Sunday evening depression

[pseydtonne]

I'm sitting on my bedroom floor. I needed to type for a few minutes, if only to take a break from thinking about computer hardware. The majority of my spare time in the past couple months has involved solving problems for home computers.

At first this was fun. I enjoyed the possibilities that were coming from dumpster-diving for computers and solving problems by hand. Then I started performing the same acts over and over, with only slight changes, to fix previous errors. Now my own computer is still not working properly and I have to use Maggie's machine just to feel sane.

I am jealous of her newer machine. It is faster, of course. Penis envy, eh? I enjoy using this machine, but I know it is not my own. I want to set up certain things, but that would be an invasion of her turf. She gave me permission, but I still feel that I'd rather leave one machine in working order while my electronic hurricanes are still swirling.

My four-year-old computer is really starting to show its age, especially when I want to watch goofy Flash things. The computer I pulled from a dumpster has a new 40 GB drive but it cannot handle anything greater than 64 MB of RAM, which is a pittance. My cousin's computer is still not ready -- I cannot find two documents that agree about getting Win2k and Linux to share a drive and boot from that drive. My one success has been getting quinnclub from disarray to happiness.

What set me off was a phone call from my mother today. She asked if I was coming to visit next weekend, which I am. She then asked if I knew about getting my dad a PC because he needs something that can read all the legal crap he now receives only by CD-ROM. So I'm building him a computer from the dumpster box -- it won't be much, but it will be enough. It will get that box out of my apartment. It will mean spending a lot of Saturday teaching him how to use it. If I'd had more time (say, had she told me last Saturday), I could've found him a pre-built box for cheap at the MIT Flea. Instead, I'm making Quasimodem.

So I'm bummed, bugged out, spun on my head. I am looking forward to work, but I'm really looking forward to being away from computers for a couple days. I won't get that for another week.

I need a back rub.

-blaaaaaaaaaah, Dante

PS: Is anyone else getting the "your password is too guessable" warning over and over? My passwords are not dictionary words. Would tossing in capital letters shut it up?

Comments

[gingicat]

Sorry to hear you're having a bad weekend. If you want to hang out, let me know.

On the password thing, mine has a number in it and is not an obvious word; dunno if this helps. Also see http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=news&itemid=58868 for more info.

Best,
gingi

Thanks, good sir!

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the note. By the way, I didn't know when I selected "crappy" that the cartoon dude would be giving the finger. I feel crappy in the Strongbad way, not in the "get lost" way. Things are crap, but people would help.

-Population: Tire, Dante

Re: Thanks, good sir!

[gingicat]

Sir?

Sheesh, Dante, I thought you knew my commonly-used nickname.

mrowr

[(Anonymous)]

one backrub coming up in 16(ish) days. hopefully your spine won't break before then :D

i love you! hearts!

~M~

Penis envy? Nah.....

[fangirl715.livejournal.com]

Vagina envy would be more like it. ;-)

As for the password business, I got the same message, too, so I changed mine to a series of numbers that I'd remember, but hopefully no one else would know. So far, so good, I guess...

See you tonight, and if Rose isn't running around painting doors, what say we head up to Stoneham to their house and nail this down once and for all?

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

Then I started performing the same acts over and over, with only slight changes, to fix previous errors.

yeah. this particular facet of IT work sucks bigtime. you can call it "regression testing" if it makes you feel any better. :)

on the upside, the more frequently you do a particular task, the more habitual it becomes, and eventually you won't have to think too much (because you'll be able to trust yourself not to fuck things up on autopilot). once you've got a machine built, there are also plenty of tricks you can use to automate repetitive tasks, but the building still requires human intervention...

actually, come to think of it, if you can get one machine good and stable (perhaps Maggie's machine?) and use that as a server, you can set up Red Hat's Kickstart auto-installation software.

here's some documentation on how to do this. ask me if you want more info.

good luck,
steve

Red Hat won't work in this case...

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

This computer is for my dad. He is not digitally inclined. He is a lawyer, went to law school in the mid-Sixties. His idea of a computer is fairly limited. He is not a tinkerer the way I am.

So I'm building a Win98 machine. Oh, the thrills. Once I'm done, I'm going to be free to fix my own computer.

Thank you for the encouragement, though!

-back to the salt mine, Dante