What have I been doing?

Well, other than working my butt off at work, of course, I’ve been spending most of my time over at NewEgg’s Eggexpert. It’s a technology community. Everything as far as computers, game consoles, T.V.s, and just about anything else electronic. Except for Amateur Radio.

Other than that, I built a new computer.

I am now the proud owner of an AMD Phenom 9600 computer!

It has a lot of the latest components in it as well. The case is the Antec Mini P180. It normally sells for around $160.00. But I got it on sale for $69.99 including shipping from Newegg. The power supply is also Antec. The Antec Earthwatts EA430 430 watt power supply. Since my motherboard only has 1 PCI-E v2.0 video slot, I didn’t need a real big power supply to run the whole computer.

The motherboard is the GIGABYTE MA78GM-S2H. It has the AMD 780G chipset and will handle almost anything I decide to throw at it. It is a MicroATX motherboard because the case couldn’t handle a full size ATX motherboard.

The CPU is the AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition. It has a 512MB x 4 L2 cache and a 2MB L3 cache. This CPU does suffer from the B2 problem. But from what I’ve read, it is near impossible to make it happen under normal conditions. That includes playing most games. Even the more complex ones. The Black Edition CPUs have the to be over clocked. But I see no reason at this time to do that.

My video card is the Sapphire Radeon HD 4670. It has 512MB of video memory onboard. From what I have read in the reviews of this video card, it will blow away the nVidia 9500 and give the nVidia 9600 a run for its money. The funny thing is, this video card only costs $79.99.

For memory I chose to go with 3GIG of Kingston Value RAM. A 1GIG and a 2GIG dual channel kit. Both kits have a CAS 5 Latency, so it is fairly quick as far as the speed of the 800MHz. DDR2 memory goes.

The DVD Burner is the Samsung Black 22X. So far it seems to be a good DVD burner. This is my second Samsung DVD burner. My other is a 20X burner.

Both my hard drives came out of my old computer. Both are Western Digital SATA2 hard drives. A 320GIG and a 500GIG GREEN drive.

The new computer is running WindowsXP SP3 for an operating system. I’ll wait till the next version of Windows (Windows 7) comes out to make an operating change. Windows 7 is looking very promising. It looks like they have fixed many of the problems with Windows Vista. Including my biggest gripe, the User Account Control or UAC for short. That is the main reason I stopped using Windows Vista. The people that already have a BETA of Windows 7 say it is almost flawless even as a beta. That sounds very promising. If you are still running WindowsXP of any type, they suggest to wait till Windows 7 comes out to upgrade. The release date they are shooting for is somewhere in late 2009 or early 2010.

That’s what I’ve been up to!

Till Next Time!

Testing BlogJet

I have installed an interesting application – BlogJet. It’s a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” — Albert Einstein

What have I been doing Lately?

It’s been a LONG time since I entered anything into either of my 2 blogs that I have. (I have one over at Windows Live! Spaces too. Who doesn’t now a days?)

I have built myself a new computer not too long ago. It’s an AMD Athlon 64×2 5400. I have 2 hard drives  in it. A 250GB STAT1 and a 500GB SATA2. Both are Western Digitals.  Everything is AMD this time. There’s no nVidia or Via at all in the machine. The motherboard is a BioStar A770 A2+ with the AMD 770 chipset. (The best AMD has is the 790G. This is a step down from the top.) The memory is Crucial Ballistics 2GIG 800Mhz. DDR2 dual channel. The video card is a VisionTek  ATI 3650 PCI-E 2.0 with 512MB memory. It’s running Windows XP Professional 32-BIT SP3 for an operating system. (I found a place that was selling corporate editions of XP Pro and Office 2007 Enterprise Edition of $80.00. Both have “Unlimited Installs” so I can install them on as many computers as I want.) This new computer is a lot faster then my old AMD Athlon 64 3400 single core.

I’ve switched to using AVG Internet Security 8.0 instead of using either Norton or Mc Affee. It’s faster and doesn’t use as many resources as most others do. Besides, it came with a 2-year service contract, which gives me protection till 2010.

My mother bought a new computer herself. She’s over 70 years old and is pretty set in her ways.  She bought a Compaq Presairio SR5450F at Best Buy for under $400.00. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 loaded on it a long with the usual garbage programs. Needless to say, in a very short time (within a week of buying it), I has called apon to install Windows XP. Since my copy of XP Pro 32-BIT can not see the 500GB Samsung (ICK!) hard drive in it, I installed a copy of Windows XP Professional 64-BIT SP2 I had taken off my new computer. The installation went off without any hitches except I had to call Microsoft to activate it. I installed Office 2007 Enterprise on her computer since she does a lot of writing documents for different organizations she is a member of.  So far her computer is running just fine with no problems (cross my fingers). As long as she doesn’t play with the programs I’ve installed on her computer, it should run a long time with no worries.

