of ketchup, depending on technique and rate of depletion of ketchup. Shorter fries will get the same amount of ketchup as longer fries, which is not a good thing. The baby fries that you inevitably get at the bottom will be difficult to dip or will land your fingers in the pool of red. Difficulty increases somewhat if you try this method whilst in a moving vehicle, for lack of a stable surface on which to rest your ketchup. This is an ineffective use of ketchup, as you will almost always either run out of ketchup before you're finished, or there will still be a small unused portion of ketchup remaining. For all of the above, messiness factor is intermediate.

One at a time
With this method, each fry is taken out one by one, ketchup applied fromthe packet directly onto the fry, and then consumed immediately. Step 1: Tear off a small corner of the ketchup packet. Step 2: Pull out one fry. Step 3: Squeeze ketchup out on the entire length of the fry, minus where your fingers are, of course. Step 4: Consume, and repeat step 2 through 4. When ketchup packet is empty, go back to step 1 and repeat.

Analysis: This is a method for the patient and meticulous. It is highly time consuming, labor intensive, and certainly is not recommended if you are in a rush. However, it is also the cleanest in that you have fine control over where and how much ketchup is applied. With proper technique, it is possible to attain a consistent ratio of ketchup to fry length. This method works well while traveling as a passenger in a moving vehicle, but does require intense concentration and both hands, so it is not appropriate for a driver. Again, I stress, do not drive while eating fries this way. Ketchup is used efficiently, as you will only open as many packets as are needed to finish your fries. Bring the unopened packets home and save them in a jar which you will most likely never touch again.

The fork alternative
Some people say that you can avoid the mess if you just eat with a fork. You think so, huh? Well, go back to France, ya sissy bastards!

Since I've been offering a Simpsons quote every post, this time I'll leave it at the end. For several (good) reasons, which will not be enumerated. Here goes: "H: So I says to him, Red M&M, Blue M&M, it all turns out the same color in the end."