Updates! The computer lives (sort of), Obabscribbler did a reading, and other stuff · 8:12pm Jul 30th, 2017
Yesterday morning, I ran to Best Buy and got some new memory for my machine. They had a sale on 4GB DDR sticks ...
Episode screencap
(not that kind of DDR)
...but of course all the on-sale ones were out, so I got a stick of 8GB instead, as well as some of those duster cans, because I figured it was probably a bit of a horrorshow inside my case.
[if y'all want to TL:DR the computer saga, skip down to Nelson]
Topaz Moon lives not too far from me, and had kindly offered to help me out. So I next headed to Topaz's house.
First off, we opened up the case and blew out several years worth of dustbunnies, and then tried pulling memory sticks and switching which socket they were in, but it was no go. The memory wasn't bad; something else was. So, the next step was to try and save everything off the hard drive before proceeding any further. Hooked it up into another computer, along with my portable drive, and spent at least an hour, maybe more, transferring all the important files to the portable drive.
After that, the most important task had been accomplished, we set about trying to fix the OS. Sadly, that didn't go as well. If I have installation disks (which is a possibility; the computer might have come with them), they're well-hidden. Probably in the original package.
And it might not have come with installation disks anyways; some machines let your make your own. A lot of them have cupholders DVD toasters these days, and Microsoft can save a couple bucks by letting you make your own backup . . . and if you don't, whose fault is that?
So we finally went with the nuclear option--let Windows wipe out the hard drive and reinstall itself. And once that was done, lo and behold, the Gateway booted again, and I got to go through the setup process all over again.
The next important step was installing updates; obviously, it had reinstalled itself as it had originally been, and there were literally hundreds of updates it wanted. I think the first run had nearly 2GB of update files.
That took a while, but it got done.
And then of course it found more updates it wanted, and the process began anew.
Somewhere along the line, the computer got tired of installing updates. It decided to freeze on the 'checking for updates' screen multiple times and had to be rebooted, and it also crashed upon installing some important security update.
Around 11 at night, we finally gave up. It had most of the updates; we'd manually deleted all the update files to let it try again and done all the other things that you're supposed to do when your windows machine is trying to turn into a brick.
As far as we could tell, the machine works. The Windows install isn't happy, but it does appear to be functional.
Just the same, this morning I decided it might be a safer option to buy a new machine, and keep the old one as a backup. And I had to go to Best Buy anyways, in order to return the unneeded memory.
And, I'll confess that I had already gotten a look at the machines that they were offering, and a couple of them had been kind of tempting.
In case you didn't know, you can now buy pre-built gaming machines at Best Buy. The kind that have fancy cases with a window in the side so you can see when you need to dust the case (they even have lights to make it easier to see all the dust bunnies). They're sleek and sexy and while they probably aren't fancy enough to write ponyfics for me, the refresh rate to the monitor is fast enough that I'd be seeing words almost before I actually typed them.
And there's a small part of me that thought about how funny it would be to discuss the purchase with a Best Buy employee and eventually reveal to him that I was going to use it nearly exclusively for word processing.
Being a cheap bastard won out, and I got the second-cheapest Lenovo they had.
Interestingly, aside from only having 4GB of RAM, it has essentially the same specs as my old machine, yet cost half as much as I'd paid for that one.
So now I'm back online at full capability, and I can type on a real keyboard instead of the mush-keys that my laptop has.
I also should finally get around to setting up some sort of automatic backup. Of course, I probably won't; I'll probably keep putting it off and then at some point years in the future this computer will also suddenly decide it's had enough and I'll be doing the same dance over again; should that actually happen, y'all are welcome to come back to this blog, copy this paragraph, and post it along with a screencap of Nelson mocking me.
I'll make it easy and include the screencap
And now moving on!
Obabscribbler has done another reading of one of my stories: The Narrator Hears Twilight. She's super-sneaky, and so the only reason I knew was that all of a sudden, Not Another One-Shot-Ober got a bunch of new favorites, and I couldn't figure out why. 
