The Build from Hell: Part IV: Christmas Morning: Part II: Network Nuisances

...First Blood, Part II: Revengeance of the Revengening: The Sequel: Episode I: Breaking Dawn.

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine doesn't explode. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and don't get electrocuted. You turn a knob on a faucet and acid doesn't come out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

So as we read in the last chapter, Christmas morning is rapidly deteriorating from "spend wonderful time with wonderful family" into "fight to the death with technology". At least now we can actually see stuff on a screen. This is a big step forward. The next step is to plug in the network adapter.

I have a fancy-dancy D-Link USB wireless network adapter that I used to connect the old computer to our wireless network, so I didn't need to run a 50' network cable from the den to the living room. The wireless network doesn't work when the baby monitor handset is turned on. Weird, but irrelevant to our tale.

I installed the drivers for it, plugged it in, and attempted to connect to the network. It connected, but--oddly--had no internet connection. Windows' network troubleshooter was exactly as useful as a screendoor on a submarine. I tried resetting the adapter, resetting the connection, unplugging and replugging the adapter, cussing at it, sacrificing a goat to Baal. No dice.

I checked the router page, and it showed the computer was connected and had an assigned IP address, however, running ipconfig on the computer showed a different address, not in the given subnet. A google search showed that sometimes, D-Link's built-in software could conflict, and there were recommendations to remove that, install the driver only, and use the Windows network connections to connect. Tried that and it still didn't work.

At this point, I was out of time and patience, so I just left it and went to take care of the boys. About 30 minutes later I returned and, hey! An internet connection! Aren't the best problems the ones that solve themselves? Actually, not at all, because then you don't know how to fix it when it inevitably occurs again.

The Build from Hell: Part III: Christmas Morning: Part I: Display Dilemmas

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine starts. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and someone answers on the other end. You turn a knob on a faucet and water comes out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

As I forgot to mention in parts I and II, the Build from Hell (which we shall from henceforth refer to by its given name "HiFi" because that's kinda what the case looks like) was intended to be a Christmas present for "Rie" and by "Rie" I mean primarily for myself, but Rie can use it too.

When I ordered the parts, I had them shipped to work, and I assembled it there, so Rie wouldn't know about it. My vision was that early on Christmas morning, before Rie got out of bed, I'd set up the computer in the living room, then cook her breakfast, so she'd arise to two perfect children, a perfect hubby, a perfect breakfast, and a nice shiny new computer under the TV.

The reality is she woke up to two screaming children, no breakfast, and a hubby who was fussing and fuming at a computer that wouldn't DO WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO, GORAMMIT!

Ah, Christmas, that magical time of year when our thoughts turn to peace, love, and disemboweling the graphics chip set designers at AMD and HIS.

The specific issue here was one of display. The video card has two DVI outputs and one HDMI output. I figured I could just use the HDMI output to hook it straight into the TV. This has the advantage of a) it does not require an adapter, which the DVI connections would need to plug into the TV's VGA connector, b) it does not require any additional audio cables, since HDMI carries an audio signal as well (and the video card has a built-in audio card!), and c) it would make flipping to the computer easier, since the TV's remote has a shortcut button for the HDMI inputs, but not for the VGA.

So I hooked up the computer and powered it on. It POSTed, everything looked fine, it started Windows, then the screen went blank. After waiting about five minutes, I realized something was up (maybe it hung, maybe it was the hard drive issue), so I restarted. Same thing.

The Build from Hell: Part II: Assembly

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine starts. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and someone answers on the other end. You turn a knob on a faucet and water comes out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

So, when we last met our intrepid hero, he had just ordered the components for the Ultimate HTPC of Ultimate destiny. He had also decided to refer to himself in the third person.

Order was placed on a Thursday. Parts arrived on Friday, except the case, which arrived the following Monday. Eager to put the thing together, I dove into the boxes, ripping them open. Everything was good and new and shiny and OH, DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN!

The Build from Hell: Part I: Shopping

Isn't it nice when things just work? You get in your car, turn the key, and the engine starts. You pick up the phone, push some buttons, and someone answers on the other end. You turn a knob on a faucet and water comes out.