It was my 51st birthday this past Friday. I spent all day at my mother’s house installing and updating the XP Pro 64-BIT. When I was finally done at her house, it was 3:00 in the afternoon. My right arm was sore after clicking the mouse so much installing everything. When I got home, my wife took the car to out local Target. She said she had prescriptions to pick-up. When she came home with “no prescriptions” at all, I knew what she had gone to the store for. My birthday present. She bought me a brand new Schwinn Clear Creek 26″ 18-Speed comfort bicycle. I had told her I wanted to get a bike so I could get some exercise. So far I’ve had it out on a short ride around the block since it’s been quite a long time since I’ve been on a bike. The bike is beautiful. I don’t feel any bumps in the road on it at all. I don’t have to bend my back at all either. Since I have a bad lower back, this helps a lot as well. We went out Saturday night to Texas Roadhouse in Coon Rapids, MN. for my birthday dinner. My mother went along and ended up buying for all 3 of us. It was quite good.

Well, that’s about it for now. I don’t know when I’ll get back here again. Hopefully it won’t be as long a time.

Operating System Changed

Well, I switched my operating system from Windows Vista Home Premium to WindowsXP Professional x64 Service    Pack 2.

Vista was becoming a pain in the rear not letting a lot of my older programs run. My favorite program for looking at my drives (Power Desk) stopped working awhile ago. This ticked me off. It also meant that other older programs would stop working as well.

So I decided to switch operating systems back to something that would work better and be more stable.

I picked the XP Professional 64-BIT version thinking it would be a little more secure then the 32-BIT version, which I’m pretty sure it is.

There are a few things I’m finding out about it though.

Any programs from Norton, McAffee, and Webroot will not work in a 64-BIT operating system environment. That means all the money I have invested in Norton and Webroot is down the tube. I just paid for another year on Webroot SpySweeper. At least my 2 sons can use it. It was a 3 license package.

So I bought AVG Internet Security. The current version is 7.5. At least I’ll have some protection while surfing the internet.

I also had to buy Diskeeper Professional 2008 to take care of my hard drives. I have all the versions of Diskeeper back to version 9. The problem was version 9 was a full version. All the rest are upgrades all the way to 2007. Wouldn’t you know, version 9 Professional isn’t compatible with a 64-BIT operating system and wouldn’t install because of it.

Here is something that is really funny.

Microsoft Live! programs will not work with 64-BIT machines.

But the Microsoft Live! Writer BETA does work with it. So I’m using the BETA to write to my blogs. I found a separate copy of Windows Live Messenger over on download.com and it also installed without a hitch.

That’s all for now!

Windows LIVE! Programs

 

For those of you that haven’t tried some of the Windows LIVE! programs, I would recommend you do just that.  Especially if you are running VISTA in any form.

The reason is simple.

When they built Vista, the mail program that comes with it is severely lacking in what it will support.  Some of us that got used to running Outlook Express are finding it lacks support for Internet Mail.  Which means you must go to the Internet to look at it.  Some of us would rather look at it in a program on our own computers that might have different capabilities. Windows LIVE! Mail fixes this problem and allows you to pull your mail from the Internet once again.  (Don’t ask me why Microsoft did this, but it was a very dumb move forcing you to download an additional program to accomplish this.)

I’m using Windows LIVE! Writer to write this blog and the other one I have. It’s very easy to use and has a quick set-up as long as you know where your blogs are and the login information.

Both LIVE! Mail and LIVE! Writer come with spell checkers. Something even Outlook Express didn’t come with.

Of course Windows LIVE! Messenger is available from this same site and it replaces both the original Windows Messenger and the MSN Messenger.

These are at least 3 of the programs I would recommend you download.

They can be downloaded from:  http://get.live.com

Looking for Someone…

About 6 years ago, I lost track of someone. Someone I cared allot about.

Her name is Amy. I won’t mention her last name.

Brunette / 5′ 7" / About 125 pounds

The last time I saw her was at a party in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

She and I never connected physically since I’m a married man. I never even held her hand. We connected on a different plane. Both mind and heart. Yes, she still holds a place there for me.

We used to sit out by the dock at the AMC (Air Mail Center) during breaks and lunch and talk. We talked about all sorts of different things. So many things it’s hard to remember. She wasn’t a full employee of the Post Office like I was. She was what we call a "casual". She was only there a short time.

During that time, we were drew to each other with all the talking we did. Kind of becoming what you might call a "kindred spirit". After her first 6 month "hitch" at the AMC, I realized I missed her. I missed her allot. She came back for another 6 months and we started where we left off. Talking about all sorts of different things again. Then she left again. My heart started to break because I lost someone I loved.

The last I heard about her, she had a car accident in New Richmond. She was O.K. But the S.U.V. she was driving was tore up real bad. More or less totaled out. I’m glad she was driving the S.U.V. From what she described to me, if she had been driving a normal car, she would have been killed.

 

I just wish I could find her again.

 

She would be around 32 years old now I guess.

 

Yes… I still love her and have an empty spot in my heart.

A Little Bit About Myself

   This is what the N0LXX is actually supposed to look like. I am a General Class Amateur Radio (Ham) Operator. That is my main hobby.

I work for the U.S. Post Office at the Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota International Airport. I’ve worked there for over 20 years. Yea, that’s a long time.

I’ve been married since 1979. I have 3 kids (all grown) and 4 grandkids. The oldest is 5. The youngest is 6 months.

I live North of St. Paul, Minnesota. (My wife doesn’t like it when I actually give out the name of the town. Don’t ask me why.)

Now for the OTHER information.

I’m 50 Years Young. (They say that 50 is the new 30 after all.) 6 Foot 2 Inches. 200 Pounds

OH YEA!  My name is Mark.