Secondly, I am going to be at Bronycon again this year, from sometime on Thursday until they kick us out on Sunday (and I won't be leaving Baltimore until Monday, which might give me the chance to do another bad shipfic collab with Super Trampoline . . . I'm sure you can't wait for that).
The week after Bronycon, I'm going to be interviewed on the Barcast. At some point before the interview (I think it's about a week), they'll open up a forum thread so that y'all can post questions you want to ask me. Won't that be fun?
And if you miss the broadcast, you can always catch up later when they post it on YouTube.
Given that the 'week before' is going to conflict with Bronycon, and I don't know when they're actually going to post the link (and I might very well forget [in fact, there's a reasonable chance I will]) I'm going to give the link to their group right now, so that the stalkieriest of stalkers can get their questions in early.
Note that it's a mature group.
Since it's reasonable to assume that one of the first questions that people will ask is 'New chapter of OPP when?' I probably ought to give you a status update.
Right now, I've got most of the next chapter roughed out. My intention was to have it all finished by last Friday and send it to my pre-readers, giving them lots of time to go over it before Bronycon. Of course, my computer had different ideas, and as a result I'm several days behind.
I think that if all goes well, I ought to be able to have it ready for my pre-readers by Monday night, and if I do manage, and if they don't find anything too horribly wrong with it, I should have the chapter up just before Bronycon. If not, then it'll be just after, I guess.
Probably ought to close with another cute pony pic.
Source
So you decided on a new one after all. Lol, we could have done that yesterday, copied all the files to the new one, then... gone out back with my gun and disposed of the malfunctioning computer.
Or use baseball bats (or a crowbar, not sure if I have a baseball bat in the garage anymore) and do it Office Space style.
Was still a fun day, though.
If you're looking for backup software, I recommend CrashPlan. $60/year gets you unlimited backup space. And it's versioned, which means that if you get hit by ransomware and it encrypts all your stuff and that gets backed up, you can just roll back to a previous backup.
Set it once and forget about it--that's the only kind of backup that works reliably, in my experience. We spend so much time in front of our PCs - $60/year is well worth the knowledge that your computer could get hit by a virus and/or a meteor and all your files will be fine.
Wait, you mean we have a 10% chance of having an OPP chapter this year?!?
I have to admit to simple tastes. Windows 10 with Chrome, and Google Documents. Between work and home, I've got about six machines that I bounce around to and from, so keeping files locally is a lost cause.
Okay, not that I am a Microsoft fanboy, and I don't like every facet of Windows 10, but one thing it does do well, at least in my experience, is make automatic backups to a local drive easy. Biscuit, go buy yourself a $50-60 1TiB external drive, hook it up, set up file history with 3-hour intervals, and forget about it.
It's easy and cheap, and while it isn't as secure as a remote backup in the event of catastrophe, it is an extra layer of redundancy that you'd be remiss not to make. Just open the system settings, go to Update and Security, and then the Backup tab. Set the destination drive, backup interval, and time to keep the backups, and you're done.
Ahhhhh yeeeeee.
( we should see if we can rope a few other authors in as well.
4618180
I thought that was probably the smartest thing to do--since we can't be confident that the old one will keep on working.
I am reluctant to kill it, though--it does still work, and I do need a second computer. I was going to use my sketchy, obsolete laptop with an external monitor, but I can instead use the desktop and have much better performance.
It was indeed.
4618188
Hmm, that's not a bad idea. Not sure it would work well with my setup; my computer isn't online except when I'm actually using it, and if it slowed down my onlineness, I'd probably just cancel the file upload 'just this once,' and eventually that would be the same as having no backup.
I do like the idea that it protects from ransomware, though. I don't think I'm too likely to get it, although probably everybody who gets it says that.
4618222
A very good chance, actually. Especially now that I have a decent backup computer if my primary goes down again. I'd like to get it out before Bronycon, although I can't promise that for sure.
And then I'll do my damnedest to not go a year between updates going forward.
