.:: Home :: Brain Drippings :: Creative Endeavors :: Personal News :: Downloads ::. |
Wrapping up another month!And just in time too... it's February Eve! I feel bad that I haven't written anything in the past month, but it's been a busy time & I have no excuse other than that I
have posted something on the web, just not visibly. I guess this is a fine time to make my new hobbies visible! Introducing:
The second new project I've begun this past month is a blog devoted to my vocation, the IBM AS/400 aka the "System i". It seemed that just about every week some odd problem would crop up requiring an odd solution. This is the log of those exploits. There are only a few posts at the moment & most of it will be really dry *AND *OR incomprehensible to those who aren't familiar with the system. Take a look & leave me some comments, or better yet, blog roll me if you feel the need to seed. http://www.ericles.com/wrkreginf/ Another hobby I've picked up this month stems from a Christmas gift of a GPS device. It's one of those hand-held gizzies
that's sold as a hiker's assistant. I've been lost a few times on foot & bike & figure this device will pull my bacon out of the fire. It's
small enough to toss into the saddle back on my bike or carry in a pocket. Most importantly, it can help me find Geocaches! Geocaching is the sport of
treasure hunting using a GPS device. It's an outdoor adventure sport that appeals to out-doorsie types & families & Adventure Buddy Clubs! I
signed up with three of the larger Cache-fanatic websites & have been hunting & finding for a few weeks now. Heather even went out with me last
week & found a cache all by herself! Here's my current stats: One other thing taking up precious precious father time is computer maintenance. Heather's PC went black two weeks ago & couldn't be persuaded to show us anything more than a black screen. We went through all of the standard diagnostics for a blown video card including checking the voltage of the ancillary power connector (Those crazy GeForce cards require crazy juice). Long story short, the video card could not be resuscitated& a new one was ordered up via our friend Mr. Internet. Last week my hard drive started to fail. I check on the SMART status of the drive with every boot, but alas, SMART doesn't have much to say about the little problem I call Sticky Heads. As best I understand (that is to say, not a glimmer in the faintest), the drive incorrectly detects that something is preventing either the spinning of the disc or the free movement of the heads & refuses to spin up the drive resulting in a non-booting PC. This is probably one of those "immanent failure" kinda pre-warning-warnings, but I've seen hard disks continue to live for years with this condition. The remedy? Give it bop. That's right, a slight jostle (while powered down) will force the drive to be no longer confused & 95% of the time it will spin up correctly with the next power cycle. It's the absolute coolest thing for an IT professional to have at their disposal... it's so Fonzie to walk up to a computer that appears completely dead (even novices recognize the black screen of death), give it the old thump with your hip and ~Poof~ it starts right up! It wont earn you friends or get you laid, but damn... it feels good. Well, when it's not your own personal HD dying anyway. The current sweet spot for HD capacity vs dollars is 320GB so I ordered up a pair & that should satisfy my needs... until the next month-end-wrap-up. That's all for now. Catch ya next time! Linkies!: | ||
1/31/2007 |