Geekiness

I've been busy being a geek this week. Two years ago, I recieved back a computer that I had gotten for a friend of ours. It's just an e-machine, but it doesn't have bad specs for processor speed and memory (800 mhz and 384 RAM - not a gaming machine by any means but plenty powerful for what I need). Anyway, when I got the computer back, I noticed that the friend had never updated the virus protection so I did what any sensible geek would do and formatted the hard drive (gets rid of most nasty buggies).

Naturally, it wasn't until after I had reformatted and re-installed Win 98 that I realized that I had no video driver for the thing. When I had originally set up the computer, I had to go to a website to install the correct driver - this was 2 years later and I had no clue what the website was. When I set up the computer originally, I had thought I was being smart and stored all the drivers on my personal computer. Well, if you remember, I killed that computer and had to get a new one. Thus, the video driver was gone. All the rest of the drivers were small enough to fit on a floppy disk, so I was okay with them, but the video driver was too big (and I didn't have a CD burner at the time), so I had no other back up of that one.

So, the result was that I was stuck with a very basic video driver and really no incentive to go thru the hassle of figureing out what I needed. Now that WS has actually done a couple things on my computer (make out forms for work and CD labels for CD's he is burning off of old vinyl albums), I figured I would set up the emachine for him. I was able to find an upgrade for Win XP for only $69. I got it on Thursday (from an e-tailer) and installed it Thursday night. The beauty is that not only does it bootup faster, and not only is XP 100 times more stable than 98, but it also updated the video driver for me (plan A). Now, all I need to do is get a splitter for my printer so that it can be used by the emachine, and he will be in business.

I also got an extremely cheap upgrade for AutoCAD 2005. I had 2001 from when I worked at PLTD (when they shut down the company I was given the computer that contained the 2001 software, AND the software package itself - woohoo!). I have been using CAD to make the plot plan for my landscaping class, and the upgrade makes several things easier. On Friday I accomplished that upgrade.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to upgrade the weather around here (in the 30's and had sleet yesterday).

Comments

[Cop Car]

Good going, Bogie!! I'm amazed at what progress you've made with leading WS toward computerdom--and using XP to get the drivers was a stroke of inspiration, if not genius. Good luck on the weather. We had a thunderstorm hit about two minutes ago. Just a couple of minutes before that, we had lured CC and Jelly in from the garage (they hadn't wanted to come in earlier, but I had left two of the garage doors "up" about 8 inches) and I noted that two barn swallows are hunkered down on the nails on the front porch (they just got in late last night or early this morning.) Why couldn't your 30 degrees average out with our 90s?

[rita]

We set up my old emachine for the grandson. Just the thing for him to play around on, runs his games with no probs. And it's pretty forgiving of his shutting it down incorrectly, considering that it's running WindowsME.

If you figure out how to adjust the weather, let me know. It's still horribly dry here, and the few thundershowers we've have all have detoured around us.

[bogie]

Cop Car - some progress. I've been working on him for close to 14 years - not much to show for it. Ah well, for a complete computerphobe, I guess he is progressing.

Rita - at least we got 1 1/4" of rain out of the deal. We desperately needed that, so I'll live with the cold weather. It's supposed to warm up to high 50's today (it was in the mid 40's yeasterday).

[Cop Car]

Hmm...our high, today, is to be just 50. We, too, received about 1.5-2.5 inches (HH is asleep so I can't ask him for a closer number.)