4618235
I don't run that many different machines, although I do have three or four that I write on. The desktop is primary, but the two laptops get some use as well, and I've also written ponywords on the shop computer. Heck, I used to sometimes write them on my cellphone with a portable keyboard.
That's actually why I wasn't worried about losing anything ponywords related--it was all on gDocs anyways.
4618386
If you'd rather do your backups offline, you can actually do that without the $60/year subscription - you just need to buy a big enough hard drive and tell it to back up to that. Crashplan will monitor the folders you tell it to monitor and create versioned backups.
That will protect you against viruses and a crash of your PC's hard drive. Then, if you want protection against a house fire, buy another hard drive, keep it somewhere else, and swap them every so often.
4618248
You're supposed to wait until after I forget to set up a backup and the new computer dies. Although I suppose a preemptive strike's good, too.
4618289
That's not a bad idea at all. I've got two external drives; one's a 4TB and I can't remember how big the other one is. Anyways, that'll be a good solution for everything except complete destruction of the house or theft (and since I am currently using the same shelf for working computers and dead computers, any thief probably isn't going to know what to take).
4618361
I'm trying to convince Bad Horse to do it. I think he needs to experience the joys of writing something where you don't give a f
k.
4618396
Apparently (according to Sir Mediocre) there's already a utility on Windows 10 that will backup to an external drive. Just using that would be a pretty good solution; certainly better than my current 'do nothing and hope for the best' method.
Although I do like the idea of online backups, just in case the worst happens.
4618402
single back up.
always do 2 back up's just to be sure you get every thing.
my pc is set to do a external back up every week and I do a full back up 1 time a month.
yep I may be a bit paranoid but I have it all on too different externals and the one is in a fire safe in a building out side of the house.
4618402
The really funny thing is that I have over $5000 worth of electronics of various forms on and around my desk and in my living room, where my desk and printer and router and such are, but most thieves would probably go for the old Samsung TV and cheap LG speakers I have on the TV table.
... and not, for example, the expensive Sennheiser headphones, the heavy, expensive PC, 10bit monitor, or the bike.
Edit: Hit post too soon. The bike, for reference, is nearly seven years old, but it's a Specialized trail bike; right up there with the like of Trek.
I have so much expensive stuff in my house, but most of it is inaccessible at
speed.
I didn't put one in mine, I used my laptop for three years and never used the disk drive (I ended up replacing the disk drive with an ssd). You can actually get the OS on a flashdrive instead of a disk these days.
Everyone has their own backup plans, so I'll tout mine: I make a rescue disk CD and a system image for every computer I have. On the rescue disk label, I write down which portable hard drive I stored the image on, and then I tape the rescue disk, in its envelope, to the computer.
If I ever have to use the image, it will return the computer to the same state it was in when I made the image. If I wanted a larger hard drive, I could replace the hard drive with the larger one, run the rescue disk/image, and have a clone of the old drive on the new drive.
After that, you have to use Window's disk manager to increase the size of your partition to the size of the drive...
The only problem is--Window's system image restore application won't let you search the portable hard drive for your image file. It has to be saved to the root directory of the drive, so you can save only one image per drive unless you want to go swapping files in and out of the root directory. Annoying, but workable.
Were you putting a single 8GB module in a PC with two 2GB modules already in it? Because mixing non-matching RAM modules can be very problematic. Even modules with matching manufacturers, sizes, memory clock speeds, and timings can cause problems if they're from different production runs. Also, using unpaired modules locks them into single channel mode, reducing speed.
Also, if you're only web browsing and word processing, why not stick Linux on the old PC? It'll run faster, loves older hardware, and won't require the gobs of updates upon installation. You can even try it it out without installing or deleting anything just by running it right off the installation media (DVD or USB Flash memory stick, although that won't run as fast as off the HDD.)
4618405
I'm already pretty crazy excited and fanboying to meet Bad Horse in Person, but to write a story with him? I just might explode.