This is the way computers should be and, until recently, the way they had been working for me. That all changed with The Build from Hell.

So, as is becoming an annual custom, at my yearly review, my boss informed me that they had underpaid me by quiggly-thousand dollars (again) this year, so I'd be receiving a large check to cover the balance. This should make me furious that they've been underpaying all my (snerk) "hard work", but, for some reason, I look forward to this inevitable occurrence. Probably because, like an IRS refund, the brain just interprets it as FREE MONEY! WOOHOO! when it's actually been my money all along, and someone else was just holding on to it, interest free. Secondly, because this is the closest I ever get to a Christmas bonus. You see, my company doesn't pay Christmas bonuses, because our directors are too busy taking the entire UK staff up to the Lake District to stay in a rented castle (I imagine it looks like Hogwarts), so they need us poor saps in the US to stay in the office during the week between Christmas and New Years and if we could just come in on Saturday that would be greeeeeeat.

So I actually almost prefer that they don't pay me all my salary over the year, but save some until the very end, so it feels like I'm getting an end-of-the-year bonus. So long as we don't tell me brain, it's happy to live in its own little delusion.

All of this is a very roundabout way (or "traffic-circular" way, for those in the US) of pointing out that I recently had a bunch of money burning a hole in my pocket. Instead of doing something responsible with it, like investing in a college fund for Damien and Anthony, or paying off my credit card or student loans, I decided it was time to upgrade our living room computer.

When I last upgraded my desktop computer, I took the old one and hooked it up to the TV to create a home theater-esque PC. Since we didn't have a good DVD player in the living room, this was what we used, and since the TV's speakers were crappy, but we have a nice THX-certified 200 watt speaker system for computer, this was our method of actually hearing audio from the TV. But the computer was getting old. I built it nearly 8 years ago, right after we got married, when it was totally the rage to have a computer with enough fans to power a NASA wind tunnel. The thing was loud. Loud enough to drown out audio from the TV, and since it needed to be on to get audio for the TV, it was its own Catch-22. Also, the DVD drive had about a 10% success rate on reading DVDs, so the whole purpose of using it to watch movies was kind of defeated.

I decided now was the time to upgrade to a real Home Theater PC, with Blu-ray support. We've had a 1080p TV for about 4 years now, but with no Blu-ray player, only 720p cable TV HD, and a video card manufactured in the Dark Ages of twenty-aught-four, before 1920x1080 was a commonly-supported video card resolution, we had no way of using all 360 of those extra rows.

Prescience

Me, in 2009: "Visual Studio needs achievements."

Microsoft, yesterday: "Visual Studio is getting achievements."

This Is Why I Joined the Schola

...because we get to sing cool stuff like this:

"Alma Redemptoris Mater" for SATB and sleeping baby by Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina.

Please Do Not Plant Bombs in the City

So the Murloc and I have been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. For those of you not in the know, it's  the Star Wars version of WoW. I may talk about it in more depth later, but for now, there's a particular quest that caught my attention and I had to highlight it.

Here's the quest text:

"Dear New Yorkers. Al Qaeda has left several bombs in Times Square. We think we got them all, but if you happen across any, could you please pick them up and drop it off in one of the handy bomb-disposal bins we've left around the city?"

The mission requires that you locate four bombs stuck to walls, lamp posts, and other features of the city and take them to a bomb disposal unit, which deactivates them with the sound of a garbage compactor.

I swear, every time I picked up one of these, I heard Yakety Sax

 Once you've removed the bomb from its place, a one minute timer starts, after which it will explode, damaging you for about half health. The bomb disposal unit is centrally located, a quick jog away, but shares a 5-10 second cooldown with all other players in the game. That means that once one player has activate it, no other players can use it for about 5-10 seconds.

Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.

This must have been a fun quest to do immediately after launch, when a dozen other players are trying to get the quest done. I imagine a queue of players standing at the bomb disposal unit trying to get rid of them, and all waiting for it to refresh. Sort of like a game of hot potato with explosive consequences.