A few weeks back my old primary system suffered some serious boot issues and was out for an entire day. After a lot of time wasted trying to save things with knoppix, etc, I finally went out and bought a new system.

I’ve grown used to developing on windows so things have been a little slow, but I’m gradually adjusting to using a mac. I’ve already moved my dev server and my subversion server to this machine so I’ve brought the old system home for triage. Eventually, it will allow me work from home whenever I need to, and it allows us to play games again.

Two of our other systems are now up for sale on craigslist/ebay.

So far though, I’m doing just fine and am enjoying the new system. It’s much cleaner, more intuitive, etc.

For the last ten months I’ve been working solely on my Acer Aspire 9500 laptop, which had replaced my Compaq Presario 900US. The wide 17″ screen of my current laptop was excellent for working on all day, as well as when I had to demo projects for clients. However, the 512MB of ram, the limited Celeron processor, and the 80GB drive just isn’t enough anymore. Working became difficult when I had a ton of apps open at once - both processor time and screen real estate dwindled.

Playing a video game during lunch was essentially impossible.

So, I’ve finally got myself an upgrade. After spending a month or so checking out various prices, I finally went with a customized HP Pavilion d4790y. Because I customized it I got an HP 19″ wide LCD monitor for $100. I bought a second 19″ LCD monitor that was on sale at NewEgg.com (Acer AL1917WAbd 19″).

Here are the specs of my custom work machine:

• Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor E6400 ( 2.13GHz )
• 2GB DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (2×1024)
• 320GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
• LightScribe 16X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
• 15-in-1 memory card reader, 3 USB, 1394, audio
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT, HD , TV-out, 2 DVI
• Integrated 7.1 channel sound w/front audio ports

I down-graded the system to Windows XP, SP2 because many of apps have no or little support for Vista. I’ll have some pics soon .

The replacement power supply from HP showed today, so I performed some PC-surgery and the pc is in recovery now. Now, I need to find a way to sync all of the stuff I temporarily placed on the laptop back with the stuff left on the old PC. Maybe a good time for a reformat?

Nah, like I have that kind of time.

As I was trying to install some RAM into our main gaming/media computer, something happened. I’ve installed RAM enough to know how to do it right, but now the computer won’t turn on and the power LED is flashing. Long story short, everything points to a bad power-supply. The fact that this started when I put in new RAM may be a coincidence, who knows.

All of our important files are stored below a single directory with a very clean hierarchical structure, and a perfect naming convention. From our taxes to Collin photos, everything I’ve ever had to keep is in this directory. Merlyn’s kitten records? It’s under
Documents/Animals/Merlyn/Records. Need that javascript I wrote in 2000 for the Mayors Office? It’s under Documents/Apache/Clients/OMVK/Javascripts. You get the idea. This folder is organized to the point of border-line OCD for two reasons:

• It makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.
• It makes it super-easy to backup.

Luckily, this directory was backed up the night before the crash, so I knew that everything that had been archived before that day was safe and sound on my linux server, here in the office. However, there were some Collin pictures, scanned documents, and various files that had not yet been archived. In case the hard drive of the gaming machine is damaged when we replace the power supply or even the motherboard (unlikely, but possible), I had to get those items back asap.

I took out the hard drive and stuck it into my linux machine as a secondary drive. I booted linux, mounted that windows partition, and used the terminal to copy over those files.

I downloaded those extra files to my laptop (my main Windows machine used for everything except gaming/media stuff). Tonight I’ll download all of my previous archives and music.

This means that just one full day after I lost the ability the boot my main PC, I will have everything available on my laptop. Not a single Collin picture lost. All it took was about two hours of moving the hard drive back and forth.

If it had been a total failure and that hard drive was destroyed, the only thing we would have lost was a days-worth of Boo pics. Everything else we hadn’t shredded yet, so I could simply scan them again. Whew!

Trust me, you need to backup your stuff!

I was interested, so here are the stats of every PC I own or use:

HOME

Gaming/Media PC

• Type: HP a612x
• OS: Windows XP Pro
• CPU: Intel Celeron 2.32 Ghz
• HD: 80 GB
• RAM: 512 MB
• Other: DVD/CD-RW, DVD+RW, ATI Radeon 258MB Video, ATI TV Wonder Pro

Laptop (My main PC)

• Type: Compaq Presario 900US
• OS: Windows XP Pro, SP1/2
• CPU: AMD Mobile Athlon 1.47 Ghz
• HD: 80 GB
• RAM: 512 MB
• Other: DVD, DLink 802.11B wireless PCMCIA Card

Testing Server

• Type: Custom Built
• OS: Mandrake Linux 10.1
• CPU: 866 Mhz
• HD: 80 GB
• RAM: 768 MB
• Other: CD+RW

These three computers are running my home network. I have Comcast High Speed Internet coming in to a Buffalo wireless router. Connected to the ethernet ports of this router is the Vonage VOIP router, and two of the above PCs. The laptop is the only device that uses the wireless connection (I have a Roku, but wireless reception in our house is horrible). I have a printer my step dad gave us last year connected via USB (when we need it) to my laptop. I’m usually at the laptop working/coding, while Beth is at the main PC playing Sims 2 or looking up Harry Potter stuff.

I have some unidentified RAM from a friends old computer, that I got in trade for helping her set things up. I don’t know what size or what type it us, but hopefully I can place it into the gaming system we use. I also have a spare 80 GB drive I got in the same deal (the same drive I put in her old PC last year), so I can find a use for that, or sell it.

WORK

Main PC

• Type: HP Media Center a1350n
• OS: Windows XP Pro
• CPU: AMD Athlon Dual Core 4200+, 2.19Ghz
• HD: 250GB
• RAM: 1.0GB
• Other: DVD+RW With Lightscribe

Secondary/Testing Machine

• Type: Apple Macintosh G4
• OS: Mac OS X, 10.4
• CPU: 400 Mhz
• HD: 8 GB
• RAM: 512 MB

Secondary/Testing Machine

• Type: Dell Inspiron L66c
• OS: Windows XP Pro
• CPU: Intel Celeron 465 Mhz
• HD: 4 GB
• RAM: 256 MB