Ah the big box pre-built machine
You were doomed from the start there unfortunately, most always something goes horribly wrong and the OS becomes unstable and eventually crashes outright.
Hell on my moms comp, Internet Explorer IMPLODED on itself. It wont work, it refuses to work.
It's healthy to do a clean OS reinstall every couple years anyway. Though to buy a new rig without fully understanding what went wrong shouldn't sit right with you. Nobody like a cold case or unsolved mystery nettling the back of the mind.
And yeah, give a Linux distro a try. The buntu family, Mint and Zorin are generally considered most friendly.
4618432
Unintentionally, that's happened with some of my systems. But it's not something that I do religiously.
4618446
Yeah, most thieves are looking for something that's quick and easy, and can be resold quickly for a profit. Anything they've got to work for, they usually don't want.
Looks are also a major factor. I'm tempted to get a flatscreeen exactly the size of the old broken projection TV I have, and fit it inside the case, knowing that nobody ever would steal a projection TV.
4618493
I like the cupholder, because currently it's my only way to watch movies.
4618499
Ooh, that's a really good idea, especially if you've got multiple computers.
Probably sticking it to the case with a magnet is a less good idea.
4618579
No, we were going to pull all the memory that was already in it (since we thought it might be bad) and replace it with the single 8GB stick. I do know that you're not supposed to mix and match memory, since computers don't like that.
That would require me to learn Linux. While I probably could, eventually, the only way I'd get decent at it would be if I stopped using any Windows machines and forced myself to learn the new system. Heck, the only reason that I'm good at DOS (well, I was 20 years ago anyways) was from using old machines that didn't have Windows on them.
4618819
I don't know if we can legit convince him to do it, but I really feel the need to try. I think he might find it enjoyable.
4618916
On the plus side, it'll probably work reliably (if somewhat slowly) for a few years, whereas if I built it myself, odds are that it would start smoking as soon as I plugged it in.
4618944
Something got corrupted in Windows--what, I don't know, and I'm not nearly enough of a software engineer to figure it out. The reinstall worked, more or less, but it kept getting hung up on updates, and I just don't trust it anymore. I think it's good as a second machine, and quite possibly will be for years to come, but I don't trust it as my primary machine any more.
If I was feeling really frisky, I could nuke the HDD down to nothing and do a completely clean install of an OS, and I think that would work okay.
But I can tell you as a auto technician that sometimes it isn't worth spending the time for a complete answer. Like, we've got this Dodge Ram right now that doesn't run. It came in 5 quarts low on oil, and I checked compression on a couple of cylinders on the right side (they were the easiest to get to) and got 25psi on the front one, and 0psi on the rear one. Now, I could tear into it and find out what failed internally, but why bother? The engine's dead, and we all know that running your engine out of oil will kill it . . . what would I really learn spending hours and hours pulling the thing apart?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/instantanswers/512a5183-ffab-40c5-8a68-021e32467565/windows-update-troubleshooter
4620785
I have gotten to doing 2 back up's from running Minecraft servers just to be sure you have every thing so if you need to move a server or do a fast reload more to keep all the settings.
4620788
CDs don't care 'bout no magnets.
If you want to be neat-n-tidy, store the rescue CD inside the desktop computer's case. You'll probably open it anyway while trying to figure out what went wrong, and then you can say, "Just as I had planned all along! The rescue disk!"
If you're the "overachiever" sort, you could even save new image files occasionally.
It's fun to open your browser and see all the bookmarks you'd saved ...last year.
As a final twist on this, I made a rescue disk and image of Windows 7 just prior to doing the Windows 10 upgrade, and then I made another disk-and-image of Win10. In theory, I could now switch back and forth between operating systems. Maybe I'll dual-boot it.
The world needs more computers with multiple personality disorder.
4620818
For better or worse, I don't do anything overly fancy with my computer, so I can deal with failure as long as I can get online and get FimFiction and gDocs.
As long as I remember to back up camera photos and downloaded pony pics, I'm golden.
4620821
No, but the stuff inside the computer case probably does.
And the irony would be if the tape failed, the cd fell across the motherboard, and somehow shorted something important out.
My old Compaq thinks it's 1957.
4620802
You just need to get some knowledge and you can easily assemble a working machine. Theyre actually a lot simpler these days then they used to be back in the early 00's
Hell, Newegg has Barebones kits (pre-selected parts thats guaranteed to go together, but allows room to improve if desired if I understand it correctly)
4620856
Remember that I fixed my van with zip ties and sheet metal screws. I'm very likely to apply the same level of craftsmanship to a computer.
i.imgur.com/yo4Hop7.jpg
4620860
I attached a fan to a heatsink with that, does that count?
4620843
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch_(reference_date)#Computing
Once, the Unix Epoch and compatibility was even more worrisome than the "Y2K Bug."
Today, if you dualboot Windows 10 and Linux on the same system, they're likely to interfere with each other, since Windows 10 "apps" expect the system clock to be set for local time and linux sets the system clock to UTC. I ended up disabling windows' native time services and installed NetTime to keep it from resetting the system clock bios settings.
I don't want to hate on Microsoft too much, since they've set reasonable, rational standards just as much as they've fucked things up by trying to go their own way and force things into bullshit proprietary formats and standards. They're like the Loyal Opposition.
https://xkcd.com/743/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TFx9u1t1LY
Of course Windows 8-10 is a bloody car crash that subverts everything 7 did right by forcibly shoehorning in all manner of insulting-at-best bullshit to placate the lowest-common-denominator mobile users. But they're not alone. Even Linux was corrupted by the horrendous Unity Interface to try to attract iphone and Android users.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/ubuntu-unity-is-dead-desktop-will-switch-back-to-gnome-next-year/
4620811
We went through two versions of that. The second kind of worked, I think, although it was getting late at night and we never tried installing the one critical update that seemed to be the one that liked crashing the most.
Once I clear off a spot on the desk, I'll set the machine back up and try again, just to see what happens.
4620879
Sort of, I think. It'd be a lot more metal if you'd attached chips to the motherboard with zip ties (or sheet metal screws).
4621813
I think that's reasonable . . . I'm not a fan of them, but at the same time, I don't actively hate them, either. They set out to make an operating system that your average Joe could use, and they did that. Honestly, most things on every Windows machine I've ever used (3.1, 95, XP, 7, 8, 10) seems to work well enough. It's not great, but it gets the job done, and you don't really have to think about it too much. Plus, it comes free when you buy a machine from a big box store, and that's nice.
And Internet Explorer is really good at downloading Chrome, so that's a plus, too.
Windows 8's app screen sucked, although at least you could turn it off. It's a little bit better in 10; it's a more traditional setup, although I think that you can still get the dumb app block mode.
As for 7 . . . my only Windows 7 machine is so low-option that you can't even change the backdrop. These days, all I use it for is playing music. it's basically an iPod with a keyboard.
4623061
My friend LOVED the ziptie connection though
4623161
I admit, it's a reasonable one. They're good at strapping things together, and they're reasonably cheap.
Heck, I know how to make spark plug wire looms out of zip ties. Done it on a lot of cars where the originals are broken.
4624021
Quite so, so it stands perfectly to reason
*sneak sneak sneak*
4643816
Also I didn't know you were at Bronycon. More sneakiness.
4644245
That might be because I was in disguise.
https://twitter.com/ObabScribbler/status/897209894058827776
4644789
If I'd found you, you could have disguised as Admiral Biscuit.
4644887
Neighrator Pony swears he saw you at the airport on the Monday. Cygnus tried describing you to see if it checked out but he stopped at 'treelike'.
4645059
I drove, so it wasn't me at the airport. Could have been someone else with an Admiral Biscuit shirt--all the cool people have them.
I look a lot like this:
3.bp.blogspot.com/-M0abNkotEmM/UDZej_Qc8GI/AAAAAAAAGFQ/oKf861VjKD4/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/Sasquacth+has+coffee.png